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Where Do the Presidential Candidates Stand On Encryption? (windowsitpro.com)

Posted by timothy on from the oh-the-stories-they'll-tell dept.

v3rgEz writes: In a divided election year, encryption brings parties together — against technology. That's the sobering finding based on transcripts from the remaining presidential candidates, all of whom came out against cryptography and for government backdoors to varying degrees. It's a testament to the post-Snowden era (and Apple's fight against a court order to backdoor an iPhone) that every candidate has been asked about the issue multiple times, but only one candidate even acknowledged that backdoors cause great security concerns for the public.

8 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Feel the bern! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    The key word here is seems. Deception is the primary skill for a politician. None succeed without it. You just happen to be a member of the crowd to which Bernie is playing. And, obviously, he is doing a good job of it.

    Don't ever make the mistake of trusting him. Every action he takes that is not subject to public scrutiny will be a betrayal, as is true of every politician (that succeeds).

  2. only one? by Kohath · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you read the article, both Rubio and Cruz "acknowledged that backdoors cause great security concerns". That's two.

    Cruz:

    ...Well, listen. I think Apple has a serious argument that they should not be forced to put a backdoor in every cell phone everyone has. That creates a real security exposure for hackers, cyber criminals to break into our cell phones. ...

    Rubio:

    ...Here's the thing though, if you require by law – if we passed a law that required Apple and these companies to create a backdoor, number one, criminals could figure that out and use it against you. ...

    Do people make really obvious mistakes in these summaries on purpose? Are you trolling us?

    1. Re:only one? by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And then you keep reading Cruz's opinion and you get to the part "But, I think law enforcement has the better argument...."

      One might say "I think pro life people have a really good argument, but I think the pro choice people have a better argument", and it would be easy to quote the "I think pro life people have a good argument" part to make them seem pro life. But it's not really fair to call them pro life, nor is it fair to even say they are both pro life and pro choice (i.e. because they like the arguments from both sides).

  3. Better question by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Do the presidential candidates know what encryption is and how technology commonly uses it? Don't set the bar too high - you are dealing with politicians, although one of them apparently ran her own email server so you would hope that she at least knows the value of encryption!

    1. Re:Better question by lgw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Do the presidential candidates know what encryption is and how technology commonly uses it?

      Some of them just dodged the question. I like the way Cruz answered, even if I don't fully agree: Apple has a point in not wanting to do this wholesale, but law enforcement has an actual warrant, and that how the Fourth Amendment is supposed to work.

      Anything that prevents wholesale warrantless data gathering is good IMO, but with a warrant, and not some BS secret warrant from a secret court but a legitimate warrant? There's not a Fourth Amendment case to be made here. Forcing someone to decrypt their own shit violates the Fifth, irredeemably so IMO, but that not this.

      I hope Apple wins because of slippery slopes, not the specific details of this case.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    2. Re:Better question by Darinbob · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, they are not asking just for this one phone. That is what they claim, but once Apple is pushed to the breaking point and gives in there is nothing to stop the government from coming back and asking "ok, just one more, we have precedent now that we know you can do it". There is ample historical evidence that the government will break treaties when it suits them despite having the full force of law, and even the mafia has a stronger code of conduct than the US government.

      Besides the government doesn't need what's on that phone. It's not important. They know who the killers are. They're just hoping to find more leads on other crimes, a pure fishing expedition. Which means the next time there's a locked phone that actually has useful information to solve an existing crime it will be more important than this case and they'll use that as justification to ask Apple a second time, and a third time, and so on.

  4. Re:Feel the bern! by currently_awake · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You would make your point better if you didn't mistakenly suggest that a Far right politician like Obama is Socialist.

  5. Re:Still voting for Bernie by Shompol · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Actually Bernie has a better stance on encryption than Rubio. Bernie, last phrase:

    ...make sure that information being transmitted... by ISIS is, in fact, discovered. But I do believe we can do that without violating the constitutional and privacy rights of the American people.

    -- nothing about prohibiting or weakening encryption. Rubio, last phrase:

    We're going to... figure out a way forward on encryption that allows us some capability to access information

    i.e. even with complete understanding of the subject he is still advocating for a backdoor.