Feds tell Web firms to turn over user account passwords

[Roverron]

Declan McCullagh July 25, 2013 11:26 AM PDT

The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.

If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused.

"I've certainly seen them ask for passwords," said one Internet industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We push back."

A second person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley company confirmed that it received legal requests from the federal government for stored passwords. Companies "really heavily scrutinize" these requests, the person said. "There's a lot of 'over my dead body.'"

Some of the government orders demand not only a user's password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.

A Microsoft spokesperson would not say whether the company has received such requests from the government. But when asked whether Microsoft would divulge passwords, salts, or algorithms, the spokesperson replied: "No, we don't, and we can't see a circumstance in which we would provide it."

Google also declined to disclose whether it had received requests for those types of data. But a spokesperson said the company has "never" turned over a user's encrypted password, and that it has a legal team that frequently pushes back against requests that are fishing expeditions or are otherwise problematic. "We take the privacy and security of our users very seriously," the spokesperson said.

Top secret NSA documents leaked by former government contractor Snowden suggest an additional reason to ask for master encryption keys: they can aid bulk surveillance conducted through the spy agency's fiber taps.
One of the leaked PRISM slides recommends that NSA analysts collect communications "upstream" of data centers operated by Apple, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and other Internet companies. That procedure relies on a FISA order requiring backbone providers to aid in "collection of communications on fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past."

Link to articles:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57...unt-passwords/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57...cryption-keys/

[ronpaul50]

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