Lauren's Blog: "By Killing Encryption, Our Leaders Are Delivering Us to the Terrorists"

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Date: Mon, Jun 19, 2017 at 12:43 PM
Subject: [ NNSquad ] Lauren's Blog: "By Killing Encryption, Our Leaders Are
Delivering Us to the Terrorists"
To: <nnsquad () nnsquad org>



    By Killing Encryption, Our Leaders Are Delivering Us to the Terrorists

https://lauren.vortex.com/2017/06/19/by-killing-encryption-our-leaders-are-delivering-us-to-the-terrorists


The phrase "Like a lamb to slaughter" originates from biblical times.
And it when comes to the rising chorus of politicians demanding an end
to public availability of strong, end-to-end encryption, it's we
law-abiding citizens who are the lambs about to have our
throats cut -- by our own leaders.

Every time there's a terrorist attack, politicians around the world
(including here in the USA) are back in front of the cameras demanding
government access to our private encrypted communications.

Make no mistake about it, these leaders might as well be on the
payroll of the terrorists and other criminal organizations, because
such demands if implemented would sell us all down the river, and make
our lives vastly more dangerous.

We are far, far more at risk from these politicians wrecking our
communications security than we are from terrorists and other
criminals themselves in the absence of such weakened technology.

Our lives are increasingly utterly dependent on the security of
computer-based communications systems, and this is true even for
persons who've never touched a computer keyboard or a smartphone.

Our financial and so many other aspects of our personal lives are
intertwined with the security and sanctity of strong encryption, and
for persons living under the thumb of repressive regimes, their mortal
lives themselves hang in the balance when communications security
becomes compromised.

Let's be utterly clear about this. When you're told that it's possible
to give governments access to our secure communications without
fatally weakening the underlying encryption systems, you are being
told a lie, plain and simple.

The very act of building a "backdoor" into these systems fundamentally
weakens them, putting honest citizens at enormous risk not only for
government abuses and mistakes, but also for attacks by black-hat
hackers, terrorists, and other criminals of all sorts who will find
ways to exploit these government-mandated flaws.

Meanwhile, terrorists and other criminals won't sit back and use these
horrifically compromised communications systems. They'll move to
existing and under development strong end-to-end encryption systems
without backdoors -- independent apps that are impossible for
governments to effectively control.

Government demands for backdoor access to encryption are a disaster
for everyone but the evil forces that these politicians claim will be
destroyed.

If one assumes for the sake of the argument that our leaders aren't
actually in league with such heinous entities, one is also forced to
assume that either these politicians are getting terrible technical
advice -- or most likely of all -- are simply ignoring the known facts
in furtherance of pandering and sowing fear for political gains,
regardless of the negative consequences on all of us.

Of course, even though governments might try to ban such use, in
practice it would likely prove extremely difficult to stop honest,
law-abiding citizens from using independent, non-backdoored strong
crypto apps themselves -- just like evil is sure to do.

Governments don't like to contemplate honest persons taking such
independent steps to control their own destinies. Politicians by and
large prefer to think of us like those sheep.

Whether or not our leaders are accurate in such a characterization, is
ultimately our decision, not theirs.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren () vortex com): https://www.vortex.com/lauren
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Google Issues Mailing List: https://vortex.com/google-issues
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
         PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility:
https://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Google+: https://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
--- I
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