Public Confrontation Between Yahoo! Executive and NSA Director Over Backdoors

Damian Paletta

February 23, 2015

Yahoo Executive Confronts NSA Director Over ‘Backdoors’

In one of the most public confrontations of a top U.S. intelligence official by Silicon Valley in recent years, a senior Yahoo Inc.YHOO -1.31% official peppered the National Security Agency director, Adm. Mike Rogers, at a conference on Monday over digital spying.

The exchange came during a question and answer session at a daylong summit on cybersecurity hosted by the think tank New America. Mr. Rogers spent an hour at the conference answering a range of questions about his agency’s practices and the global cyber threat.

The tense exchange began when Alex Stamos, Yahoo’s chief information-security officer, asked Mr. Rogers if Yahoo should acquiesce to requests from Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, France and other countries to build a “backdoor” in some of their systems that would allow the countries to spy on certain users.

“It sounds like you agree with [Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James] Comey that we should be building defects into the encryption in our products so that the US government can decrypt,” Mr. Stamos said, according to a transcript of the exchange compiled by the Just Security blog.

“That would be your characterization,” Mr. Rogers said, cutting the Yahoo executive off.

Mr. Stamos was trying to argue that if Yahoo gave the NSA access to this information, other countries could try and compel the company to provide the same access to data.

Mr. Rogers said he believed that it “is achievable” to create a legal framework that allows the NSA to access encrypted information without upending corporate security programs. He declined to provide more details.

“Well, do you believe we should build backdoors for other countries?” Mr. Stamos continued?

“My position is – hey, look, I think that we’re lying that this isn’t technically feasible,” Mr. Rogers replied.

He said the framework would have to be worked out ahead of time by policy makers – not the NSA.

“You don’t want the [Federal Bureau of Investigation] and you don’t want the NSA unilaterally deciding what” is permissible, Mr. Rogers said.

The back and forth came less than two weeks after Apple Inc. chief executive Tim Cook leveled his own criticism at Washington, saying at a White House cybersecurity conference in California that people in “positions of responsibility” should do everything they can to protect privacy, not steal information.

Mr. Rogers attempted to parry the questions but also signaled he welcomed the debate. His appearance Monday was the latest in his public tour throughout the country aimed at softening the NSA’s image after several years of public and political criticism over the extent of the NSA’s spying and surveillance. Many technology executives remain very skeptical of the NSA’s reach and its motives, despite efforts by the White House and military to urge more cooperation.

Still, Mr. Rogers did little to deflect recent accusations about the NSA’s activities. For example, he refused to comment on recent reports that the NSA and its U.K. counterpart stole information from Gemalto NV, a large Dutch firm that is the world’s largest manufacturer of cellphone SIM cards.

“I am not going to chase every allegation out there,” he said.