Mandating backdoors for encrypted communications is a bad idea

Congress is hearing testimony today about mandating backdoors in security products so law enforcement can access encrypted communications.

James Comey, the director of the FBI, and Sally Quillian Yates, the deputy U.S. attorney general, are scheduled to testify about the need for such power in order to fight criminals. In the past they have cited child pornographers and terrorists among the targets. Comey says that without backdoors intelligence about criminal plots is going dark.

For a variety of reasons, though, mandating backdoors into encrypted communications is a bad idea.

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