Operation Trojan Horse; as it is called by the FBI has enabled Europol, FBI and AFP to monitor enrcypted communication for a long time.
This has prevented a lot of crime and saved lives. That is a good thing
Drug dealers, Trafficking slave dealers and other heavy criminals deserve whats coming to them.
However I feel a big BUT coming up......
The AFP chief put it like this:
The criminals trust in encrypted communication is misplaced
So...what about common Joe's trust in encrypted communication? Or the Industrial owners making critical products - can they be sure their research is safe?
Is safe computing possible for the non criminal part of the world?
In the official version this operation was a honeypot were the FBI ran the criminal app. If they in fact have found a way to bypass the encryption then National Security would forbid them to say so anyway.
Spectre and meltdown and other built in weaknesses in the CPU would potentially enable it so it cannot be ruled out.
In any case it is time to remind the police about something they tend to forget:
From the universal declaration of human rights (UN).
Article 12
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
So dear police persons and agencies; please limit this to criminals only.
That is all we can do (ask nicely) - I'm afraid - since there is no doubt that they have the capabilities to intercept all of our electronic communication - whenever and wherever they want.
