Category Archives: Cyberwarfare

Law enforcement bodies ask social media to open end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for them

Cryptography, Encryption, Decryption, Cybercrime, Cyberterrorism, Cyberwarfare, Government and Regulation, News, PrivacyEitan Caspi
Interesting. Does these almost same-time publications are a coincidence? I tend to doubt it.
 
Both law enforcement bodies in Europe and Australia publicly turn to the private market, with focus on Social Media, asking it to ease its end-to-end encryption (E2EE), so law enforcement can read relevant data, for law enforcement reasons.
 
In my view this can mostly one of two:
1. Law enforcement has a real problem here
2. Law enforcement has the ability to overcome end-to-end encryption (E2EE) so they use these publications to pretend to be helpless against it, hence building the criminals/enemies confident that these platforms are safe for them, so they will act freely in them and so the law enforcement bodies will be able to spy on them
 
If it is the first reason – then I think it looks like we are escalating towards a clash.
 
News article
“Police Chiefs Call for Solutions to Access Encrypted Data in Serious Crime Cases”
 
The Europol post about it
 
The declaration (PDF file)
 
News article
“The director general of Australia’s lead intelligence agency and the commissioner of its Federal Police yesterday both called for social networks to offer more assistance to help their investigators work on cases involving terrorism, child exploitation, and racist nationalism.”

About the ability of cyber insurers to avoid paying due to a cyberwar act claim

Cyber Insurance, Cyberwarfare, ThoughtsEitan Caspi

Following the news article from below – it is no news that insurers try to avoid paying, but their stand of not paying due to cyber war acts will not stand, in my opinion.

For a cyber act and/or malware, to be officially declared, in our digital anonymized worlds, as originated from a specific country and intended to be an act of war – I guess only other governments or unions of governments (e.g. UN, NATO) can declare that, and such declaration may have severe consequences, like… ahhmmm… starting a war… – so the insurers’ ability to avoid paying for this reason, is, I think, close to zero (although it may be a true fact in reality and they may be right in their claim, but they won’t be able to prove it)

“Merck Settles NotPetya Insurance Claim, Leaving Cyberwar Definition Unresolved“