SAN FRANCISCO — If there were any lingering doubts about Microsoft’s commitment to strong encryption, one of Microsoft’s top executives just put them to rest.
Company president and chief legal officer Brad Smith reiterated -- in his strongest words yet -- Microsoft’s support for Apple in its fight with FBI during a keynote at the RSA security conference Tuesday.
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Smith, who testified before Congress on the issue just last week, spoke at length about the need for strong encryption.
“The path to hell starts at the backdoor, and we need to make sure that encryption technology remains strong," he said.
He quickly added that Microsoft is willing to work with law enforcement, revealing for the first time that the company received 14 requests for information about terrorist suspects in the weeks following the Paris terrorist attacks. "In all 14 of those cases we were able to respond, determine that the orders were lawful, pull the content and turn it over and we did it in an average response time of under 30 minutes," Smith said. "We do play our role as an industry."
His remarks comes just days after he testified before Congress to say the company would be filing court paperwork in support of Apple. Echoing comments he made during his Congressional appearance, Smith also spoke at length about the need for updated laws.
"We do not need our courts to define the legal rules that will govern 21st century technology with laws that come from the era of the adding machine, we can do better than that."