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"We have an ongoing dialogue with a lot of tech companies in a variety of different areas," he [Rod Rosenstein] told Politico Pro. "There's some areas where they are cooperative with us. But on this particular issue of encryption, the tech companies are moving in the opposite direction. They're moving in favor of more and more warrant-proof encryption."
[...] In the interview, Rosenstein also said he "favors strong encryption."
"I favor strong encryption, because the stronger the encryption, the more secure data is against criminals who are trying to commit fraud," he explained. "And I'm in favor of that, because that means less business for us prosecuting cases of people who have stolen data and hacked into computer networks and done all sorts of damage. So I'm in favor of strong encryption."
[...] He later added that the claim that the "absolutist position" that strong encryption should be by definition, unbreakable, is "unreasonable."
[...] Rosenstein closed his interview by noting that he understands re-engineering encryption to accommodate government may make it weaker.
"And I think that's a legitimate issue that we can debate—how much risk are we willing to take in return for the reward?" he said.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 12 2017, @01:35PM
In other news [in.gov]: the Indiana legislature considered that the area of a circle shall be calculated by simpler means than use of the irrational constant pi.
Strong encryption exists, the ability to employ it exists, and has existed since time immemorial, one time pads have always been unbreakable.
The question here is whether or not we are going to forbid from commerce convenient consumer vehicles for employment of strong encryption?
I can't help drawing the absurd analogy to gun control: when strong crypto is outlawed, only outlaws will use strong crypto. The implications are pretty staggering for private information. Personally, I'd rather forbid from commerce convenient consumer vehicles for the deployment of fast lead projectiles - they scare me much more than what my neighbor might be recording or communicating privately. Of course, the easy availability of guns is one reason why we need a super-snooper organization in the first place. The more powerful the intelligence community is, the faster they can interdict "dangerous" social uprisings. It's clear that they are ineffective against lone gunmen, but anytime a group of people get together and form an armed militia they seem to be pretty effective at finding and neutralizing them before they can do anything impressive. Groups that diligently use strong crypto in their communications will hamper efforts to suppress their organization.
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