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Senator Asks FBI Director To Justify His 'Ill-Informed' Policy Proposal For Encryption (gizmodo.com)
In a speech earlier this month, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the inability of law enforcement authorities to access data from electronic devices due to powerful encryption is an "urgent public safety issue." He proposed that Silicon Valley companies should add a backdoor to their encryption so that they could both "provide data security and permit lawful access with a court order." One person is not amused by Wray's proposal. Senator Ron Wyden criticized Wray on Thursday for not consulting him before going public with the proposal for encryption. Wyden said today, via Gizmodo: Your stated position parrots the same debunked arguments espoused by your predecessors, all of whom ignored the widespread and vocal consensus of cryptographers. For years, these experts have repeatedly stated that what you are asking for is not, in fact, possible. Building secure software is extremely difficult, and vulnerabilities are often introduced inadvertently in the design process. Eliminating these vulnerabilities is a mammoth task, and experts are unified in their opinion that introducing deliberate vulnerabilities would likely create catastrophic unintended consequences that could debilitate software functionality and security entirely.
[...] I would like to learn more about how you arrived at and justify this ill-informed policy proposal. Please provide me with a list of the cryptographers with whom you've personally discussed this topic since our July 2017 meeting and specifically identify those experts who advised you that companies can feasibly design government access features into their products without weakening cybersecurity. Please provide this information by February 23, 2018.
[...] I would like to learn more about how you arrived at and justify this ill-informed policy proposal. Please provide me with a list of the cryptographers with whom you've personally discussed this topic since our July 2017 meeting and specifically identify those experts who advised you that companies can feasibly design government access features into their products without weakening cybersecurity. Please provide this information by February 23, 2018.
I'll just leave this here.
The problem is not at all new, and the Senator is right to allude to the Lawman's predecessors.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Because encrypting also hides information from criminals. If I'm buying something online, I want to give my credit card information to that site, not the whole world. If the site encrypts the traffic, it can protect my data. If it doesn't, anyone can listen in and then charge items on my credit cards. (It gets worse if you need to use a site to submit more personal information like your social security number.)
If the authorities have a backdoor key, it's only a matter of time before the criminals get that key too. Even if we assumed the authorities had the purest of intentions (a HUGE assumption mind you), I would still want encryption without "police only" back doors to protect against malicious users abusing the back door.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Senator Ron Wyden: intelligent and well-informed
FBI Director Christopher Wray: either imbecile and/or not to be trusted
#DeleteFacebook
I don't know anything about this Senator; but on this one topic alone, he would have my vote!
I'd suggest we all write him and thank him for his courage and intelligence...
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/c...
Nope - the key difference is whether your government is into control freakery.
Uncrackable encryption is available to anyone who bothers to ask, and has been since before the invention of paper. Anyone can create completely uncrackable one-time-pad based systems with a pencil and paper and the use of a few brain cells. Steganography was known to ancient Greeks, and plenty of ancient codes have still to be broken.
I bet there are quite a large number of languages in regular use that no-one in the CIA, FBI or TSA can speak. It is also true that some TLA agencies can crack Rot13, but presumably quite a few can't. Mandating buckets with holes in is not going to eliminate theft of liquid either. Sometimes you will have to do detective work to solve crimes but "You can't win them all". Mandating that everyone writes all their thoughts in a placard and holds it above their heads at all times won't stop people from lying. Hell, nothing stops politicians from lying. And there is clearly no limit to stupidity.
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