This is a guest post by Victoria Ross.
Bitcoin was embraced by many for its libertarian ideals of economic liberty and individual sovereignty. But it has now effectively been dragged into the current, and very public, privacy debate between Apple and the FBI.
Last week, President Barack Obama said he believes a balance must be sought between privacy and security. As one example of the risks of strong encryption, and seemingly referring to cryptocurrencies, Obama pointed out that if government can’t access phones, “everybody is walking around with a Swiss bank account in their pocket.”
To find out where Bitcoin’s industry representatives stand on this issue, Bitcoin Magazine reached out to Bitcoin Foundation director Bruce Fenton Coin Center director of research Peter Van Valkenburgh, and senior fellow at the libertarian think tank Cato institute and former Bitcoin Foundation board member Jim Harper.
Encryption and Law Enforcement
The current debate on encryption started when recent acts of terrorism in San Bernardino, California brought about a highly publicized showdown between Apple and the FBI.
After a San Bernardino couple, Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people, the FBI found Farook’s iPhone 5C was locked with a password and data encrypted. The action of the FBI to seek the decryption from the terrorist Farook’s iPhone brought Apple into the California district court of Judge Sheri Pym, who ruled Apple should offer “reasonable technical assistance” to law enforcement, and must provide a tool that would allow federal agents to beat a security feature that prevents the phone from erasing after some failed unlocking attempts.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, however, worries that creating a patch to enable entry through a back door threatens the ability to maintain privacy for its hundreds of millions of customers worldwide.This sentiment was echoed by Bitcoin industry representatives.Bitcoin Foundation director […]
