[Cryptography] eliminating manufacturer's ability to backdoor users

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 03:49:27PM -0500, Allen wrote:
> 
> Government-mandated back doors are the norm in the USA.  The law is known
> as CALEA and at the moment it applies only to telecommunication providers.
> See
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act
> 
> But don't fool yourself, if the DOJ/FBI loses this case in court, Congress
> will step in and pass the equivalent of CALEA for technology providers, and
> it will be much, much worse than what the DOJ/FBI is asking for here. It
> will probably mandate key escrow for all encryption so law enforcement can
> easily decode everything.

It's not obvious that the equivalent of CALEA would pass today's
congress.  If we have another 9/11 event, it might pass in the
immeidate aftermath of such an event.  But there have been attempts to
propose such a law already, and it's getting some surprising
resistance from various congress-critters.  I'm sure there are various
silicon valley companies that have been priming allies for this
specific eventuality, which was going to come up sonner or later even
with out this particular All Writs Act based court fight.

     	      		     	       - Ted