Roger Fingas
A group of four tech industry associations — representing businesses like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google — have published an open letter opposing a draft bill by U.S. Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, which would make it possible for courts to order help bypassing encryption.
The letter expresses "deep concerns about well-intentioned but ultimately unworkable policies" mentioned in the bill, and opposes "actions that will create government-mandated security vulnerabilities." It's signed by Reform Government Surveillance, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, the Internet Infrastructure Coalition, and the Entertainment Software Association.
The groups claim that they "respond expeditiously" to legal and emergency data requests from governments, but that they also design strong encryption to protect from threats by both criminals and governments. Mandatory decryption support would allegedly "force companies to prioritize government access over other considerations," i.e. weaken encryption, which could in turn be exploited by hackers.
The letter also cautions that mandatory decryption could be adopted by other governments, and/or that Americans might simply turn to their foreign company of choice if they feel that U.S. corporations like Apple and Google can no longer provide secure data.
The Burr-Feinstein bill, the "Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016," was introduced last week and would require businesses served with a court order to provide "intelligible information or data, or appropriate technical assistance to obtain such information or data" in cases involving a range of serious crimes. Since many encryption systems can't normally be cracked by their own creators, however, that would essentially force the creation of backdoors.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
Wesley Hilliard
Andrew Orr
10 Comments
How quickly congress forgets it doesn't set policy for the world. Their is basically no way to enforce this law globally, and because of that, all it does is weaken US based companies. Dumb and Dumber are in the HOUSE.. heh.
Love this line… "but that they also design strong encryption to protect from threats by both criminals and governments." …that's one and the same!
Foolish politicians. It's pretty much analogous for forcing lock companies to retain master keys for all locks.
I maintain that this bill was deliberately written as extreme as plausible so they can later claim some sort of "compromise" when the bill is changed, while not really compromising on anything and still attempting to ban public encryption.
The thought of these morons that represent us throwing out their typical "knee-jerk" reactions is depressing as can be. I guarantee you, neither of the authors of this bill could pass a 10 question primer test on encryption.