|
My trouble with the "escrow key" argument is that it always looks to criminals for justification. And, inevitably, it wants to "justify" 100 data-collection ... which we already know that the US Government is doing, at incalculable public waste expense.
What we actually need is for virtually everything that passes across the Internet to be encrypted, and digitally signed, using the very best security practices that we can manage to "make so easy and reliable that everybody does it." Because: knowledge is power.
If the encryption methods used have a "back door," most especially a secret "back door," then they are not secure at all ... and, you don't know it. This is worse, really, than sending a message in the clear.
What we need from all of our National Security Agencies is their professional assistance in making internet and other communications as secure, and as accountable, as they can be. We are paying them vast amounts of money, and we should be getting our money's worth without fretting over warmed-over Cold War scenarios. These people have the expertise to do these things, and they're doing it with our money. That, not spying (and weak crypto to facilitate spying) is what "National Security" means to me.
|
