Should Internet And Technology Firms Do More To Help The Fight Against Extremism?

[anotheoldgit]

Or is this one more step towards losing any of the confidentiality that we may still have?

I know some will say "if you have nothing to hide, why bother" in fact I have said that many times myself, but how far should the state be allowed to go?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4350264/Rudd-demands-access-encrypted-WhatsApp-messages.html

[youngmafbog]

yes they can and there is plenty that can be done before giving up any personal freedoms. Simply enforce the laws/rules already in place first.

[Samjenko]

I reckon they already decrypt Whatsapp messages, AOG. They just want all the terrorists to think they can't.

[Samjenko]

Wouldn't have been very clever to tell the Germans when we broke the Enigma code. ;)

[anotheoldgit]

Samjenko

You may have a good valid point there, but wasn't it once reported that some phone manufacturer refused to unblock a phone for the security services?

I can't supply the link, because it seems to be locked, but here the headline, maybe Google that:

/// iApple vows to resist FBI demand to crack iPhone linked to San Bernardino attacks ///

[HansUrbancka]

Apple was all set to resist in Court the unblocking of the iPhone but the FBI was able to crack the coding concerned. (or did Apple secretly tell the FBI how do do it ?).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-has-accessed-san-bernardino-shooters-phone-without-apples-help/2016/03/28/e593a0e2-f52b-11e5-9804-537defcc3cf6_story.html

Hans.

[Bertrum]

A step too far, once you open a back door to encryption it is a target for criminal and malicious hackers. Communications not just with friends and colleagues but finance and business etc. rely on encryption, even with encryption if you think you are safe think again how many individuals, companies, governments have been hacked without back doors. If you have nothing to hide why do we all use pseudonyms on here. Governments do not like it when they cannot spy on their own citizens and 99.9% of them are totally innocent

[sp1814]

Apple were right to resist the FBI. Without going too much into the technical stuff - this is what happened:

The FBI had the iphone of a terror suspect, but it was locked with a passcode.

In this state, even technicians at Apple cannot break into the phone.

The FBI wanted Apple to create a version of its own operating system with a 'back door', which would allow security services into any iPhone or iPad.

And there's the problem...once this hacked operating system is out, it's out. Law enforcement officers from all over the world would start requesting access to the code and eventually it would fall into the wrong hands and then boom - every iPhone in the world is compromised.

[Samjenko]

^I thought that Vault7 stuff from Wikileaks said iphones had a built-in back door.

[mikey4444]

If it can be proved that someone has made use of these apps, in order to commit acts of terror, than yes, they ruddy well should help the Authorities, in any way they can......its just common sense to me.

[jim360]

I'm not sure there's a deliberate back door built in to that much -- certainly there are a couple of services that are supposedly, but not entirely, secure. But there's some level at which it doesn't matter. A fair few "secure" services are accidentally not, because flaws almost always exist and can be found and exploited. That's why Windows is updating all the time, for example -- because there are stupidly obscure but still existent technical flaws that hackers of any kind can exploit.

Amber Rudd is understandably concerned but in reality there's no way for governments to have access to encrypted information in a way that is itself secure -- either because they have access via a "back door" that someone else more nefarious can unlock, or because their own security is compromised. Think of all the data left lying around on trains some years back, or just all the officials whose total competence you'd have to trust in.

I don't for a second believe that the government would want to use any data of mine maliciously, so for me it's not about fearing big government exactly. Just that it's a given that anything they can do, some criminals can as well (and perhaps even do easier because criminals aren't constrained by any kind of ethics).

The thing is that this has come up before, and again and again it's been shown that the idea that government can have access but no-one else can just fails at the first hurdle. I'm surprised that Amber Rudd hasn't, you know, talked to experts about this, or done any kind of research. Or perhaps I'm not, because maybe she never really thought about this before becoming Home Secretary. Still, maybe after understanding the issue better she'll relax her position.

Helpful video:

[jno]

Think of all the data left lying around on trains some years back

or indeed two weeks ago

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/13/document-detailing-theresa-mays-travel-plans-left-on-train

[Peter Pedant]

// Wouldn't have been very clever to tell the Germans when we broke the Enigma code. ;)// sj

in fact there were repeated german inquiries internally to decide whether enigma had been broken - Donitz thought it had but was mollified by the addition of the fourth wheel - which caused the 'shark black-out'

the japanese had no idea the americans were reading Purple and the americans and british were reading JN 25
they assumed that japanese was so complicated that no one would even try ! Because the American seemed to know so much that went on in Japan - an order was given to massacre ALL the pows to begin Sept 1945

not really on point but what the hell

yeah I agree I think they can do it already
( so called back-door)