No Encryption-Backdoor For Obama Administration

More and more we are being informed about digital security issues that affect us. From leaders like David Cameron stating he would remove encryption within the UK and even the head of MI5 joining Camerons crusade to remove end-to-end encryption within the UK. Recently we even learnt (courtesy of Edward Snowden yet again) that Microsoft may have even actively helped governments bypass encryption. With all this scary news, it’s about time we had some positive news regarding encryption right? Que FBI director James Comey.

At a congressional panel, James Comey stepped forward and stated that the Obama administration would not ask congress for legislation requiring a backdoor into encryption protected systems. Starting from the beginning, what is an ‘encryption backdoor’?.

Earlier this year it was suggested by several government officials and even company leaders, that in order to avoid practices such as illegally intercepting and gaining access to systems to read your private and confidential details they could instead be given a key. This would give them legal access to the systems, and discussions about this led to the idea of a split key. A key where no one company or government agency would have access to the whole key, therefore requiring the permissions of all the government groups in order to use it.

This is the first time a public spokesmen has come out with any official line going against the idea of encryption backdoors. The question now is will companies and agencies stop asking for them?

Thank you Ars Technica for the information.