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Satya Nadella says backdoor encryption is a “terrible idea”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been speaking to reporters recently regarding his thoughts on backdoor encryption.

The issue has come under the spotlight of late whenever authorities have tried to gain access to a mobile device in some sort of court case, with the most notable being a shooting in San Bernardino where the culprit had an encrypted iPhone.

That particular case did not result in anything, with both sides refusing to budge. However, the issue has cropped up once again following a shooting at US Naval base in Pensacola.

Shifting back to Nadella’s view on the subject, the CEO is against backdoor encryption in certain scenarios.

“I do think backdoors are a terrible idea, that is not the way to go about this,” he explained.

“We’ve always said we care about these two things: privacy and public safety. We need some legal and technical solution in our democracy to have both of those be priorities,” he adds.

As such while Nadella is wholeheartedly against backdoors, it appears as if he believes there is room for a workaround when the situation calls for it. Cases in which there have been a shooting or a serious crime would certainly be such a scenario, but creating a proper framework for how this is handled and regulated needs to be outlined.

“We can’t take hard positions on all sides… [but if they’re] asking me for a backdoor, I’ll say no,” the CEO noted. “My hope is that in our democracy these are the things that arrive at legislative solutions,” he concluded.

As The Verge points out Nadella’s position on the matter has changed slightly from the aforementioned San Bernardino incident in 2016 in which he backed Apple in fighting backdoor encryption.

Consequently it looks as if the Microsoft CEO is taking a more flexible approach to this issue.

[Source – The Verge]
[Image – Photo by ???????? Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum on Unsplash]

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