Why We Don't Need Backdoors To Encryption
from the thanks,-Bruce dept
Yet another good set of quotes from Bruce Schneier about why the backdoors to encryption that the FBI so desperately wants won't help any. First off, he points out that most people who use encryption do so incorrectly, so it's easy to break. Second, it's just a question of interpretataion - and just the fact that someone uses encryption might be the information you need (for example, if someone sends an encrypted message from Afghanistan to a flight school student in Florida... that might be enough for investigation, no matter what the note says). Finally, comes the argument that has been brought up before - which is that with more data being analyzed, it simply hides the important data. Instead of searching through more data with things like backdoors to encryption, intelligence agencies should work on smarter intelligence gathering techniques.
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Back doors...
The whole concept must have been thought up by the same guy that thinks people will register handguns and then go out and commit crimes with them.
Back doors will also destroy any 'cutting edge' crypto work in the USA and no one on the international market would be fool enough to buy a crippled product.
Perhaps the greatest damage (except to our right to privacy) would be to business in general. Secure communications are a cornerstone to capitalism and the our businesses will certainly suffer greatly when we can no longer communicate a corporate stratagy or a competitive bid on a contract with any degree of security.
Oh well, maybe it's all moot anyway,since we seem to be moving farther from capitalism each day.
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