<i>The debate receded when the Trump administration took office</i><p>Comey was the key advocate in this during the Obama years. He spoke for years advocating backdoors... even after Trump took office. Here's an article from March 2017 when he advocated an international backdoor[0]. Here's one in May 2017 when he backed Feinsteins decrypt bill[1].<p>It receded because Comey was pushed out. And it took a while for Wray to come in and make it an issue again.<p>It's worth remembering that this is not some faceless government action. They're just people who are lobbying for the change. Remember to contact your representatives regularly to advocate your position on these issues.<p>0. <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170327/10121437009/james-comeys-new-idea-international-encryption-backdoor-partnership.shtml" rel="nofollow">https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170327/10121437009/james...</a><p>1. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/03/fbi-director-comey-backs-new-feinstein-push-for-decrypt-bill/" rel="nofollow">https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/03/fbi-director-comey-backs-n...</a>
I would really like to be a fly on the wall, when American diplomats are going to try to explain to its allies that them having a backdoor to all cellphones in the world is a good idea.
Then capping it all of by coming up with a strategy of how to sell this idea to their electorate, which some places, have a very dim view of American privacy laws.<p>In addition if Google and Apple builds some backdoor into their products, any regime of any country which Google and Apple operates in will demand to get the same backdoor. How are they going to not give them that, they won't be able to.<p>I'm sure the Justice Department, and the FBI does not care about foreign implications of their wishes, but their are parts of the American government that has to. It is deeply naive to believe that something like this will fly on the international stage.
Trump's election should really have been the last nail in the coffin on this kind of stuff, at least in the US. Either you hate him (and thus don't want him or anyone like him in the future to have this kind of access), or you love him and don't want anyone who hates him to ever gain this kind of access. A polarizing political figure should erode trust in unrestrained state power unless you believe he's the last President ever.
If all the hacks, breaches and vulnerabilities from the past 5 years have taught us anything, it should be that security is hard enough to do without weaknesses intentionally baked in.
I'm going to bet that this law will come with a provision that says researchers that try to break or report bugs in whatever system they come up with could get jail time.
Just to be clear, these guys are in favor of China, Russia, Iran and ISIS having back doors into devices used in the US for communication of potentially very privileged information.<p>Once backdoors are introduced, that is the outcome that will come of this.
There's a lot of conspiracies and security absolutism in this thread. So while I agree that this policy is misguided, I think it's important for the community to address the actual issues raised, and not some strawmen about the government preparing to enslave all citizen etc.<p>Imagine you're a high-minded, fair, and absolutely law-abiding FBI officer charged with solving some white collar crime, like corruption or fraud.<p>You started some time in the 80s. The usual MO was to get a warrant and search someone's house and office. You'd find 60 to 100 binders full of letters, transaction records, and org charts for this criminal enterprise you're investigation.<p>Today, you find an iPhone and a smug banker telling you take it. "The new model is coming out anyway." Then, he orders a Vodka Soda from his butler and you slink out, iPhone in hand.<p>Just to be clear (again): I absolutely do not think that this scenario is reason enough to mandate backdoors. But I am similarly convinced that it happens, probably quite often. And that it would be rather frustrating to deal with.<p>It will be far easier to convince people if we start acknowledging what they already think to be true, to avoid hyperbole, and not to obscure our real motivation behind some rather ridiculous claims of technical impossibility[0[.<p>[0[: bitcoin already has 2-of-3 multisig, so 1-of-2 shouldn't really be impossible if anybody, you know, <i>tried</i>
Why would the government push an backdoor that would expose their own citizens to more hacking? Almost seems like they’re just trying to look tough on crime but won’t actually do it.
What do people think about "crypto crumple zones" (basically crypto that costs $1B to brute-force)? <a href="https://www.usenix.org/node/208172" rel="nofollow">https://www.usenix.org/node/208172</a>
Why do we need this? If this has been such a huge problem for them over the last decade shouldn’t we have seen a rise in crime rates because criminals are having an easier time getting away? Seems like it’s been the opposite.
The question I have for anyone pushing for this, is do you want a foreign gov't to have the same access? Because as soon as you require this in the US, that's exactly what will happen.
I was hoping that it was going to be an article about how users should be able to unlock their own phones and get root access without any risk of bricking them.
Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google will need to work hard to distance themselves from Facebook in the public imagination. They’re presently all “big tech” FAANGs. Until that happens, Silicon Valley’s political priorities will suffer in D.C.
This is somewhat unrelated, but I really think 4-5 years terms for government anywhere in the world is way too long. You elect them, they break promises and pass all kinds of crazy laws, and still get to stay and keep doing damage for 5 years, after which they might even get elected again because most people won't remember what happened 5 years back.<p>It might not be feasible, but a way for citizens to send everyone home easily every 1-2 years if they screw up would be beneficial.
Wow. One of the people working on this is a former security guy at Intel. Makes me wonder if meltdown and specter were engineered into chips on purpose.
I think some type of "lawful access" was inevitable. Law enforcement all over the world weren't going to just let the status quo fly.<p>If it's going to happen hopefully Apple can do some jujutsu and get GDPR in the US out of it as part of an omnibus bill [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-24/apple-s-tim-cook-calls-for-more-regulations-on-data-privacy" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-24/apple-s-t...</a>
I like the idea of focusing on the device problem rather than the transport problem.<p>I'm personally completely ok with the special devices specific unlock code suggested. It's not universal, and requires the government to go through the company first who at some level at least have a stake in me believing my device is secure.<p>The insentives seem to work and I still have reasonable security.