Why the Government can’t Actually Stop Terrorists from Using Encryption

Encrypted devices at the hand of the governmental agencies seem like a bliss but same is made available for the common public or more importantly lands in the hands of terrorists then world appears to be in danger. U.S. government is currently failing to gain an upper hand in the fight to compel the tech giant Apple and others to give access to their encrypted devices. But having to these encrypted devices and technologies will not be enough to marginalize the wide availability of same technologies to the terrorists and criminal minded individuals.

How the encrypted service or devices turns to be out-of-reach of U.S. government

Most of the encrypted products and services are made by the developers who are from all parts of globe. In simple words most of the encryption projects happens to be open source in nature which brings an amalgamation of great developers from across the globe and it puts them out of government’s reach as well.

An example will help in understanding the limitation of governmental agencies in going after the encrypted services and products. There is a popular instant messaging service based in Germany called Telegram and it offers one of kind encrypted chat functionality. Another encrypted services provider which helps in encrypted voice call and test messages is called Silent Phone which is based in Switzerland. They are simply out of reach of the U.S. government but are easily available for the public and criminal minded individuals alike.

Open source projects are simply driving the ushering of encrypted technologies reach

A research conducted by the Open Technology Institute has revealed that there are about 16 different applications for encrypted communications are being developed outside of US mainly through the open source projects.

U.S. government hands are simply tied as it can’t stop the developers from developed such application outside its borders. However it is enraging a battle against the domestic companies which offers encryption services to its consumers.

Even more number of common users has started making use of strong means and forms of encryption technologies than before for their own reasons. This has made it necessary for the tech companies to bring such encrypted features in their own applications as default in order to reign in consumers from adopting other applications. iPhone has already brought the features of setting up the password by default in order to encrypt the information stored on the device. On other hand Facebook owned Whatsapp is thinking aggressively about bring an encrypted texts and messages features on its instant messaging platform.

U.S. government has finally understood that with continuous availability and emergence of new mode of encrypted communication applications it is not feasible to reign in the availability to the users. But as it is working on other front of reducing the amount of information which is likely to get encrypted by bringing in default encryption features in the popular applications and devices. In other words U.S. battle against encryption is not going to stop the common users and terrorist alike from using the encryption technologies in future.

US DOJ States iPhone Encryption Could Lead to Child Death

Government worried with the new tougher and stricter encryption schemes which are being implemented by Apple in its iOS and Google in Android have the ability to prevent the law enforcers from getting their hands on the user’s data.

Snowden whistle blowing incident has accused major upheaval in the tech industry which has resulted in the plummeting of their trust rating. Now the tech companies are scrambling around to reinstate their image and business by using much aggressive and strong encryption for saving users privacy.

Tech Giants Moving Towards Advanced Encryption

Apple is first company to include the encryption by default in its recent iOS 8 version while Google is working towards bringing the encryption on all the devices with its Android 5.0. Past week the Facebook owned messaging service provider WhatsApp has flipped the switched and had enabled the much needed end-to-end encryption on its messaging platform. These encryptions are seen as the boon for the users and consumers as it will give much more privacy but it is also acting as a major tumbling block for the government.

Government Worries Grows With Widespread Use Of Encryption

The government officials are extremely worried regarding the rampant use of advanced encryption in the consumer products by the tech companies. Officials had asserted that these very same features which protect user’s privacy could end up in protecting the criminals. In earlier times the tech companies were extremely cooperative as well as complacent in providing the government with essential information which was taken as shock by the general mobile phone and network users. But the advanced encryption works through not storing the encryption keys on the Apple’s or Google’s servers, thereby the concerned authorities won’t be able to get their hands on it even if they possess the required warrant.

Apple Could Become A Reason For Child Death

The Wall Street Journal reports that a Department of Justice (DOJ) official had eventually told the Apple executives during a classified meeting that in near future their company could be directly responsible for the death of a child.

The logic behind stating such grave point is that government officials believes that one day criminals probably a kidnapper could rely on the Apple’s encrypted devices for hiding themselves from the law enforcement authorities. Such inability of law enforcement in accessing the data on that person’s phone could inevitably allow him to evade detection and kill a child as well.

Apple had rubbished such accusation and even calls it inflammatory as well as inaccurate. Apple further said that the government have much more better means in such cases like taking help of the cellular carriers which would pinpoint the location of the suspect in a faster and convenient manner.

This incident reflects that in the future with advent of strong and advanced encryption method government would be kept at bay from large chunk of information and at the same time the privacy of the users would become more stable. However government should take more advanced steps in strengthening its reach but not at the cost of citizen’s privacy.

Encryptions of New Level of Smartphone Alarms Law Enforcement

The new technology has evolved and developed the world a lot in past few years. The introduction and formation of different devices has made the life of people easy and luxurious.

One of such development is the introduction of smart phones in the market. Smart phone is able to bring a deviating change in life of common people in hefty. The introduction of smart phone is a boom in the market of technology and helps the internet world to be a part and parcel of each individual’s life. The functionality of smart phones has made it very popular among all common mass.

New Laws that have been amalgamated

New laws have been incorporated enforcing the operating system of the smart phones. Apple, one of the most renowned names in the smart phone list has announced that its new operating system used in the phones will be preventing law enforcement and phone thieves from repossessing data, which are stored in a locked phone.

The data include photos, videos, contact list or anything and everything saved in your phone. This idea was not welcomed worldwide, many unacceptable comments were heard from different sources and people did not liked the idea to some extent.

The FBI director criticized the decision of Apple and Google of encrypt the data of the phone in order to make it inaccessible to enforcement of law. He was not very much convinced by the idea and don’t appreciated the proposal in all.

He put light to the fact that child-kidnapping and terrorism are two cases which might decrease in number if the details or data are quickly access by the authorities. Many lives can be saved in this form, but again it is illegal to check others’ data and details if the concerned person is unwilling to open it.

It will be difficult for the FBI to carry on their investigation under the new policy, which only allows the corporeal contact to the victim’s phone when the user is unwilling to unlock it for the authorities. He also included that the law enforcement is at one point have pros as well as have few cons. Replying or commenting about it without proper knowledge or study is difficult.

Pros and Cons

Apart from this, the enforcement of law can be a boom as well as immoral for the people. As it has some advantages, it also has many disadvantages, which cannot be ignored. As rightly said by the director of FBI, the enforcement of law on the operating system and making it quickly accessible to the authorities will in large help to save lives of millions of people throughout the world.

Two most hazard and big crime can be saved if the law is enforced. Child kidnapping and terrorism are the two most unwanted crimes, which can be completely stopped if the authorities will be in a position to get access to the data and details of the suspects’ personal phone.

Thus the decision of enforcement of law on the operating system is still not so acceptable.