The government has been trying to weaken all forces of encryption for ages. There have been rumors that random number generators have been weakened in almost all operating systems available.
There are black sites that intercept packages from major carriers in the US to install custom firmware on network equipment shipped to large organizations and factory re-seal them.
The NSA has also infected hard drive firmware with malware to give them full access regardless of encryption used and persist across hardware wiping.
Governments want full unfettered access to all data regardless of who owns that data. In their perfect world, encryption would be limited to government use only. They will do anything possible to make this happen, regardless of legality. As time goes on, it will just get worse.
This cartoon was created when the FBI was trying to force Apple to allow them past their encryption on their iPhone devices. Any access granted to the NSA is also granted to anyone with the know how to access it. What the NSA has access to is not limited to the NSA, there have been multiple instances where NSA tools have been leaked.
If this happens while there are backdoors in encryption, nothing will be safe. Your Facebook account, Steem wallet, even bank accounts will be easy pickings for anyone with access to the tools and know how.
In a recent meeting between Australia, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand it was argued that governments need to force backdoors in all known encryption methods. This is for the safety of you and me to prevent terrorism and crime.
"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," the Five-Eyes joint statement on encryption said.
Encryption with a backdoor is not encryption, in fact, it is no better than your front door in your house. We all know if someone wants to get into your house, no lock on your front door will stop them. It's far easier to just kick through a window if they want to get in, they will. As they say, "locks are to keep your friends out".
Backdoors in encryption will undermine the very purpose of encryption and will create a state of chaos. No one will be able to trust anything to be safe, not just from the government, but from hackers and criminals.
I can't imagine a world where encryption is no longer trustable. Every bank account could be compromised in an instant, possibly at once. A third party government could crimple another country by compromising the resources of their citizens.
At this point, I don't know of anything that can be done to stop this erosion of privacy and ultimately security. I fear for our future and more importantly my son's. If it wasn't for Edward Snowden, this may have happened without anyone actually knowing or even caring (due to lack of understanding).
Sadly, I'm not optimistic.
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Getting access to one individual is just a small chunk of whole thing. I am not sure if you watched documentary 'Zero Days' based on Stuxnet. These are all very powerful organizations which can actual break down whole country in the event of cyber war.
National security is one thing but how accountability can be ensured that is nowhere to be seen yet.
But of course, whenever the governments want to violate our privacy again and again and again, they do it to protect us from their imaginary terrorists. The usual scare tactics that work marvels against the sheeplings. I'm extremely disappointed by Canada, they're supposed to be an example for freedom, liberty and human rights, yet they go along with such practices that violate the essence of what they preach, cuz Murrica said so.
Use independent and open source tools to encrypt your sensitive and private data. VeraCrypt (previously TrueCrypt) has been my friend for a long time.
They want to control all of us. but it also true that they can't even control their So called Security Agencies "while these agencies leak every fuc**** tool to Hackers"
I have been thinking about this as well as I have thought that the rise of decentralized solutions have gotten the interest of many people I could imagine the major government have seen this as a threat. It is not everyday that citizens can fijd solutions to be totally free from their control and they would to keep it that ways so I feel it is no too surprising. Unfortunate but not surprised.
Who has actually log a compliant against it though. I hear a lot of complaining yet zero action.
You have til the 10th Sep
https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/2018/08/19/defend-encryption/
How would you propose one places a secret back door in an open source project like steem?
I don't propose anyone puts a secret backdoor in anything.
My misread then, sorry. Didn't mean to put words in your mouth.
I was pretty clear in the post I am not a fan of this and always have defended privacy. I work in the security industry, this direction scares me.
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