7 ms·

Encryption under fire in Europe as France and Germany call for decrypt law

42 points by ammonammon 10y ago

Ianvdl 10y ago
Here's a reminder why backdooring or otherwise weakening encryption is a bad idea (PDF): https://www.schneier.com/academic/paperfiles/paper-keys-under-doormats-CSAIL.pdf https://www.schneier.com/academic/paperfiles/paper-keys-unde...
sevenless 10y ago
> The context here is that France and Germany have suffered a spate of terrorist attacks over the past year, including a co-ordinated attack in Paris in November 2015 that killed 130; a July 2016 attack in Nice where a truck driver ploughed into crowds celebrating Bastille Day; and a stabbing in a church in Northern France that killed an elderly priest. To put this in perspective, about 700 people would die from homicide in France in a normal year, and about 600,000 would die of all causes (http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=fr&v=26 http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=fr&v=26). The unusually high amount of terrorism in the last year, accounts for 0.03% of all deaths. That terrorism is seen as an urgent problem just highlights the irrationality of decision-making in a democracy. It poses no significant mortality risk to Europeans.
- erelde 10y ago
  I agree with your idea, but I think you should add a few logical links in your statements to make it clearer. (and I live very near la Bastille, so according to the politicians I should be shocked) Furthermore, the people who did those crimes did not use any form of encryption but discussed on their playstation while playing Call of Duty. So there's that too.
  - kikimaru 10y ago
    Does anyone have any proof of this? Sounds like fear-mongering bullshit to me.
- akerro 10y ago
  Fact: The attack in November in Paris was coordinated using unencrypted text messages. Conclusion: Let's ban PGP! People are dying! http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/11/paris-police-find-phone-with-unencrypted-sms-saying-lets-go-were-starting/ http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/11/paris-police-fi...
  - sevenless 10y ago
    Yes Minister calls this "politician's logic". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trw1PbQt_Yo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trw1PbQt_Yo Something must be done; this is something; therefore, we must do it.
  - guillermau 10y ago
    Fact: The attack in November in Paris was coordinated text messages. Conclusion: Let's ban reading and writing ! Fact: The attackers who attack Paris in November were recruited online by Isis. Conclusion: Let's ban internet for non commercial use !
- mafribe 10y ago
  no significant mortality risk to Europeans. This is "Whataboutism". The rational behind being wary about terrorism is as follows. 1. Normal homicides are random individual actions, and they are under reasonable control by standard policing. In other words, if we continue policing as we do now, normal homicide rate will remain constant. 2. Terrorism is not random individual action, but rather organised violence by large groups seeking power. If we continue policing as we do now, terrorism will increase, up to a point where the terrorists take over and are the new rulers. (Compare for example with the reaction to the AIDS epidemics in the early 1980s. The lazy whatabout-ist could have said (and indeed did say): "Oh AIDS just affects a few gays and needle-sharing heroin addicts, whatabout the orders of magnitude more who die of the flu and cancer, no need to worry about AIDS".) If you believe the two 'axioms' above, then it's perfectly reasonable to adapt policing in the light of the current wave of terrorism that's been spreading in Europe (and not only there). Note that I'm not saying that encryption should or should not be banned, or that either way is/isn't a good way of fighting terrorism. I'm just pointing out the weakness of the "but whatabout XYZ" argument.
  - leereeves 10y ago
    > If we continue policing as we do now, terrorism will increase, up to a point where the terrorists take over and are the new rulers. That cannot be accepted as an 'axiom' without proof.
    - mafribe 10y ago
      Exactly what would you accept as proof? A deduction in ZFC or Homotopy Type Theory? Or an empirical experiment, where we split the world into two parts, one were we police terrorism as the french are doing now, and one where terrorists are treated like random robberies and crimes of spurned lovers; then wait for 200 years and see which side does better?
      - leereeves 10y ago
        Does the snark mean you don't have an actual argument supporting the 'axiom' (really just a premise) that "terrorists will take over the world"? You can't avoid the need to prove your premises by calling them 'axioms'.
- Aeolun 10y ago
  I think you are misrepresenting the issue. 700 would die from homicide in a normal year. +/- 150 died from terrorism in 2015, 2016 is on track to have a slightly lower number (100), That means the increase in homicide from recent terrorism is anywhere between 14 and 21%. That's not insignificant however you look at it. Those 600,000 people are going to die either way, but those 150 people a year are still up in the air. Doesn't mean that cancer isn't a bigger issue on the grand scale, but having people see terrorism as a natural disaster is a bit of a stretch.
