Difference between revisions of "Encryption backdoor for law enforcement"

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(Strong encryption already exists)
(Backdoors intrinsically weaken security)
 
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'''Encryption backdoor for law enforcement''' is the belief that all forms of encryption should made with a [[backdoor]] for law enforcement so they can easily defeat the encryption. The justification is that it would help catch criminals who are currently using encryption to shield themselves law enforcement.
 
'''Encryption backdoor for law enforcement''' is the belief that all forms of encryption should made with a [[backdoor]] for law enforcement so they can easily defeat the encryption. The justification is that it would help catch criminals who are currently using encryption to shield themselves law enforcement.
  
Many different arguments are made to support this position, but each form is based upon a single belief: the duty of law enforcement to protect the law is more important than the right people have to protect themselves.
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Many different arguments are made to support this position, but each form is based upon a single belief: the duty of law enforcement to protect the law is more important than the right people have to protect themselves from government overreach. Below I try to address the various issues around this topic.
  
==Arguments In Favor==
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==Issues==
===We need a backdoor to capture criminals===
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===Why do people use encryption in the first place?===
This is certainly the most popular argument, and it's pretty effective because it preys on everyone's base fears. The arguer will describe how sex traffickers and child pornographers are using encryption to setup criminal empires and how police are powerless to stop them because they encrypt all their transactions.
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There is a common saying used by people who want to take away the privacy of others, "you don't have to worry if you have nothing to hide." These people see the use of encryption as an indication someone is doing something illegal. The reality is, encryption is a tool, tools are neither good nor evil, though they can be used for both. The vast majority of people who use encryption employ it to prevent evil by protecting their financial information from thieves and their private lives against snoopers.
  
If you liken this to a safe, it's like arguing that every lock should have a two keyholes. The first is given to the owner, the second is kept by law enforcement. At any time, with just cause, law enforcement can use their key to unlock your lock. Of course, this raises all sorts of red flags. How do you guarantee law enforcement doesn't abuse their power? You can't. There are thousands of cases of agents of the law abusing their power and robbing, raping, and murdering innocent people. How do you guarantee only law enforcement ever has access to those keys? You can't. And the moment a criminal makes a copy of the master key, they immediately have the ability to open every lock in the world!
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Any person who wants to protect their assets should be using encryption on all their financial transactions so criminals can't rob them. Parents who have a baby monitor should encrypt the video stream so creeps can't watch them. Anyone who keeps a private diary or journal should encrypt them so blackmailers can't read them. Any couples who take explicit photos of each other should encrypt them so perverts can't steal them. Any government that wants to keep their state secrets out of the hands of their enemies should encrypt them. There are thousands of legitimate uses for strong encryption, and all of these should be acknowledged before backdoors should even be considered.
  
The reality is, backdoors inadvertently increase crime. The moment someone discovered how to exploit them, and someone always does, they have free reign to go on a crime spree that is often not even traceable because they appear to be using an official point of entry.
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===Backdoors intrinsically weaken security===
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Which is easier to secure, a room with one door or an otherwise identical room with two separate doors? Obviously, the room with only one door is easier to secure because it has fewer points of entry that need to be protected. This is a fundamental aspect of all security. Anyone who claims that encryption can be kept just as strong after adding a backdoor is either lying or doesn't understand basic security theory.
  
===No vault is above the law===
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In fact, the US government has tried this in the past with disastrous results. Through the NSA, the [[Wikipedia:Clipper chip|Clipper chip]] was created which contained a private form of encryption with a backdoor that could be accessed by the NSA. The US government tried to force phone manufacturers to use it, but most balked at their demands, which was a wise decision because cryptographers quickly discovered flaws in the chip and were able to hack it. The moment that happened, everyone who owned a phone with the purposely-weakened government chips became vulnerable to hackers.
This argument compares encrypted data to a vault or personal safe. With probable cause, law enforcement can get a warrant to search any vault. Therefore, if a person has encrypted data, and law enforcement is issued a warrant, they should be allowed to search the data.
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When backdoors are found, and they are ''always'' found, anything using them becomes more vulnerable, even hardware used by police and the military. Even if the backdoors aren't publicly declared, the fact that hackers know they're being used means they have a stronger desire to find them.
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===Backdoors ruin companies===
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Consumers lose trust in products with backdoors for two reasons. First, they understand that backdoors can be used by bad agents just as easily as good agents. Second, they realize that the companies who make those products are willing to compromise their client's security to help government's spy on their citizens.
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In the past, companies have suffered huge financial losses when backdoors were discovered in their products. The backdoors are added in secret, but the secrets always get out, and, when they do, users demand refunds and refuse to buy from the companies ever again. Communication companies like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Link#Vulnerabilities D-Link], [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/28/tenda_bricksup_router_backdoor Tenda and Medialink], [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei Huawei], and even [https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/09/attackers-install-highly-stealthy-backdoors-in-cisco-routers Cisco] have all sold communication hardware with backdoors, and, when they were discovered, each saw massive financial losses and pledged to eliminate the backdoors. [[Wikipedia:Crypto AG|Crypto AG]] even had to declare bankruptcy after it was discovered the company was secretly owned by the CIA who was selling encryption with backdoors so they could spy on users.
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===Does law enforcement need an encryption backdoor to catch criminals?===
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Advocates of this belief prey on everyone's base fears and argue that sex traffickers and child pornographers are running criminal empires and the police are powerless to stop them because they encrypt all their transactions.
 +
 
