For
over two decades, the battle between privacy-minded technologists and
the U.S. government has primarily been over encryption. In the 1990s,
in what became known as the Crypto Wars, the U.S. tried to limit
powerful encryption – calling it as dangerous to export as
sophisticated munitions — and eventually lost.
After
the 2013 Snowden revelations, as mainstream technology companies
started spreading encryption by putting it in popular consumer
products, the wars erupted again. Law enforcement officials, led by
FBI Director James Comey, loudly insisted that U.S. companies should
build back doors to break the encryption just for them.
That
won’t happen because what these law enforcement officials are
asking for isn’t possible (any back door can be used by hackers,
too) and wouldn’t be effective (because encryption is widely
available globally now). They’ve succeeded in slowing the spread of
unbreakable encryption by intimidating tech companies that might
otherwise be rolling it out faster, but not much else.
Indeed,
as almost everyone else acknowledges, unbreakable encryption is here
to stay.
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