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Any property of a system that makes it possible to intercept the communication of specific users is, in and of itself, a systemic weakness.
by peterkelly 6y ago
Any property of a system that makes it possible to intercept the communication of specific users is, in and of itself, a systemic weakness.
- throwaway9d0291 6y agoI agree and were a company to not already have that capability and the government were to request it, such a request would be legally worthless per the aforementioned law. However pretty much every closed-source communication tool already has this systemic weakness, so the government doesn't have to ask for it to be introduced. WhatsApp, Facebook, Google etc. can all, today, as we speak, choose to push out an app update with code to send plaintext copies of a specific person's messages to Australian law enforcement/intelligence. There's nothing new here. Open-source tools though do not have this vulnerability. Signal for example has reproducible builds and the Australian government cannot require it to remove them so that it can covertly intercept individuals' messages. My point here is that contrary to reporting in the tech media, the law doesn't and cannot require that any backdoors be introduced. It can only require that existing ones be used.