Yes, adding a backdoor increases our collective security because it allows law enforcement to eavesdrop on the bad guys. But adding that backdoor also decreases our collective security because the bad guys can eavesdrop on everyone.
And then there are the cases where law enforcement is the bad guy. There's just no reason to think that one class of people is completely isolated from a lesser deserving population. We live in a world where "consumer products and services" constantly touch "large business enterprises". No rational person can claim there is an encryption solution that works for one system but not the other.
This is exactly the policy debate we should be havingnot the fake one about whether or not we can have both security and surveillance.
There is no policy debate that needs to be had. If the government thinks backdoored systems are such a great thing, they are welcome to show us all the proper way to do it by implementing backdoors in their own systems. Until then, the only policy-level issue I see is whether or not abuse of such government backdoors (and failures to report said abuse) should be considered an act of treason.
@Tatütata
And what about international connections? Who would have the right to snoop?
This is a good point, and it even goes beyond the idea of "friendly nations" that @newguy wrongly favors. The fact is, like law enforcement, sometimes our closest allies turn out to have agendas that are hostile to our own best interests. Someone who is our partner today might be someone we want nothing to do with tomorrow. We want to be able to not only close the door on them, but change the locks as well. Until the government shows us the right way to implement backdoors that accomplish these sorts of things, it makes no sense to put the onus on tech companies or the individual citizens to figure out how to make it work for these global powers.
91c1a3ef9c47b1bd7dd42c14c237786e04a9886d0bda5ad8b77d57ae175cefdc