Should the NSA back doors be closed?

It has been a hot topic for longer than most topics can survive in the world of technology buzz. We’ve heard inside and out how the NSA uses extremely aggressive tactics to get a hold of data they claim is essential for national security. Now, some stalwarts in the technology world are calling for the permanent closure of all of the back doors that the NSA can use to take away our privacy.

In 2006, a federal agency, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, helped build an international encryption system to help countries and industries fend off computer hacking and theft. Unbeknown to the many users of the system, a different government arm, the National Security Agency, secretly inserted a “back door” into the system that allowed federal spies to crack open any data that was encoded using its technology.