Leaf&Core

Government Intelligence Organizations Advise Tech Companies to Build Backdoors

Danielle from Leaf and Core
Reading Time: 2 minutes.

Facebook's security on Messenger encrypts your messages between users. Computer security is personal security. If hackers and thieves can easily gain access to your devices, identity theft, blackmail, and hate crimes would rise. The act of losing your phone could be more than just the cost of a new device. A hacker or thief could use all of your finances, your personal messages, photographs, and in countries where it’s forbidden or taboo, even your sexual orientation and relationships against you. Furthermore, identity theft would be a simple task. That’s why tech experts can’t emphasize the need for strong encryption in our devices and communication methods enough. It’s the only way to protect everyone from cybercrime.

It’s also a way to prevent government snooping. In autocratic societies, broken encryption could mean the end of protest and resistance against an oppressive government. You could bet every penny you have that, if they had the chance, the U.S. government, which is currently denying passports to Latino people with U.S. birth certificates born along the U.S. border with Mexico, would use cellphones to try to define a person’s citizenship. In Russia and other countries where homosexuality is illegal, it would be used to prove same sex attraction, for caning, whipping, arrests, or death.

This is why it’s particularly troubling to see the intelligence community known as the “Five Eyes,” made up of intelligence officials from the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, supports encryption backdoors. Tech companies would provide keys to their governments and police forces to allow them to crack any encryption. This would severely weaken encryption, making devices easier to hack. Furthermore, the keys would likely leak, as we’ve already seen with other such technologies.

The Five Eyes are putting the people of the world in danger with their demands.

Apple vs FBI, DOJ vs Facebook

We’ve already seen this in the United States a number of times. The FBI tried to force Apple—against its employees’ first amendment rights—to write code to provide an easily hacked version of iOS. The Department of Justice made a similar request to Facebook, which encrypts Messenger communications, as well as all messages on WhatsApp.

So far, in the U.S., privacy and security have prevailed. The government has not won the right to force American citizens to write dangerous code against their will. Instead, government organizations like the FBI and local police departments have been using password cracking tools like Graykey to get into iPhones. However, iOS 12 will render this method useless, as would a long, secure password. Hackers stole some source code from the makers of Graykey, and a developer accidentally released Microsoft’s “golden key,” proving that no backdoor could stay private forever.

Five Eyes

Fortunately, the Five Eyes organization does not have legislative power. However, they have lobbying power. In the United States, that’s almost better. The organization is demanding that companies like Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft make their products less secure. They want backdoors into every device. They claim that, if these companies do not make these tools, they’ll push legislation that will force their hands. Among conservative politicians, such laws have been popular. Donald Trump cursed out Apple for providing their users with safety and privacy already.

The only way to win this fight is to protect first and fourth amendment rights. Furthermore, we need to demand that our government protects the security of U.S. citizens as well as U.S. diplomats, operatives, and politicians. The EFF and ACLU will be instrumental in this fight for citizens’ rights. Also, remember, if you’re not going to encrypt your entire backup, definitely consider local encrypted disks. Protect yourself now, while you can.

 

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