 +
These stories are widely blown out of proportion. Even the most sophisticated of encrypted contraband marketplaces like [[Wikipedia:Silk Road (marketplace)|Silk Road]] and [[Wikipedia:Sheep Marketplace|Sheep Marketplace]] were shut down shortly after becoming popular, and their owners and the people who used them were discovered and brought to justice. These arrests always occur without law enforcement breaking encryption, but rather by tracing money, phone calls, network traffic, and various other conventional investigative means.
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===Strong encryption already exists everywhere===
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Strong encryption that is free of backdoors already exists. Moreover, detailed instructions for its use is freely available in books and online, you can even download free open source software like [[VeraCrypt]] which uses it, and newer even stronger encryption will be thought up in the future. At this point, the only way to force weakened backdoor encryption would be to criminalize the entire concept of non-compliant encryption. Of course, since only the most authoritarian nations would comply with such a backward law, information, source code, and programs will remain freely available everywhere else in the world.
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Consider how this would affect the concept of safes. People can build their own safe, find plans for building a safe, and many people have already bought safes. If a government wanted to force safes to have a backdoor for law enforcement, it would require companies and owners to destroy every safe in existence as well as the instructions for making new ones, repurchase inferior safes, never buy a non-compliant superior safe from all the countries who still make and sell them, and never build a safe from existing materials.
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===Should encryption manufacturers be held accountable?===
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Some people who want backdoors argue that the makers of encryption communication software should be held accountable when people use it to commit crimes, but such a rule would have disastrous consequences. Imagine if we did this for all technology. If a criminal uses a phone to commit a crime, should we punish the phone manufacturer? If a criminal uses a car to commit a crime, should we punish the automotive manufacturer? And, the flip side of this argument is, should we hold law enforcement accountable for every crime they didn't prevent?
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===Can law enforcement be trusted not to abuse the backdoor?===
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Every so often a whistleblower reveals another abuse of power by government and law enforcement. At the federal level, dozens of [[Wikipedia:Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present)|mass surveillance programs]] have been instituted by governments often against their own citizens, but many more occur at state and municipal levels. These frequently result in police officers abusing their power to spy on, blackmail, and rape innocent people. Adding a backdoor to encryption would make things even easier for them to abuse their power.
  
This argument fails for encryption for the same reason it fails for vaults. If the owner of the vault refuses to open the vault for them, law enforcement is hindered. They can punish the owner in an attempt to compel them to open it, but if they claim they've lost they key or forgotten the combination, it won't do them any good. The only recourse is trying to break into the vault, but if the vault is so well constructed that requires a lot of time and money to break into it, law enforcement is stuck. Likewise with encryption, the owner of the encrypted file can refuse to decrypt it claiming they forgot the password, at which point, law enforcement must spend the time and money necessary to crack the encryption.
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Another problem is, laws aren't necessarily moral; slavery was legal, but it was still evil. One of the primary reasons democracies grant privacy to their citizens is because they realize that they should be allowed some autonomy outside of the law provided they're not hurting others.
  
==Arguments Against==
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===Even if law enforcement could be trusted, would a backdoor decrease crime?===
===Backdoors hurt security===
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Those who demand a backdoor are essentially stating that weakened encryption must be viewed as an acceptable loss in privacy order to catch criminals. But does that pan out? Let's pretend that law enforcement could be implicitly trusted to never abuse the power bestowed upon them with the encryption backdoor. Shouldn't we then expect to see a decrease in crime as criminals employing encryption are brought to justice? In fact, the opposite would probably be true.
Those who argue encryption needs a backdoor don't understand what they're asking for. Their demand is that encryption continue to be just as powerful to keep out criminals, but simply have a backdoor for law enforcement. This is impossible. Which is more secure. a house with thick concrete walls and a single door or a house with thick concrete walls, two doors, three windows, and a chimney? When it comes to security, the more points of entry that exist, the worse the security.
 
