FBI Drive for Encryption Backdoors Is Déjà Vu for Security Experts

[n2doc]

By Ryan Singel September 27, 2010 | 10:47 pm | Categories: Crypto


The FBI now wants to require all encrypted communications systems to have back doors for surveillance, according to a New York Times report, and to the nation’s top crypto experts it sounds like a battle they’ve fought before.

Back in the 1990s, in what’s remembered as the crypto wars, the FBI and NSA argued that national security would be endangered if they did not have a way to spy on encrypted e-mails, IMs and phone calls. After a long protracted battle, the security community prevailed after mustering detailed technical studies and research that concluded that national security was actually strengthened by wide use of encryption to secure computers and sensitive business and government communications.

Now the FBI is proposing a similar requirement that would require online service providers, perhaps even software makers, to only offer encrypted communication unless the companies have a way to unlock the communications.

In the New York Times story that unveiled the drive, the FBI cited a case where a mobster was using encrypted communication, and the FBI had to sneak into his office to plant a bug. One of the named problems was RIM, the maker of BlackBerrys, which provides encrypted e-mail communications for companies and governments, and which has come under pressure from India and the United Arab Emirates to locate its severs in its countries.



Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/?intcid=gnav

[bemildred]

1. This is stupid on several different levels.

But the main problem is that encryption software is available globally for free, it is public domain. Harassing Facebook will not change that.