EncryptionTech companies: weakening encryption would only help the bad guys

Published 25 November 2015

Leading technology companies — Apple, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Twitter, Facebook, and fifty-six other technology companies — have joined forces to campaign against weakening end-to-end encryption, insisting that any weakening of encryption would be “exploited by the bad guys.” Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook recently asserted that “any backdoor is a backdoor for everyone.”

Leading technology companies — Apple, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Twitter, Facebook, and fifty-six other technology companies — have joined forces to campaign against weakening end-to-end encryption, insisting that any weakening of encryption would be “exploited by the bad guys.”

A few weeks ago, Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook asserted that “any backdoor is a backdoor for everyone,” the Information Technology Industry Council (ITIC) which represents sixty-two of the largest technology companies worldwide, said: “Encryption is a security tool we rely on every day to stop criminals from draining our bank accounts, to shield our cars and airplanes from being taken over by malicious hacks, and to otherwise preserve our security and safety.”

The debate over encryption, especially end-to-end encryption, has erupted following the terrorist attacks on Paris, after it gas emerged that the terrorists used end-to-end encrypted means of communication to communicate with each other and with their handlers.

ITIC’s chief executive, Dean Garfield, said: “Weakening security with the aim of advancing security simply does not make sense.”

Investors.com reports that end-to-end encrypted communications mean that only the sender and receiver can view the contents of the message. The technology companies providing the service to do have the key to the communication, so that even if a court orders a technology company to allow law enforcement access to the communication, it is technologically impossible for the company to comply.

The leaders of intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the United States and Europe say that this kid of communication makes it impossible to monitor and track terrorists and criminals.

Garfield said: “Weakening encryption or creating backdoors to encrypted devices and data for use by the good guys would actually create vulnerabilities to be exploited by the bad guys, which would almost certainly cause serious physical and financial harm across our society and our economy.”