  - sevenless 10y ago
    This seems to be confusing proportions with absolute numbers. Newspapers do this all the time about health statistics, going from a very small number of additional deaths to scaremonger about a '300% increase in cancer'. Terrorism in the last year is a significant proportion of the total number of homicides in France, but the percentage increase doesn't mean the absolute number is relevant. If you didn't worry about being murdered in France before 2015, there's no reason to worry about dying in a terrorist attack after 2015. Moreover, we might expect terrorist attacks to regress to the mean, so 2015 would be unusually bad under that additional assumption. If the number of homicides increased by 14-20% due to some other cause, it likely wouldn't be seen as an urgent policy issue. > Those 600,000 people are going to die either way In fact, many will die from avoidable causes, like medical errors.
- zakk 10y ago
  Nonsense. Accounting for all deaths together is a great way of losing focus on each problem. Drownings account for roughly as many deaths as police in the USA. Should we seek for different, specific solutions or treat all deaths as if they were the same, losing touch with the real topic? Terrorism is a deliberate attempt to destabilize the state and must be fought differently with respect to, say, flu.
  - Qantourisc 10y ago
    We are proposing laws we would normally not consider. Destabilization successful.
    - zakk 10y ago
      You are implying that a new law to address a new phenomenon will necessarily destabilize the country. Of course it's not so, some laws are required to face a new threat and stabilize the country.
  - sevenless 10y ago
    Even if this is true, and terrorism threatens the existence of the state, states have no right to exist. New states often come into being, and states often stop existing (East Germany, USSR). This isn't inherently good or bad. There are ethical rationales for opposing terrorism, but defending the existence of particular national governments isn't one of them.
    - zakk 10y ago
      > states have no right to exist Quite a big assumption you make. If states have no right to exist, they obviously have no right of making new laws. Here we are discussing about a law proposal, so apparently everyone believes in the right of a country to exist and to regulate citizen's life through laws. I'm sorry.
      - sevenless 10y ago
        > If states have no right to exist, the obviously have no right of making new laws. That doesn't follow. States do make new laws, and people will go along with those laws, because the nature of a state is to compel people to follow its laws (by definition). It still doesn't mean that it's bad that any state should stop existing, or that we should oppose terrorism on the sole ground that it threatens states. Put it another way: a referendum to split the state into two (like the Scottish independence referendum), also threatens the state. That would not be a reason to oppose the referendum.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
vbezhenar 10y ago
I don't think that it's possible to ban encryption. I can use gpg to encrypt anything and send it as a text via any channel. I can do anything in my computer. They could ban encryption for wide audience, that's true. But those who need to hide something, they will have access to encryption.
- chopin 10y ago
  > I can do anything in my computer. For that, free access to your computer is required. This isn't the case for the vast majority of smart phones and becomes less true for laptops or desktops as the discussions around Windows 10 show. Even if you install Linux, there is Intel ME and the like. Using Linux singles you out. Three letter agencies will have to target only the few ones with it via ME or the like. Only if big enterprises will start to adopt Linux this will become infeasible and under scrutiny of big IT organizations.
- pif 10y ago
  Actually, banning something doesn't mean to make it impossible, but to declare it illegal. Hypothetically, they (actually, we, as governments are just representative of the voters) can ban encryption. Which means that any communication with no signal naturally emerging from noise is suspicious, thus they/we can ask you to justify yourself and keep you locked until you demonstrate that what you were hiding doesn't represent a threat for the community. And then give you a fine you anyway, so next time you'll think twice before breaking the law. PS: it's not "you" you, it's "you" in general :-)
  - ragebol 10y ago
    With steganography [0], you can send encrypted messages embedded in images. Sending normal looking pictures is not suspicious (at least currently, for some definition of normal). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography
    - pif 10y ago
