End-to-End Encrypted Messaging Apps Under Threat

🧵Amidst rampant surveillance, one bastion of privacy remains – end-to-end encrypted messaging apps like Signal and WhatsApp. But dangerous laws are being proposed in US, UK, EU & beyond to force those apps to scan your messages.

My latest for @NYTOpinion https://t.co/RYbwlallQK

— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) June 13, 2023

Feeling a sense of deja vu? Yes, you have heard this story before. But it’s worse this time.

Previously, the FBI sought a “master key” that could unlock encrypted content with a search warrant. But they lost after a showdown with Apple in 2016. /2https://t.co/7RqmHqBNYW

— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) June 13, 2023

A luminary lineup of crypto & infosec experts including @rossjanderson @mattblaze @WhitfieldDiffie @matthew_d_green @schneierblog @djweitzner successfully argued that there was no way to keep safe a “master key” that could unlock all encryption. /3https://t.co/qOiMjzOmFB

— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) June 13, 2023

Now law enforcement around the world want encrypted app companies to be liable for content that they can’t see – which would likely force them to scan messages for illegal content. Without a search warrant. In other words … a suspicionless search. /4https://t.co/zLSZ3REqiU

— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) June 13, 2023

Suspicionless corporate searches are not popular. Two years ago, Apple tried to implement client-side scanning for known child exploitation images and had to abandon it in the face of public criticism. /5https://t.co/BNdfkztFPc

— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) June 13, 2023

One problem: False positives. Princeton researchers Sarah Scheffler and @JonathanMayer found that false positive rates for scanning systems like Apple proposed could range from 135 to 4.5 million per day. /6 https://t.co/7qz6vzwoE7

— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) June 13, 2023

Another problem: Opening the door to broader surveillance. As @matthew_d_green and @alexstamos wrote, once Apple was scanning content, “foreign governments will be eager to use this sort of tool to monitor other aspects of their citizens’ lives.” /7https://t.co/y8hqvDcuIU

— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) June 13, 2023

The new plans being proposed don’t solve any of the issues Apple faced. But lawmakers are racing ahead. The Online Safety Bill is moving through the UK Parliament. A package of child safety laws is being proposed in the US. /8https://t.co/a9bZw47Kjnhttps://t.co/2PcQamNDn7

— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) June 13, 2023

This is part of worldwide concern about the prevalence of child sexual exploitation images online. Although substantiated cases of child sexual abuse are down 63% since 1990, reports to the @missingkids CyberTipline soared to 32 million in 2022. /9https://t.co/vbrH96N3cZ

— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) June 13, 2023

The deluge of online reports is due in part to the fact that online images can be duplicated and shared limitlessly, and also to images that children and teens share with each other sometimes end up being circulated, according to @davidfinkelhor. /10 pic.twitter.com/RfAR9ON9xO

— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) June 13, 2023

The laws are focused on detecting and removing images. But researchers like @davidfinkelhor have been working hard to figure out how to prevent abuse. And it turns out there is something that works: sex education in schools. /11 https://t.co/GImkICKzsZ

— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) June 13, 2023

Last year, @WHO recommended school-based violence prevention programs that teach healthy relationship skills with “less emphasis on stranger danger as strangers are not the sole or even the predominant offenders in online violence against children." /12https://t.co/m8xZEFBrMP

— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) June 13, 2023

Meanwhile, the FBI is surmounting encryption to solve cases. In 2016, it unlocked the iPhone of the San Bernardino murderer after Apple refused, & this year it convicted members of the Oath Keepers for their roles in Jan. 6 using data from Signal. /13https://t.co/qlzfFo50mf

— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) June 13, 2023

And as the @internetsociety points out: encryption protects kids data, too. No one wants kids photos to be hacked or to have kids targeted with inappropriate ads that are based on advertisers scanning their messages. /14https://t.co/aKeGwM7fHo

— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) June 13, 2023