“Five Eyes’ governments call on tech giants to build encryption backdoors — or else

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Richard Forno <rforno () infowarrior org>
> Date: September 3, 2018 at 14:26:47 EDT
> To: infowarrior list <infowarrior () attrition org>
> Cc: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: ‘Five Eyes’ governments call on tech giants to build encryption backdoors — or else
>
> ‘Five Eyes’ governments call on tech giants to build encryption backdoors — or else
>
> Zack Whittaker@zackwhittaker / 46 minutes ago
>
> https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/03/five-eyes-governments-call-on-tech-giants-to-build-encryption-backdoors-or-else/
>
> A pact of five nation states dedicated to a global “collect it all” surveillance mission has issued a memo calling on 
> their governments to demand tech companies build backdoor access to their users’ encrypted data — or face measures to 
> force companies to comply.
>
> The international pact — the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, known as the so-called “Five Eyes” group of 
> nations — quietly issued the memo last week demanding that providers “create customized solutions, tailored to their 
> individual system architectures that are capable of meeting lawful access requirements.”
>
> This kind of backdoor access would allow each government access to encrypted call and message data on their citizens. 
> If the companies don’t voluntarily allow access, the nations threatened to push through new legislation that would 
> compel their help.
>
> “Should governments continue to encounter impediments to lawful access to information necessary to aid the protection 
> of the citizens of our countries, we may pursue technological, enforcement, legislative or other measures to achieve 
> lawful access solutions,” read the memo, issued by the Australian government on behalf of the pact.
>
> It’s the latest move in an ongoing aggression by the group of governments, which met in Australia last week.
>
> The Five Eyes pact was born to collect and share intelligence across the five countries, using each nations’ 
> diplomatic power and strategic locations as chokepoints to gather the rest of the world’s communications.
>
> Since the Edward Snowden disclosures in 2013, tech companies have doubled down on their efforts to shut out 
> government’s lawful access to data with encryption. By using end-to-end encryption — where the data is scrambled from 
> one device to another — even the tech companies can’t read their users’ messages.
>
> Without access, law enforcement has extensively lobbied against companies using end-to-end encryption, claiming it 
> hinders criminal investigations.
>
> Security researchers and other critics of encryption backdoors have long said there’s no mathematical or workable way 
> to create a “secure backdoor” that isn’t also impervious to attack by hackers, and widely derided any backdoor effort.
>
> In 2016, rhetoric turned to action when the FBI launched a lawsuit to force Apple to force the company to build a 
> tool to bypass the encryption in an iPhone used by the San Bernardino shooter, who killed 14 people in a terrorist 
> attack months earlier.
>
> The FBI dropped the case after it found hackers able to break into the phone.
>
> But last month, the US government renewed its effort to set legal precedent by targeting Facebook Messenger’s 
> end-to-end encryption. The case, filed under sealed, aims to break the encryption on the messaging app to wiretap 
> conversations on suspected criminals.
>
> It’s not the first time the Five Eyes nations have called for encryption backdoors. An Australian government memo 
> last year called for action against unbreakable encryption.
>
> Although the UK’s more recent intelligence laws have been interpreted as allowing the government to compel companies 
> to break their own encryption, wider legal efforts across the other member states have failed to pass.



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