German Data Protection Authority Says GDPR Requires Email To Use At Least Transport Layer Encryption

from the but-why,-is-not-entirely-clear dept

As Techdirt has reported, the EU's GDPR legislation certainly has its problems. But whatever you think of it as a privacy framework, there's no denying its importance and global reach. That makes a recent ruling by a data protection authority in Germany of wider interest than the local nature of the decision might suggest. As Carlo Pilz reports in his post examining the case in detail, the Data Protection Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia (Landesbeauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit Nordrhein-Westfalen -- LfDI NRW for short) looked at what the GDPR might mean for email -- in particular, whether it implied that email should be encrypted in order to protect personal information, and if so, how.

The LfDI NRW made a fundamental distinction between encryption at the content level and encryption at the transport level for the transmission of emails. The former encrypts content and attachments, using technology such as S/MIME and OpenPGP. However, the metadata associated with an email is not encrypted. With transport layer encryption, both the content and the metadata is encrypted. Pilz explains:

LfDI NRW therefore assumes that without exception at least transport encryption must always be implemented. As mentioned above, such a mandatory encryption obligation does not result from the GDPR. One could therefore argue that this view goes beyond the requirements of the GDPR. In its assessment, the authority may assume that transport encryption is now the "state of the art" mentioned in Art. 32 para 1 GDPR. This could be supported by the reference to the European providers. Nevertheless, Art. 32 para 1 GDPR provides, in addition to the feature "state of the art", for further criteria which must be taken into account for the measures to be implemented, such as in particular the risk of varying likelihood and severity for the rights and freedoms of natural persons. Thus, under the GDPR, controllers and processors should still be able to assess whether encryption of the data is absolutely necessary on the basis of these characteristics. Unfortunately, the opinion of the authority does not go into the individual criteria mentioned in Art. 32 para 1 GDPR in detail and does not justify its opinion.

So the newly-published position of the German data protection authority is not exactly clear as to why it thinks transport layer encryption must be used, although it does specify which standard must be followed: BSI TR-03108-1: Secure E-Mail Transport (pdf). It also mentions that transport layer encryption may not be enough when dealing with particularly sensitive personal information. This includes "account transaction data, financing data, health status data, client data from lawyers and tax consultants, employee data". The problem here is that even though encrypted in transit, the emails are stored in cleartext on the servers. To address this, LfDI NRW says that additional security measures are required, for example using end-to-end encryption, or even falling back to physical postal delivery of highly-sensitive documents.

Because of the way GDPR is enforced, it's worth noting that the opinion of the LfDI NRW does not automatically determine the policies everywhere in the EU. It may influence the thinking elsewhere, but it's possible that other data protection authorities in the EU might disagree with this interpretation -- in which case the Court of Justice of the European Union would be called upon to adjudicate and offer a definitive interpretation. However, at the very least, the LfDI NRW's position indicates that the GDPR is likely to impact when and how email encryption is deployed by companies operating in the EU, along with all the other areas it touches upon.

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Filed Under: email, encryption, gdpr, germany, transport layer encryption

Australian Government Agencies Already Flexing Their New Encryption-Breaking Powers

from the sure,-cops-are-right-on-top-of-this-law-and-its-implications dept

Claiming the nation was beset on all sides by national security threats and rampant criminality, the Australian government hustled an encryption-breaking law through Parliament (and past concerned members of the public) at the end of last year. The law compels companies to break encryption at the drop of a court order to give government agencies access to data and communications they otherwise can't access.

Supporters of the law did everything they could to avoid using the term "backdoor," but backdoors are what they're expecting. How this will all work in practice is anyone's guess, as each demand for "exceptional access" will likely collide head-on with quality assurance processes meant to prevent the creation of security flaws in software and hardware. Agencies that want exceptional access will either have to bring a majority of a company's personnel on board (and hope no one leaks anything to the public) or risk having their "not a backdoor" rejected after the code is submitted for approval.

No details have come to light (yet!) about companies being approached to punch holes in their own products, but it appears the Australian government has wasted no time putting its new powers to use.

Federal law enforcement and national security agencies have started using encryption-busting powers passed by parliament in December last year, and state-based police are set to be trained in using the powers this month.

This conclusion comes from the Department of Home Affairs' first report [PDF] on the new compelled access powers. The introduction contains several paragraphs about the new law and the Department's supposed oversight of its roll out. It concludes with this statement:

The Department continues to work closely with law enforcement and national security agencies and industry to facilitate the implementation of the Act. This will support the key measures in the Act, including the industry assistance measures in Schedule 1, so that they are being used consistently and appropriately. The Department has also been advised by Commonwealth law enforcement and national security agencies that the powers in the Act have been used to support their work.

