{"id":15758,"date":"2015-12-29T12:42:41","date_gmt":"2015-12-29T17:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=15758"},"modified":"2015-12-29T12:42:41","modified_gmt":"2015-12-29T17:42:41","slug":"recently-bought-a-windows-computer-microsoft-probably-has-your-encryption-key","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=15758","title":{"rendered":"Recently Bought a Windows Computer? Microsoft Probably Has Your Encryption Key"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"Post-title\" data-reactid=\".ti.1.0.0.2.0.1.0.1.0\"><a class=\"Post-title-link\" href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2015\/12\/28\/recently-bought-a-windows-computer-microsoft-probably-has-your-encryption-key\/\" data-reactid=\".ti.1.0.0.2.0.1.0.1.0.0\">RECENTLY BOUGHT A WINDOWS COMPUTER? MICROSOFT PROBABLY HAS YOUR ENCRYPTION KEY<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>One of the excellent features of new Windows devices is that\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2015\/04\/27\/encrypting-laptop-like-mean\/\">disk encryption<\/a>\u00a0is built-in and turned on by default, protecting your data in case your device is lost or stolen. But what is less well-known is that, if you are like most users and login to Windows 10 using your Microsoft account, your computer automatically uploaded a copy of your recovery key \u2013 which can be used to unlock your encrypted disk \u2013 to Microsoft\u2019s servers, probably without your knowledge and without an option to opt-out.<\/p>\n<p>During the \u201ccrypto wars\u201d of the nineties, the National Security Agency developed an encryption backdoor technology \u2013 endorsed and promoted by the Clinton administration \u2013 called the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1994\/06\/12\/magazine\/battle-of-the-clipper-chip.html?pagewanted=all\">Clipper chip<\/a>, which they hoped telecom companies would use to sell backdoored crypto phones. Essentially, every phone with a Clipper chip would come with an encryption key, but the government would also get a copy of that key \u2013 this is \u00a0known as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.schneier.com\/paper-key-escrow.html\">key escrow<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 with the promise to only use it in response to a valid warrant. But due to public outcry and the availability of encryption tools like PGP, which the government didn\u2019t control, the Clipper chip program ceased to be relevant by 1996. (Today, most phone calls still aren\u2019t encrypted. You can use the free, open source, backdoorless\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2015\/03\/02\/signal-iphones-encrypted-messaging-app-now-supports-text\/\">Signal app<\/a>\u00a0to make encrypted calls.)<\/p>\n<p>The fact that new Windows devices require users to backup their recovery key on Microsoft\u2019s servers is remarkably similar to a key escrow system, but with an\u00a0important difference. Users can choose to delete recovery keys from their Microsoft accounts (you can\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/#delete\">skip to the bottom<\/a>\u00a0of this article to learn how) \u2013 something that people never\u00a0had\u00a0the option to do with the Clipper chip\u00a0system. But they can only delete it after they\u2019ve already uploaded it to the cloud.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RECENTLY BOUGHT A WINDOWS COMPUTER? MICROSOFT PROBABLY HAS YOUR ENCRYPTION KEY One of the excellent features of new Windows devices is that\u00a0disk encryption\u00a0is built-in and turned on by default, protecting your data in case your device is lost or stolen. But what is less well-known is that, if you are like most users and login [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[261,11322,4543,6100,551,577,6102,7773],"class_list":["post-15758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-encryption","tag-encryption-key","tag-intercept","tag-microsoft","tag-national-security-agency","tag-nsa","tag-windows","tag-windows-10"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15759,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15758\/revisions\/15759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}