Will the Feds Criminalize Real Encryption?

You have to admit that the US government has a pretty dismal record when it comes to computer security.

In just the last year, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) revealed that hackers had stolen the personal information of more than 20 million current and former federal government applicants and employees. The stolen data included more than six million fingerprints – considered the “gold standard” for proof of identity.

If that wasn’t enough, the IRS acknowledged it also had suffered a massive data breach, with hackers stealing information of more than 300,000 taxpayers to claim more than $50 million in bogus refunds. And just a few months later, the IRS admitted that the system it used to identify taxpayers electronically had itself been hacked!Fortunately, this bill doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of passing. President Obama hasn’t endorsed it, and there is concerted opposition within the Senate Intelligence Committee to the proposal. But all bets are off if there’s a terrorist attack on American soil where encryption plays a role. At that point, voters will be baying at Congress to “do something.” And you can count on Congress to enact very stupid legislation that could mandate some type of encryption back door.

What’s almost laughable about this entire effort is that as I pointed out a moment ago, it would be incredibly simple to bypass these restrictions entirely. Anyone who wants to communicate privately would simply need to use non-US encryption products without the built-in back doors.

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to prepare yourself for this development by starting to use non-US encryption technologies. There’s a summary of the encryption resources we use to protect our communications and data in this article. You might want to start using these tools yourself if you’re not already doing so.

Reprinted with permission from Nestmann.com.

The post Will the Feds Criminalize Real Encryption? appeared first on LewRockwell.