The report also continues the fine Australian government tradition of denying the law has anything to do with encryption backdoors. Here's the latest lingo dodge, which comes from a list of amendments made in response to recommendations from Australia's intelligence committee.

[Introduces] a definition for ‘systemic weakness’ and ‘systemic vulnerability’ to clarify and prohibit those proposed requirements in a request or notice which will lead to unlawful and systemic intrusions into devices and networks. This enhances the operation of existing safeguards that prevents the creation and implementation of ‘backdoors.’

The Department's new definition of these terms appears to limit encryption breaking to single devices/users, rather than entire communications platforms or operating systems.

The selective introduction of a vulnerability or weakness, as it relates to a target technology connected with a particular person is allowable. The definition of target technology further reinforces the specificity and precision through which interaction with electronic protections such as encryption is permissible. This definition takes each likely item of technology, like a carriage service or electronic service, which may be supplied by a designated communications provider, and reinforces that a weakness or vulnerability may only be introduced to the particular technology that is used, or likely to be used by a particular person. For example, a single mobile device operated by a criminal, or likely to be used by a criminal, would be classified as a target technology for the purpose of paragraph (e) of that definition. However, a particular model of mobile devices, or any devices that are not connected with the particular person, would be far too broad to fall within the definition. This ensures that the services and devices enjoyed by innocent parties or persons not of interest to law enforcement and security agencies remain out of scope and unaffected.

This could reduce the scope of what can be targeted with assistance requests, but nothing in the report suggests the government should abandon requests that fall outside of these definitions. If accessing a single target's communications can only be done by introducing a systemic vulnerability, it's safe to say the government will find a way to make the requested assistance adhere to the definitions its provided -- anything to avoid having to use the phrase "backdoor" anywhere in reports or public statements.

This assurance that the government won't demand full-fledged backdoors isn't very assuring, especially since it appears the government still doesn't know what requests meet the constraints built into the law.

Home Affairs said it was also in the process of sourcing technical and judicial assessors and experts that can be used to determine whether an agency request is permissible or not.

Cool. Some requests have already been issued and Home Affairs hasn't gotten any further than begin the process of sourcing experts to help decide whether these requests are even lawful.

Filed Under: australia, backdoors, encryption, security

Study Again Finds That Most VPNs Are Shady As Hell

from the panacea-this-is-not dept

When a well-lobbied Congress eliminated consumer privacy protections for broadband back in 2017, many folks understandably rushed to VPNs for some additional privacy and protection. And indeed, many ISPs justified their lobbying assault on the rules by stating that users didn't need privacy protections, since they could simply use a VPN to fully protect their online activity. But we've noted repeatedly that VPNs are not some kind of panacea, and in many instances you're simply shifting the potential for abuse from your ISP to a VPN provider that may not actually offer the privacy it claims.

Top10VPN, for example, recently took a closer look at 150 VPN apps being offered in the Android marketplace and found that 90% of them violated consumer privacy in some fashion, either by the inclusion of DNS leaks, a failure to adequately secure and store user data, or by embedding malware:

"Simon Migliano, the head of this research, reports that at over 38 VPN apps tested positive for DNS leaks, exposing private data to hundreds of insecure links. Also, over 27 VPN apps were flagged as potential sources of malware when tested by VirusTotal.

Apart from this, the research also found intrusive permissions in over 99 apps. These permissions included user location, device information, use of the microphone, camera access and more."

And of course it's not just shady fly-by-night free VPN operations contributing to this problem. You'll recall that Facebook's "VPN" service Onavo was booted from the Apple store for being little more than glorified spyware. Verizon was so eager to capitalize on the rising interest in VPNs it couldn't be bothered to write a privacy policy (an extra-notable problem given Verizon's history with this sort of stuff). And we've noted more than a few times how many VPN promises that they don't collect and store your personal information are often false, something you'll probably only find out when it's too late.

Again, you'll see a lot of folks argue that we don't need meaningful privacy rules of the road because users can simply use a VPN to dodge the prying eyes of what has become all-pervasive marketing-driven surveillance online. When ISPs were busy lobbying to have the FCC's privacy rules killed, for example, their funded proxy organizations were quick to insist that killing consumer broadband privacy protections isn't that big of a deal -- because consumers could just protect themselves by using encryption and a VPN.

