mirror of
https://github.com/tahoe-lafs/tahoe-lafs.git
synced 2024-12-28 00:38:52 +00:00
65 lines
2.0 KiB
ReStructuredText
65 lines
2.0 KiB
ReStructuredText
Statement on Backdoors
|
|
======================
|
|
|
|
October 5, 2010
|
|
|
|
The New York Times has `recently reported`_ that the current
|
|
U.S. administration is proposing a bill that would apparently, if passed,
|
|
require communication systems to facilitate government wiretapping and access
|
|
to encrypted data.
|
|
|
|
(login required; username/password pairs available at `bugmenot`_).
|
|
|
|
.. _recently reported: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/us/27wiretap.html
|
|
.. _bugmenot: http://www.bugmenot.com/view/nytimes.com
|
|
|
|
Commentary by the `Electronic Frontier Foundation`_, `Peter Suderman /
|
|
Reason`_, `Julian Sanchez / Cato Institute`_.
|
|
|
|
.. _Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/09/government-seeks
|
|
.. _Peter Suderman / Reason: http://reason.com/blog/2010/09/27/obama-administration-frustrate
|
|
.. _Julian Sanchez / Cato Institute: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/designing-an-insecure-internet/
|
|
|
|
The core Tahoe developers promise never to change Tahoe-LAFS to facilitate
|
|
government access to data stored or transmitted by it. Even if it were
|
|
desirable to facilitate such access—which it is not—we believe it would not
|
|
be technically feasible to do so without severely compromising Tahoe-LAFS'
|
|
security against other attackers. There have been many examples in which
|
|
backdoors intended for use by government have introduced vulnerabilities
|
|
exploitable by other parties (a notable example being the Greek cellphone
|
|
eavesdropping scandal in 2004/5). RFCs `1984`_ and `2804`_ elaborate on the
|
|
security case against such backdoors.
|
|
|
|
.. _1984: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1984
|
|
.. _2804: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2804
|
|
|
|
Note that since Tahoe-LAFS is open-source software, forks by people other
|
|
than the current core developers are possible. In that event, we would try to
|
|
persuade any such forks to adopt a similar policy.
|
|
|
|
The following Tahoe-LAFS developers agree with this statement:
|
|
|
|
David-Sarah Hopwood
|
|
|
|
Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn
|
|
|
|
Brian Warner
|
|
|
|
Kevan Carstensen
|
|
|
|
Frédéric Marti
|
|
|
|
Jack Lloyd
|
|
|
|
François Deppierraz
|
|
|
|
Yu Xue
|
|
|
|
Marc Tooley
|
|
|
|
Peter Secor
|
|
|
|
Shawn Willden
|
|
|
|
Terrell Russell
|