Encryption - An Inconvenient Truth

Great article by Rich Mogul, “How FBI vs. Apple could cripple corporate and government security,” that merely scratches the surface of this complex topic that so many try to make into a sound bite:

The President and the director of the FBI have portrayed this conflict as one between privacy absolutists and government compromise. The issue is that the technology itself forces us to make a binary decision. There are no known techniques for providing lawful access to encrypted communications and storage at scale. The only way to allow government access is to reduce the security of foundational technologies used by business and government agencies, not merely individual citizens. That is math, not politics.

If we go down the road where the government gets what they want in these cases – which is to compel manufacturers to be able to decrypt data on devices when requested – or if legislation is passed that requires this, we will end up with encryption becoming illegal. Or it will become de facto illegal, because corporations like Apple will only be able to provide access to this data if it is not encrypted effectively.

Categories    Apple    Technology    Politics    Encryption