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Riana Pfefferkorn, a Cryptography Fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, has published a whitepaper on the risks of so-called "responsible encryption". This refers to inclusion of a mechanism for exceptional access by law enforcement to the cleartext content of encrypted messages. It also goes by the names "back door", "key escrow", and "golden key".
Federal law enforcement officials in the United States have recently renewed their periodic demands for legislation to regulate encryption. While they offer few technical specifics, their general proposal—that vendors must retain the ability to decrypt for law enforcement the devices they manufacture or communications their services transmit—presents intractable problems that would-be regulators must not ignore.
However, with all that said, a lot more is said than done. Some others would make the case that active participation is needed in the democratic process by people knowledgeable in use of actual ICT. As RMS has many times pointed out much to the chagrin of more than a few geeks, "geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone." Again, participation is needed rather than ceding the whole process, and thus its outcome, to the loonies.
Source : New Paper on The Risks of "Responsible Encryption"
Related:
EFF : New National Academy of Sciences Report on Encryption Asks the Wrong Questions
Great, Now There's "Responsible Encryption"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @03:21PM
ok, this is not realistic, but just for kicks:
the encrypted communications device holds the secret (longish) pin to disarm
a dirty nuke that has been discovered in some major city?
the encrypted communications device holds the secret anti-dot/vaccine to some
army-nation-state developed super flu?
also something about foiling a time traveler, but nevermind that...
my opinion is that if law enforcement has a search warrant, they can search you house
AND YOUR MOBILE PHONE!
of course, it is NOT OKAY that law enforcement has the "unlock keys" to the device.
separation of power and all.
in the same way that law enforcement cannot give
itself the search warrant, they cannot give themselves the key to unlock the
phone, which needs to be IN THEIR PHYSICAL POSSESSION.
The "unlock key" ALSO needs to be in the form and shape of a PHYSICAL DEVICE.
Now, because the device to unlock is also a physical device, again a physical
key is required.
thus, maybe, the unlocking key/device is housed at the manufacturers location, but behind
a physical door that only law enforcement can open but the manufacturer is only
required to give access to the lock if law enforcement can show a search warrant AND THE PHYSICAL DEVICE that needs to be unlocked.
this is so that the manufacturer has to be true to their word, that they
themselves cannot unlock the phone .. for some reason or other (maybe to find carmen sandiego).
ofc someone will come up with a solution that works digital, remote-over-the-air (lol), or via a physical cable dongle (that nobody in china can mass produce for 0.02 dollars)
and nobody will find a way around it... for all!
anyways, my money is on:
loonies win! "Again, participation is needed rather than ceding the whole process, and thus its outcome, to the loonies."