US attorney general William Barr says Americans should accept security risks of encryption backdoors

Discussion in 'privacy problems' started by guest, Jul 23, 2019.

  1. deBoetie

    deBoetie Registered Member

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    The NSPCC is - how shall I put this - closely linked to government.
     
  2. guest

    guest Guest

    [paywalled]
    As WhatsApp Tops 2 Billion Users, CEO Vows to Defend Encryption
    February 12, 2020
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-wha...ers-ceo-vows-to-defend-encryption-11581516000
    TechCrunch: WhatsApp hits 2 billion users, up from 1.5 billion 2 years ago

    Whatsapp blog entry: Two Billion Users -- Connecting the World Privately
     
  3. guest

    guest Guest

    Congress, Not the Attorney General, Should Decide the Future of Encryption
    February 12, 2020
    https://www.lawfareblog.com/congress-not-attorney-general-should-decide-future-encryption
     
  4. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Not even Congress arguably has the authority. It'd take an amendment to the Constitution.
     
  5. guest

    guest Guest

    Does a New Draft Bill Exploit Exploited Children in Its Fight Against End-to-End Encryption?
    February 12, 2020
    https://www.venafi.com/blog/does-ne...children-its-fight-against-end-end-encryption
     
  6. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Sure, but that's obviously just a pretext for the panopticon.
     
  7. guest

    guest Guest

    Area law enforcement says encryption creates barriers for digital investigations
    February 18, 2020
    https://www.news5cleveland.com/news...n-creates-barriers-for-digital-investigations
     
  8. IvoShoen

    IvoShoen Registered Member

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    Orwell would be turning in his grave.
     
  9. guest

    guest Guest

    U.S. Working on Legislation to Weaken End-to-End Encryption, Used by Apple and Others
    February 21, 2020
    https://wccftech.com/u-s-working-on...d-to-end-encryption-used-by-apple-and-others/
    Reuters: U.S. lawmakers to introduce bill that threatens encryption on tech platforms
     
  10. guest

    guest Guest

    MI5 chief asks tech firms for 'exceptional access' to encrypted messages
    February 25, 2020
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...-for-exceptional-access-to-encrypted-messages
     
  11. deBoetie

    deBoetie Registered Member

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    Perhaps if his agency - amongst others - had not conducted unlawful and disreputable mass surveillance (now enshrined in the Investigatory Powers Act so that it's all OK), the market demand for consumer strong E2E encryption wouldn't have been so strong.

    Regardless, I thought their MO in these nominally "exceptional" cases is what they quaintly call "equipment interference" (hacking the phone, whatever). They already have the metadata.
     
  12. Stefan Froberg

    Stefan Froberg Registered Member

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    Yea, USA has had strange fixation for the need to listening it's allies and non-allies communications since WII. And they gradually expanded it to include own citizens as well (with little loophole that if just one of the communication partners is foreigner or from outside USA it's totally ok to spy). George Orwell home country has been following it's Big brother footstep too. And so has land down under.

    So like you said, they really asked for it.

    MI5 chief is asking impossible.
    By definition E2E is only between two parties and nobody else can decrypt/access it.
    If someone makes access available then it's no longer E2E.
     
  13. Stefan Froberg

    Stefan Froberg Registered Member

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    It has always been wild wild west (or www for short :D) and unregulated since day one.
    It's only now that spooks can't read peoples stuff as easily as before that they are paying attention. So now they are in hurry to control it, regulate it, break it.

    The way I see it, E2E is a must tool in nowadays. And like any other tool it can be used for bad (criminals) or
    for good (in dictator countries that like to censorship things those in power don't like or even in so called "democratic"
    countries where whistleblowers would be in serious danger)
     
  14. deBoetie

    deBoetie Registered Member

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    I think this is a deliberate tactic, in part for CYA, in part because it makes the other unacceptable behaviors seem bearable.

