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Encryption by Default: A Good Thing

October 7, 2014

Google has been marching down the road towards fully encrypting all its services and Apple has stated that the encryption in iOS 8 cannot be bypassed as in earlier versions. Well that has really ticked off the government. If we listened to the FBI and Justice Department, our world is about to be filled with all kinds of bad people (kidnappers, sexual predators, drug dealers, terrorists, etc.) since law enforcement won’t be able to get around the encryption in iOS or Android.

Bruce Schneier, noted security guru, has a great post recounting law enforcements past attempts to ban strong encryption and require backdoors. History has already shown that backdoors aren’t just for the good guys. The bad guys can use the same backdoors to do nasty things too. I particularly like Bruce’s response to a Washington Post editorial suggesting that Apple and Google build a secure golden key to be used only when a court approves a search warrant.

“Because a ‘secure golden key’ is completely different from a ‘back door.’” Sure it is.

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