The Backdoor Is Always a Front Door
A government official announces a new initiative to ensure “lawful access” to encrypted communications. The language is careful. They are not asking to ban encryption. They are asking for a mechanism – a key, a process, a capability – that would allow authorized parties, with appropriate legal authorization, to access encrypted communications when necessary.
This sounds reasonable. It is not.
I am going to explain why, and I am going to explain it not as a technologist – there are many qualified people who have made the technical argument – but as someone who has spent his existence understanding what happens when a government gains the ability to monitor the communications of its people.