Assuming that the protocol is cryptographically secure against eight of nine members colluding, it's not actually the worst idea ever. 'Backdoors always get cr

Assuming that the protocol is cryptographically secure against eight of nine members colluding, it's not actually the worst idea ever. 'Backdoors always get cracked' doesn't apply when there's an actual cryptographic proof; what does apply is the trustworthiness of the keyholders and the guarantees of the protocol. My concern is first that it's limited to Western democracies. I'd actually feel a lot more certain that something really is bad if the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Chad & Togo all agreed that it's actually bad. After all, Western democracies are liable to agree that some things are bad or good that actually aren't. But then, those all have a common thread: they are all governments, and so they are all liable to suspect anything which puts a government in general at risk, even if it's perfectly harmless (say, free speech…). Why not add other organisations to the mix, perhaps religions and notable non-profits? If the governments above, the Catholic Church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Business Software Alliance, Greenpeace and the National Rifle Association can all agree that something is bad, then it really probably is. As opposed to nine subdivisions of one company run by a smart guy, which seem likely to all fall sway to whatever that one smart guy thinks is bad. Another issue I see with the protocol is how far back can the council reach? A day? A year? The beginning of the protocol? I'd want to see some sort of key rotation to know that a dedicated bad actor could spend years working on each of the nine members. All-in-all, it's probably a neat piece of crypto which can — in twenty years — be put to use solving some interesting problems, but it probably won't solve this problem.