WASHINGTON — Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is “going dark” as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone.
Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.
via U.S. Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet – NYTimes.com.
I’m not going to comment on the privacy issues. I’m sure that what most people are talking about in regard to this case. But I don’t see how such a law could be effective if interacted enacted. While they could serve order to Facebook or RIM, who provided encrypted communication as a service, software would be immune. Maybe not from a legal standpoint, but from a piratical practical stand point, yes.
What most lawmakers don’t understand is that the power of the Internet is at it edges, not the center. All any suspect would have to do is use an app that makes uses of asymmetric encryption. They could subpoena, data from carriers & ISPs all they want. Unless they buy a couple of years on Cray to decipher data, they won’t know what they got.
If they want the same capability that they have with wire-line phones, then they are going to have to attack the system at the edges, meaning handsets.
