The New York Times reported today that the Obama administration plans to submit a bill next year that would require all online communication services to be “technically capable of complying” if served with a wiretap order. According to the Times, this includes “encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct ‘peer to peer’ messaging like Skype.” The mandate “would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.”
Photo by jeffschuler.
The Times highlighted three requirements:
- Communication services that encrypt messages must have a way to unscramble them.
- Foreign-based providers that do business inside the United States must install a domestic office capable of performing intercepts.
- Developers of software that enables peer-to-peer communication must redesign their service to allow interception.
Putting aside the political issues involved with such legislation, I see two big issues on the technology side of things:
- This could be really onerous for tech startups, who will have one more concern to worry about when creating software;
- This is only going to help the government catch stupid criminals. Tech savvy criminals will turn to other services that aren’t monitored. Couldn’t the bad guys just drop encrypted text files into a service like DropBox?
What do you think? Is the U.S. government going too far? Is all of this just wasted effort?
U.S. Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet [New York Times]