    The reality is that E2E is an annoyance rather than fundamental to them: 95% of the value is in the metadata and network analysis which they still have, plus location data from the phone which they also have. And, in most cases, they will also be able to hack the clients while they're still running. It's only in the uncommon cases where that isn't possible that it's harder to unlock, and often they'll be able to recover info from associates.

    As Schneier says, it's just that the golden age is slightly less golden - it's still a cornucopia for them.
     
  15. guest

    guest Guest

    DOJ Plans to Strike Against Encryption While the Techlash Iron Is Hot
    February 25, 2020
    https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/...ke-against-encryption-while-techlash-iron-hot
     
  16. guest

    guest Guest

    MI5 Still Thinks Encryption Backdoors are an Excellent Idea That Couldn't Possibly Go Wrong
    March 2, 2020
    https://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2020/03/mi5-encryption-backdoors/
     
  17. guest

    guest Guest

    EARN IT Act Not Earning Much Support Yet
    March 5, 2020
    https://duo.com/decipher/earn-it-act-not-earning-much-support-yet
    EFF: The Graham-Blumenthal Bill: A New Path for DOJ to Finally Break Encryption
     
  18. guest

    guest Guest

    Does This Bill Fight Online Child Exploitation or Kill Encryption? Depends on Who You Ask
    March 5, 2020
    https://uk.pcmag.com/security-5/125...ion-or-kill-encryption-depends-on-who-you-ask
     
  19. longshots

    longshots Registered Member

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    I've long been of the opinion that the TLA's quest for ubiquitous surveillance -- in all its forms from telephone snooping to the quest for encryption backdoors - has far more to do with an institutional sense of entitlement than any security need.

    The American intelligence services view gathering, and hoarding, strategically questionable levels of intelligence as an objective unto itself rather than something to be done in support of security objectives. Like a bunch of children playing spy vs. spy, the security apparatus is far more interested in gloating over having secret knowledge than using its legal privileges and technological capabilities to protect people.

    The long list of national security failures where ample information was available regarding threats but nothing was done to stop them reflects this.

    I'll also echo what many others have said about repression campaigns in South and Central America: the CIA didn't need backdoored encryption to know about what was going on. The CIA already knew what was going on because they were the ones encouraging, directing, and often funding, attacks by right-wing governments against their citizens.
     
  20. guest

    guest Guest

    New Warning Issued For All WhatsApp And iMessage Users: ‘Major Threat’ To Encryption
    March 14, 2020
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdof...nd-imessage-users-major-threat-to-encryption/
    EFF: The EARN IT Bill Is the Government’s Plan to Scan Every Message Online
     
  21. lucd

    lucd Registered Member

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    using these methods to prosecute criminals could be helpful and save some lives but it is dangerous too because some people believe only the authorities would have access to it which is not always the case, unfortunately hardware backdoors are everywhere to perform diagnostics and they often fall pray to bad actors which is the same with software backdoors, these are difficult to stop, if there is a mechanism, it will be found and exploited, some people will suffer, it's always like that

    it seems there is no solution to this problem, by solving one immediate problem authorities create another 10 for themselves, its not a war anybody can win
     
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2020
  22. guest

    guest Guest

    Messaging App Signal Threatens to Dump US Market if Anti-Encryption Bill Passes
    April 8, 2020
    https://uk.pcmag.com/security-5/125...dump-us-market-if-anti-encryption-bill-passes
    Signal: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question.
     
  23. guest

    guest Guest

    Going dark: encryption and law enforcement
    May 22, 2020
    https://blog.malwarebytes.com/security-world/2020/05/going-dark-encryption-and-law-enforcement/
     
  24. guest

    guest Guest

    Facebook shareholders try to block encryption plan
    May 26, 2020
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52779897
     
  25. guest

    guest Guest

    Nearly 500,000 say Congress shouldn’t ‘kill encryption’ with the EARN IT Act
    A lot of people are calling on lawmakers to kill the bill
    June 8, 2020

    https://www.dailydot.com/debug/earn-it-act-petition/
     
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