Single correct option
Passage: Encryption is often framed in public debate as a binary choice between privacy and security, as if stronger encryption necessarily makes society less safe by shielding criminals from law enforcement. This framing ignores that the same encryption protecting a criminal's messages also protects journalists, dissidents, hospitals, and financial systems from the very intrusions, whether criminal or authoritarian, that the security argument claims to guard against.
- A. Encryption should be banned because it primarily benefits criminals.
- B. The privacy-versus-security framing of encryption debates is misleading because strong encryption also protects many legitimate and vulnerable users from the same threats it is accused of enabling.
- C. Journalists and dissidents do not require encryption to communicate safely.
- D. Law enforcement agencies universally support stronger encryption standards.
Show answer and solution
Answer: (B) The privacy-versus-security framing of encryption debates is misleading because strong encryption also protects many legitimate and vulnerable users from the same threats it is accused of enabling.
The passage's point is that the binary privacy-vs-security framing is misleading because encryption protects legitimate users from the same threats used to justify weakening it. (B) states this precisely. (A) reverses the passage's implied argument; (C) contradicts the passage, which says these groups ARE protected by encryption; (D) is unsupported and implausible given the passage's context.
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