WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives
Audio archives of spoken word broadcasts from Community Radio WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill (weru.org)
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
It seems like tech White Hats are always trying harder to devise more secure ways to protect our computers and information, and Black Hats are trying just as hard to break those protection systems. Now there is a technology developing that may either make secure encryption effectively impossible – or just maybe make it unbreakable. It’s called Quantum Computing and it promises computing power beyond anything available today.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Encryption has been a big concern of law enforcement and other government agencies of late. We’ve heard the FBI director and others worry about bad people “going dark.” What do computer experts have to say about encryption and efforts to outlaw it? Here are some opinions.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
The recently introduced “Compliance with Court Orders Act” in the US Senate appears to try to address the question of when and how private technologies companies should be made to aid the government in getting access to encrypted information. Unfortunately, as one encryption expert put it after reviewing the bill, “This is the most braindead piece of legislation I’ve ever seen.” It seems technological expertise does not run high in the US Congress, a real problem in the the highly technological digital age we live in.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
There is a lot going on centered around encryption these days, and a lot of it misses the real point. While court cases involving the FBI trying to force Apple to essentially write a custom operating system so the government can get into an encrypted iPhone have gotten most of the press coverage, several reports were released in Feb 2016 by people who really understand encryption, both here and in Europe, that didn’t get nearly as much coverage in the press. In this episode, let’s hear what people who actually know what they are talking about have to say about encryption.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Ensuring the privacy of Americans’ communications and information is a real challenge on the web these days, as recent breaches of federal offices have shown. Some companies are beginning to make encrypted messages between people possible. Law enforcement says a way is needed to break that encryption. Security experts say that’s a very bad idea. It’s a big issue – here’s a look at what’s at stake.
The url for the “Imagine” video mentioned is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsyPbgqggqo
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
As more news trickles out of Iran, we learn more about the technologies Iranians were using to get around the chokes that the Iranian government was putting on communication channels. Iranians used both economization software like TOR (www.torproject.org), and encryption software, like GNU Privacy Guard (www.gnupg.org), to get access to information and communicate without getting arrested. These are technologies we might be interested in understanding and holding in reserve in case we ever want to use them.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
With the recently published policy for information searches at the U.S. Border, including searches of laptops and other electronic devices, many folks are wondering if there is anything that they can do to keep their
personal information personal when they go abroad. Let’s look at a few options, including encryption software such as TrueCrypt (www.truecrypt.org).