WallShadow wrote:This has so many flaws that I don't even know where to start.
1. This is blatantly unconstitutional.
2. If they install backdoors for the government, the smarter part of hackers will be able to use the backdoors for their own purposes.
3. Country boundaries; if I develop an IRC client in, for example, Australia, my software wouldn't require a backdoor while allowing residents of the US to use it. It'll turn into the same situation as with the PirateBay right now...
^ This. Especially #2. If I'm an ISP, a social network, etc.. and my business and my profit come from people using my service, any backdoors to this service for any reason better damn well be MY CODE and not something slapped together by FBI programmers, the people who were not quite smart enough to land a high paying job in the private sector. So what will happen, is that someone will say hey.. we need to sub this out... Congressman "so and so's" half-sister's, roomate's, nephew Billy Bob runs a software engineering firm in Kileen, TX... put this out to the lowest bidder and tell Billy what it will take to come in a few bucks under that and we'll throw this project his way.
4 years and $21.3 million dollars later... Billy Bob's Crappy-Soft releases FBI-BD 2.2.01.420 Beta RC 1 written in JAVA on SDK 6 required for use in all major websites and social networks, VOip communications and other areas of national security importance..
- within 12 hours of it's release - links to the source are available on Chinese hack forums..
- within 3 days over 30 million americans have their facebook accounts compromised - pictures of millions of 14 yr old girls in bikini's taking highly pixelated self glamour shots are posted to reddit. The collective Pedo community wanks so hard the world's septic systems completely clog up.
- within a week the government tries to pull the plug on FBI-BD but a rogue programmer at crappy-soft who was actually a chinese plant has installed anti-removal protection and a trojan...
- reports of impropriety of the original project bidding come to light, and congressional hearings are held. Congressman "so and so" is found dead in his bathroom wearing nothing but pink lingerie and a red wig, a half-kilo of coke spilled on the back of the toilet.
- The global markets collapse.. not directly because of this, but instead, because the entirety of the rest of the planet Earth fell down laughing so hard at the morons in the US, they were unable to work that day.
I can see the future.. it's not too late to stop this from happening.