Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Magical Thinking on Golden Keys
One of the biggest proponents of a “balanced” solution to the so-called Going Dark problem is FBI Director James Comey. At hearings in July and again this month, Comey has claimed that because some companies offer non-end-to-end encrypted communications tools, that’s proof that there is a way to achieve both user security and law enforcement access. He’s been backed up by the Washington Post editorial board and state and local law enforcement officials who all call on geniuses in Silicon Valley to “figure out” the balance.
The problem is that they don’t seem to have listened to the geniuses.
In fact, pushing back on the other side of this debate is a unified coalition of technologists, mega technology companies, and privacy advocates with a remarkably consistent message: weakening encryption is a terrible idea.
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Apple CEO Tim Cook has vociferously opposed any new backdoor mandates, echoing cryptography experts with the statement "you can’t have a back door that’s only for the good guys."
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Google, which has made full-disk encryption mandatory for smartphones running Android Marshmallow, joined Apple as well as over 140 other organizations and individuals (including EFF) in a joint letter delivered to President Obama in late May urging the administration to reject any proposal weakening the security of their products.
