Today I want to talk about something that apparently our representatives do not understand. Well, the list of things they don’t understand is huge, but we’re going to talk about encryption. For some background Senators Graham, Blackburn, and Cotton introduced the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act. Also, so you can get an idea about how well these people understand encryption, or computers in general, just a few years ago Graham was quoted as never having sent an email. Let that sink in for a bit, someone who’s never even sent an email is writing possible laws regarding encryption. Now, I know you may be thinking “Well, other people probably handle his email and correspondence.” You’re right, there are probably people handling that stuff for him, but should we really have someone so inexperienced with computers to be writing laws about one of the most complex aspects of computers? He doesn’t have a personal email?
Anyway, less about Graham’s total inexperience on the topic. Here’s something none of them seem to grasp… Backdoor-ed encryption isn’t encryption. The technology side of things is a bit difficult to grasp sometimes, so I’ll use a physical, real-world analogy. This is similar to the government making a law that every lock on your property has to work with the same master key. Sure, your key and your neighbors key will be different, but the government’s key will unlock both. How do you feel about that? What happens when a criminal gets a copy of that key? What happens when the government indefinitely loses a copy of the key? Do you think having every lock in the country open with the same key sounds like a terrible idea for security? If so, you’re right. That doesn’t make any sense. It would put people in huge risks, danger, and possible physical harm/death. The cost isn’t worth the benefit. So how does backdoor-ed encryption differ from the master key analogy? Well, it doesn’t differ much. The government wants a way in. They want a vulnerability built into one of the only secure things in today’s technology age. Just like the lock that opens with the same master key as every other lock, encryption that can be easily accessed isn’t secure and it isn’t really protecting anything anymore. I wouldn’t trust that lock to secure anything, and I wouldn’t trust encryption that can be easily bypassed, and neither should you.
One final question for you to think about… Who will this law effect? I suspect that it’ll effect you, and me, and any other law abiding citizen. Why law abiding when the law is targeted at criminals? Because criminals don’t care about the law. They’ll simply encrypt their stuff “illegally” because they care more about protecting the information than obeying the law. So, organized crime and smart criminals still get the benefit of encryption, while us poor saps get our privacy & security compromised. This sounds like a bill that organized crime would right. Make sure the public’s data can’t have strong protection because it could prevent identity theft, credit card fraud, etc. If this bill becomes law, it will maintain the status quo of rampant data breaches and identity theft, while possibly driving technology innovation out of the US where they’d actually be able to make things safe.
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