Back in 1993, Matt Blaze put done to the first round of the crypto wars by demonstrating devastating flaws in the NSA’s Clipper Chip that was supposed to allow the government to securely monitor encrypted communications. Sadly, those lessons have been forgotten by politicians and the intelligence community and there are calls to reignite those wars.
Politco has a nice interview with Blaze in which he talks about why what the government is asking for—although it seems simple and reasonable enough—simply isn’t possible. The Clipper Chip, he says, illustrates the problem well. Take the relatively simple problem of encrypting a conversation between two phones. That can probably be done securely. But now add in the requirement that a copy of the key be sent to the government and you suddenly have a much more complex and, ultimately, unsolvable problem.
Finally, here is a little bit of humor in a discussion that is mostly anything but funny:
Someone actually just said to me "I don't know you're old enough to remember the Clipper Chip." Actually, it's that I'm too old to remember.
— matt blaze (@mattblaze) December 10, 2015