On Jun 25, 2013, at 5:38 PM, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote: > On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 05:17:04PM -0400, Bill Scannell wrote: >> This Daily Beast story on Causa Snowden >> (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/25/greenwald-snowden-s-files-are-out-there-if-anything-happens-to-him.html) >> contains the following sentence: >> >> "Last week NSA Director Keith Alexander told the House Permanent Select >> Committee on Intelligence that Snowden was able to access files inside the >> NSA by fabricating digital keys that gave him access to areas he was not >> allowed to visit as a low-level contractor and systems administrator. " >> >> How would one fabricate a digital key? > > Presumably using administrative access to the machinery of a certificate > authority or a signing system for security assertions. >
That makes sense. I figured that the easiest way would be through the CA. While I understand the NSA paradox in that the lower one is in their organization, the more one knows, what puzzles me is how or why a random low-level contractor would have root CA access, assuming that was the case. _______________________________________________ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
