Because apparently several experts telling you something is mathematically impossible doesn’t mean a whole lot.
Newly minted FBI director Christopher Wray has renewed calls to weaken or bypass encryption. Wray, citing more than 7,700 locked devices that have proven inaccessible to the FBI, has stated that encryption can be weakened without putting users at risks.
Among the sources telling him this would be unlikely, if not impossible, include mathematicians, encryption experts, and even the U.S.’s own intelligence services. The mathematicians and encryption experts have stated that backdoors, if available, would be exploited by all. Wray’s comments pick up where previous FBI director James Comey left off.
General Michael Hayden, former Director of both the NSA and the CIA, as well as the former Director of National Intelligence, has led the intelligence services in opposing Wray’s point of view. Hayden has spoken publicly on the subject, going so far as to say the FBI was wrong about encryption.
Per Hayden, U.S. intelligence services recognized long ago that though encryption made surveillance and law enforcement more difficult, on balance the U.S. was stronger with encryption than without.
Wray has offered the following comments on the topic to an audience of FBI agents, international law enforcement representatives and private cyber security professionals:
“We face an enormous and increasing number of cases that rely heavily, if not exclusively, on electronic evidence.”
Hayden’s suggestion to the FBI is to stop focusing on content and instead hone in on metadata, which can be accessed without the need to bypass encryption.
Wray has stated that he wants backdoor access that will require “significant innovation” and added that “I just do not buy the claim that it is impossible.”
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via The Mac Observer and Reuters