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

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.

Comments

only one?

[Kohath]

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?

Re:only one?

[TsuruchiBrian]

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).

Better question

[Roger W Moore]

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!

Re:Better question

[lgw]

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.