Americans' Access to Strong Encryption Is at Risk, an Open Letter to Congress

The irony here is that simple one-time-pad solutions (OTP) will continue to be available to securely encrypt the sort of messaging that's of use to terrorists (relatively short infrequent messages), instead it's the general communications (including for banking) that the rest of us perform online that will be made vulnerable.

You don't even have to program or use a computer to create these OTP solutions, for limited messages you could just flip a coin to create the OTP if necessary (although there are lots of more automated solutions available as well.)

Airgapped computers at both ends provide another way 'round restrictions for more sophisticated actors. Their backdoors won't be accessible (remotely.)

So taking away secure encryption from the rest of us is just security theatre; a destructive, narcissistic legislative exercise designed to make it look like the pompous powerful doing something when they're doing nothing of any real use while creating terrible risks.

This is why, I think, legislators have consistently ignoring logic and math from professionals such as the OP - they don't care. They know perfectly well they're pissing into the wind doing nothing useful; that it's all theatre; they just think the fallout is going to land on someone else's pants after they're out of office. But tech works (and fails) faster than that.

[Counterargument: if everything else is breakable, securely encrypted messages really stand out. One answer: But very short messages (in an unknown format) aren't generally breakable, anyway, and that's the likely case.]

I'm going to have to go back to listen to the entirety of the Senate hearing at some point. With so much talk about Russia hacking and influence and then they flip the switch and want backdoors into encryption even though any mandated tool the government demands for so called lawful intercept can be hacked by or ordered by the judges in Russia! There is a strange disconnect and I think it hurts us that the public discourse is security vs privacy rather than being about the personal security off all citizens.

The Four Horseman of the Infocalypse[1] ride again!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...

Good sentiment, and better cause...

but please, for the love of god, proofread your writing!