[tor-project] Fwd: Russian bill requires encryption backdoors in all messenger apps

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-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Russian bill requires encryption backdoors in all messenger apps
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2016 15:59:16 -0400
From: Nathan White <nathan at accessnow.org>

Russian bill requires encryption backdoors in all messenger apps
By Patrick Howell O'Neill
<http://www.dailydot.com/authors/patrick-howell-oneill/>

Backdoors into encrypted communications may soon be mandatory in Russia
<http://dailydot.com/tags/russia>.

A new bill in the Russian Duma, the country's lower legislative house,
proposes to make cryptographic backdoors mandatory in all messaging apps in
the country so the Federal Security Service—the successor to the KGB—can
obtain special access to all communications within the country.

Apps like WhatsApp <http://www.dailydot.com/tags/whatsapp>, Viber
<http://www.dailydot.com/tags/viber>, and Telegram
<http://www.dailydot.com/tags/telegram>, all of which offer varying levels
of encrypted security for messages, are specifically targeted in the
"anti-terrorism" bill, according to Russian-language media
<http://www.currenttime.tv/a/27809255.html>. Fines for offending companies
could reach 1 million rubles or about $15,000.

The new Russian legislation, which has already been approved by the
Committee on Security, is just the latest such flare up in a global debate
over encryption <http://dailydot.com/tags/encryption/> that earned a bright
spotlight in the U.S. earlier this year, particularly after the San
Bernardino terrorist attack
<http://www.dailydot.com/tags/san-bernardino-shooting/> led the FBI
<http://dailydot.com/tags/fbi>to pl
<http://www.dailydot.com/politics/fbi-san-bernardino-iphone-exploit-no-vulnerability-disclosure/>ead
for access to one of the shooter's encrypted iPhones
<http://www.dailydot.com/politics/fbi-san-bernardino-iphone-exploit-no-vulnerability-disclosure/>
.

Russian Senator Yelena Mizulina argued that the new bill ought to become
law because, she said, teens are brainwashed in closed groups on the
internet to murder police officers, a practice protected by encryption.
Mizulina then went further.

"Maybe we should revisit the idea of pre-filtering [messages]," she
said. "We cannot look silently on this."

Encryption uses advanced mathematics to protect data so that even the
world's most powerful computers cannot unlock data they are not meant to
have access to. The technology is used in various ways to protect
everything from credit card transactions on the internet to your emails
and internet traffic.

Government focus on encryption intensified in recent months after Apple
<http://www.dailydot.com/tags/apple> andGoogle
<http://www.dailydot.com/tags/google> offered encryption options on
their smartphones. WhatsApp, with over 1 billion users around the world,
offers encryption on messaging.

The technology is seen as a fundamental cornerstone of cybersecurity
<http://dailydot.com/tags/cybersecurity/>, such that if a business is
not using encryption to protect sensitive data, it's often deemed
irresponsible by experts.

But just as encryption keeps out crooks, it keeps out governments, law
enforcement, and intelligence agency spying. That's led to high-level
debates around the globe about the rising popularity of encryption.

While government authorities around the world argue in favor of special
access backdoors, a vast consensus of technologists argue such backdoors
will undermine cybersecurity and create an internet more dangerous and
volatile than ever before.

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