Considering how good idea weakening cryptography was last time, it's surprising to still see the idea brought up. In the end all it would probably do is weaken the position of both US citizens & companies as I'm sure foreign entities would continue using or develop products without the backdoors. How they plan on enforcing this on open projects like OpenSSL or LibreSSL also is a question, I believe at least LibreSSL operates outside the US. Even if it wasn't the case, they'd probably just move if it became an issue.
They can make it a crime to develop or use an encryption protocol that doesn't give them a back door. So if they go looking to see what you're doing and your encryption blocks then from it they can arrest you anyway for illegal encryption.
True. Still, I believe such regulation does much more to weaken position of the US, than it does to strengthen against perceived threats, because I'm quite sure as said individuals & companies outside the US would continue using strong crypto, so it doesn't help against that. And I find it hard to believe there aren't more efficient methods for in-country crime fighting that wouldn't severely undermine trust in online transactions as this does. Because if backdoors exist, it's only a matter of time before other actors find them & (ab)use them.
But as you said, it's certainly possible to make it illegal within the US, but I find it very hard to believe the tradeoffs would in any way be worth it.
Oh, I agree. I think they're idiots for making this demand. However, they're looking at this from a security/law and order perspective. They got positively hammered for failing to prevent 9/11 and they've been scrambling to catch up ever since. Even before then during the Clinton administration there was the Clipper Chip scandal where they were demanding backdoor access to computers and encryption. Why?
"If you knew what I knew, you'd want this too."
My answer was and continues to be: "until I know what you know, my answer remains 'no.'"
Considering how good idea weakening cryptography was last time, it's surprising to still see the idea brought up. In the end all it would probably do is weaken the position of both US citizens & companies as I'm sure foreign entities would continue using or develop products without the backdoors. How they plan on enforcing this on open projects like OpenSSL or LibreSSL also is a question, I believe at least LibreSSL operates outside the US. Even if it wasn't the case, they'd probably just move if it became an issue.
They can make it a crime to develop or use an encryption protocol that doesn't give them a back door. So if they go looking to see what you're doing and your encryption blocks then from it they can arrest you anyway for illegal encryption.
True. Still, I believe such regulation does much more to weaken position of the US, than it does to strengthen against perceived threats, because I'm quite sure as said individuals & companies outside the US would continue using strong crypto, so it doesn't help against that. And I find it hard to believe there aren't more efficient methods for in-country crime fighting that wouldn't severely undermine trust in online transactions as this does. Because if backdoors exist, it's only a matter of time before other actors find them & (ab)use them.
But as you said, it's certainly possible to make it illegal within the US, but I find it very hard to believe the tradeoffs would in any way be worth it.
Oh, I agree. I think they're idiots for making this demand. However, they're looking at this from a security/law and order perspective. They got positively hammered for failing to prevent 9/11 and they've been scrambling to catch up ever since. Even before then during the Clinton administration there was the Clipper Chip scandal where they were demanding backdoor access to computers and encryption. Why?
"If you knew what I knew, you'd want this too."
My answer was and continues to be: "until I know what you know, my answer remains 'no.'"