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FBI Wants Backdoor Into Private Sector Encryption
Bryan Young
Staff Writer
2010-09-30
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This past week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began preparing to push for a greater jurisdiction in the world wide web. They will be filing a request in federal court that would allow them the ability to wiretap encrypted communications. This mandate will affect all U.S. companies as well as foreign companies who wish to do business within the U.S.
 | | FBI Wants Backdoor Into Private Sector Encryption |  |
What this proposal boils down to is that the FBI wants to be able to go to any communications provider and get any communications it deems necessary in the course of an investigation. This includes providers that have encrypted services like email or peer-to-peer communications. An article on the New York Times website explores both the government's position for asking this, and the responses of the technical community. According to Valerie E. Caproni, general counsel for the FBI, "They can promise strong encryption. They just need to figure out how they can provide us plain text." The FBI asserts that this is nothing more than expanding the legal wiretapping of phone lines into the technological world we live in today.
The problem with this method of wiretapping is that it really would not stop anyone but the laziest of criminals. The ability to decrypt emails is worthless if the contained message is encrypted by the sender. Anyone who is serious about secure communications already uses PGP keys (or other similar encryption methods) to keep prying eyes away. No communications company can prevent that, or fully decrypt any message that is sent in such a fashion. The biggest worry about such a proposal is that any weakness in an encryption method would be the target of every hacker and cybercriminal alive. It would just be a matter of time before somebody found and exploited these back doors.
About the Author:
Bryan is a staff writer for SecurityProNews
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