Tech Giants Silenced Encryption Issue in Talks with UK Government
https://sp-security.blogspot.com/2017/04/tech-giants-silenced-encryption-issue.html
After
the meeting with the UK home secretary Amber Rudd, Facebook, Twitter,
Google and Microsoft are pledging to cooperate with the government to
remove extremist material from the web and social media. However, top
tech companies just promised to “to tackle this vital issue”, without
mentioning any ways of dealing with encrypted messages.
The
meeting was called after it was found that the terrorist who carried out
the attack in Westminster that left 5 people dead had used WhatsApp
before it. WhatsApp is known for encrypting messages sent through it.
The home secretary said that messaging services with end-to-end
encryption pose a threat by “providing a secret place for terrorists to
communicate with each other”. This statement prompted criticism, with
security experts arguing that she didn’t understand the technical and
logistical hurdles needed to end this. Besides, encryption routinely
used for legitimate web tasks like shopping and banking, and those could
be compromised if gaps were introduced. However, the UK police
supported the home secretary, saying that the Westminster attack was a
wake-up call for tech firms over such issues.
As a result, the tech firms promised to curb extremist content and ensure terrorists do not have a voice online. However, Rudd said she planned to return to the issue of encryption later.
Tech giants promised to “look at all options” to accelerate and strengthen the movement in this direction and set out 3 main methods to do so:
- developing better tools to automatically recognize and remove terrorist content;
- helping smaller tech firms acquire similar methods;
- supporting ways to promote alternative and counter-narratives.
The home secretary acknowledged that the meeting had been useful and she was glad to see the commitment from the industry leaders to set up a forum that would help do that. She expressed hopes that the industry would go further and faster in not just removing terrorist content from the web but stopping it appearing there in the first place. Besides, Rudd called to support smaller and emerging platforms to do that as well, in order to prevent terrorists from switching to them.
On the other hand, the chair of the home affairs select committee doesn’t think that the meeting brought any significant results: in fact, all the government and tech companies appear to have agreed is to discuss options for a possible forum in order to have more discussions.
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As a result, the tech firms promised to curb extremist content and ensure terrorists do not have a voice online. However, Rudd said she planned to return to the issue of encryption later.
Tech giants promised to “look at all options” to accelerate and strengthen the movement in this direction and set out 3 main methods to do so:
- developing better tools to automatically recognize and remove terrorist content;
- helping smaller tech firms acquire similar methods;
- supporting ways to promote alternative and counter-narratives.
The home secretary acknowledged that the meeting had been useful and she was glad to see the commitment from the industry leaders to set up a forum that would help do that. She expressed hopes that the industry would go further and faster in not just removing terrorist content from the web but stopping it appearing there in the first place. Besides, Rudd called to support smaller and emerging platforms to do that as well, in order to prevent terrorists from switching to them.
On the other hand, the chair of the home affairs select committee doesn’t think that the meeting brought any significant results: in fact, all the government and tech companies appear to have agreed is to discuss options for a possible forum in order to have more discussions.
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SaM
