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BSAFE Toolkit
Dell BSAFE, formerly known as RSA BSAFE, is a FIPS 140-2 validated cryptography library, available in both C and Java. BSAFE was initially created by RSA Security, which was purchased by EMC and then, in turn, by Dell. When Dell sold the RSA business to Symphony Technology Group in 2020, Dell elected to retain the BSAFE product line. BSAFE was one of the most common encryption toolkits before the RSA patent expired in September 2000. It also contained implementations of the RC''x'' ciphers, with the most common one being RC4. From 2004 to 2013 the default random number generator in the library was a NIST-approved RNG standard, widely known to be insecure from at least 2006, containing a kleptographic backdoor from the American National Security Agency (NSA), as part of its secret Bullrun program. In 2013 Reuters revealed that RSA had received a payment of $10 million to set the compromised algorithm as the default option. The RNG standard was subsequently withdrawn in 2014, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dell
Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcams among other products and services. Dell is based in Round Rock, Texas. Founded by Michael Dell in 1984, Dell started making IBM IBM PC compatible, clone computers and pioneered selling cut-price PCs directly to customers, managing its supply chain management, supply chain and electronic commerce. The company rose rapidly during the 1990s and in 2001 it became the largest global PC vendor for the first time. Dell was a pure hardware vendor until 2009 when it acquired Perot Systems. Dell then entered the market for IT services. The company has expanded storage and networking systems. In the late 2000s, it began expanding from offering computers only to delivering a range of technology for enterprise customers. Dell is a subsidiary of Dell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symphony Technology Group
STG Partners, LLC (STG) is an American private equity firm and based in Menlo Park, California. Its predecessor, Symphony Technology Group ("Symphony") was founded in 2002Dorbian, Iris (July 1, 2024) STG Rising: Hailing the Newcomer on the 100.Buyouts. by Romesh Wadhwani, who recruited William Chisholm and Bryan Taylor to join him in the founding of Symphony. In 2017, Symphony was reorganized as STG Partners. As of March 2025, STG Partners managed approximately $12 billion in 19 pooled investment vehicle for its clients. The firm itself has less than one billion dollars in assets.STG Partners, LLC (March 28, 2025). FORM ADV: Uniform Application for Investment Adviser Registration and Report By Exempt Reporting Advisers. STG PARTNERS, LLC. FINRA CRD # 291048. SEC file number: 801-112130. Form submitted 3/28/2025 7:10:35 PM.U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. History In the early 2000s, Romesh Wadhwani invited William "Bill" Chisholm to join a new private equity firm, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elliptic Curve Cryptography
Elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) is an approach to public-key cryptography based on the algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields. ECC allows smaller keys to provide equivalent security, compared to cryptosystems based on modular exponentiation in Galois fields, such as the RSA cryptosystem and ElGamal cryptosystem. Elliptic curves are applicable for key agreement, digital signatures, pseudo-random generators and other tasks. Indirectly, they can be used for encryption by combining the key agreement with a symmetric encryption scheme. They are also used in several integer factorization algorithms that have applications in cryptography, such as Lenstra elliptic-curve factorization. History The use of elliptic curves in cryptography was suggested independently by Neal Koblitz and Victor S. Miller in 1985. Elliptic curve cryptography algorithms entered wide use in 2004 to 2005. In 1999, NIST recommended fifteen elliptic curves. Specifically, FIPS 186 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transport Layer Security
Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol designed to provide communications security over a computer network, such as the Internet. The protocol is widely used in applications such as email, instant messaging, and voice over IP, but its use in securing HTTPS remains the most publicly visible. The TLS protocol aims primarily to provide security, including privacy (confidentiality), integrity, and authenticity through the use of cryptography, such as the use of certificates, between two or more communicating computer applications. It runs in the presentation layer and is itself composed of two layers: the TLS record and the TLS handshake protocols. The closely related Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) is a communications protocol that provides security to datagram-based applications. In technical writing, references to "(D)TLS" are often seen when it applies to both versions. TLS is a proposed Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard, fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Global Surveillance Disclosure
During the 2010s, international media reports revealed new operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly relate to top secret documents leaked by ex- NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents consist of intelligence files relating to the U.S. and other Five Eyes countries. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published, with further selected documents released to various news outlets through the year. These media reports disclosed several secret treaties signed by members of the UKUSA community in their efforts to implement global surveillance. For example, ''Der Spiegel'' revealed how the German Federal Intelligence Service (; BND) transfers "massive amounts of intercepted data to the NSA", while Swedish Television revealed the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) provided the NSA with data from its cable collection, under a secret agreement signed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bruce Schneier
