adminSan Francisco. – Prominent technology experts have warned that US and UK government demands for greater powers to crack encrypted private data could weaken internet security and hamper online freedoms.
The warning is the most concerted response yet from tech experts in the intensifying fight over whether national security and law enforcement agencies should have the right to access encrypted information as part of their investigations.
It highlights a rift that has opened up between government agencies and the tech industry since the Snowden revelations about widespread internet surveillance in the US and UK.
Many tech and internet companies have reacted by encrypting more of their users’ data, prompting the US and UK to call for the technical powers to crack the encryption codes when needed.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron last week renewed his warning of legal action to prevent the use of encrypted mobile messaging apps. In the US, FBI director James Comey is expected to renew his warnings about the spread of “strong” encryption systems before a Senate hearing yesterday.
In a paper published this week, a group of 15 tech experts said that government demands for the “keys” needed to break into encrypted information were the internet equivalent of leaving “keys under doormats”, since it would be impossible to guarantee that the tools were not misused by others.
They pointed to the recent theft of the private records of millions of people held by the US Office of Personnel Management as evidence that governments could not be relied on to keep encryption keys safe.
“These proposals are unworkable in practice, raise enormous legal and ethical questions, and would undo progress on security at a time when internet vulnerabilities are causing extreme economic harm.
“These proposals are unworkable in practice, raise enormous legal and ethical questions, and would undo progress on security at a time when internet vulnerabilities are causing extreme economic harm,” the experts warned.
They also called it “a breathtaking policy reversal” for the US and UK, which have been big supporters of an open internet, to push for government powers that would encourage more repressive countries to crack down on internet freedoms.
The authors include Whitfield Diffie, one of the pioneers of the approach that underpins most modern cryptography; Bruce Schneier, a cryptographer and outspoken critic of the government proposals; and John Gilmore, a founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Other signatories include professors from some of the leading university computer science departments in the US, and Ross Anderson, a professor at Cambridge University.
The dispute over encryption marks a re-run of a battle in the US in the late 1990s, when law enforcement agencies warned that the rise of the internet would make it harder to “listen in” to online communications as part of their investigations. – Financial Times.
“The world did not ‘go dark’,” the encryption experts said of the outcome of the earlier battle. “On the contrary, law enforcement has much better and more effective surveillance capabilities now than it did then.” – FT
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