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Senate Bill Draft Would Prohibit Unbreakable Encryption (ap.org)

buck-yar quotes a report from the Associated Press: "A draft version of a Senate bill would effectively prohibit unbreakable encryption and require companies to help the government access data on a computer or mobile device with a warrant."
The two Senators finalizing the bill announced "No individual or company is above the law," saying their goal is to ensure compliance with court orders to help law enforcement or to provide decrypted information. The ACLU's legislative counsel argued the drafted legislation represents a "clear threat to everyone's privacy and security," and the bill is opposed by another member of the Senate committee, Ron Wyden, who says it would require "American companies to build a backdoor... They would be required by federal law per this statute to decide how to weaken their products to make Americans less safe."

3 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Deal by qeveren · · Score: 4, Informative

    A one-time pad is pretty close, in that you can never really tell when you've actually decoded it.

    --
    Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
  2. Re:This... by ATMAvatar · · Score: 4, Informative
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    "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
  3. Re:This... by delt0r · · Score: 4, Informative

    It is not like this is a new situation. For quite a while when there was "export" restrictions on encryption you couldn't really communicate to the US with decent security. Within the US was fine. Within the EU and the rest of the world was better. Even off shore US companies couldn't use strong encryption because it was still "exporting" it. I know at least several occasions were companies i worked for would not use US companies for this reason.

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    If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?