FBI Director Imagines a World of Unicorns, Dragons, and Secure Encryption That Can Be Sidestepped by Law Enforcement ⇥ techdirt.com

Tim Cushing of Techdirt, responding to FBI Director Chris Wray:

We have a whole bunch of folks at FBI Headquarters devoted to explaining this challenge and working with stakeholders to find a way forward. But we need and want the private sector’s help. We need them to respond to lawfully issued court orders, in a way that is consistent with both the rule of law and strong cybersecurity. We need to have both, and can have both. I recognize this entails varying degrees of innovation by the industry to ensure lawful access is available. But I just don’t buy the claim that it’s impossible.

It really doesn’t matter whether or not Wray “buys” this claim. If you deliberately weaken encryption — either through key escrow or by making it easier to bypass — the encryption no longer offers the protection it did before it was compromised. That’s the thing about facts. They’re not like cult leaders. They don’t need a bunch of true believers hanging around to retain their strength.

The thing that bothers me most about Wray’s insistence that a magical “secure but accessible only by law enforcement” encryption standard is that technical experts at the FBI surely know that it isn’t possible, yet he keeps making the claim that it is. Does Wray simply not pay attention to his employees?