      Yes, you can. But if encryption is illegal, than steganography is illegal, too. Which means that big companies looking for advertisement money will not struggle to offer you an out-of-the-box solution. And this will make a huge difference in itself - I'll let anyone judge whether she considers such a difference good and worth the hassle.
dirktheman 10y ago
You can't just ban encryption and expect it to magically go away. I don't think a suicide bomber will care too much if his encryption is illegal, while people with good intentions get to suffer the consequences. Besides, how do they think this will play out with financial transactions? Government websites? Heck, any website that uses https? Stupid idea.
- pif 10y ago
  > how do they think this will play out with ... ? It could be done the same as driving or carrying a gun: not banned, but controlled. You want to use encryption? OK! Just register yourself with the authorities and sign a statement that you will provide the keys if a judge asks. Other than that, you are breaking the law.
opendomain 10y ago
How does this help? If a criminal wants a gun, they can get a gun. Encryption is out of pandora's box - the methods have been published for years. It a terrorist uses encryption - how can this stop them?
Qantourisc 10y ago
Anyone who knows if they are 2 "rogue" ministers, or if they have some backing ?
- sdoering 10y ago
  At least in Germany, coming from the leading party[1] and pushing the official party line, the minister is anything but rogue. The leading party (CDU) even has a sister party (CSU in Bavaria) that is even more of a law and order type. They have way more extreme ideas on how a state should be able to control it's citizens. But even the moderate left SPD (in coalition with CDU as ruling parties in Germany) have their flavor of hawks. Right now it seems there is no powerful reasonable voice for freedom in Germany - at least in the higher ranks of power. But maybe this last sentence is just my selection bias. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_de_Maizi%C3%A8re https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_de_Maizi%C3%A8re
  - Qantourisc 10y ago
    So ... enough reason to start worrying and set-up counter campaigns ?
- kakwa_ 10y ago
  In France, the interior minister Cazeneuve is inline with his government. Considering that Mr Valls, the prime minister, is Cazeneuve's predecessor and is at the right wing of the Socialist Party, it's not a really big surprise. However, the government policy is not well received inside the Parliament. Many socialist deputies (the "Frondeurs") kind of oppose the government on various political decisions (on security or economy). But it has little effect on the policies being enforced, through the 49.3 article, the government can pass a law without parliamentary debate and vote (the Parliament, through a vote, can only force the government to resign which has never happened as it will be a political suicide for the deputies), the french fifth Republic constitution is magical sometimes...
douche 10y ago
I think its a losing battle. Let's say you ban end-to-end encryption. Maybe the next frontier is steganography, where I post some cat-meme on imgur, except one bit of the blue channel in each pixel is encoding my nefarious secret message. Do you ban posting images? With the number of spam emails that look like the output from bad Markov Chain generators, you could send messages in clear-text, using a simple traditional code, and it would be drowned in the noise.
hashtagMERKY 10y ago
I remember watching William Hague on the news using the fact that two girls had been radicalised via Twitter as justification for more snooping powers. All the tweets were public and they were even showing them on screen while he was saying it. Just demonstrates how little logic there can be behind the extension of snooping powers.
tomhoward 10y ago
Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12353957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12353957
guard-of-terra 10y ago
"Terrorists that we brought to country hurt you so we have to hurt you back to compensate" That's how it goes with politicans for the last 15 years. I used to be wanting interplanetary travel, now my bar is much lower, I'll be happy enough extracting my revenge.
MrLeftHand 10y ago
It is easier to find something to blame then actually taking steps to avoid these attacks. As far as I remember the Police already had the people behind the attacks on their radar, but they didn't do anything. Being able to decrypt the messages wont help if they do it after the attacks happened. Like the FBI vs Apple? They knew the guy, they were following him. And did they do anything? Nope. And what does it matter, if they go through with this? Criminals, terrorists will create their own encrypted channels. It's a never ending battle and the only ones loosing will be the rights of the civilians. And even if it will help to fight terrorism and save everyone without firing a gun, what's the promise that these tools, these backdoors wont fall into wrong hands? What's the promise when a dictatorship rises in one of these countries, they wont be able to use it for bad things? Will they close these doors after they won the war on terrorism?

