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posted by janrinok on Sunday February 18 2018, @04:13AM   Printer-friendly
from the US-is-screwed dept.

The EFF addresses some shortcomings in the recent report to policy makers by the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) on encryption.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released a much-anticipated report yesterday that attempts to influence the encryption debate by proposing a "framework for decisionmakers." At best, the report is unhelpful. At worst, its framing makes the task of defending encryption harder.

The report collapses the question of whether the government should mandate "exceptional access" to the contents of encrypted communications with how the government could accomplish this mandate. We wish the report gave as much weight to the benefits of encryption and risks that exceptional access poses to everyone's civil liberties as it does to the needs—real and professed—of law enforcement and the intelligence community.

The report via the link in the quote above is available free of charge but holds several hoops to hop through between you and the final PDF. The EFF recognizes that the NAS report was undertaken in good faith, but identifies two main points of contention with the final product. Specifically, the framing is problematic and the discussion of the possible risks to civil liberties is quite brief.

Source : New National Academy of Sciences Report on Encryption Asks the Wrong Questions


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by DrkShadow on Sunday February 18 2018, @04:45AM (3 children)

    by DrkShadow (1404) on Sunday February 18 2018, @04:45AM (#639598)

    Recently, as yet another example, there was an article about an ex CIA officer arrested with suspicion of compromising informants. If the government retains a backdoor key into all encryption on American soil, the major governments of the world will have ready access to _ALL_ encrypted data of Americans.

    The US government can simply not maintain secrecy of vital information -- not with CIA informants, not with Equation group, not with diplomatic cables. If the government demands a backdoor, then the world will have that backdoor and Americans will have nothing. There is information that can not be recovered once lost, and must be protected absolutely -- something the US government has shown that, with lives on the line, it cannot do.

    This is the only necessary argument against broken encryption schemes.

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @04:54AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @04:54AM (#639605)

    That's one of the consequences of money being the sole basis of society. Corruption is inevitable.

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday February 19 2018, @06:48AM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday February 19 2018, @06:48AM (#639995) Homepage
      > That's one of the consequences of humans comprising society. Corruption is inevitable.

      IFYPFY
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday February 18 2018, @05:05AM

    by krishnoid (1156) on Sunday February 18 2018, @05:05AM (#639607)

    If the government retains a backdoor key into all encryption on American soil, the major governments of the world will have ready access to _ALL_ encrypted data of Americans.

    Which is fine, because our privacy has already been compromised like nobody's business. Ready access to encrypted data of Europeans, though ... different story.