0
On June 12, 2018, the Internet Society hosted a briefing for Congressional staff on encryption and lawful access. Considerations Regarding Encryption and Exceptional Access offered an opportunity for participants to learn more about the technical aspects of encryption, risks associated with creating back doors, and other technical means for lawful access.
Before beginning the conversation, participants were given a primer on encryption, which offered high-level explanation of different kinds of encryption and exceptional access, and shown a video on end-to-end encryption, which used colors to explain how encryption keys are exchanged. Encryption experts, including Christine Runnegar (Senior Director, Internet Trust, Internet Society), Robyn Greene (Policy Counsel and Government Affairs Lead, Open Technology Institute), and Maurice Turner (Senior Technologist, Center for Democracy and Technology), then engaged in a two-hour, in-depth conversation with participants, answering questions and discussing global norms and policies.
The panelists emphasized that encryption is currently the most robust security tool in existence, but just as it gets more sophisticated, so too do hackers. Sooner or later this security tool will likely be bypassed and new tools will need to be created. Weakening encryption by creating keys for “backdoor” access that can evade its security measures makes any Continue reading