Exceptional access is an architectural issue, and does not need to depend in any way on weakening of encryption. This presumes a logically implemented plan to offer exceptional access. Earlier this year, one commenter on HN pointed out a few trivial schemes to offer exceptional access in a way that doesn't compromise the encryption.
The concerns about exceptional access are about custody and access controls. If you share a secret with a 3rd person (LEO, IC, tech company), the possibility of that secret being leaked has gone up by some non-zero amount. The design of exceptional access mechanisms is therefore not only technological and procedural, but also political, etc.
For the arguments about "you cannot stop math", the concern is about the deployment of strong encryption, without exceptional access -- at scale. Policy dictates implementation of encryption at scale (by major tech companies), not math. Individuals and businesses will still be free to deploy their own encryption that doesn't offer exceptional access. It's unlikely that encryption itself will ever be attempted to be outlawed. If, for instance, you want to xor every bit of your comms with a OTP that you've shared with your overseas partner, it's unlikely that such a thing will ever be outlawed on Western public networks.
Likely, the concerns for LEO and the Intelligence Community are related to "going dark at scale" - meaning that if the big tech companies were to entirely lock out the possibility of exceptional access, the job of the criminal to hide from LEO would become trivial and accessible to all levels of criminals.
The concerns about exceptional access are about custody and access controls. If you share a secret with a 3rd person (LEO, IC, tech company), the possibility of that secret being leaked has gone up by some non-zero amount. The design of exceptional access mechanisms is therefore not only technological and procedural, but also political, etc.
For the arguments about "you cannot stop math", the concern is about the deployment of strong encryption, without exceptional access -- at scale. Policy dictates implementation of encryption at scale (by major tech companies), not math. Individuals and businesses will still be free to deploy their own encryption that doesn't offer exceptional access. It's unlikely that encryption itself will ever be attempted to be outlawed. If, for instance, you want to xor every bit of your comms with a OTP that you've shared with your overseas partner, it's unlikely that such a thing will ever be outlawed on Western public networks.
Likely, the concerns for LEO and the Intelligence Community are related to "going dark at scale" - meaning that if the big tech companies were to entirely lock out the possibility of exceptional access, the job of the criminal to hide from LEO would become trivial and accessible to all levels of criminals.