Editing National Security Agency (section)

==== Software backdoors ====
[[Linus Torvalds]], the founder of [[Linux kernel]], joked during a [[LinuxCon]] keynote on September 18, 2013, that the NSA, who is the founder of [[SELinux]], wanted a backdoor in the kernel.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/news/2013/09/techweekeurope-linus-torvalds-jokes-nsa-wanted-backdoor-linux|title=TechWeekEurope: Linus Torvalds Jokes The NSA Wanted A Backdoor In Linux|work=linuxfoundation.org|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150916142701/http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/news/2013/09/techweekeurope-linus-torvalds-jokes-nsa-wanted-backdoor-linux|archive-date=2015-09-16|access-date=2014-05-23}}</ref> However, later, Linus' father, a [[Member of the European Parliament]] (MEP), revealed that the NSA actually did this.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://falkvinge.net/2013/11/17/nsa-asked-linus-torvalds-to-install-backdoors-into-gnulinux/|title=NSA Asked Linus Torvalds To Install Backdoors Into GNU/Linux|work=falkvinge.net|date=17 November 2013|access-date=7 June 2024|archive-date=19 May 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240519085005/http://falkvinge.net/2013/11/17/nsa-asked-linus-torvalds-to-install-backdoors-into-gnulinux/|url-status=live}}</ref>

{{blockquote|When my oldest son was asked the same question: "Has he been approached by the NSA about backdoors?" he said "No", but at the same time he nodded. Then he was sort of in the legal free. He had given the right answer, everybody understood that the NSA had approached him.|[[Nils Torvalds]]|[[European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs|LIBE]] Committee Inquiry on Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizens – 11th Hearing, 11 November 2013<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/libe/events.html|title=Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs – Hearings|work=europa.eu|access-date=2024-06-07|archive-date=2016-09-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160916144242/http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/libe/events.html|url-status=live}}</ref>}} [[IBM Notes]] was the first widely adopted software product to use [[public key cryptography]] for client-server and server–server authentication and encryption of data. Until US laws regulating encryption were changed in 2000, IBM and [[Lotus Software|Lotus]] were prohibited from exporting versions of Notes that supported [[Symmetric-key algorithm|symmetric encryption]] keys that were longer than 40 bits. In 1997, Lotus negotiated an agreement with the NSA that allowed the export of a version that supported stronger keys with 64 bits, but 24 of the bits were encrypted with a special key and included in the message to provide a "workload reduction factor" for the NSA. This strengthened the protection for users of Notes outside the US against private-sector [[industrial espionage]], but not against spying by the US government.<ref>[[United States|"The Swedes discover Lotus Notes has key escrow!"]] [[intelligence agency|The Risks Digest]], Volume 19, Issue 52, December 24, 1997,</ref><ref>[[codebreaking|Only NSA can listen, so that's OK]] Heise, 1999.</ref>