German officials are considering banning end-to-end encryption in chat apps like Apple iMessage, WhatsApp, and Signal. Currently, law enforcement officers are only allowed to collect communications found on a suspect’s device. An expanded law would include allowing law enforcement access to data from firms that currently provide end-to-end encryption on chat services and software, The Register reported.
True and strong end-to-end encrypted conversations can only be decrypted by those participating in the discussion, so the proposed rules would require app makers to deliberately knacker or backdoor their code in order to comply. Those changes would be needed to allow them to collect messages passing through their systems and decrypt them on demand. Up until now, German police have opted not to bother with trying to decrypt the contents of messages in transit, opting instead to simply seize and break into the device itself, where the messages are typically stored in plain text.
Check It Out: Germany Considering Law Banning End-to-End Encryption in Chat Apps
Here’s an idea.
If other countries follow suit, and you know they want to, then eventually these back doors will come to countries with blasphemy laws. Use a VPN to appear like you are in one of these countries and then start sending out as many obscene blasphemous messages as possible. Maybe someone could code a bot to do it. Then the authorities would be so busy chasing down these phantom blasphemers, they couldn’t deal with real dissidents.
It’s kinda like something a lot of us did during the W Bush years. On our web sites we’d put words related to “terrorism” in the same color as the background. Nobody could SEE them but they would trigger the NSA tools to waste time on them rather than harassing their political opponents.