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FBI: Just Don't Call Them Backdoors (networkworld.com)

Posted by timothy on from the by-any-other-name dept.

sandbagger writes: The FBI still wants backdoors into encrypted communications, it just doesn't want to call them backdoors, and it doesn't want to dictate what they should look like. Tech companies [says FBI Director James Comey] 'need' to change their business models – by selling only communications gear that enables law enforcement to access communications in unencrypted form, he says, rather than products that only the parties participating in the communication can decrypt. He also says tech companies should just accept that they would be selling less secure products.

5 of 347 comments (clear)

  1. Moot Point Now by Wovel · · Score: 5, Funny

    Groups like ISIS are now using their own encryption apps so there is nothing that can be done by any US tech companies prevent that. What would the point of making everything less secure be.

  2. Somebody needs to by fredrated · · Score: 4, Funny

    hit this guy with a clue stick. Asshole.

  3. So Comcast is now a government agency? by sethstorm · · Score: 4, Funny

    Comcast:

    It's not a "cap", it's a "usage plan"

    If Comcast were a Swiss insurance agency:

    Don't think of it as "exclusive", think of it as a "custom experience".

    If Comcast was the FBI:

    It's not a backdoor, it's [redacted].

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  4. some other suggestions by NostalgiaForInfinity · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, the FBI doesn't want to call these things "backdoors". OK, let's come up with some alternatives:

    The FBI wants to install security barndoors in your software.

    The FBI wants to create festering security wounds in your software.

    The FBI wants to buttf*ck your software.

    Which of those other euphemisms would you prefer, Mr. Comey?

  5. Re:Dear Mr FBI by swillden · · Score: 3, Funny

    Once the capability is there, the corporate lawyers will simply have us agree in the "end user license" (that we negotiate with them by clicking "I agree") that Google et al. can read and sell ALL our communications regardless of any court order.

    Google doesn't sell user communications, to the government or to anyone else, and Google doesn't provide any data to government that it's not legally compelled to provide.

    (Disclaimer: I work for Google, but I don't speak for Google.)

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