British Authorities Slam WhatsApp for Encryption Used by London Terrorist

[CrAKeN]

 

WhatsApp can't hand over messages

 

End-to-end encryption services like WhatsApp are once more being slammed for offering protection for users everywhere. This time, the UK is doing all the finger pointing, and it's because of the terrorist attack that took place on Wednesday.

 

British Home Secretary Amber Rudd has accused WhatsApp of giving terrorists "a place to hide," after the company has failed to comply with a demand to hand over the last messages sent by London attacker, Adrian Ajao, the Telegraph reports.

 

"This terrorist sent a WhatsApp message, and it can't be accessed," Rudd said. She also said that it is completely unacceptable for end-to-end encryption to be offered because there should be no place for terrorists to hide.

 

"We need to make sure that organizations like WhatsApp - and there are plenty of others like that - don't provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other," she added.

 

The British authorities are complaining that Scotland Yard and the security services cannot access encrypted messages sent via WhatsApp, so they cannot know who Ajao contacted or what the told them before the attack.

 

Not only did Rudd slam WhatsApp, but also went after Google and social media platforms which have been known for being late to take down extremist material or refusing to take it down altogether due to their protection of "free speech" and the way their Terms are worded.

 

A much-desired backdoor

This isn't the first time, nor will it be the last time, when WhatsApp and other similar services, as well as encrypted email tools, are slammed by authorities. End-to-end encryption is supposed to protect users from hackers, but also mass-surveillance, such as that exposed by Edward Snowden's NSA files.

 

The way it works, a message is encrypted the second it is sent by one user, and it only gets decrypted once it reached the recipient. In this way, WhatsApp doesn't have access to any plain-text messages, which means it cannot share anything with authorities.

 

In recent months there have been more and more voices asking for encryption backdoors for authorities, something that tech companies will likely never agree to; not without losing users in droves.

 

Source

[46&2]

"Your Dead Kids Don't Trump My Constitutional Rights''! Thats Joe (Joe The Plumber) I agree 1000% becuase when it does the bad guys win, some are just too stupid to understand!

[GRiM]

By their logic they should be slamming the people who made the knife and the car maker as well.

[steven36]

They dont use WhatsApp they use Telegram.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4350140/ISIS-ordered-attack-Parliament-app-Telegram.html

If Facebook was too backdoor WhatsApp  everyone would switch to something else not owned by Facebook.  Backdooring or banning encryption want stop  terrorism noways Al-Qaeda was formed in 1988 and the 9-11 attacks were in 2001 before anyone much used encryption .  There not as dumb as they was in 2001 anymore because in 2013 it was exposed that  Governments had been using the internet  to spy on them  since 2001 .

 

So if they backdoor encryption and if they  start getting caught and questioned about things they said on these apps they will just finds new ways to communicate.  I'm sorry but no matter what you do you cant expect things to be like the was before 2013 ,  The past is gone forever.

 

Terrorism  is very old it's older than any modern technology we have today .

Quote

Scholars dispute whether the roots of terrorism date back to the 1st century and the Sicarii Zealots, to the 11th century and the Al-Hashshashin, to the 19th century and the Fenian Brotherhood and Narodnaya Volya, or to other eras.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_terrorism#Early_terrorism

So you could ban internet usage world wide and it still would not stop it.