Image Credits: suhailzamaan.col
This is a test post for the best of everyne knowledge
IMAGE CREDITS: suhailzamaan.com
compromise the data security enabled by encryption.
While backdoors are in the news again, thanks to the U.K. going after Apple’s encrypted iCloud backups, it’s important to be aware that data access demands date back decades.
Back in the 1990s, for example, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) developed encrypted hardware for processing voice and data messages that had a backdoor baked into it — with the goal of allowing the security services to intercept encrypted communications. The “Clipper Chip,” as it was known, used a system of key escrow — meaning an encryption key was created and stored by government agencies in order to facilitate access to the encrypted data in the event that state authorities wanted in.
The NSA’s attempt to flog chips with baked-in backdoors failed over a lack of adoption following a security and privacy backlash. Though the Clipper Chip is credited with helping to fire up cryptologists’ efforts to develop and spread strong encryption software in a bid to secure data against prying government overreach.
The Clipper Chip is also a good example of where an attempt to mandate system access was done publicly. It’s worth noting that backdoors don’t always have to be secret. (In the U.K.’s iCloud case, state agents clearly wanted to gain access without Apple users knowing about it.)
Add to that, governments frequently deploy emotive propaganda around demands to access data in a bid to drum up public support and/or put pressure on service providers to comply — such as by arguing that access to E2EE is necessary to combat child abuse, or terrorism, or prevent some other heinous crime.