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NSA Chief: Arguing Against Encryption Is a Waste of Time (theintercept.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the next-argument-please dept.

An anonymous reader writes: On Thursday, NSA director Mike Rogers said, "encryption is foundational to the future." He added that it was a waste of time to argue that encryption is bad or that we ought to do away with it. Rogers is taking a stance in opposition to many other government officials, like FBI director James Comey. Rogers further said that neither security nor privacy should be the imperative that drives everything else. He said, "We've got to meet these two imperatives. We've got some challenging times ahead of us, folks."

4 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. So basically, by gcnaddict · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It doesn't matter if you use any variety of encrypted messaging products (imessage, cyph, silent phone, signal, etc.), we've got a backdoor for it already.

    The only challenge is in justifying using it after the fact.

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  2. translation by Noah+Haders · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "We've already cracked everything, any encrypted data is clear as water for us; let's not make a big fuss so people just stay with what they've been doing. Keep cool, people."

  3. Common sense from a surprising direction by kheldan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Someone like that is the last person I'd expect to bust out with a public statement like that, but at least on the surface it makes me feel a little better that not everyone in the government is as dumb as a doorknob.

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    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  4. Re:Job is forfeit. by flopsquad · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's the triple back burner reverse reverse psychology gambit. It goes like this:

    a) Only a fool will believe that anything about breaking encryption is "challenging" for the NSA. (That, and get involved in a land war in Asia.)

    b) A savvy skeptic will take this whole "yeah you should use encryption but gee it makes things difficult" charade as a sign that NSA has encryption pwned six ways from Sunday, resigning themselves to using whatever's good enough to at least prevent parties != NSA from sniffing their bits.

    c) The NSA doesn't actually have encryption pwned, but is counting on b)'s resignation and a)'s inexperience/disinterest to keep the status quo, which really is challenging but not as bad as it would be if encryption became both stronger and more widely adopted.

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    Nothing posted to /. has ever been legal advice, including this.