By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
The FBI has says its inability to crack encrypted cellphones during investigations makes the country less safe. But 72 percent of 100 cybersecurity leaders from government, academia and the private sector surveyed by the Washington Post’s “Cybersecurity 202” disagree.
The survey showed a broad opposition to the FBI’s demand that device and software-makers give law enforcement a built-in way to access encrypted data with a warrant.
“Strong encryption is absolutely critical for keeping our data safe from criminals. This is especially important for mobile devices such as cellphones, which are easily lost or stolen,” Matt Blaze, a cryptographer and computer science professor at the University of Pennsylvania, tells the Post. “Weakening encryption might make the FBI’s job easier in some cases … but that would be a very shortsighted policy that would create far more crime than it would solve.”