42 points by ammonammon 10y ago

Here's a reminder why backdooring or otherwise weakening encryption is a bad idea (PDF): https://www.schneier.com/academic/paperfiles/paper-keys-under-doormats-CSAIL.pdf https://www.schneier.com/academic/paperfiles/paper-keys-unde...

sevenless 10y ago

> The context here is that France and Germany have suffered a spate of terrorist attacks over the past year, including a co-ordinated attack in Paris in November 2015 that killed 130; a July 2016 attack in Nice where a truck driver ploughed into crowds celebrating Bastille Day; and a stabbing in a church in Northern France that killed an elderly priest. To put this in perspective, about 700 people would die from homicide in France in a normal year, and about 600,000 would die of all causes (http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=fr&v=26 http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=fr&v=26). The unusually high amount of terrorism in the last year, accounts for 0.03% of all deaths. That terrorism is seen as an urgent problem just highlights the irrationality of decision-making in a democracy. It poses no significant mortality risk to Europeans.

erelde 10y ago
I agree with your idea, but I think you should add a few logical links in your statements to make it clearer. (and I live very near la Bastille, so according to the politicians I should be shocked) Furthermore, the people who did those crimes did not use any form of encryption but discussed on their playstation while playing Call of Duty. So there's that too.
- kikimaru 10y ago
  Does anyone have any proof of this? Sounds like fear-mongering bullshit to me.
akerro 10y ago
Fact: The attack in November in Paris was coordinated using unencrypted text messages. Conclusion: Let's ban PGP! People are dying! http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/11/paris-police-find-phone-with-unencrypted-sms-saying-lets-go-were-starting/ http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/11/paris-police-fi...
- sevenless 10y ago
  Yes Minister calls this "politician's logic". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trw1PbQt_Yo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trw1PbQt_Yo Something must be done; this is something; therefore, we must do it.
- guillermau 10y ago
  Fact: The attack in November in Paris was coordinated text messages. Conclusion: Let's ban reading and writing ! Fact: The attackers who attack Paris in November were recruited online by Isis. Conclusion: Let's ban internet for non commercial use !
mafribe 10y ago
no significant mortality risk to Europeans. This is "Whataboutism". The rational behind being wary about terrorism is as follows. 1. Normal homicides are random individual actions, and they are under reasonable control by standard policing. In other words, if we continue policing as we do now, normal homicide rate will remain constant. 2. Terrorism is not random individual action, but rather organised violence by large groups seeking power. If we continue policing as we do now, terrorism will increase, up to a point where the terrorists take over and are the new rulers. (Compare for example with the reaction to the AIDS epidemics in the early 1980s. The lazy whatabout-ist could have said (and indeed did say): "Oh AIDS just affects a few gays and needle-sharing heroin addicts, whatabout the orders of magnitude more who die of the flu and cancer, no need to worry about AIDS".) If you believe the two 'axioms' above, then it's perfectly reasonable to adapt policing in the light of the current wave of terrorism that's been spreading in Europe (and not only there). Note that I'm not saying that encryption should or should not be banned, or that either way is/isn't a good way of fighting terrorism. I'm just pointing out the weakness of the "but whatabout XYZ" argument.
- leereeves 10y ago
  > If we continue policing as we do now, terrorism will increase, up to a point where the terrorists take over and are the new rulers. That cannot be accepted as an 'axiom' without proof.
  - mafribe 10y ago
    Exactly what would you accept as proof? A deduction in ZFC or Homotopy Type Theory? Or an empirical experiment, where we split the world into two parts, one were we police terrorism as the french are doing now, and one where terrorists are treated like random robberies and crimes of spurned lovers; then wait for 200 years and see which side does better?
    - leereeves 10y ago
      Does the snark mean you don't have an actual argument supporting the 'axiom' (really just a premise) that "terrorists will take over the world"? You can't avoid the need to prove your premises by calling them 'axioms'.
Aeolun 10y ago
I think you are misrepresenting the issue. 700 would die from homicide in a normal year. +/- 150 died from terrorism in 2015, 2016 is on track to have a slightly lower number (100), That means the increase in homicide from recent terrorism is anywhere between 14 and 21%. That's not insignificant however you look at it. Those 600,000 people are going to die either way, but those 150 people a year are still up in the air. Doesn't mean that cancer isn't a bigger issue on the grand scale, but having people see terrorism as a natural disaster is a bit of a stretch.
- sevenless 10y ago
  This seems to be confusing proportions with absolute numbers. Newspapers do this all the time about health statistics, going from a very small number of additional deaths to scaremonger about a '300% increase in cancer'. Terrorism in the last year is a significant proportion of the total number of homicides in France, but the percentage increase doesn't mean the absolute number is relevant. If you didn't worry about being murdered in France before 2015, there's no reason to worry about dying in a terrorist attack after 2015. Moreover, we might expect terrorist attacks to regress to the mean, so 2015 would be unusually bad under that additional assumption. If the number of homicides increased by 14-20% due to some other cause, it likely wouldn't be seen as an urgent policy issue. > Those 600,000 people are going to die either way In fact, many will die from avoidable causes, like medical errors.
zakk 10y ago
Nonsense. Accounting for all deaths together is a great way of losing focus on each problem. Drownings account for roughly as many deaths as police in the USA. Should we seek for different, specific solutions or treat all deaths as if they were the same, losing touch with the real topic? Terrorism is a deliberate attempt to destabilize the state and must be fought differently with respect to, say, flu.
- Qantourisc 10y ago
  We are proposing laws we would normally not consider. Destabilization successful.
  - zakk 10y ago
    You are implying that a new law to address a new phenomenon will necessarily destabilize the country. Of course it's not so, some laws are required to face a new threat and stabilize the country.
- sevenless 10y ago
  Even if this is true, and terrorism threatens the existence of the state, states have no right to exist. New states often come into being, and states often stop existing (East Germany, USSR). This isn't inherently good or bad. There are ethical rationales for opposing terrorism, but defending the existence of particular national governments isn't one of them.
  - zakk 10y ago
    > states have no right to exist Quite a big assumption you make. If states have no right to exist, they obviously have no right of making new laws. Here we are discussing about a law proposal, so apparently everyone believes in the right of a country to exist and to regulate citizen's life through laws. I'm sorry.
    - sevenless 10y ago
      > If states have no right to exist, the obviously have no right of making new laws. That doesn't follow. States do make new laws, and people will go along with those laws, because the nature of a state is to compel people to follow its laws (by definition). It still doesn't mean that it's bad that any state should stop existing, or that we should oppose terrorism on the sole ground that it threatens states. Put it another way: a referendum to split the state into two (like the Scottish independence referendum), also threatens the state. That would not be a reason to oppose the referendum.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

