Several politicians have been applying pressure to Silicon Valley developers to build in a required "backdoor" into encrypted devices, such as phones, PC's, and tablets. There are three good reasons why this government intrusion is dangerous.
With the rise of end-to-end encryption being used in popular apps, such as Facetime and iMessage, government authorities such as the police and FBI are having more difficulty listening in on conversations between people, even when they have a warrant to do so. The encryptions are secure enough that even Apple and Google often are unable to un-encrypt data when asked to do so.
And this is something of a problem, as according to The New York Times "Between October and June, 74 iPhones running the iOS 8 operating system could not be accessed by investigators for the Manhattan district attorney's office - despite judicial warrants to search the devices. The investigations that were disrupted include the attempted murder of three individuals, the repeated sexual abuse of a child, a continuing sex trafficking ring and numerous assaults and robberies."
However, many of the proposed solutions involve a sort of "backdoor" that only the government would have access to.
The first reason this is a risky idea is the very fact that a flaw is being built into the system. With the growing number of major hacks taking out everything from the CIA's website to Reddit to Xbox Live and Playstation Network, building in a flaw is not a good move. Even if the government is the only one supposed to have access, someone somewhere is going to find the flaw. Building in a backdoor puts critical data at risk. No one wants their banking information or private emails to be accessible by anyone.
Which leads to the next point. Requiring a backdoor in operating systems or encryption methods allows government intrusion into our lives. It's certainly understandable that things posted publicly on social media like Twitter and Facebook may not fall under the category of private, but emails, banking websites, and more should not be forced to allow government scrutiny at any time. Yes, federal authorities need a warrant to get to that data, and should be allowed to do so as criminals and terrorists increasingly turn to more and more sophisticated methods of communication. It's also reasonable to expect that the creators of encryption software and devices should also have means of providing data to authorities with the proper authorization. But creating a backdoor for easy access leaves normal people open to being hacked.
The last point is, where does it stop? If the US government can require a backdoor, what happens if another country issues a warrant for a wire-tap? As the Jon Callas points out, "if he designed a key so he could obtain his customer's conversations for the U.S. government, he would eventually be obliged to give the same kind of information to foreign governments like China and Russia, to comply with their laws." In an age of information warfare, giving that kind of access to foreign powers seems a risky proposition at best. Furthermore, Callas claimed that "just because the US government has a warrant, it doesn't mean federal agents have a right to the data, but they have the right to search for the information."
Hopefully the debate over required backdoor installation is resolved in a way that does not hamper justice, but also keeps us free from unnecessary and illegal intrusion into our lives.
So what are your thoughts on the matter? Tell us what you think in the comments section below!
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