  
Governments rely on strong encryption to keep their state secrets protected, companies rely on strong security to keep their financial details protected, individuals rely on strong security to keep their private lives protected. Adding a backdoor makes you more vulnerable to spies, thieves, and abusers.
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By weakening encryption, it would suddenly become much easier for criminals to gain access to all your sensitive information. With it, they could easily rob, defraud, and blackmail innocent people. Because of this, backdoors will probably inadvertently increase the amount of crime.
  
===A backdoor ruins a company===
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===No vault is above the law===
In the past, companies have suffered huge losses when backdoors were discovered in their products. This is always done in secret, after all, who would buy a product with a known vulnerability, but the secrets always get out, and, when they do, the companies suffer greatly. Companies like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Link#Vulnerabilities D-Link], [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/28/tenda_bricksup_router_backdoor Tenda and Medialink], and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei Huawei] have all sold networking hardware with backdoors and have all seen massive financial losses after their discoveries.
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An argument often made by proponents of this belief compares encrypted data to a vault or personal safe. With probable cause, law enforcement can get a warrant to search any vault. Therefore, if a person has encrypted data, and law enforcement is issued a warrant, they should be allowed to search the data.
  
===Strong encryption already exists===
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This argument fails for encryption for the same reason it fails for vaults. If the owner of the vault refuses to open the vault for them, law enforcement is hindered. They can punish the owner in an attempt to compel them to open it, but if the owner still refuses, or claims they lost the key, it won't do them any good. The only recourse is trying to break into the vault. Likewise with encryption, the owner of the encrypted file can refuse to decrypt it claiming they forgot the password, at which point, law enforcement must spend the time and money necessary to crack the encryption.
Strong encryption that is free of backdoors already exists, moreover, detailed instructions for its use is freely available everywhere, and so is premade free open source code. At this point, the only way to force weakened backdoor encryption would be to criminalize the entire concept of encryption and hope everyone complies. Trying to do this would be like trying to replace a free book online that many people already had with an inferior copy. Nobody would purposely get the inferior copy, so you'd have to outlawing the original and demand everyone delete their existing copy.
 
  
 
==Links==
 
==Links==
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{{Link|Wikipedia|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backdoor_(computing)}}
  
  
 
[[Category: Cryptography]]
 
[[Category: Cryptography]]
 
[[Category: Law Enforcement]]
 
[[Category: Law Enforcement]]

Latest revision as of 21:11, 11 July 2023

Encryption backdoor for law enforcement is the belief that all forms of encryption should made with a backdoor for law enforcement so they can easily defeat the encryption. The justification is that it would help catch criminals who are currently using encryption to shield themselves law enforcement.

Many different arguments are made to support this position, but each form is based upon a single belief: the duty of law enforcement to protect the law is more important than the right people have to protect themselves from government overreach. Below I try to address the various issues around this topic.

Issues

Why do people use encryption in the first place?

There is a common saying used by people who want to take away the privacy of others, "you don't have to worry if you have nothing to hide." These people see the use of encryption as an indication someone is doing something illegal. The reality is, encryption is a tool, tools are neither good nor evil, though they can be used for both. The vast majority of people who use encryption employ it to prevent evil by protecting their financial information from thieves and their private lives against snoopers.

Any person who wants to protect their assets should be using encryption on all their financial transactions so criminals can't rob them. Parents who have a baby monitor should encrypt the video stream so creeps can't watch them. Anyone who keeps a private diary or journal should encrypt them so blackmailers can't read them. Any couples who take explicit photos of each other should encrypt them so perverts can't steal them. Any government that wants to keep their state secrets out of the hands of their enemies should encrypt them. There are thousands of legitimate uses for strong encryption, and all of these should be acknowledged before backdoors should even be considered.

Backdoors intrinsically weaken security

Which is easier to secure, a room with one door or an otherwise identical room with two separate doors? Obviously, the room with only one door is easier to secure because it has fewer points of entry that need to be protected. This is a fundamental aspect of all security. Anyone who claims that encryption can be kept just as strong after adding a backdoor is either lying or doesn't understand basic security theory.

In fact, the US government has tried this in the past with disastrous results. Through the NSA, the Clipper chip was created which contained a private form of encryption with a backdoor that could be accessed by the NSA. The US government tried to force phone manufacturers to use it, but most balked at their demands, which was a wise decision because cryptographers quickly discovered flaws in the chip and were able to hack it. The moment that happened, everyone who owned a phone with the purposely-weakened government chips became vulnerable to hackers.

When backdoors are found, and they are always found, anything using them becomes more vulnerable, even hardware used by police and the military. Even if the backdoors aren't publicly declared, the fact that hackers know they're being used means they have a stronger desire to find them.