vbezhenar 10y ago

I don't think that it's possible to ban encryption. I can use gpg to encrypt anything and send it as a text via any channel. I can do anything in my computer. They could ban encryption for wide audience, that's true. But those who need to hide something, they will have access to encryption.

chopin 10y ago
> I can do anything in my computer. For that, free access to your computer is required. This isn't the case for the vast majority of smart phones and becomes less true for laptops or desktops as the discussions around Windows 10 show. Even if you install Linux, there is Intel ME and the like. Using Linux singles you out. Three letter agencies will have to target only the few ones with it via ME or the like. Only if big enterprises will start to adopt Linux this will become infeasible and under scrutiny of big IT organizations.
pif 10y ago
Actually, banning something doesn't mean to make it impossible, but to declare it illegal. Hypothetically, they (actually, we, as governments are just representative of the voters) can ban encryption. Which means that any communication with no signal naturally emerging from noise is suspicious, thus they/we can ask you to justify yourself and keep you locked until you demonstrate that what you were hiding doesn't represent a threat for the community. And then give you a fine you anyway, so next time you'll think twice before breaking the law. PS: it's not "you" you, it's "you" in general :-)
- ragebol 10y ago
  With steganography [0], you can send encrypted messages embedded in images. Sending normal looking pictures is not suspicious (at least currently, for some definition of normal). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography
  - pif 10y ago
    Yes, you can. But if encryption is illegal, than steganography is illegal, too. Which means that big companies looking for advertisement money will not struggle to offer you an out-of-the-box solution. And this will make a huge difference in itself - I'll let anyone judge whether she considers such a difference good and worth the hassle.

