Conflict between governments' need to know and secure comms intensifies
software reportedly crafted by an al Qaeda support group. “They developed it so terrorist operatives could securely communicate with each other anywhere in the world,” Bumgarner said. “There are plenty of ways, right now, to conduct covert communications on the Internet that cannot be intercepted by most intelligence organizations worldwide.”
A Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) application to encrypt e-mail was created nearly 20 years ago by Philip Zimmermann, who later focused on doing the same for voice data in Internet telephone calls. At a recent DefCon gathering of computer hackers in Las Vegas, startup Whisper Systems released free software to encrypt Internet telephone calls and text messages on smartphones running on Google-backed Android software.
People intent on scrambling digital communications could also piggyback onto online forums that have encryption capabilities, or even take advantage of encryption in seemingly innocent missives such as electronic greet cards. “This is really a cat-and-mouse game between intelligence agencies and terrorist organizations,” Bumgarner said. “Within a few minutes I can establish an encrypted call with almost anyone anywhere in the world that cannot be intercepted by intelligence agencies.”
A spy agency with sufficient resources could easily crack BlackBerry messages; it just might not be in real time, according to industry experts. “By governments announcing that they are planning to monitor advance communication technologies, such as RIM servers they are just warning terrorists to find other ways to communicate,” Bumgarner told Chapman.
The conflict between national security fears and computer innovations spans decades. In the 1980s U.S. officials unsuccessfully pushed for encryption keys or “back doors” into computer data. In late 1994 the U.S. Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act that obligates telecom companies to “preserve” the ability of police to do lawful electronic snooping. The act was updated in 2006 with an order to include ISPs and Internet telephone service providers.
New technologies, though, are again challenging the status quo. “It isn’t difficult to encrypt communication such that nobody, not even governments, can eavesdrop on what you are saying,” said Ian Clarke, known for his work on a Freenet system for protecting online anonymity. “Their only option is to threaten specific software providers, like Skype, to provide a “back door” into their software.”
As is apparently the case with RIM, not all software providers will be susceptible to such threats. There is also open-source software, essentially publicly owned and improved programs, such as a GnuPG cryptographic tool, that can cause new headaches for authorities. “It will play out over and over, there will be new technologies and challenges. Events like 9/11 will tip the balance one way and when we feel governments are being repressive it shifts back,” said Rasch.
The trouble for countries that shut out tools for protected communications is that they run the risk of being branded unfriendly to legitimate business people who rely on protected communications in a competitive world. “Governments can go to the extreme of simply banning such technologies, but the economic ramifications of this would be intolerable for all but the most draconian regimes, like North Korea,” Clarke said.
