

FBI Director James Comey (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Apple and Google are both moving toward deployment of smartphone encryption so secure that law enforcement officials can't easily gain access to information stored on the devices — even with a search warrant. With these changes, it seems that mainstream tech companies are starting to compete for consumers based on technical privacy upgrades in a way almost unimaginable in a world before Edward Snowden's revelations about National Security Agency spying.

Since the details about the pervasiveness of government spying and data collection around the world were let loose by the former NSA contractor, numerous products have been hailed by the media as "NSA-proof" -- a potentially far-fetched claim.

Some products, such as chat application Wickr or the mobile device Blackphone, market themselves more reasonably as more secure alternatives to popular forms of digital communication.

Even Snowden himself has weighed in, endorsing encrypted cloud storage service Spideroak over competitor Dropbox, which he called "hostile to privacy."

The proliferation these services and devices offering more secure methods of communication suggest there is a very real market for individuals who want to keep their private communications, well, private.

With their recent changes -- along with less visible technical upgrades over the past year -- major tech companies like Apple and Google appear to be banking on average consumers taking the security into account when making purchasing decisions.

But not everyone is happy about this shift. FBI Director James Comey had harsh words for the companies in a briefing with reporters Thursday: "What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves above the law."

Comey suggested the changes might hamper law enforcement activities, like investigating kidnappings. "The notion that someone would market a closet that could never be opened -- even if it involves a case involving a child kidnapper and a court order -- to me does not make any sense."

But the debate over how much much access the public should have to cryptography tech is far from new. In fact, in the early 1990s the government and privacy advocates waged what is now known as the "crypto war" over government's ability to insert back doors into technology products and limit the spread of encryption technology to consumers.

However, privacy advocates believe Comey is blowing Apple and Google's encryption expansion out of proportion. "Google and Apple have never been able to decrypt your Chromebook or MacBook, so why should they be expected to be able to decrypt your cellphone?" asks Kevin Bankston, the policy director at New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute. "The new iOS and Android changes are simply providing the same level of security to our cellphones that we already have for our laptops, security that will better protect our most sensitive data against thieves and data breaches. "

Bankston also thought Comey's comments may have bordered on hypocritical because these changes on the whole amount to cyber security improvements for a vast number of consumers. "Considering their oft-repeated concerns about cybersecurity threats, and the wide range of investigative techniques still available to them, our top law enforcement officials should be applauding these long overdue security improvements rather than complaining about them."

Many cybersecurity professionals say "backdoor" access or lawful intercept technology introduces insecurity into the larger ecosystem -- arguing that if there is a secret entrance for law enforcement, cybercriminals are likely to discover and exploit it as well.