Word of the Day: going dark

Word of the Day Daily updates on the latest technology terms |October 19, 2017

going dark Going dark is military lingo for the sudden termination of communication. The term used to describe a scenario in which communication appears to have ceased, but in reality has just moved from a public communication channel, where it could be monitored, to a private communication channel that prevents eavesdropping. The term has been adopted by law enforcement to describe digital communication that cannot be monitored because of strong encryption. Mobile apps that use end-to-end encryption (E2EE) are designed to protect data at rest and in transit and keep the end user's text messages, emails and video chats private and secure. The same encryption technologies that protect end users from intruders, however, can prevent law enforcement and government agencies with the legal right to monitor transmissions from being able to do so. In the United States, the question of how much help law enforcement and national security agencies should expect from vendors to make decryption upon demand available is under debate. The National Security Agency (NSA) has proposed vendors use split-key encryption to solve the problem of law-breakers and terrorists going dark. In a split key encryption approach, also known as secret sharing, the technology vendor or service provider retains half the master key and law enforcement retains the other half. This approach places responsibility for deploying encryption in a way that supports lawful access on the vendor or service provider; it also provides a level of transparency, requiring the participation of both parties in order for lawful access to occur. Opponents of this approach maintain that it would be prohibitively complex to implement and the complexity would provide points of entry that would ultimately endanger user data security. Another approach, which has been used in the past, is called lawful device hacking. In this scenario, the responsibility for decrypting dark communication is placed on law enforcement and government agencies, who must use exploits and/or external hardware/software to access the content of locked devices. Quote of the Day "In an attempt to rebrand the debate around 'going dark,' Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein urged tech companies to deploy what he called 'responsible encryption.'" - Peter Loshin   Trending Terms encryption National Security Agency strong cryptography end-to-end encryption deep Web   Learning Center 'Going dark': Weighing the public safety costs of end-to-end encryption Encryption has become a prevalent tool for protecting data. But according to the intelligence community, it's also become key for terrorists and criminals to 'go dark.' DOJ's 'responsible encryption' is the new 'going dark' 'Responsible encryption' will replace 'going dark' for DOJ. Plus, more banking breaches and vulnerabilities, and Accenture data was exposed in AWS S3 buckets. Congress considers 'going dark' encryption legislation Roundup: Congress weighs 'going dark' options for encryption legislation, as Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Richard Burr solicit comments on their draft bill. Going dark: FBI continues effort to bypass encryption The FBI's effort to bypass encryption has led security experts and tech companies, such as Apple, to fight back in the 'going-dark' debate. Risk & Repeat: Strong encryption under fire again This Risk & Repeat podcast examines new government criticism of strong encryption and what it means for the encryption debate. Quiz Yourself The origin of this is usually dated from about 2000 BC, with the Egyptian practice of hieroglyphics. a. What is cryptography? b. What is a pyramid brokerage? Answer   Stay In Touch For feedback about any of our definitions or to suggest a new definition, please contact me at: mrouse@techtarget.com   Visit the Word of the Day Archives and catch up on what you've missed!   FOLLOW US About This E-Newsletter This e-newsletter is published by the TechTarget network. To unsubscribe from Whatis.com, click here. Please note, this will not affect any other subscriptions you have signed up for. TechTarget, Whatis, 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA 02466. Contact: webmaster@techtarget.com Copyright 2016 TechTarget. All rights reserved.