![]() ![]() ![]() “You’re not just talking about compromising the security for the UK customer,” says Cooper. For a global app like WhatsApp, security is international. It’s not just about the apps’ security principles, but also the practical dilemma of developing new tools just for the UK. They would quite simply move victims, unbeknown victims, or victims-to-be onto other platforms.” “But if we’re going to pick out that one angle, then simply they’re going to use other forms of communication. “I know the power of being able to read or intercept a message – it makes the best evidence possible,” he says. Having spent 14 years assisting Dorset Police with digital forensics, Moore says he understands where legislators are coming from, but still thinks their approach toward policing illegal content online is fundamentally misguided. Jake Moore, a cybersecurity advisor at ESET, argues that this would undermine the services’ entire appeal. “You’re effectively creating a flaw in the software, and you can pretty much guarantee that somebody will eventually find it.” “If you put a backdoor in, that obviously gives the government access, but also anyone else who manages to compromise that backdoor,” explains cybersecurity advisor Chris Cooper. There are also some big cybersecurity concerns. View all newsletters Sign up to our newsletters Data, insights and analysis delivered to you By The Tech Monitor team Sign up here Only when the system thinks the message contains prohibited content will it be forwarded to law enforcement. Advocates for the bill argue that it is perfectly possible to give the government a portal into these networks through the use of client-side scanning, wherein message content is automatically compared against a database of known illegal material. (Photo by Indranil Aditya/NurPhoto via Getty Images) A world without WhatsAppĪll signs indicate the answer to that question lies in the affirmative – not least given the practical implications in building a state-approved ‘back door’ into messaging networks. WhatsApp, meanwhile, is estimated to be used by 79% of online adults in the UK – might it leave, too? A billboard is seen in Mumbai, India, advertises WhatsApp’s use of end-to-end encryption of messages. Apple has threatened to remove Facetime and iMessage. “That wouldn’t be responsible or proportionate for a government to do.” That leaves open the possibility that, in time, encrypted messaging apps will exit the UK in droves. “We can’t just let thousands of paedophiles get away with it,” Michelle Donelan, the science and technology secretary, told POLITICOin February. The UK, they said, was sleepwalking into a cybersecurity nightmare with a bill that ‘poses an unprecedented threat to the privacy, safety and security of every UK citizen and the people with whom they communicate around the world, while emboldening hostile governments who may seek to draft copycat laws.’ ĭespite these entreaties, the UK government shows no sign of backing down. ![]() That same month, the president of Signal, Meredith Whittaker, along with five other messaging services, signed an open letter calling on the government to revise its thinking on encryption. WhatsApp isn’t alone in making such threats. Achieving this, however, seems to rest on building a ‘backdoor’ into the end-to-end encryption (E2EE) that, according to WhatsApp and others, could compromise the digital privacy of the millions of users who aren’t, in fact, trafficking in illegal content. Intended, in part, to thwart the spread of harmful and illegal material across the internet, the legislation won plaudits from content moderation advocates and charities like the NSPCC for the rigour with which the government proposed to eradicate online hate and misinformation. A beneficiary of the post-Snowden era when the public embraced free, encrypted messaging apps, WhatsApp now faced the prospect of encryption being undermined by the UK’s Online Safety Bill. The advert came during a fraught time for the instant messaging giant. WhatsApp went one further last October, hiring out Piccadilly Circus’ famous billboard for an impressive 3D light show climaxing in – you guessed it – an impenetrable steel safe. ![]() Those departments with actual budgets, meanwhile, usually get to upgrade to bank vaults: witness Samsung Knox, by way of an example, depict your average cybercriminal trying to whack his way through to your personal data with a giant hammer. For stock photography connoisseurs, that means padlocks: padlocks with wires, leaking binary code, or sitting on laptop keyboards one desk away from the ubiquitous and appropriately menacing hacker in a hoodie. Ask any marketing department these days what a good visual shorthand for cybersecurity looks like, and they’ll probably reply with some variation on a lock and key. ![]()
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