• merde alors@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    37
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Various lawmakers in different countries are proposing to require messaging services to provide a mechanism for law enforcement to decrypt end-to-end encrypted messages. This kind of legislation fundamentally misunderstands how easy it is for bad people to build their own end-to-end encryption layers on top of other messaging systems.

    Requiring Signal, WhatsApp, and so on to introduce vulnerabilities into their products does not make life much harder for criminals. Criminals can easily build or buy an extra layer of encryption on top and exchange messages that can’t be decrypted.

    It does make everyone else less safe. If a backdoor exists and is usable by authorised people, it will eventually be exploited and used by malicious people.

    This repository contains a trivial demonstration of this. 👉

    • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      1 year ago

      It does make everyone else less safe.

      This is all the evidence one should need that these laws are about control, not safety.

      • Gabu@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        It’s the age old political weapon of saying “but think of the children” before doing something horrible.