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How difficult would it be for these so called terrorists to develop their own end to end encrypted app? Perhaps something masquerading as something common like

How difficult would it be for these so called terrorists to develop their own end to end encrypted app? Perhaps something masquerading as something common like any port under 1000? It is feasible that the elimination of whatsapp/telegram/signal encryption would just lead to a way more complicated encryption system developed internally to these organisations.

fooker 10y ago
You just described a rather common programming assignment at most schools..
makomk 10y ago
Not that difficult, but it'd almost certainly have major security flaws that GHCQ and the NSA could exploit, because homebrew end-to-end encryption tends to. The bigger problem is that merely using an Isis-branded chat application is the equivalent of sending a text message to the security services saying "hello, I'm a potential terrorist, please pay special attention to my every movement". Even the Tor project hasn't actually managed to reliably disguise their protocol as something else, and they have a bunch of smart people working on it with the advantage that countries tend to reveal the fact they've been detected through blocking rather than just quietly monitoring the people using it and rounding them up the moment they try something.
- goodplay 10y ago
  I generally agree, but intelligence groups have to first find the signal they want to monitor. Modern steganography techniques coupled with the free randomness you get from the physical world gives you much to work with. And that's assuming common tech will be used. Also, designing a secure general purpose messaging system is much harder that designing a system tailored for a specific use case. Banning encryption by law is like demanding, loudly, that people not talk behind your back. Some will listen, and some will not. Only legitimate users and use cases will suffer.
  - tormeh 10y ago
    Well, ISPs could implement a whitelist of communication methods. Maybe all content would have to be signed by a whitelist of apps before it's allowed through the network. Images would have to be signed by the camera app, so no steganography would be possible. From a business perspective it would be like going back to before the internet, but many of the services we associate with the internet like Facebook, Netflix etc. would survive.
    - goodplay 10y ago
      What about using latency or throughput as a signal? What about tunneling data over seemingly normal pictures taken by said camera app? What about switching the "User Available online" indicators at a seemingly natural rate? What about all three at the same time? I assure you, steganography will always be possible. The only think a ban on encryption would do is hurt (badly) society, personal privacy, and those who want to follow the law.
      - tormeh 10y ago
        Sure, it would be a bit of a whack-a-mole, but in the end sending concealed messages would become extremely difficult. It's technically impossible to do perfectly, but as we all know, perfect is the enemy of good enough ;)

fooker 10y ago

You just described a rather common programming assignment at most schools..

makomk 10y ago

Not that difficult, but it'd almost certainly have major security flaws that GHCQ and the NSA could exploit, because homebrew end-to-end encryption tends to. The bigger problem is that merely using an Isis-branded chat application is the equivalent of sending a text message to the security services saying "hello, I'm a potential terrorist, please pay special attention to my every movement". Even the Tor project hasn't actually managed to reliably disguise their protocol as something else, and they have a bunch of smart people working on it with the advantage that countries tend to reveal the fact they've been detected through blocking rather than just quietly monitoring the people using it and rounding them up the moment they try something.

goodplay 10y ago
I generally agree, but intelligence groups have to first find the signal they want to monitor. Modern steganography techniques coupled with the free randomness you get from the physical world gives you much to work with. And that's assuming common tech will be used. Also, designing a secure general purpose messaging system is much harder that designing a system tailored for a specific use case. Banning encryption by law is like demanding, loudly, that people not talk behind your back. Some will listen, and some will not. Only legitimate users and use cases will suffer.
- tormeh 10y ago
  Well, ISPs could implement a whitelist of communication methods. Maybe all content would have to be signed by a whitelist of apps before it's allowed through the network. Images would have to be signed by the camera app, so no steganography would be possible. From a business perspective it would be like going back to before the internet, but many of the services we associate with the internet like Facebook, Netflix etc. would survive.
  - goodplay 10y ago
    What about using latency or throughput as a signal? What about tunneling data over seemingly normal pictures taken by said camera app? What about switching the "User Available online" indicators at a seemingly natural rate? What about all three at the same time? I assure you, steganography will always be possible. The only think a ban on encryption would do is hurt (badly) society, personal privacy, and those who want to follow the law.
    - tormeh 10y ago
      Sure, it would be a bit of a whack-a-mole, but in the end sending concealed messages would become extremely difficult. It's technically impossible to do perfectly, but as we all know, perfect is the enemy of good enough ;)