Bugs In Your Pocket?
Mass Survellience or The Answer To Detecting Crime?
When you have people like Ross Anderson, Ron Rivest, Bruce Schneier and Whitfield Diffie are part of a research paper, you sit up and take notice [here]:
Their target is the use of client-side scanning (CSS), and that it is not effective in preventing crime. Along with this, it does not prevent surveillance. The authors argue that some agencies would like CSS installed on all mobile phone devices, and not just for suspects. This may risk the privacy of law-abiding citizens and may overrule the actual risks to society. For them, the risks of implementing CSS is far more dangerous than the previously defined methods to break end-to-end encryption:
The ability of citizens to freely use digital devices, to create and store content, and to communicate with others depends strongly on our ability to feel safe in doing so. The introduction of scanning on our personal devices — devices that keep information from to-do notes to texts and photos from loved ones — tears at the heart of privacy of individual citizens. Such bulk surveillance can result in a significant chilling effect on freedom of speech and, indeed, on…
