[snowwrestler]

It just seems like federal folks working on security are currently outgunned by the federal folks working on access.

For example where were the pro-security quotes from NIST in all the FBI-Apple stories? I'm sort of kidding--obviously there weren't any--but the reality is that NIST can't stand up to the FBI and that's not their role anyway. They set standards not executive priorities.

If we think of the federal govt as a multi-armed see-saw, where points of view oppose one another from various agencies, then right now the arms in favor of access have a lot more "weight", so the overall system tilts toward them. This was visible in what the Presdient said at SXSW.

What do we see? Pro-encryption messages come from private groups, but pro-access messages come from federal executives. Why wasn't there a senior federal appointee telling Congress that hacking the iPhone was a bad idea? That the FBI had not fully considered all that consequences? Who would that be? The head of NIST?

[schoen]

> It just seems like federal folks working on security are currently outgunned by the federal folks working on access.

I'm not the least bit happy about this, but it's been that way for the entirety of the computer age -- it's not a new development.

[snowwrestler]

I agree. But I think that as computing makes its way into more and more of our lives, it becomes less and less excusable.