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A coalition of dozens of the largest tech companies in the world is adamantly opposing any form of an official "backdoor" into encrypted devices.
The Information Technology Industry Council is a group of more than 60 major tech companies and organizations, including Google, Apple, Microsoft, Intel and Facebook.
"We deeply appreciate law enforcement's and the national security community's work to protect us," the council said in a statement issued Thursday, "but weakening encryption or creating backdoors to encrypted devices and data for use by the good guys would actually create vulnerabilities to be exploited by the bad guys, which would almost certainly cause serious physical and financial harm across our society and our economy."
(Score: 2, Disagree) by frojack on Friday November 27 2015, @07:14AM
When push comes to shove, I bet they will all knuckle under and add back doors as soon as someone threatens them with an import ban.
Much as I agree with their assertions, I doubt their resolve. The press is still claiming encryption was used by the Paris terrorists, and nobody seems to call them out on this.
One more incident in the US, with an encrypted phone anywhere in the same city and Congress will fall all over themselves rushing to pass backdoor legislation.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday November 27 2015, @07:30AM
This article explains how this is all like to come about
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1126-greenwald-snowden-paris-encryption-20151126-story.html [latimes.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 27 2015, @08:15AM
Many of the comments in that article make me want to shoot myself in the head. Example:
Suppose for one minute that he is actually pro US security and this is all a ruse. Hypothesis and scenarios:
A. Create a big fuss about privacy. Snoden plays the part.
B. Public are enraged
C. Silicon Valley create encryption apps
D. Majority of people are innocent and have nothing to hide so will never bother using encryption.
E. No need for a Backdoor. Just monitor who downloads encryption apps.
F. Now you can get a list of all the bad guys in one place.
G. Send your guys to work at the encryption apps HQ.
H. Constant steam of Intel provided about the bad guys.
I. Drone the SOBs.
J. Public are none the wiser. Nations and innocents kept safe
How can people be this cowardly, ignorant, and unprincipled? Are they truly devoid of knowledge about history, why we have checks and balances in government, how power corrupts, and why we have a constitution in the first place? If only all of these people were government shills or trolls. If only.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 27 2015, @10:41AM
"How can people be this cowardly, ignorant, and unprincipled? "
Most people are lazy. Most people are conformists. Most people find thinking strenuous. Many people are just plain stupid. Almost all people are out for number one. And, most people just don't give the smallest damn for any other people with whom they might disagree. And, virtually all people believe that they are the good people that government is protecting.
To summarize, people are comfortable, and they don't want to look around to find any reason to be uncomfortable. They may live in a prison, but they are comfortable within their prison cells, and they don't want to rock the boat. You might want to watch The Matrix and Mr. Robot again. Or, you might do some research into human psychology. I sometimes wish that I had formal education in psychology - unfortunately, I can't refer you to any good texts to study.
If you don't understand how weak-minded the American people are, just look at how weak they are physically. Huge percentages of our population are obese, and of those who are not obese, many of the rest are incapable of lifting their own body weight. We choose to eat shit, and we choose to sit on our couches, feeding shit to our minds by way of the boob tube.
The sad thing is, the American people aren't unique in those traits. We may be the worst, but we aren't unique.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 27 2015, @07:43AM
The press is still claiming encryption was used by the Paris terrorists, and nobody seems to call them out on this.
And even if they did, that would still be no justification to trample on the rights of ordinary citizens. This is disgusting on all fronts.
One more incident in the US, with an encrypted phone anywhere in the same city and Congress will fall all over themselves rushing to pass backdoor legislation.
That's really the problem with these fakers: They say they are pro-freedom when all is well, but then they completely discard their principles when something goes wrong.
(Score: 2) by K_benzoate on Friday November 27 2015, @08:10AM
You might be right, but it's not going to work. USG would be essentially telling the companies to make math stop working, or make certain equations stop being known. Too late. The theory, the math, the software already exists. It's never going away and it will always be available. Forever.
It won't stop any terrorists. All they will be able to accomplish is to keep US citizens from being able to legally protect their own communications from the government. Oh...that might be the point.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 27 2015, @10:58AM
I think that you are a little bit to optimistic.
First, witness the "dumbing down of America". We simply do not have the number of people in STEM fields of research that we should have. Everyone is getting "educated" but the education is in soft sciences, like psychology and psychiatry, economics, etc ad nauseum. That is, if they aren't opting for "liberal arts" = whatever the fuck that is. Basket weaving?
Second, witness the hiring of STEM educated people by the government and it's agencies. If you're a math whiz, NSA has a place for you.
It is pretty easy to extrapolate that the government, with it's vast resources, will (if it hasn't already) dwarf the capabilities of the civilian sector to create and to crack encryption.
I find fault with those who believe that there can ever be an "unbreakable" encryption scheme. State of the art may be state of the art today, but given virtually unlimited computing power, what will the state of the art be in ten years?
I've read a number of anecdotes about warehouses filled with hard drives, awaiting the day that the FBI might be able to restore and/or decrypt them. Those anecdotes may or may not be true - maybe 90% of them are pure bullshit. Maybe 90% of the remainder are partly true, and the rest bullshit. But, we all know that "law enforcement" is very very patient, and they hate to give up on a case. I'm certain that the FBI and other agencies are holding onto hard drives that they can't read, hoping that new technology will "solve" their cold cases.
That drive I encrypted in 1999? Can you decrypt it today? In some cases, yes you can. It all depends on which encryption scheme I used, now doesn't it? And, it depends on the resources you have to throw at it. That computer I was using in 1999 was a Super Socket 7, running at 350 mhz, running a 32 bit operating system, and using 1999 encryption.
The computer I'm running today has 12 cores (dual hex-core Opterons), running at 2 Ghz. My video card alone has far more computing power than that old Socket Seven had. I dare say that anything encrypted on that old AMD chip in 1999 could probably be decrypted today within weeks, if I were to make the attempt. It likely wouldn't take weeks, but I'm being generous.
With all of that in mind, where will the NSA be in another twenty years? Where will Joe Average Consumer be in twenty years? The future looks bleak, to me.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.