Amazon Chime, Amazon’s competitor to Skype, WebEx and Google Hangouts.
I’m waiting on answers about why the Chime Dialin Rates page omits all of Africa, as well as Burma, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand.
While I wait for that answer, have you read the security claim for Chime?
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Amazon Chime is an AWS service, which means you benefit from a data center and network architecture built to meet the requirements of the most security-sensitive organizations. In addition, Amazon Chime features security capabilities built directly into the service. Messages, voice, video, and content are encrypted using AES 256-bit encryption. The visual roster makes it easy to see who has joined the meeting, and meetings can be locked so that only authenticated users can join.
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We have all heard stories of the super strength of AES 256-bit encryption:
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As shown above, even with a supercomputer, it would take 1 billion billion years to crack the 128-bit AES key using brute force attack. This is more than the age of the universe (13.75 billion years). If one were to assume that a computing system existed that could recover a DES key in a second, it would still take that same machine approximately 149 trillion years to crack a 128-bit AES key.
… (How secure is AES against brute force attacks? by Mohit Arora.)
Longer than the universe is old! That’s secure.
Or is it?
Remember the age of universe example is a brute force attack.
What if an FBI agent shows up with a National Security Letter (NSL)?
Or a conventional search warrant demanding the decrypted content of a Chime conversation?
Unlocking AES encryption with the key is quite fast.
Yes?
PS: This isn’t a weakness limited to Chime. Any encryption where the key is not under your control is be definition insecure.