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Some Lawmakers Are Taking Action to Close Security Backdoors (eff.org)
23 points by CapitalistCartr on Dec 10, 2014 | hide | past | favorite | 1 comment



The Secure Data Act doesn't really do anything. NSA has no statutory authority to demand backdoors in cryptography: Apple, Google, Mozilla and Microsoft can ship strong cryptography without backdoors of any sort. Any authority to demand a backdoor would have to come from a new bill. Wyden's bill can't prevent Congress from passing that bill, and, when they do, they don't even have to mention the Secure Data Act; they'll just authorize backdoors "notwithstanding any other provision of law".

The moral equivalent of a "Sense of the Senate" resolution, Wyden's bill might still be a good thing if focuses attention on a concern (I'm reluctant to acknowledge that it's a real concern, and rather see industry standards bodies and NIST as fundamentally opposed to security regardless of whether they're compromised). But it can only be a good thing if it doesn't deceive people into thinking the law makes them safer than it does.




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