Although the matter has been formerly discussed last year, this time Paris attacks lead to Encryption debate.
- Paris attacks make U.S. officials reopen last’s year encryption debate
- Criminals can easily hide their identities with the help of well encrypted operating systems from Apple or Google
- People from the high-tech industry think that weakening the security for government use will only lead to a higher criminality rate.
About a year ago, in the U.S., the chiefs of the Justice Department were calling on Google and Apple to come up with backdoors in Android Lollipop and iOS 8. The encryptions that were built for these two operating systems are so good that it would take an expert scientist more than seven years to crack. Although, theoretically it could take less, every misstep will very much delay the process.
Last year Eric Holder, who was then U.S. General Attorney raised the issue of too well encrypted systems. These systems are very much likely to enable online criminals, giving them the opportunity of avoiding detection by hiding their identities.
On the other hand, people from the high-tech industry believe that the existence of online criminals should be a reason why everyone needs encryption. In other words, this security tool helps us stop criminals from robbing us by emptying our bank accounts, and it also keeps cars or airplanes from being hijacked by hackers. Therefore, Dean Garfield, CEO of Information Technology Industry believes that it would be pointless to weaken the security as a means of improving it.
Although security agencies could use a weakening of the encryption or, in other terms, some backdoors into these devices, this will also create vulnerable spots that will most probably be exploited by criminals as well. And this will naturally lead to even more financial, as well as, why not, physical harm to the society.
Though the issue seemed to settle, concerned by the recent attacks in Paris, U.S. officials are turning again towards software developers such as Google and Apple, asking for ways to decrypt their operating systems for government use.
Despite the fact that so far, there is no evidence that encryption keys could have helped police, by alerting them beforehand of the attacks, the events could play a big role in the encryption issue which has been so long discussed. Hopefully, it will bring resolution to the matter.
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David Griffith says
In addition the encryption horse has already left the proverbial barn. There are already so many encryption libraries available that any two bit programmer could make a secure communication system if they wanted.
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