EnRUPT – The Simpler The Better

While we are working on determining the best value for ïrRUPT security parameter, we do not have much time for watching the news, but this is something we thought is worth your attention because of its irony:

The US is outraged that India restricts symmetric encryption to 40-bit security.

We think it is truly hilarious. The US has gone a long way from banning strong encryption to developing standards for it to enforcing it and enforcing it more and now… to forcing others to allow it. It looks like the US officials are beginning to realize that the benefits of secure communications far outweigh the losses since the vast majority of the population are NOT criminals. We do not remove the seat belts from the cars just because they would save lives of the terrorists, do we?

I wonder if India has access to the AES-256 encrypted Skype chats, calls and file transfers or if Skype S.A.R.L. has deposited some sort of an Additional Decryption Key with their DOT to avoid getting themselves banned from the second largest country in the world?

PS: Apparently, that PTI News article got deleted without an explanation.