[PeterisP]

If you remove the technological protections, the communications become accessible not only to law enforcement but also to malicious people - cryptography doesn't care if you have a warrant or not.

A particular communications channel either is secure from anyone or it's vulnerable to everyone. If UK home secretary argues that we shouldn't be allowed to use secure channels, then that does imply that all such communications will be vulnerable to all kinds of criminals as well.

[DarkKomunalec]

> will be vulnerable to all kinds of criminals as well.

But legal authorities would never abuse their power (without you even knowing about it, unlike in other cases of abuse).

[cookiecaper]

The superficial solution to this is not to outlaw cryptography completely, but to require those who make cryptography available to keep master keys and/or logs.

I know that these are not a real solution as they can be leaked or abused, but it's best that we don't pretend not to hear this argument. We should make clear that these are insufficient and that there's nothing wrong with private communications truly remaining private.

[dv_dt]

> The superficial solution to this is not to outlaw cryptography completely, but to require those who make cryptography available to keep master keys and/or logs.

The infrastructure keeping those keys then becomes an irresistible target to compromise. The government has already lost critical data such as the application data for most/all Classified personnel in the military and contractors. If that kind of data cannot be kept safe then you can be sure that a legally centralized infrastructure to keep keys will be attacked, and likely compromised at some point.

[type0]

> The superficial solution to this is not to outlaw cryptography completely, but to require those who make cryptography available to keep master keys and/or logs.

Completely or not completely, so to outlaw the strong crypto without a backdoor and put privacy activists who create such tools behind bars? I see where the UK is headed.

[mr_spothawk]

> but it's best that we don't pretend not to hear this argument

not "best", even if "reasonable, yet complicit". Best would be neutering these governmental bodies who are so accustomed to forking us whenever we roll over.

[tomfitz]

This is the argument raised by security experts in http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/97690/MIT-CSAI... , which I'm not qualified to disagree with. It seems strong! Even if it were technically possible, I expect there's also a strong argument along the lines of asserting our right to privacy.