{"id":18370,"date":"2016-02-27T13:04:10","date_gmt":"2016-02-27T18:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=18370"},"modified":"2016-02-27T13:05:43","modified_gmt":"2016-02-27T18:05:43","slug":"the-human-rights-risks-of-encryption-back-doors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=18370","title":{"rendered":"The Human Rights Risks of Encryption \u2018Back Doors\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Human Rights Risks of Encryption \u2018Back Doors\u2019\u00a0<\/a><\/h3>\n

\"\"a katz \/ Shutterstock<\/a><\/p>\n

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One fact that has received little attention in the current encryption debate is that many categories of individuals rely on strong encryption for their own security. These include sexual and gender-based rights activists, domestic violence victims, journalists and their sources, and human rights defenders. Strong encryption is necessary to protect fundamental human rights; as one technologist\u00a0puts it<\/a>, encryption saves lives.<\/p>\n

Encryption, a process of\u00a0scrambling communications<\/a>\u00a0to make them private, is frequently discussed simply as a privacy issue. But the same process that keeps banks\u2019 communications secure is also, for many, a safeguard of many human rights including the right to life. For those who rely on secure communications in sensitive situations, the issue goes far beyond privacy.<\/p>\n

Experts agree that \u201csecure back doors\u201d\u2014which would give law enforcement secret access to digital storage or communications\u2014are\u00a0scientifically impossible<\/a>. That explains the uproar over a federal magistrate judge\u2019s recent decision ordering Apple to create a backdoor to an iPhone. On Feb. 25, Apple moved to vacate that decision and warned that the FBI is seeking a \u201cdangerous power\u201d in the case.<\/p>\n

Back doors are wholly unnecessary for security. Law enforcement agencies already use hacking tools to track electronic communications and circumvent encryption. Information-sharing programs reportedly exist with intelligence agencies, which use\u00a0keyloggers<\/a>\u00a0to record encrypted messages before they are sent. National Security Agency (NSA) supercomputers can even\u00a0number-crunch<\/a>\u00a0to break some encoded messages. And encryption\u00a0does not shield<\/a>\u00a0the \u201cto\u201d and \u201cfrom\u201d lines of messages\u2014also known as metadata. The problem is not a lack of tools, but intelligence failures in analyzing existing information\u2014perhaps one reason former NSA head Michael Hayden rejects the FBI\u2019s position on back doors.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Human Rights Risks of Encryption \u2018Back Doors\u2019\u00a0 a katz \/ Shutterstock One fact that has received little attention in the current encryption debate is that many categories of individuals rely on strong encryption for their own security. These include sexual and gender-based rights activists, domestic violence victims, journalists and their sources, and human rights […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[29,12698,12697,261,301,1795,551,577,712,765,8738],"class_list":["post-18370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-apple","tag-back-door","tag-carey-shenkman","tag-encryption","tag-fbi","tag-human-rights","tag-national-security-agency","tag-nsa","tag-security","tag-surveillance","tag-truthdig"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18370"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18373,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18370\/revisions\/18373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}