But as outlets like Wired have pointed out, a VPN won't help you if your wireless carrier is installing snoopvertising locally on your phone (remember CarrierIQ?). Nor is it a bulletproof solution for ISPs like Verizon that have creatively started modifying user packets to covertly track subscribers around the internet. Nor does it prevent you from an ISP charging you more to opt out of data collection (something AT&T and Comcast have both flirted with). A VPN also won't protect you from companies that have flirted with providing worse customer service based on your credit score.

So yeah, while a good VPN is a helpful privacy tool, a VPN in general still isn't some magic silver bullet for our growing privacy shitstorm. And in more than a few instances, a poor choice can leave you less secure than if you used no VPN at all.

Filed Under: encryption, privacy, trust, vpns

Government Shutdown Means Government Website Security Certs Aren't Being Renewed

from the it's-the-little-things dept

With all the news about the ongoing government shutdown and the big messes it has caused, it's creating lots of little messes with potentially big impact as well. For example, scammers and robocallers have upped their game during the shutdown, knowing that (1) there's no one investigating these scams right now, and (2) as I discovered when I tried to report one, the FTC has literally shut down the web portal where you used to be able to submit complaints.

Another one, however, pointed out last week by Netcraft, is the fact that government website security certificates are expiring... and there's no one around to renew them:

Dozens of U.S. government websites have been rendered either insecure or inaccessible during the ongoing U.S. federal shutdown. These sites include sensitive government payment portals and remote access services, affecting the likes of NASA, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Court of Appeals.

With around 400,000 federal employees currently furloughed, more than 80 TLS certificates used by .gov websites have so far expired without being renewed. To compound the situation, some of these abandoned websites can no longer be accessed due to strict security measures that were implemented long before the shutdown started.

As Netcraft notes, some of those sites you can't even get around the security warning, such as certain DOJ sites:

There are some government websites that you can click through on, but as Netcraft notes, this could allow for man-in-the-middle attacks or other security risks:

This introduces some realistic security concerns, as task-oriented users are more likely to ignore these security warnings, and will therefore render themselves vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks.

If the shutdown continues for a while, this problem could get significantly worse. I know that Wall Street put pressure on the government to make certain IRS employees suddenly deemed "essential" to help Wall Street keep functioning smoothly, perhaps someone might want to deem the people renewing security certs similarly essential? Or, you know what, maybe just re-open the damn government.

Filed Under: encryption, government shutdown, https, security certificates, tls

There's One Encouraging Thought Buried In Zuckerberg's 2019 Challenge

from the some-potential dept

Every year Mark Zuckerberg sets a "challenge" for himself for that year, which as many people have noted, Facebook has turned into a big PR vehicle for the company. We usually don't even bother to write about it, because why bother? However, I'm intrigued by this year's "challenge" for a few reasons. The plan sounds fairly simple (and perhaps simplistic): he wants to host a series of public discussions about technology and society -- and about Facebook's role in it going forward:

There are so many big questions about the world we want to live in and technology's place in it. Do we want technology to keep giving more people a voice, or will traditional gatekeepers control what ideas can be expressed? Should we decentralize authority through encryption or other means to put more power in people's hands? In a world where many physical communities are weakening, what role can the internet play in strengthening our social fabric? How do we build an internet that helps people come together to address the world's biggest problems that require global-scale collaboration? How do we build technology that creates more jobs rather than just building AI to automate things people do? What form will this all take now that the smartphone is mature? And how do we keep up the pace of scientific and technological progress across fields?

My challenge for 2019 is to host a series of public discussions about the future of technology in society -- the opportunities, the challenges, the hopes, and the anxieties. Every few weeks I'll talk with leaders, experts, and people in our community from different fields and I'll try different formats to keep it interesting. These will all be public, either on my Facebook or Instagram pages or on other media.

This will be intellectually interesting, but there's a personal challenge for me here too. I'm an engineer, and I used to just build out my ideas and hope they'd mostly speak for themselves. But given the importance of what we do, that doesn't cut it anymore. So I'm going to put myself out there more than I've been comfortable with and engage more in some of these debates about the future, the tradeoffs we face, and where we want to go.

Not surprisingly, there has been plenty of mocking of this announcement, and perhaps some of it is deserved. Facebook had a bad year in 2018 for mostly deserved reasons. As we've discussed, the company tends to be its own worst enemy and many of its stupid decisions have done tremendous harm to the wider internet. Also it certainly appears that incompetent management, and conflicting priorities may very well be to blame for many of these mistakes. It deserves a wider discussion in another post, but one thing I've heard over and over and over again at this week's CES from other internet companies is how furious they all are at Facebook for making so many bad decisions and dragging everyone else down with them.

