On Sat, Jul 16, 2016 at 4:03 AM Zenaan Harkness <[1]zen@freedbms.net>
   wrote:

     On Sat, Jul 16, 2016 at 11:28:49AM +0300, Georgi Guninski wrote:
     > Hope this is not duplicate, the personal drivels were quite
     > noisy.
     >
     >
     [2]http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/14/gov_says_new_home_sec_iwi
     lli_have_powers_to_ban_endtoend_encryption/
     >
     > > UK gov says new Home Sec will have powers to ban end-to-end
     encryption
     >
     > Very sound, nice and democratic...
     So we have various countries banning end to end encryption - Russia,
     possibly China?, now the UK ... what is stopping America from doing
     so?

   It's not entirely clear that it's even legal in the US to force
   backdoors/key escrow/etc. And even if it is, the USG seems to prefer
   more subtle means of control. Forcing key escrow or backdoors is
   something of a sledgehammer, and it gets a LOT of attention from civil
   libertarians.
   Also, I think Apple has had a hand in keeping it from happening. They
   have a lot of influence (read: money to pay for lobbyists and donate to
   political campaigns), and their whole business model is built on not
   having access to your data, to distinguish themselves from Google,
   which gets a large fraction of its income from serving targeted ads.
   Facebook and Google are starting to do end-to-end, but both companies
   seem a bit more hesitant about it. I suspect WhatsApp did it in part to
   hold Facebook to their word that they would never scan private messages
   for ad targeting purposes, and FB Messenger end-to-end is opt-in AIUI.
   But even if a ban on end-to-end might slightly benefit each company by
   giving them an excuse for retaining access, the USG seems to prefer key
   escrow, which doesn't benefit them at all while creating an additional
   cost.
   Personally I'm a bit conflicted over the whole thing. Pragmatically,
   not morally. A ban on end-to-end or even forced key escrow would push
   the more idealistic people to start working on and using better open
   source solutions. One should not trust any crypto that can be turned
   off silently with a remote flag flip.

     The Zimmerman (PGP) case?
     The CIA's need/use/funding for Tor, and their need for many "average
     Joes" to use it also, for it to work?

References

   1. mailto:zen@freedbms.net
   2. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/14/gov_says_new_home_sec_iwilli_have_powers_to_ban_endtoend_encryption/