As someone who frequently uses the internet for everything from gaming to turning in homework I find it critical to know that every time I have to store information it is properly protected and only I have access to. This is why when the topic of encryption comes up I am one of its advocates. An issue that has plagued the industry of encryption since its conception is the want of people in power to have a way to bypass it. This issue has led to many governments including the United States to try and pass legislation that either bans all encryption or tries to force the creation of backdoors to have an easy way to bypass this. While it might sound like a good idea to those living in a post 9/11 world where we are more scared of guns and immigrants than our crushing national debt or lack of industry. Security starting at your home computer can help protect everyone from most cyber-attacks and other types of internet based crimes. While it might be great if you forget your key or if one of your friends needs to get something but when an intruder finds it all of your belongings and information are now open to the public. The worst part is that you may never know because the door shows no sign of forced entry. Based on my countless time researching the causes of some of these claims and their foundations. I have concluded that having a backdoor for encryption is like leaving a key to your house under your front mat.

In an article written by Christian Dawson, a leading developer in the encryption field, he explains that maintaining an end to end encryption with a secure backdoor would be nearly impossible due to the immense cost of the infrastructure and the inability for small companies to afford the hardware. Dawson goes on to say "The technological cost issue: Let's say tech can be built to facilitate operationalizing backdoors. It's going to be new tech. Most of the Internet runs on legacy tech."(Dawson) How could we possibly keep the whole internet up to date? Dawson has rooted his values in protecting the common man and small business. He knows that the equipment and upkeep needed to maintain a secure backdoor on end to end encryption is far out of the scope for any mom and pop operation that would certainly need to hire an all-time IT system admin. Dawson's time in the industry as a consultant and system admin. He ran into encryption everywhere. Learned its strong suites and weaknesses. He learned what it takes to run a world class network. Using this experience gave him a great insight when writing the article for Christian Source.

In my second article by Roland Rivest, an encryption developer and activist, he compares encryption to a glove that most people use to protect themselves but the few that use it to hide make it a target for other officials and others. He also speaks to the need for everyone to use encryption to not leave and unattended information out on the web. Rivest caters more to the common man and how the backdoor would affect them. By comparing encryption to "Cryptography is a data-protection technology just as gloves are a hand-protection technology."(Rivest) The backdoor could be a hole into the glove that nullifies its purpose. Meanwhile Rivest helped to create the RSA this puts him in the center of the encryption battle. He currently is doing research at MIT. The several books he has co-authored about encryption explain in detail the complexity and attention put into protecting our data.

My final source the, Research Repository, talks about the British Prime Minister, David Cameron's request to turn off encryption for some things in everyday life. This would make the United Kingdom unsafe for businesses like Amazon and Microsoft to operate. The Repository caters to a casual reader crowd and tries to not overcomplicate things it lays out the terms of what will happen very simply and clearly. The examples given are clear and unpersuaded in any way. Finally, Will Buchanan has done extensive research on the effects of a total ban on encryption in well developed countries. The affects he mentioned are firmly concreted in logic and seem feasible in a modern world.

I find this research to be very feasible given it's history for a strong and livid argument between the two sides. Most of my sources by experts in the field show how backdoors are bad while the more fear -- hawking news sites are pleading for a government crackdown because it makes us feel uneasy to not know when the next terror plot will happen. The different views of these sources show that across the industry show that this is a very bad idea that will only hurt the public instead of save them.

