By analogy the lawyers can outlaw six egg omelets with butter and orange flavor. So, then McDonald's won't be able to sell them, but I can still make them in my own kitchen.
The lawyers can outlaw strong encryption on products from Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. and, then, crooks who use those products can more easily be caught, and that will amount to nearly all the common crooks. But I can still get some simple, open source C code for some simple command line RSA or PGP de/encryption and use it for secure communications with others who do the same. And serious people will, and likely do.
I.e., just get the open source code for RSA from Schneier's book or look at the open source code in Zimmerman's PGP. Or just read Schneier's book and write your own code and make it open source for yourself and all people you want to communicate with.
So, to send an encrypted message in a file, from a smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop, etc., copy the file to an old computer, if only via diskette, running PC/DOS and never connected to the Internet. Run the command line C program for encryption. Get the output file, in just simple base 64. Then copy that file to the smartphone or whatever and send it, with no attempt at security. Done.
This way, it doesn't matter what Apple, Google, Microsoft, do/don't do since they are just moving base 64 gibberish that is perfectly safe even if printed in the NYT.
The command line programs? Easy enough for middle school children to use. Simple.
Math 1. Lawyers 0.
Now what is there to argue about?
So, all this stuff about the FBI is just the village idiot playing public pocket pool, right?
By analogy the lawyers can outlaw six egg omelets with butter and orange flavor. So, then McDonald's won't be able to sell them, but I can still make them in my own kitchen.
The lawyers can outlaw strong encryption on products from Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. and, then, crooks who use those products can more easily be caught, and that will amount to nearly all the common crooks. But I can still get some simple, open source C code for some simple command line RSA or PGP de/encryption and use it for secure communications with others who do the same. And serious people will, and likely do.
I.e., just get the open source code for RSA from Schneier's book or look at the open source code in Zimmerman's PGP. Or just read Schneier's book and write your own code and make it open source for yourself and all people you want to communicate with.
So, to send an encrypted message in a file, from a smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop, etc., copy the file to an old computer, if only via diskette, running PC/DOS and never connected to the Internet. Run the command line C program for encryption. Get the output file, in just simple base 64. Then copy that file to the smartphone or whatever and send it, with no attempt at security. Done.
This way, it doesn't matter what Apple, Google, Microsoft, do/don't do since they are just moving base 64 gibberish that is perfectly safe even if printed in the NYT.
The command line programs? Easy enough for middle school children to use. Simple.
Math 1. Lawyers 0.
Now what is there to argue about?
So, all this stuff about the FBI is just the village idiot playing public pocket pool, right?