|
With the rise of the Internet as a consumer medium in the 90s, encryption became a household technology. It became clear that restricting the use of tough encryption only to U.S. Internet users wasn't feasible. Still, when the Clinton administration relaxed export controls, it was over the objections of its attorney general and FBI director. The relaxation of export restrictions in 1999 wasn't the end of the debate, either. Two days after the 9/11 attacks, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., called for a global prohibition on encryption products that didn't have backdoors for government surveillance; he was reviving the "Clipper Chip" idea.
In 2003, the Justice Department circulated draft legislation that would lengthen prison sentences for people who used encryption in the commission of a crime. Encryption defenders said it would do little to help catch terrorists, and it went nowhere. Since then, the U.S. government has more or less accepted that encryption is here to stay. Wholesale access by law enforcement to encrypted communications may not be possible, but BlackBerry e-mails are decrypted at the corporate servers, and can be obtained from there with a warrant. Gmail connections are encrypted, but the messages are in the clear on Google's servers, and Google cooperates with law enforcement. Intercepting Skype is trickier because the audio and video conversations aren't stored, but security experts say there are ways to deal with this. Then there's always human error. The alleged Russian spy ring that was arrested in the New York area in June used encryption, but one of them also left a password lying on his desk, where it was found by FBI agents who broke in. That enabled them to decrypt hundreds of messages. RIM, the company behind the BlackBerry, doesn't have years to wait for foreign governments to adopt the more relaxed U.S. stance toward encryption. It has until the end of the month to comply with orders from Indian government, and it may have no way to do so short of shutting down service in the country. The RIM system doesn't seem to be designed to give a backdoor to anyone, not even to those in the company, said Maribel Lopez, a technology analyst and consultant. "It's not like RIM is sitting there with everybody's keys looking at everybody's stuff," she said. That doesn't give them much leeway in dealing with governments that want keys. "This is actually a bit of disaster for them right now because there doesn't seem to be any good compromising midpoint," Lopez said.
[Associated
Press;
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.
News | Sports | Business | Rural Review | Teaching & Learning | Home and Family | Tourism | Obituaries
Community |
Perspectives
|
Law & Courts |
Leisure Time
|
Spiritual Life |
Health & Fitness |
Teen Scene
Calendar
|
Letters to the Editor