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by bigtrakzapzap
2504 days ago
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Yes. We went through this same fight with the Clipper chip already, but we can have it again with these incompetent, ignorant, appointee bureaucrats. It's a solved political, human-access issue that doesn't need an easily-hackable technological hammer in search of a nail: if they can get a warrant, then they demand the password or one goes to jail. Adding backdoors would inevitably give unimaginable power to a host of foreign governments, random hackers and political adversaries... little good could ever come from it that couldn't come from warrants and traditional channels of legally-compelling disclosure without the damage to the already tenuous image of the integrity, security, and trust in most every type of system. The attack surface of modern, complex systems is big enough without a hole the punches right through it if you have the master key to everyone. For example, think of the immense risk and target posed by a master escrow key database, and some random subcontractor losing or "losing" a laptop, compromising everyone. |
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I agree with your sentiment completely, but do want to serve as a footnote on the sentence I am quoting: Being an "appointee" does not imply competence or incompetence on technological details. Being elected does not imply competence or incompetence on matters of technological details.
When the officials in charge of the decision are entirely elected, it is not as if they are elected because they have a technical pedigree, presented at DEF CON, or have a high score on leetcode. They are elected because of a myriad of complex factors, most of which relate to the prevailing cultural memes of the day. Heck they only stand for election based on a similar set of complex factors and impulses, and awareness of technological specifics is eternally low on the list.
I say this having known one low-level federal bureaucrat well (he might even qualify as part of the "deep state", if such a thing existed), and interacted with a few others in passing. In some ways they are ridiculously competent in their area of expertise. In other ways, they are depressingly in favor of the inertia of the status quo. But in all cases, I can't say that replacing their hiring process with an election would change a damned thing.