John Young wrote: > USG is not USA. Apple is not its buyers. USG v Apple is not about citizens > and privacy. It's about secretkeepers against the public.
Therefore, except for members of “the public” who have no secrets (no credit card PINs, no private medical conditions, no private relationships, no private future plans, no private original ideas, no private and unpopular political views, etc.), “it’s about secretkeepers” against themselves? I suppose then we should all file amicus briefs on both sides? John Young wrote: > Govs may concede crypto public protection to assure other means remain > effective. Promoting public crypto as a cloak appears to be the campaign > underway, now as in the 1990s, so beguiling to crypto advocates to claim a > win (for the industry-org-edu to continue doing openly and secretly what it > does best). This has been addressed previously and yesterday by an article at The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2016/02/26/fbi-vs-apple-post-crypto-wars/ > After the 2013 Snowden revelations, as mainstream technology companies > started spreading encryption by putting it in popular consumer products, the > wars erupted again. Law enforcement officials, led by FBI Director James > Comey, loudly insisted that U.S. companies should build backdoors to break > the encryption just for them. > > That won’t happen because what these law enforcement officials are asking for > isn’t possible (any backdoor can be used by hackers, too) and wouldn’t be > effective (because encryption is widely available globally now). They’ve > succeeded in slowing the spread of unbreakable encryption by intimidating > tech companies that might otherwise be rolling it out faster, but not much > else. > > Indeed, as almost everyone else acknowledges, unbreakable encryption is here > to stay. > > Tech privacy advocates continue to remain vigilant about encryption, actively > pointing out the inadequacies and impossibilities of the anti-encryption > movement, and jumping on any sign of backsliding. > > But even as they have stayed focused on defending encryption, the government > has been shifting its focus to something else. > > The ongoing, very public dispute between Apple and the FBI, in fact, marks a > key inflection point — at least as far as the public’s understanding of the > issue. > > You might say we’re entering the Post-Crypto phase of the Crypto Wars. Think > about it: The more we learn about the FBI’s demand that Apple help it hack > into a password-protected iPhone, the more it looks like part of a concerted, > long-term effort by the government to find new ways around unbreakable > encryption — rather than try to break it. Without Ed Snowden’s whistle-blowing, Glenn Greenwald’s, Laura Poitras’ and Ewen MacAskill’s journalism, reporting by the Intercept and by the Washington Post’s Bart Gellman, and Apple’s refusal, “the public” would not be discussing this at all. _______________________________________________ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
