Bollocks. But let me ask you this: have other incentives - non-legal ones, even personal whim - enticed any of these companies to provide key escrow for the US government? What is the current policy climate with this regard? Is there a voluntary key escrow program? How many companies are on board it? Is there a single telecommunications provider that -isn't- providing key escrow?
I can't find a testable claim anywhere in your comment. That's not a ding, it's merely the usual nature of HN comments. It is a sort of foul play to selectively apply criteria.
Here's a testable claim. If a HN participant does independent research on the Apple and Google encryption news recently (not you or me or lern_too_spel), that participant will find that encryption is not new nor the thing that law enforcement are critical about. They will find that there is a long history of FDE on Android and on Apple and on other products. They will find that both Apple and Google declared that they would provide encryption mechanisms that they would not have access to decryption keys for. They will find that this causes a ruckus at the FBI and other law enforcement.
This is a testable claim. Not testable by you or by me. But it is testable by other readers. They should do it for themselves.
The quality of my posts are not in question. I highly encourage readers to wade through my comment history (and that of 'xnull' as well) to links interesting and relevant to the current state of cybercontrol.
The facts stand on their own.
I encourage anyone who makes it to this comment-leaf to investigate the facts for yourselves. Neither I nor Tptacek are pseudonyms you can trust.
Your claim at the top of this thread was that companies like Microsoft (presumably also Google, Dropbox, Apple, Stripe, Mozilla, Facebook, LinkedIn, Samsung, &c) were legally compelled to implement --- your words --- key escrow. Even if we charitably defocus that argument to cover not just literally key escrow but any cryptographic or security UX property meant to reduce security or provide lawful intercept capabilities, I know that claim to be false.
I'm eagerly awaiting actual evidence from you to back your claim up, because if you're right, I'm profoundly wrong about something. I doubt you're right, but the risk/reward on wasting my time versus a life-changing revelation work out for me to keep participating in this discussion.