dirktheman 10y ago

You can't just ban encryption and expect it to magically go away. I don't think a suicide bomber will care too much if his encryption is illegal, while people with good intentions get to suffer the consequences. Besides, how do they think this will play out with financial transactions? Government websites? Heck, any website that uses https? Stupid idea.

pif 10y ago
> how do they think this will play out with ... ? It could be done the same as driving or carrying a gun: not banned, but controlled. You want to use encryption? OK! Just register yourself with the authorities and sign a statement that you will provide the keys if a judge asks. Other than that, you are breaking the law.

opendomain 10y ago

How does this help? If a criminal wants a gun, they can get a gun. Encryption is out of pandora's box - the methods have been published for years. It a terrorist uses encryption - how can this stop them?

Qantourisc 10y ago

Anyone who knows if they are 2 "rogue" ministers, or if they have some backing ?

sdoering 10y ago
At least in Germany, coming from the leading party[1] and pushing the official party line, the minister is anything but rogue. The leading party (CDU) even has a sister party (CSU in Bavaria) that is even more of a law and order type. They have way more extreme ideas on how a state should be able to control it's citizens. But even the moderate left SPD (in coalition with CDU as ruling parties in Germany) have their flavor of hawks. Right now it seems there is no powerful reasonable voice for freedom in Germany - at least in the higher ranks of power. But maybe this last sentence is just my selection bias. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_de_Maizi%C3%A8re https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_de_Maizi%C3%A8re
- Qantourisc 10y ago
  So ... enough reason to start worrying and set-up counter campaigns ?
kakwa_ 10y ago
In France, the interior minister Cazeneuve is inline with his government. Considering that Mr Valls, the prime minister, is Cazeneuve's predecessor and is at the right wing of the Socialist Party, it's not a really big surprise. However, the government policy is not well received inside the Parliament. Many socialist deputies (the "Frondeurs") kind of oppose the government on various political decisions (on security or economy). But it has little effect on the policies being enforced, through the 49.3 article, the government can pass a law without parliamentary debate and vote (the Parliament, through a vote, can only force the government to resign which has never happened as it will be a political suicide for the deputies), the french fifth Republic constitution is magical sometimes...

douche 10y ago

I think its a losing battle. Let's say you ban end-to-end encryption. Maybe the next frontier is steganography, where I post some cat-meme on imgur, except one bit of the blue channel in each pixel is encoding my nefarious secret message. Do you ban posting images? With the number of spam emails that look like the output from bad Markov Chain generators, you could send messages in clear-text, using a simple traditional code, and it would be drowned in the noise.

hashtagMERKY 10y ago

I remember watching William Hague on the news using the fact that two girls had been radicalised via Twitter as justification for more snooping powers. All the tweets were public and they were even showing them on screen while he was saying it. Just demonstrates how little logic there can be behind the extension of snooping powers.

tomhoward 10y ago

Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12353957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12353957

guard-of-terra 10y ago

"Terrorists that we brought to country hurt you so we have to hurt you back to compensate" That's how it goes with politicans for the last 15 years. I used to be wanting interplanetary travel, now my bar is much lower, I'll be happy enough extracting my revenge.

MrLeftHand 10y ago

It is easier to find something to blame then actually taking steps to avoid these attacks. As far as I remember the Police already had the people behind the attacks on their radar, but they didn't do anything. Being able to decrypt the messages wont help if they do it after the attacks happened. Like the FBI vs Apple? They knew the guy, they were following him. And did they do anything? Nope. And what does it matter, if they go through with this? Criminals, terrorists will create their own encrypted channels. It's a never ending battle and the only ones loosing will be the rights of the civilians. And even if it will help to fight terrorism and save everyone without firing a gun, what's the promise that these tools, these backdoors wont fall into wrong hands? What's the promise when a dictatorship rises in one of these countries, they wont be able to use it for bad things? Will they close these doors after they won the war on terrorism?