A coalition of Silicon Valley tech giants has doubled down on its criticism of encryption backdoors following a proposal that would give law enforcement access to locked and encrypted devices.
The group, which focuses on efforts to reform government surveillance, said in a statement that it continues to advocate for strong encryption, and decried attempts to undermine the technology.
The coalition consists of, among others, Google, Microsoft, and Apple.
If those companies would really want, they could easily win this. How? USA is gearing for elections in a few months, if the companies would make clear hostile legislation means no campaign contributions, you would see a 180 degree turn from policy makers. I’m not expecting to see it happen.
Uniformity in legislative decision-making means that someone is already bribing the politicians. Google was one of the biggest bribers just a few years ago and I guess fighting against backdoors in encryption isn’t very high on their priorities, because it’s clearly one of those things they DID NOT pay for.
I think it is posturing. I think they both want to make government happy to avoid greater regulation, and they want to appear to be “the good guys” when it comes to privacy. Which is an absolute joke for all the obvious reasons…
However, if they were seriously opposed, I do think they would still have some trouble. They still aren’t very government saavy. Old skool auto companies, coal miners, and oil drillers punch much harder with much less money behind their punches.
The same Apple that gives in to the Chinese government to remove encryption software from the App Store? Doesn’t seem hypocritical to me…