According to reports in a US newspaper, federal authorities are reopening the anti-encryption case despite the significant security and privacy implications for tens of millions of Americans.
The tall ones Trump administration officials reportedly met Wednesday morning to discuss the desirability of requiring legislation that prohibits technology companies from using forms of encryption that the police cannot break. For the encryption challenge, which the government describes as "going dark", would have resurfaced and was the subject of a meeting of the National Security Council, which involved 2 leaders from several key government agencies.
This new attempt to ban end-to-end encryption to facilitate federal investigations it could cause a long dispute between federal authorities and the various developers.
In fact, the Justice Department and the FBI have long argued that arresting criminals and terrorists should be the top priorityeven if the reduced encryption creates hacking risks.
But the Commerce Ministry and the State Department disagree, pointing to the economic, security and diplomatic consequences of imposing "back doors" on encryption.
The US Department of Homeland Security is even internally divided on the issue.
The Agency for Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security is aware of the importance of encrypting confidential dataespecially in critical infrastructure operations, while ICE and secret services favor solutions to overcome encryption hurdles.
Senior officials meeting last Wednesday are trying to determine whether to ask Congress to effectively ban end-to-end encryption.
Said encryption is a communication system where only those who communicate can read the exchanged messages.
This system that encodes data for anyone other than the sender and the recipient is emerging in recent years in instant and electronic messaging.
Technology companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook have increasingly incorporated end-to-end encryption in your products and software, in the form of privacy and security features, much to the chagrin of terrorism investigation authorities. ,
According to one of the people who reported
"The two ways were to publish a statement or general position on encryption, and say that they would continue to work on a solution, to ask Congress to legislate." But an earlier meeting of the so-called NSC Substitutes Committee, which had not been previously reported, did not result in a decision, the person added.
If the Trump administration persists in this direction in the name of national security and succeeds in compelling technology companies to remove any encryption by law, the privacy and security implications for tens of millions of consumers will be incalculable.
In fact, while the end-to-end encryption ban made it easier for intelligence and law enforcement to access suspects' data, that decision would also facilitate data theft by malicious people.
Given this, loopholes are being created in custom encryption for the Trump administration. A similar measure was finally adopted by Australian authorities last year despite protests from the tech industry.
The Australian House of Representatives adopted the anti-encryption "Assistance and Access" bill last December.
The Attendance and Access Invoice will allow the police to request messaging services such as WhatsApp and Signal so that investigators can access the content of the messages.
Rod Rosenstein, Donald Trump's appointee, who has considered the matter as a U.S. attorney, vaguely warned that cooperation with Silicon Valley was unlikely to work, implying that legislation may be needed.
However, the decision to hold a meeting of the NSC Assistants suggests that the issue may not remain unresolved for long and that the Trump administration will actually try to ensure that communications are not encrypted at all.
Source: https://www.politico.com
US citizens can arm and shoot but cannot encrypt. = :)