> Undermining cryto from the inside means deliberately exposing all communicates to increased risk of hacking by anyone, anywhere
Well, that does depend on how they weaken it. If it gets weakened such that it goes from "impossible" to "nation-states can crack" then there's still only 3-4 agencies in the whole world that could decrypt.
But that would also tend to preclude passive wideranging cryptanalysis, which is what I'm sure NSA would prefer to be able to do.
> If it gets weakened such that it goes from "impossible" to "nation-states can crack" then there's still only 3-4 agencies in the whole world that could decrypt.
You'd have to be talking about a gigantic change for it to benefit them. I want my crypto to take 10 billion years to crack; intelligence agencies want to crack it in a week.
And what they can crack in a week today, hobbyists will be able to crack in a day a few years from now.
Weakening crypto means opening it to every criminal in the world. Computers get faster and secret backdoors get leaked.
If it isn't safe from everyone, in the long run, it isn't safe from anyone.
Well, that does depend on how they weaken it. If it gets weakened such that it goes from "impossible" to "nation-states can crack" then there's still only 3-4 agencies in the whole world that could decrypt.
But that would also tend to preclude passive wideranging cryptanalysis, which is what I'm sure NSA would prefer to be able to do.