But, the reason I'm at least moderately encouraged by Zuckerberg's statement is that buried within it, he actually mentions a fairly radical idea that, admittedly, I've personally been pushing for years (including trying to suggest the idea directly to Zuckerberg), and that is that the big internet companies really should be moving to a world of protocols, backed by encryption, rather than being a full platform. The argument there, is that this moves the power and control out to the end users, rather than keeping it locked in a more centralized system. It also (conveniently) gets rid of many of the hard choices and policing requirements that are being lumped on the platforms themselves.

I've talked about this idea with tons of people -- including people at the various big internet platforms. And, frankly, the least receptive to the idea in the past has been Facebook. And, yet, buried in Zuckerberg's announcement was this bit:

Should we decentralize authority through encryption or other means to put more power in people's hands?

That's... exactly what I've been suggesting all these years. Obviously, just asking the question doesn't mean that anyone at Facebook is taking the question seriously. But, at the very least, I'm encouraged that this concept is even on Zuckerberg's radar -- and enough so that it was worth including in his short announcement. I'd still be shocked if Facebook really does go down this road, but it's at least a positive sign that Zuckerberg considers it an idea worth thinking about. And while it may be fun to mock Zuckerberg or make wild claims about his motivations and plans, when he actually suggests something that would put more power in the hands of users and remove that power from Facebook, we should probably be encouraging that kind of thing rather than mocking it.

Filed Under: annual challenge, control, encryption, end uses, mark zuckerberg, not platforms, protocols
Companies: facebook

Indian Government Wants Tech Companies To Give Law Enforcement 24-Hour Access To User Data And Broken Encryption

from the it's-going-to-get-a-whole-lot-worse-before-it-gets-even-worse dept

India's government is joining the rest of the world in seeking more direct control of the internet. We in the US used to be able to point at Section 230 immunity and the First Amendment as evidence of our hands-off approach, but with the passage of FOSTA and multiple legislators demanding tech companies engage in more moderation and less moderation simultaneously, we've ceded a lot of the high ground.

The Indian government, however, is seeking to expand its control of the internet far past what should be considered reasonable in a nation whose government pays occasional lip service to protecting free speech. In addition to its already-abused laws covering certain forms of speech -- which, in practice, tends to mean criticism of government officials -- the Indian government is demanding speedy takedowns of content and direct access for law enforcement to user info, posts, and comments around the clock.

The proposals would… require any platform with more than 5 million users in India to appoint a “person of contact” for “24x7 coordination with law enforcement agencies and officers”, keep a record of all “unlawful activity” for 180 days (or indefinitely if mandated by a court), and send monthly notifications to every user informing them that the platform can “remove non-compliant information” immediately and kick the user off.

This is the result of discussions with representatives from companies including Google, Facebook, Whatsapp, and Twitter. There's no word yet on how compliant these companies will be. The only news that's surfaced so far is the Indian government's long list of demands. And those demands include something becoming distressingly popular in world governments: broken encryption.

“[On] the face of it, [the government seems] to be contemplating pro-active censorship and breaking encryption with traceability,” Apar Gupta, an Indian Supreme Court lawyer and cofounder of the Internet Freedom Foundation, told the Indian Express. “They will make the internet a corporal environment, damaging the fundamental rights of users.”

This will more closely align India's control of the internet with the Chinese model (or the Australian model!) -- something no nation should be in any hurry to adopt. That tech companies may be willing to comply with these demands rather than lose millions of users is worse news for everyone who uses their platforms. One just needs to look at Turkey's stranglehold on Twitter to see where this will be headed: tech companies will be complying with laws not valid in their home countries, allowing authoritarian rulers to silence critics and stifle dissent by proxy.

From what's been observed so far, Whatsapp seems to be the only company publicly resisting the Indian government's advances. Buzzfeed reached out to the other companies involved in these talks but has not received any comments or statements in response. Whatsapp's refusal to cooperate with India's demands for broken encryption dates back several months, but it's unlikely to have changed its views on undermining the protections it offers its users.

It's more bad news for internet users around the world, some of whom are going to be caught up in the Indian government's new net rules, even though they don't reside in that nation. Agreeing to help the government directly police users and/or break encryption will create ripple effects felt far outside the borders of India.

