Some of the biggest names in cryptography condemn NSA spying in open letter

Some of the biggest names in cryptography and computer science just released an open letter condemning the surveillance practices of the US government.

"Media reports since last June have revealed that the US government conducts domestic and international surveillance on a massive scale, that it engages in deliberate and covert weakening of Internet security standards, and that it pressures US technology companies to deploy backdoors and other data-collection features," said a statement. "As leading members of the US cryptography and information-security research communities, we deplore these practices and urge that they be changed." Among the group that signed the letter are more than 50 experts in the field. Several are ex-federal employees, including Ed Felten, now the director of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton and who was the Federal Trade Commission's first chief technologist. The Federal Trade Commission's second chief technologist, Steve Bellovin, who is now a professor at Columbia University, also signed the letter.