Obama Administration Drafting Encryption 'Backdoor' Bill

It's alarming to learn that the Obama administration is currently drafting a Bill that requires that 'backdoors' be put into all encryption systems to allow US law enforcement agencies access to encrypted communications, upon court order of course.

It's a bit of a moral dilemma as I can see both sides of the argument. Modern encryption techniques are strongly secure (and often free) and this allows 'the bad guys', well those with enough intelligence, to communicate with impunity. However, it's this technology that allows businesses to run their own Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and allows secure data communications between departments/buildings.

This Bill, it seems, will affect both open source and commercial software encryption technologies alike. As such it could well adversely affect all point-to-point VPN technologies including those that we install for our customers, perhaps not immediately here in the UK but the 'knock-on' effect could be sooner than we think if this US Bill goes through.

And what's the saying, if the US sneezes then the UK catches a cold??

Some point to point technologies such as Skype may need a complete re-design as this Bill appears to require 'wire-tap' style access so p2p type systems would have to change to go through a central point.

Steve Gibson (see below) says that the only people who this will affect will be law-abiding citizens (also read as law-abiding companies) as the 'bad guys' will simply use the existing encryption systems. The 'cat' is already out of the 'bag'.

Watch this space.

This story is courtesy of the latest episode of the excellent 'Security Now' podcast from Steve Gibson at grc.com and Leo Laporte at twit.tv. Get the actual podcast here - I thoroughly recommend it.

More information is available at the eff.org site here

As always, if you have security or performance concerns regarding your Company's data or voice network, feel free to call us on 0845 450 4944

Simon
http://www.l3n.co.uk