The NSA’s Actions Create Distrust

Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen news coming out of the Edward Snowden leaks that we’ve been able to either shrug off or become perturbed by, depending on the details of each leak. But this past week, new information was revealed regarding a serious violation of trust. This time, reactions from security professionals are anything but middle of the road. ProPublica and The Guardian have reported that the National Security Agency (NSA) used its influence among U.S. and international standards bodies to create a purposefully weak encryption standard that it could compromise as needed. You read that right.