The director of national intelligence on Monday blamed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for advancing the development of user-friendly, widely available strong encryption“As a result of the Snowden revelations, the onset of commercial encryption has accelerated by seven years,” James Clapper said during a breakfast for journalists hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. […]
Technologists have been tirelessly working to strengthen encryption for decades, not just the past few years. But Snowden’s revelations about the pervasiveness of mass surveillance clearly accelerated its more widespread availability. And technologists say the threat of law enforcement “going dark” has been overhyped. For instance, there are almost always ways to hack around encryption, even if you can’t break it. […]
https://theintercept.com/2016/04/25/spy-chief-complains-that-edward-snowden-sped-up-spread-of-encryption-by-7-years/