Leading tech companies like Apple and Google, along with a host of cryptologists and other advisors, have penned a letter to President Obama urging him to protect privacy rights from attempts by law enforcement agencies to create backdoors to encrypted phone data. The move is in response to several months of statements from officials like FBI Director James Comey who have criticized tech companies for building encryption into their devices possibly at the expense of public safety. Against that fear, the letter notes that “strong encryption is the cornerstone of the modern information economy’s security.”
Both the FBI and the Justice Department have stated that they support the use of encryption. However, they want law enforcement officials to be able to access encrypted data, even against the wishes of the person that encrypted the data in the first place. Comey has suggested that companies who resist the availability of a backdoor for law enforcement are creating tools that “allow people to place themselves beyond the law.”
Beyond potential privacy concerns, many people in the technology field believe the creation of a backdoor, even if meant only for the U.S. government, will result in a vulnerability that will eventually be exploited by hackers or foreign governments. Ronald Rivest, one of the inventors of the RSA encryption algorithm, notes that “great damage to our security infrastructure” will come about if a method for law enforcement officials to access encrypted data is created.
The organizer of the letter, Kevin Bankston, hopes that the letter will help Obama “put an end to these dangerous suggestions that we should deliberately weaken the cybersecurity of American’s products and services.”
source: The Washington Post
Come comment on this article: Coalition of tech companies, others urge Obama to reject encrypted data backdoors
via http://ift.tt/1edGxqX
0 nhận xét:
Đăng nhận xét