Attorney General William Barr Really Wants to Read Your iMessages ⇥ arstechnica.com

Kate Cox, Ars Technica:

US Attorney General William Barr today launched a new front in the feds’ ongoing fight against consumer encryption, railing against the common security practice and lamenting the “victims” in its wake.

“The deployment of warrant-proof encryption is already imposing huge costs on society,” Barr claimed in remarks at a cybersecurity conference held at Fordham University Tuesday morning. Barr added that encryption “seriously degrades” law enforcement’s ability to “detect and prevent a crime before it occurs,” as well as making eventual investigation and prosecution of crime more difficult.

[…]

He also accused tech firms of “dogmatic” posturing, saying lawful backdoor access “can be and must be” done, adding, “We are confident that there are technical solutions that will allow lawful access to encrypted data and communications by law enforcement, without materially weakening the security provided by encryption.”

It is almost impressive how people with no clue about how encryption works have, time and time again, ignored the advice of actual experts in it. If Barr were in charge of NASA, he’d demand a faster-than-light Space Shuttle even after being told that it is impossible.