Western governments, notably the U.K. and the United States, are pushing the software industry to open “backdoors” into our encrypted communications.
The argument touted by government agencies for nearly 20 years is that terrorists use strong encryption to hide their communications, therefore we should ban strong encryption.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has been outspoken in his desire for such a ban.
And last week, President Barak Obama’s chief of staff and a team of national security officials flew to Silicon Valley to meet with top technology companies Twitter, Microsoft, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Apple, and Dropbox. It’s likely they discussed collaboration between the Silicon Valley and the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement on backdooring encryption.
Next week, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will meet the U.S. president in Washington, D.C., and encryption may also be on their security agenda.
Australia is already a member of the “5-Eyes“ alliance, and a user of the PRISM regime to spy on citizens, which was revealed by Edward Snowden. It is also a signatory to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). It seems likely Australia will try to follow the U.S. and U.K. lead.
In response to this push to undermine encryption, an open letter to governments, called “Secure the Internet,” was published this week. It is signed by more than 170 companies, organizations, and individuals from around the world, including leading data security researchers.
The letter calls for all governments to reject backdooring or the weakening of encryption products.
Keys to the Door
Encryption is used by most of us every day, typically with no conscious effort. If you log into your email or bank site with an address starting “https://” then you are using encryption.
It seems likely governments around the world are trying to either woo or cajole the tech industry and security researchers to “break” the software they build by installing backdoors or other holes for the government to access our communications effortlessly.
The problem with installing backdoors is that bad actors—organized crime, fraudsters, hostile foreign governments, and the like—may also focus their attention on these security holes. Any universal “passkey” built into such a system would be immensely valuable, and worth spending enormous resources to capture, thus making those who had them significant targets for espionage.
