...In theory at least, intelligence and law enforcement agreed to accept the fact that crypto was here to stay, and if they wanted to gain access to encrypted communications and files, they would do so by warrants and their own cryptanalysis, and not by demanding that the systems themselves should be weakened.
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Three big things have happened since the first round of the Crypto Wars. First, of course, was 9/11. The second was the Snowden revelations, which exposed how the government had stepped up its surveillance of communications, greatly increasing its cache of private information despite the existence of crypto. And the third, definitely related to factor two, was the explosion of new technologies — notably the iPhone and its progeny — that put even more of our personal information in the cloud. (In 2001, Google was just getting started.) All of these things make the stakes much higher this time around.
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...Once again, the government is seeking to control that genie first released by Diffie and Hellman. But the physics of computer security have not changed. Last July, a panel of fifteen eminent security specialists and cryptographers — many of whom are veterans of the first crypto war — released a report confirming there was no way for the government to demand a means of bypassing encryption without a dire compromise of security. It just doesn’t work.
