{"id":8513,"date":"2021-10-21T13:40:44","date_gmt":"2021-10-21T13:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1370579"},"modified":"2021-10-21T13:40:44","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T13:40:44","slug":"edward-snowden-if-you-weaken-encryption-people-will-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=8513","title":{"rendered":"Edward Snowden: \u2018If you weaken encryption, people will die\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image\/neural?filter_last=1&amp;fit=1280%2C640&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn0.tnwcdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F1%2Ffiles%2F2021%2F10%2FUntitled-design-2-3.jpg&amp;signature=b79d013d025b423fbb52fb3f826d1f01\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p>Our online privacy faces growing threats. Governments around the world are calling for encryption backdoors that would enable access to personal information.<\/p>\n<p>They argue that encryption protects criminals. But it also protects activists, dissidents, persecuted groups, and ordinary citizens.<\/p>\n<p>Edward Snowden is among the most prominent beneficiaries. The whistleblower\u2019s first messages to journalists were made with encryption.<span> They resulted in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-usa-nsa-spying-idUSKBN25T3CK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">revelations that millions of Americans had been under illegal mass surveillance<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you weaken encryption, people will die,\u201d said Snowden in a statement. \u201cT<span>his year alone, after the fall of the government of Afghanistan, we saw how crucial encryption is in keeping ordinary people safe.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Snowden has joined the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.globalencryption.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Global Encryption Coalition<\/a> to launch a campaign to protect encryption. The group of civil society organizations and tech firms warns that undermining encryption will leave people more vulnerable to crime and surveillance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have seen first-hand how governments can abuse the power they have to access the personal data of innocent people in the name of national security,\u201d said Snowden. \u201cWeakening encryption would be a colossal mistake that could put thousands of lives at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>End-to-end encryption would make it harder to implement spy programs like the one Snowden exposed \u2014 which may be one reason why governments want to circumvent it. It would not be the first time that lawmakers have<span class=\"s1\">&nbsp;undermined our p<\/span><span class=\"s1\">rivacy in the name of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eff.org\/issues\/patriot-act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"><span class=\"s2\">fighting terrorism<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Politicians assert&nbsp; \u2014 with justification \u2014 that criminal gangs and paedophiles use encryption. But so do <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/5893114\/signal-app-privacy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">racial justice protestors<\/a> to avoid <a href=\"https:\/\/www.codastory.com\/authoritarian-tech\/san-francisco-protests-surveillance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">police surveillance<\/a><span>, LBTQ+ people in countries where their sexual orientation is<\/span><span> criminalized, and even some of the politicians who have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/articles\/20160828\/00123635369\/clinton-campaign-happily-using-strong-end-to-end-encryption-to-communicate-will-they-let-rest-us-use-it-too.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">called for Snowden to be put in jail<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Reporters also rely on encryption to protect their sources.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow more than ever, journalists are facing digital threats to their work and safety,\u201d said Lisa Dittmer, advocacy officer for Internet Freedom, Reporters Without Borders. \u201cEncryption plays a critical role in protecting journalists and their sources, enabling them to share information even in the most dangerous environments.<\/p>\n<p>Yet as the need for encryption grows, so do the efforts to weaken it. Governments <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/india-joins-the-idiotic-global-alliance-calling-for-encyption-backdoors\">from India to Australia<\/a> are calling for tech companies to build backdoors into their end-to-end encrypted systems. In the UK, new regulation could <span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.openaccessgovernment.org\/online-safety-bill-poses-threats-to-encryption\/118481\/#:~:text=The%20Online%20Safety%20Bill%20is,access%20to%20users'%20encrypted%20data.&amp;text=If%20the%20same%20happens%20with,as%20a%20result%2C%20not%20more.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">make service providers criminally liable for the acts of users<\/a> if law enforcement can\u2019t <\/span>access their encrypted data<span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Their proposals, however, could actually make people more vulnerable. Any encryption backdoor<\/span><span class=\"s1\"> may be a target for criminals. The information they access could threaten both national <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/security\">security<\/a> and individual <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/privacy\">privacy<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cEncryption makes us all safer,\u201d said Snowden. \u201cFrom families protecting photographs of their kids, to personal healthcare information, encryption keeps our private information private.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>We all have private conversations that we don\u2019t want overhead. Encryption backdoors would give malicious actors another way to access them.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/edward-snowden-warns-encryption-is-under-attack\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our online privacy faces growing threats. Governments around the world are calling for encryption backdoors that would enable access to personal information. They argue that encryption protects criminals. But it also protects&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8513"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}