Bruce Schneier (; born January 15, 1963) is an American cryptographer, computer security professional, privacy specialist, and writer. Schneier is an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society as of November, 2013. He is a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access Now, and The Tor Project; and an advisory board member of Electronic Privacy Information Center and VerifiedVoting.org. He is the author of several books on general security topics, computer security and cryptography and is a squid enthusiast. Early life and education Bruce Schneier is the son of Martin Schneier, a Brooklyn Supreme Court judge. He grew up in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, attending P.S. 139 and Hunter College High School. After receiving a physics bachelor's degree from the University of Rochester in 1984, he went to American University in Washington, D.C., and got his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dual EC DRBG
Dual_EC_DRBG (Dual Elliptic Curve Deterministic Random Bit Generator) is an algorithm that was presented as a cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator (CSPRNG) using methods in elliptic curve cryptography. Despite wide public criticism, including the public identification of the possibility that the National Security Agency put a backdoor (cryptography), backdoor into a recommended implementation, it was, for seven years, one of four CSPRNGs standardized in NIST SP 800-90A as originally published circa June 2006, until it was withdrawn in 2014. Weakness: a potential backdoor Weaknesses in the cryptographic security of the algorithm were known and publicly criticised well before the algorithm became part of a formal standard endorsed by the American National Standards Institute, ANSI, International Organization for Standardization, ISO, and formerly by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). One of the weaknesses publicly identified was the pote ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cryptographically Secure Pseudorandom Number Generator
A cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator (CSPRNG) or cryptographic pseudorandom number generator (CPRNG) is a pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) with properties that make it suitable for use in cryptography. It is also referred to as a cryptographic random number generator (CRNG). Background Most cryptographic applications require random numbers, for example: * key generation * initialization vectors * nonces * salts in certain signature schemes, including ECDSA and RSASSA-PSS * token generation The "quality" of the randomness required for these applications varies. For example, creating a nonce in some protocols needs only uniqueness. On the other hand, the generation of a master key requires a higher quality, such as more entropy. And in the case of one-time pads, the information-theoretic guarantee of perfect secrecy only holds if the key material comes from a true random source with high entropy, and thus just any kind of pseudorandom number gener ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bullrun (decryption Program)
Bullrun (stylized BULLRUN) is a clandestine, highly classified program to crack encryption of online communications and data, which is run by the United States National Security Agency (NSA). The British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has a similar program codenamed Edgehill. According to the Bullrun classification guide published by ''The Guardian'', the program uses multiple methods including computer network exploitation, interdiction, industry relationships, collaboration with other intelligence community entities, and advanced mathematical techniques. Information about the program's existence was leaked in 2013 by Edward Snowden. Although Snowden's documents do not contain technical information on exact cryptanalytic capabilities because Snowden did not have clearance access to such information, they do contain a 2010 GCHQ presentation which claims that "vast amounts of encrypted Internet data which have up till now been discarded are now exploitable". A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for global intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). The NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems. The NSA relies on a variety of measures to accomplish its mission, the majority of which are clandestine. The NSA has roughly 32,000 employees. Originating as a unit to decipher coded communications in World War II, it was officially formed as the NSA by President Harry S. Truman in 1952. Between then and the end of the Cold War, it became the largest of the U.S. intelligence organizations in terms of personnel and budget. Still, information available as of 2013 indicates that the C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Backdoor (computing)
A backdoor is a typically covert method of bypassing normal authentication or encryption in a computer, product, embedded device (e.g. a home router), or its embodiment (e.g. part of a cryptosystem, algorithm, chipset, or even a "homunculus computer"—a tiny computer-within-a-computer such as that found in Intel's AMT technology). Backdoors are most often used for securing remote access to a computer, or obtaining access to plaintext in cryptosystems. From there it may be used to gain access to privileged information like passwords, corrupt or delete data on hard drives, or transfer information within autoschediastic networks. In the United States, the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act forces internet providers to provide backdoors for government authorities. In 2024, the U.S. government realized that China had been tapping communications in the U.S. using that infrastructure for months, or perhaps longer; China recorded presidential candidate campaign offi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kleptographic
Kleptography is the study of stealing information securely and subliminally. The term was introduced by Adam Young and Moti Yung in the Proceedings of Advances in Cryptology – Crypto '96. Kleptography is a subfield of cryptovirology and is a natural extension of the theory of subliminal channels that was pioneered by Gus Simmons while at Sandia National Laboratory. A kleptographic backdoor is synonymously referred to as an asymmetric backdoor. Kleptography encompasses secure and covert communications through cryptosystems and cryptographic protocols. This is reminiscent of, but not the same as steganography that studies covert communications through graphics, video, digital audio data, and so forth. Kleptographic attack Meaning A kleptographic attack is an attack which uses asymmetric cryptography to implement a cryptographic backdoor. For example, one such attack could be to subtly modify how the public and private key pairs are generated by the cryptosystem so that th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
