CFR China Expert: US Tech Firms Should Worry About Beijing's New Anti-Terror Law

blottsie writes: In an interview with the Daily Dot on Tuesday, Adam Segal, director of the Council on Foreign Relations' Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program explained what China's new anti-terrorism law contains, what aspects of it remain uncertain, and how China's interest in encrypted technology fits into its longtime strategy of regulating speech within its borders. On the subject of Apple and Chinese relations he says: "We seem to be on a road of eventual confrontation between the Chinese government and Apple. Apple may have to make a decision about what it’s going to do to remain in the China market like lots of other companies. So far, it hasn’t been explicitly laid out that way. The Chinese government hasn’t said, 'We’re not going to allow end-to-end [encryption],' but that clearly seems to be the trend. I’m sure that U.S. tech companies that are providing [end-to-end encryption] are beginning to think that they may be facing a 'high noon at the O.K. Corral' kind of moment."

Comments

Apple's implementation makes it difficult..

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple implementation of iMessage uses public key encryption; The device (iPhone) has a security chip that generates the keys and performs the encryption .... The public key is given out, while the private key is inaccessible to the CPU (even if it's rooted). This makes end-to-end encryption a de-facto part of the iMessage protocol-- but also makes it difficult to install an (undetectable) backdoor.

Treaty will have it

[DigiShaman]

http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Re-posting.

China, India, the EU, America, etc, will come together on a treaty binding agreement by which each nation has access to their own citizens data without compromising the sovereignty and rights of others. Born out of this unholy alliance will be a "Government API" baked into the next iOS, OSX, Android, Windows, and other commercially available OSs**, and possibly at the hardware level too. What this means is that when you activate your new devices, you choose where you live (as you abide by their laws). From there, your encryption will be chosen with the system that the respective nation has access to.

**I begin not to suspect what will happen to open source platforms other than deemed to be illegal (possibly).