American Bill Should Prohibit Encryption Backdoors

The US House of Representatives will today present a bill that prohibits US tech companies to add encryption backdoors to their products. In recent months warned some American politicians and investigative agencies, including the FBI, the use of encryption by criminals, which would hamper the investigation and prosecution.

The "ENCRYPT-law" of the Democratic delegate Ted Lieu and Republican Rep Black farenthold prohibits states companies may require to add an encryption backdoor to their products so that encrypted communications can be decrypted later.Recently had the US states of New York and California attempted to require encryption backdoors in smartphones.

According to Lieu technologically is unfeasible to handle individual states various encryption standards for consumer products."Apple is no different smartphones for California and New York and make the rest of the country," so let Lieu opposite Reuters know. Last year Lieu spoke even against the wishes of the FBI to weaken encryption.

"Democracy will always need to find a balance between security and freedom. We realize that it is a challenge for investigators to find that balance, we do not agree with the FBI's proposal to oblige companies to the safety of their products and weakening services by adding a "backdoor" which investigators encryption technology to circumvent, " says the deputy.

German Government Unveils End-To-End Encryption For Citizens

A service of the German government that is used for the exchange of confidential documents between citizens and government will soon support end-to-end encryption. As of April, users of the Mail- use end-to-end encryption. For this, they install a plug-in for Firefox or Google Chrome. The encryption used De-Mail based on PGP (Pretty Good Privacy).

The plug-in must make the encrypted exchange of documents easier, the German government so late in the announcement to know. "Germany wants to lead the way in the use of digital services," said Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere."Encryption plays an important role." More and more government services to communicate using De-Mail. It is expected that this year 200 new public services are connected.

Encryption

De-Mail is already using encryption for transport, but will now post protect through end-to-end encryption, so that the content is only visible to the sender and recipient. To be of service to use, users with a username and password to log in, or for extra security with a token, such as the new digital ID card, smart card and SMS code. Logging is done by the special De-Mail page of the provider. Several German ISPs, such as Deutsche Telekom, GMX, Web.De and United Internet are as De-Mail provider accredited.

They are also pleased with the new security measure. "End-to-end encryption was previously something for experts. Therefore we would like to see everybody De-Mails can encrypt" said Timothy Höttges of Deutsche Telekom. Besides the introduction of encryption measure will also be simplified the registration process for De-Mail. So soon enough an online bank account to register for De-Mail. Meanwhile, two million Germans would have a De-Mail, in which hundreds of thousands of civilians have been identified for the service and act can make.