Cryptography expert: AI could make software too secure, impacting government hacking capabilities

Cryptography professor Matthew Green has raised concerns that artificial intelligence could make software so secure that law enforcement and intelligence agencies may lose their ability to lawfully hack criminals, with further coverage provided by TechCrunch.

Green's argument suggests that as AI tools become more adept at finding and fixing software vulnerabilities at scale, companies will patch bugs at an unprecedented rate. This could disrupt the current "uneasy truce" where governments have relied on purchasing hacking tools and spyware to access data, rather than demanding backdoors into encrypted devices. Historically, law enforcement has cited encryption as a barrier to catching criminals, a concept popularized as "going dark."

While experts are divided, some agree that AI could lead to a scarcity of bugs, potentially prompting renewed calls for government backdoors. Others argue that AI will assist researchers in finding complex vulnerabilities, and that new device security protections pose a greater challenge than AI itself.

Source: TechCrunch