I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, I’m assuming you don’t know that likening anyone who doesn’t want to have all of their personal information viewed to terrorists and paedophiles is the classic “what do you have to hide?” authoritarian argument to spy on everyone all the time.
There have already been plenty of cases of data collected without a warrant just because they could.
Do you still want that data to be collected and used to prosecute you if whichever political party you don’t like get in and make something you like doing illegal?
It is impossible to make a backdoor that only goodies can use. The actual terrorists and paedophiles will use a non-backdoored system, meanwhile every criminal organisation and rival nation state will eventually find out how to use the backdoor and get everyone’s information.
I’m not comparing privacy fans to paedophiles and terrorists, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is that I want serious criminals to be caught.
I think properly private technology is good to protect yourself from an authoritarian government for example. You could use something like Signal for messaging (I’ve not used it, but apparently it’s good).
But the big popular platforms like WhatsApp and iMessage, which many laypeople use just because they’re popular - on those platforms I think it makes sense for law enforcement to be able to access messages, but only in certain circumstances. So maybe Apple could keep the encryption key and they could decrypt someone’s messages if a court warrant is issued.
I’m not saying end-to-end encryption should be entirely outlawed. Hopefully services like Signal would still exist. Sure, some criminals might jump to those platforms, but you could still catch some at least, who use big services like iMessage.
If that means compromising encryption, which it does, then the benefits to everyone of end-to-end encryption and the protection it affords against both government overreach/abuse and third-party intruders tend to outweigh the benefits of government surveillance through encryption backdoors.
Maybe only the biggest companies should be required to be able to decrypt certain messages if a court warrant is produced. Privacy fans could use services exempt from this requirement, like Signal. But there are laypeople who just use iMessage because it’s the default, and you could catch criminals sending bad stuff over iMessage.
I think there are valid concerns on both sides of the argument… but I am just imagining if you have a group of violent people planning an attack over iMessage, I want law enforcement to be able to read those messages.
Can’t law enforcement already read those messages by getting a warrant to seize the suspect’s phone and attempting to break into it? Why do they suddenly need to preemptively break into everyone’s phone?
I guess I think of it like bugging a phone. The technology for bugging phones has been around for a long time, but that doesn’t mean the authorities are bugging everybody’s phones all the time. Even if they can theoretically listen to everyone’s conversations, that doesn’t mean they are always listening. There would be too many conversations to listen to.
Controversial opinion: maybe it’s a good thing to allow law enforcement to access communications when necessary (e.g. with a court warrant)
Do we want serious criminals like terrorists and paedophiles to be able to plan their crimes with impunity?
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, I’m assuming you don’t know that likening anyone who doesn’t want to have all of their personal information viewed to terrorists and paedophiles is the classic “what do you have to hide?” authoritarian argument to spy on everyone all the time.
I’m not comparing privacy fans to paedophiles and terrorists, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is that I want serious criminals to be caught.
I think properly private technology is good to protect yourself from an authoritarian government for example. You could use something like Signal for messaging (I’ve not used it, but apparently it’s good).
But the big popular platforms like WhatsApp and iMessage, which many laypeople use just because they’re popular - on those platforms I think it makes sense for law enforcement to be able to access messages, but only in certain circumstances. So maybe Apple could keep the encryption key and they could decrypt someone’s messages if a court warrant is issued.
I’m not saying end-to-end encryption should be entirely outlawed. Hopefully services like Signal would still exist. Sure, some criminals might jump to those platforms, but you could still catch some at least, who use big services like iMessage.
If that means compromising encryption, which it does, then the benefits to everyone of end-to-end encryption and the protection it affords against both government overreach/abuse and third-party intruders tend to outweigh the benefits of government surveillance through encryption backdoors.
Maybe only the biggest companies should be required to be able to decrypt certain messages if a court warrant is produced. Privacy fans could use services exempt from this requirement, like Signal. But there are laypeople who just use iMessage because it’s the default, and you could catch criminals sending bad stuff over iMessage.
I think there are valid concerns on both sides of the argument… but I am just imagining if you have a group of violent people planning an attack over iMessage, I want law enforcement to be able to read those messages.
Can’t law enforcement already read those messages by getting a warrant to seize the suspect’s phone and attempting to break into it? Why do they suddenly need to preemptively break into everyone’s phone?
I guess I think of it like bugging a phone. The technology for bugging phones has been around for a long time, but that doesn’t mean the authorities are bugging everybody’s phones all the time. Even if they can theoretically listen to everyone’s conversations, that doesn’t mean they are always listening. There would be too many conversations to listen to.