On one hand, U.S. businesses need to protect their trade secrets because national security is tied closely to economic security, but on the other hand encryption might be helping criminals hide their secrets, Louis Freeh former director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), told a gathering of cybersecurity experts Monday. The U.S. government doesn’t have the ability to crack some sophisticated types of encryption, putting investigators of terrorism threats at a disadvantage, Freeh said at the Computer Security Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C. In 2000, U.K. lawmakers passed a law allowing law enforcement agents to get warrants requiring encryption vendors to share their keys, but U.S. investigators have to rely on cooperation from vendors, which can result in a slow process, Freeh said. “The ability to get real-time information from encrypted channels is going to be a huge problem in terms of homeland security and national security,” said Freeh, who served as FBI director from 1993 to 2001. “In a way, it runs a little bit counter to the interests of corporate America in terms of protecting its information.” Full Story
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