Latest in Exceptional Access
Child exploitation images are a horrific problem. Even the most clinical descriptions (such as the 23 sites described in the Freedom Hosting NIT warrant application) turn the stomach and chill the soul. Many individuals and companies, such as Facebook, go to extraordinary efforts to fight this menace.
Most people who follow the debate over unbreakable, end-to-end encryption think that it’s more or less over. Silicon Valley has been committed to offering such encryption since at least the Snowden revelations; the FBI has abandoned its legal campaign against Apple’s device encryption; and prominent national security figures, especially those tied to the National Security Agency,, have sided with industry and against the Justice Department.
This morning, Attorney General William Barr gave a major speech on encryption policy—what is commonly known as "going dark." Speaking at Fordham University in New York, he admitted that adding backdoors decreases security but that it is worth it.
Attorney General William Barr gave a speech on encryption at the International Conference on Cyber Security at Fordham University on July 23 that went over the usual law enforcement arguments for exceptional access.
The so-called Crypto Wars have been going on for 25 years now.
This is part of a series of essays from the Crypto 2018 Workshop on Encryption and Surveillance.
It didn’t take long after Trump’s unexpected election as the 45th president of the United States for the encryption debate to reemerge.
As Paul has noted, the ODNI has