Filed Under: encryption, going dark, india, law enforcement

Australian Government Passes Law Forcing Tech Companies To Break Encryption

from the nice-one,-idiots dept

The Australian Parliament has passed a law ordaining compelled access to encrypted devices and communications. The legislation was floated months ago and opened up for comment, but it appears the Australian government has ignored the numerous complaints that such a law would violate civil liberties and otherwise be an all-around bad idea. But that's OK. It's completely justified, according to the Prime Minister.

Scott Morrison, Australia’s prime minister, told local radio on Thursday that encryption laws were necessary to target Islamist terrorism, paedophile networks and organised crime. “These laws are used to catch the scum that try to bring our country down and we can’t give them a leave pass,” he said.

Sure, and if innocent people find their communications compromised by government-mandated holes, so be it. The law was rushed through Parliament in a late evening session since every moment wasted was just one more leave pass for scum. Legislators promise to review the law in 18 months to ensure it hasn't been abused or created more problems than it's solved, but let's be honest here: how often does legislation like this get clawed back after a periodic review? It's never happened in the history of the laws governing our surveillance programs, even after leaked docs exposed unconstitutional practices and widespread abuse of surveillance authorities.

Here's a short summary of the new powers the legislation hands over to law enforcement and national security agencies:

The law enables Australia’s attorney-general to order the likes of Apple, Facebook, and Whatsapp to build capability, such as software code, which enables police to access a particular device or service.

Companies may also have to provide the design specifications of their technology to police, facilitate access to a device or service, help authorities develop their own capabilities and conceal the fact that an agency has undertaken a covert operation.

This law will go into effect before the end of the year. How it will go into effect is anyone's guess. The law provides for compelled access -- including the creation of new code -- but no one seems to have any idea what this will look like in practice. The new backdoors-in-everything-but-name will be put in place by developers/manufacturers at the drop of a court order, with the onus on the smart people in the tech business to iron out all of the problems.

The law only prevents the government from demanding that "systemic weaknesses" be built into devices or programs. Everything else is left to the imagination, including the actual process of introducing code changes in multi-user platforms or targeted devices.

An actual software developer, Alfie John, has put together a splendid Twitter thread pointing out the flaws in the government's assumptions about software development. Since the compelled participants are forbidden from discussing surveillance court orders with anyone (which would include coworkers, supervisors, the general public, etc.), these requested alterations would have to be implemented in secret. The problem is coding changes go through a number of hands before they go live. Either everyone involved would need to be sworn to secrecy (which also means being threatened with jail time) or the process falls apart. Changes ordered by a court could be rejected by those higher up on the chain. Worse, the planned encryption hole could see the compelled coder being viewed as a data thief or foreign operative or whatever.

Law enforcement is going to have to make everyone involved in the product/device complicit and covered under the same prison threat for this to work. The more people its exposed to, the higher the chance of leakage. And if the code will break other code -- or the request simply can't be met due to any number of concerns -- the government make ask the court to hold the company and its personnel in contempt for their failure to achieve the impossible.

To make matters worse, the company targeted with a compelled access request may be monitored for leaks before and after the request is submitted, putting employees under surveillance simply because of their profession.

In some cases, the only weakness that can be introduced will be systemic, which will run contrary to the law. How will the government handle this inevitable eventuality? Will it respect the law or will it simply redefine the term to codify its unlawful actions?

Even if all of this somehow works flawlessly, users of devices and communications platforms will be put at risk. Sure, the compelled access might be targeted, but it will teach users to distrust software/firmware updates that may actually keep them safer. The government may even encourage the forging of credentials or security certificates to ensure its compelled exploits reach their targets. And just because these backdoors theoretically only allow one government agent in at a time, that doesn't mean they aren't backdoors. They may be slightly more difficult for malicious actors to exploit, but once the trust is shattered by compelled access, other attack vectors will present themselves.

It's a terrible law justified by the spoken equivalent of a bumper sticker. And it's going to end up doing serious damage -- not just in Australia, but all over the world. Bad legislation spreads like a communicable disease. If one democracy says this is acceptable, other free-world leaders will use its passage as a permission slip for encryption-targeting mandates of their own.

Filed Under: australia, backdoors, compelled access, encryption, moral panics, secrecy, software development, terrorism

GCHQ Propose A 'Going Dark' Workaround That Creates The Same User Trust Problem Encryption Backdoors Do

from the wiretaps-but-for-Whatsapp dept

Are we "going dark?" The FBI certainly seems to believe so, although its estimation of the size of the problem was based on extremely inflated numbers. Other government agencies haven't expressed nearly as much concern, even as default encryption has spread to cover devices and communications platforms.