Backdoors ruin companies

Consumers lose trust in products with backdoors for two reasons. First, they understand that backdoors can be used by bad agents just as easily as good agents. Second, they realize that the companies who make those products are willing to compromise their client's security to help government's spy on their citizens.

In the past, companies have suffered huge financial losses when backdoors were discovered in their products. The backdoors are added in secret, but the secrets always get out, and, when they do, users demand refunds and refuse to buy from the companies ever again. Communication companies like D-Link, Tenda and Medialink, Huawei, and even Cisco have all sold communication hardware with backdoors, and, when they were discovered, each saw massive financial losses and pledged to eliminate the backdoors. Crypto AG even had to declare bankruptcy after it was discovered the company was secretly owned by the CIA who was selling encryption with backdoors so they could spy on users.

Does law enforcement need an encryption backdoor to catch criminals?

Advocates of this belief prey on everyone's base fears and argue that sex traffickers and child pornographers are running criminal empires and the police are powerless to stop them because they encrypt all their transactions.

These stories are widely blown out of proportion. Even the most sophisticated of encrypted contraband marketplaces like Silk Road and Sheep Marketplace were shut down shortly after becoming popular, and their owners and the people who used them were discovered and brought to justice. These arrests always occur without law enforcement breaking encryption, but rather by tracing money, phone calls, network traffic, and various other conventional investigative means.

Strong encryption already exists everywhere

Strong encryption that is free of backdoors already exists. Moreover, detailed instructions for its use is freely available in books and online, you can even download free open source software like VeraCrypt which uses it, and newer even stronger encryption will be thought up in the future. At this point, the only way to force weakened backdoor encryption would be to criminalize the entire concept of non-compliant encryption. Of course, since only the most authoritarian nations would comply with such a backward law, information, source code, and programs will remain freely available everywhere else in the world.

Consider how this would affect the concept of safes. People can build their own safe, find plans for building a safe, and many people have already bought safes. If a government wanted to force safes to have a backdoor for law enforcement, it would require companies and owners to destroy every safe in existence as well as the instructions for making new ones, repurchase inferior safes, never buy a non-compliant superior safe from all the countries who still make and sell them, and never build a safe from existing materials.

Should encryption manufacturers be held accountable?

Some people who want backdoors argue that the makers of encryption communication software should be held accountable when people use it to commit crimes, but such a rule would have disastrous consequences. Imagine if we did this for all technology. If a criminal uses a phone to commit a crime, should we punish the phone manufacturer? If a criminal uses a car to commit a crime, should we punish the automotive manufacturer? And, the flip side of this argument is, should we hold law enforcement accountable for every crime they didn't prevent?

Can law enforcement be trusted not to abuse the backdoor?

Every so often a whistleblower reveals another abuse of power by government and law enforcement. At the federal level, dozens of mass surveillance programs have been instituted by governments often against their own citizens, but many more occur at state and municipal levels. These frequently result in police officers abusing their power to spy on, blackmail, and rape innocent people. Adding a backdoor to encryption would make things even easier for them to abuse their power.

Another problem is, laws aren't necessarily moral; slavery was legal, but it was still evil. One of the primary reasons democracies grant privacy to their citizens is because they realize that they should be allowed some autonomy outside of the law provided they're not hurting others.

Even if law enforcement could be trusted, would a backdoor decrease crime?

Those who demand a backdoor are essentially stating that weakened encryption must be viewed as an acceptable loss in privacy order to catch criminals. But does that pan out? Let's pretend that law enforcement could be implicitly trusted to never abuse the power bestowed upon them with the encryption backdoor. Shouldn't we then expect to see a decrease in crime as criminals employing encryption are brought to justice? In fact, the opposite would probably be true.

By weakening encryption, it would suddenly become much easier for criminals to gain access to all your sensitive information. With it, they could easily rob, defraud, and blackmail innocent people. Because of this, backdoors will probably inadvertently increase the amount of crime.

No vault is above the law

An argument often made by proponents of this belief compares encrypted data to a vault or personal safe. With probable cause, law enforcement can get a warrant to search any vault. Therefore, if a person has encrypted data, and law enforcement is issued a warrant, they should be allowed to search the data.

This argument fails for encryption for the same reason it fails for vaults. If the owner of the vault refuses to open the vault for them, law enforcement is hindered. They can punish the owner in an attempt to compel them to open it, but if the owner still refuses, or claims they lost the key, it won't do them any good. The only recourse is trying to break into the vault. Likewise with encryption, the owner of the encrypted file can refuse to decrypt it claiming they forgot the password, at which point, law enforcement must spend the time and money necessary to crack the encryption.

Links

Link-Wikipedia.png