US Senator opposes “black moves” in technical products

US Senator Ron Wyden introduced his bill banning state services from requiring the presence of “backdoors” in programs and encryption devices. Thus, he is trying to block the request received from the current head of the FBI, James Koumi. The head of the FBI wants to simplify the work of the security services and oblige all the companies that produce smartphones to embed backdoors into the data encryption procedures, which allow the security services to easily decipher any user data. Although Koumi believes that encryption is necessary, he “only” wants to be able to obtain any key for decrypting data when it is required as part of the fight against criminals, terrorists, pedophiles, and, oh, horror, pirates.

Nowadays, the total surveillance of states for citizens and its high-profile revelations, Apple and Google decided to enable data encryption on smartphones on iOS and Android by default, which Koumi didn’t like very much . Old as a world dilemma - in attempts to simplify the fight against criminals, laws and actions are taken that infringe upon more respectable citizens, for the sake of which all this struggle is being waged, than real criminals, who, if they wish, will always find a way to circumvent prohibitions and restrictions. The head of the FBI calls on "to trust the government and law enforcement agencies" and facilitate their work. At the end of October, there were even attempts to attract Apple and another, not named smartphone maker, to decipher data on devices involved in certain crimes. For this, the special services appealed to the law from the 1789 “All Writs Act”.

In turn, Senator Wyden believes that the presence of such backdoors will nullify all the benefits of encryption and only provide additional opportunities for hacking devices by attackers. With his bill, the senator wants to “protect the rights of people and regain the trust of users, which was undermined by years of false statements by state intelligence agencies about the lack of surveillance of citizens.”