William Barr Wants You to Accept Encryption Backdoor Security Risks

U.S. Attorney General William Barr suggested that Americans should just accept encryption backdoor security risks (via TechCrunch).

Encryption Backdoor Risks

In a speech today, William Barr called on tech companies to help the federal government to access devices with a lawful order. In other words, ignore the security risks and put a backdoor into their encryption. Although this is highly insecure and makes the encryption worthless, Mr. Barr says you should just deal with it.

The risk, he said, was acceptable because “we are talking about consumer products and services such as messaging, smart phones, e-mail, and voice and data applications,” and “not talking about protecting the nation’s nuclear launch codes.”

The attorney general said it was “untenable” that devices offer uncrackable encryption while offering zero access to law enforcement.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) disagreed, calling Mr. Barr’s remarks “outrageous, wrongheaded and dangerous.”

If we give this attorney general and this president the unprecedented power to break encryption across the board burrow into the most intimate details of every American’s life – they will abuse those powers.

Further Reading:

[It’s Official: Australia Bans Encryption]

[Germany Considering Law Banning End-to-End Encryption in Chat Apps]

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