This was a delightful read. Two contrasting points of view coming together without a flame war. For a second I had to double check that I was on the internet.
Me, I don’t know where I stand. I think if it eliminated CSAM, terrorism and other such things, it’s a price worth paying.
What I need to be convinced of is the scale of that elimination, because if erosion of privacy is the cost paid, people (as in Joe Public) will want to see returns on that.
What I think it’ll actually do is move offenders away from those platforms and onto ones that are even harder to monitor. I mean, I’d assume that Meta will be able to see who is talking to who even without the content, which puts some pieces of the puzzle together in the presence of other evidence. I’d also assume end to end encryption doesn’t mean much if the app itself has a CVE that leaks information once decrypted, and it certainly doesn’t mean much if authorities have possession of your device (in the UK, not unlocking a device and apps when asked to is itself a punishable crime).
So if all this will do is drive people to platforms that eliminate such things and make the job of law enforcement even harder, it isn’t worth it.
But if there’s more to it than that, it might be. Im guessing it’s feasible that WhatsApp push out an update that sends them your private keys, because I’m assuming the app itself has access to them. If Im right, then in theory the end of E2EE could open up a huge backlog of messages and solve “historic” crimes. If that’s the case, it might be worth it.
Too many variables for me, so Im placing myself firmly in the “I don’t know” camp.
Me, I don’t know where I stand. I think if it eliminated CSAM, terrorism and other such things, it’s a price worth paying.
What I need to be convinced of is the scale of that elimination, because if erosion of privacy is the cost paid, people (as in Joe Public) will want to see returns on that.
What I think it’ll actually do is move offenders away from those platforms and onto ones that are even harder to monitor. I mean, I’d assume that Meta will be able to see who is talking to who even without the content, which puts some pieces of the puzzle together in the presence of other evidence. I’d also assume end to end encryption doesn’t mean much if the app itself has a CVE that leaks information once decrypted, and it certainly doesn’t mean much if authorities have possession of your device (in the UK, not unlocking a device and apps when asked to is itself a punishable crime).
So if all this will do is drive people to platforms that eliminate such things and make the job of law enforcement even harder, it isn’t worth it.
But if there’s more to it than that, it might be. Im guessing it’s feasible that WhatsApp push out an update that sends them your private keys, because I’m assuming the app itself has access to them. If Im right, then in theory the end of E2EE could open up a huge backlog of messages and solve “historic” crimes. If that’s the case, it might be worth it.
Too many variables for me, so Im placing myself firmly in the “I don’t know” camp.