There are solutions out there, if it is as much of a problem as certain people believe. (It really isn't… at least not yet.) But most of these solutions ignore workarounds like accessing cloud storage or consensual searches in favor of demanding across-the-board weakening/breaking of encryption.

A few more suggestions have surfaced over at Lawfare. The caveat is that both authors, Ian Levy and Crispin Robinson, work for GCHQ. So that should give you some idea of which shareholders are being represented in this addition to the encryption debate.

The idea (there's really only one presented here) isn't as horrible as others suggested by law enforcement and intelligence officials. But that doesn't mean it's a good one. And there's simply no way to plunge into this without addressing an assertion made without supporting evidence towards the beginning of this Lawfare piece.

Any functioning democracy will ensure that its law enforcement and intelligence methods are overseen independently, and that the public can be assured that any intrusions into people’s lives are necessary and proportionate.

By that definition, the authors' home country is excluded from the list of "functioning democracies." Multiple rulings have found GCHQ's surveillance efforts in violation of UK law. And a number of leaks over the past half-decade have shown its oversight is mostly ornamental.

The same can be said for the "functioning democracy" on this side of the pond. Leaked documents and court orders have shown the NSA frequently ignores its oversight when not actively hiding information from Congress, the Inspector General, and the FISA court. Oversight of our nation's law enforcement agencies is a patchwork of dysfunction, starting with friendly magistrates who care little about warrant affidavit contents and ending with various police oversight groups that are either filled with cops or cut out of the process by the agencies they nominally oversee. We can't even get a grip on routine misconduct, much less ensure "necessary and proportionate intrusions into people's lives."

According to the two GCHQ reps, there's a simple solution to eavesdropping on encrypted communications. All tech companies have to do is keep targets from knowing their communications are no longer secure.

In a world of encrypted services, a potential solution could be to go back a few decades. It’s relatively easy for a service provider to silently add a law enforcement participant to a group chat or call. The service provider usually controls the identity system and so really decides who’s who and which devices are involved - they’re usually involved in introducing the parties to a chat or call. You end up with everything still being end-to-end encrypted, but there’s an extra ‘end’ on this particular communication. This sort of solution seems to be no more intrusive than the virtual crocodile clips that our democratically elected representatives and judiciary authorise today in traditional voice intercept solutions and certainly doesn’t give any government power they shouldn’t have.

We’re not talking about weakening encryption or defeating the end-to-end nature of the service. In a solution like this, we’re normally talking about suppressing a notification on a target’s device, and only on the device of the target and possibly those they communicate with. That’s a very different proposition to discuss and you don’t even have to touch the encryption.

Suppressing notifications might be less harmful than key escrow or backdoors. It wouldn't require a restructuring of the underlying platform or its encryption. If everything is in place -- warrants, probable cause, exhaustion of less intrusive methods -- it could give law enforcement a chance to play man-in-the-middle with targeted communications.

But there's a downside -- one that isn't referenced in the Lawfare post. If both ends of a conversation are targeted, this may be workable. But what if one of the participants isn't a target? This leaves them unprotected because the suppressed messages wouldn't inform other non-target parties the conversation isn't protected. Obviously it wouldn't do the let anyone targets converse with know things are no longer normal on the target's end, as it's likely one of those participants will let the target know they've encountered a security warning while talking to them.

In that respect, it is analogous to a wiretap on someone's phones. It will capture innocent conversations irrelevant to the investigation. In those cases, investigators are told to stop eavesdropping. It's unclear how the same practice will work when the communications are being harvested digitally via unseen government additions to private conversations.

This proposal seems at odds with the authors' suggested limitations, especially this one:

Any exceptional access solution should not fundamentally change the trust relationship between a service provider and its users.

When a service provider starts suppressing warning messages, the trust relationship is going to be fundamentally altered. Even if users are made aware this is only happening in rare instances involving targets of investigations, the fact that their platform provider has chosen to mute these messages means they really can't trust a lack of warnings to mean everything is still secure.

On the whole, it's a more restrained solution than others have proposed -- but it still has the built-in exploitation avenue key escrow does. It's better than a backdoor but not by much. And the authors of this proposal shouldn't pretend the solution lives up to the expectations they set for it. Their own proposal falls short of their listed ideals… and the whole thing is delivered under the false pretense law enforcement/intelligence agencies are subject to robust oversight.

Filed Under: backdoors, encryption, gchq, going dark, third parties, vulnerabilities