The Treasury Department says U.S. companies can apply to Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB, to sell encrypted electronic devices. FSB permission or notification is required by Russian law for encrypted devices to be imported, but such contact was barred under penalties the Obama administration imposed after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election. The FSB is the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB.Ayup, sure. Putin's investment seems to be yielding dividends.
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The White House denied it was easing sanctions.
"I haven't eased anything," Trump said in response to a shouted question from a reporter at the White House.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the move was part of a "regular course of action" in adjusting federal regulations.
Maybe somebody can tell Trump that 1984 wasn't meant to be an instruction manual.
I'm guessing the devices sold into Russia will require a backdoor mechanism for law enforcement. Speculate among yourselves whether they need a backdoor approved (perhaps in gag-ordered secret form) by the US as well.
ReplyDelete-- Bob in OK
All known such devices sold anywhere have phone-home back doors. It is not a problem if you have nothing to hide, citizen.
ReplyDeletePlus it isn't as if the U.S. has any monopoly on encryption technology in the first place. In fact, the American "Advanced Encryption Standard" that is mandated for government computers by NIST is actually Rijndael, an algorithm that was designed in Belgium.
ReplyDeleteThat was one of the arguments that I and a number of like-minded cryptographers used to get the Clinton Administration to eliminate most restrictions on export of encryption technology back in 2000. The export restrictions simply didn't make sense anymore, the rest of the world had by that time surpassed us on encryption technology so all it was doing was making it harder for us to compete for business.