Encryption Backdoors Decrease Trust In The Internet

Tags: 2010s Backdoors

Authors: Kolkman, Olaf

Published: May 2015

URL: https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2015/05/encryption-backdoors-decrease-trust-in-the-internet/

Abstract: In May of 2015, Olaf Kolkman, the Principal of Internet Technology, Policy, and Advocacy at the Internet Society, wrote to express his support for a letter sent to President Barack Obama, by a collection of civil society organizations, corporations, trade associations, and security and policy experts. The letter expressed concern regarding a suggestion by Administration officials that companies should refrain from providing products with strong encryption unless they simultaneously weakened their security “in order to maintain the capability to decrypt their customer’s data at the government’s request.” Kolkman noted that intelligence community efforts to coerce companies to build encryption “backdoors” were misplaced, and would have the opposite of their intended effect, decreasing trust in the internet and its overall utility. Kolkman noted that, due to the public availability of the mathematical theory on which encryption is built, “even if vendors are forced to build backdoors, the bad guys will still be able to use unbreakable encryption.” Kolkman also argued that backdoors could have the unintended consequence of increasing exposure to bad actors, as the backdoors would become a more readily identifiable vulnerability within a given system. In order to make the internet more trustworthy, Kolkman argued a continued practice of strong encryption is essential.