14 DAY TRIAL // For the past year, the United States has been dragging its feet in doing something about the NSA’s mass surveillance programs, not really caring to protect Americans or the rest of the world from this obvious outreach.
Tech companies have done whatever they could to help make users safer when they’re online, including by doubling encryption and securing even the links that were previously unprotected. Another step forward in protecting the Internet from transgression has just been taken by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST).
The House Science and Technology Committee has adopted a new amendment to the FIRST Act (Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology), which says that NIST no longer has to consult with the NSA on encryption standards.
Up until Edward Snowden took a step into the spotlight and shared the trove of leaked files with the world, the NSA was a trusted source in the security circles. Even though there were suspicions even before, the trust was still high in the NSA.
Then, the reports started coming in and it was revealed that one of the agency’s main jobs was to break any type of encryption. Furthermore, by contributing to the building of an encryption standard, the NSA went a step further and planted a backdoor in it, effectively weakening it. It’s true, those putting it to use could have been safe from everyone else, except the NSA.
NIST has been heavily criticized ever since then and has been dealing with the consequences. In order for the institute to regain some of its credibility, it seems like this particular step was necessary.
“These are serious allegations. NIST, which falls solely under the jurisdiction of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, has been given ‘the mission of developing standards, guidelines, and associated methods and techniques for information systems’,” reads a statement from Rep. Alan Grayson.
He adds that to violate this charge in a manner that would deliberately lessen encryption standards, and willfully diminish American citizens’ and business’ cyber-security is appalling and warrants swift response from the Committee.
“Many businesses, from Facebook to Google, have lamented the NSA's actions in the cyber world; and some, such as Lavabit, have consciously decided to shut their doors rather than continue to comply with the wishes of the NSA. Changes need to be made at NIST to protect its work in the encryption arena,” he said on the topic.