Anatomy of a Russian Information Warfare Campaign
I am really worried. Always after major incidents like serious crimes or terror attacks like in Paris, politicians start to push for the spotlight. They want to show that they are here for the citizens and here to protect them. This is definitely not bad at all but when it comes to high-tech discussions – in my opinion – they often lead to the wrong conclusions. Currently they focus on encryption again. Is encryption evil? No, not at all. Encryption is one of the key technologies we build our digital economy on. But still politicians start to look at it like:
- John McCain wants to outlaw encryption that the US government can’t crack
- Is Obama Calling for Encryption Bypass?
And a lot more… Just search for them.
I understand that governments have the urge to try to catch terrorist – I am thankful for each and every incident they prevent. But encryption is neither the problem nor is a backdoor the solution. The people who commit terrorist attacks like in Paris will adopt and circumvent any back doored encryption. Just use tools from other countries or freely available etc. Remember the times when we had such laws? And PGP came up?
And businesses will head the same direction as far as they can as they do not trust the government either. Quite some governments have proven that they are not trustworthy by foreigners as they used (and still use) their power for industrial espionage – as they are often allowed by law.
So, the only thing governments do by opening backdoors is weaken the economy, increase cost and the challenge for international companies – but for sure they will not catch one single terrorist
Roger
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