They use the same kind of deceptive argument trying to justify weakening the protections we have to supposedly catch “criminals” and “terrorists”.
Breaking encryption won’t even help catch the criminals that are actually going to hurt you.
See below, a rough “risk matrix” of various crimes, and the approximate likelihood of falling victim to each.
Key:
Usually coordinated over insecure, popular messages; susceptible to message interception as is
Popularly used to justify anti-encryption laws
: Malicious actors typically bring phones, susceptible to phone geolocation records
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Impact |
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| Likelihood of Victimization |
Negligable |
Low |
Medium |
High |
Catastrophic (loss of life) |
| Certain (99%) |
|
: Personal property theft (~99%) |
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|
|
| Probable (51%+) |
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|
: Burglary (~72%) |
|
|
| Likely (25-50%+) |
Teen Sexting (~25%) |
|
: Robbery (~30%) |
: Robbery or Assault resulting in Injury (~40%) |
|
| Possible (10-24%+) |
|
|
Vehicle theft (~19%) |
|
|
| Unlikely (1-9%) |
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|
Rape (~8%, only women counted in study) |
Drug overdose (~1.7%) |
| Rare (<1%) |
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|
|
: Murder (~0.7%), killed by drunk driver (0.3%) |
| Extremely Rare (<0.1%) |
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|
Filmed and shared in child pornography by adult (~0.0017%) |
|
plane crash (~0.009%), killed by police officer (~0.0086%) terrorist attack (aprox. ~0.002%) |
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| [1][2][3][6], |
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The government could exploit the absence of end-to-end encryption on social media platforms to target serious crimes that are both high-impact and high-likelihood. However, they choose not to; their rationale for extensive surveillance is often framed around preventing events that rarely affect the general population.
The arguments supporting anti-privacy legislation hinge on the fear of sensational crimes that dominate media coverage, creating an impression that terrorists and child pornographers are around every corner, plotting to pounce on their victims using unbreakable networks. Yet, a straightforward, objective evaluation reveals that these dangers either are 1) exceptionally rare or 2) rarely harm people.
Terrorist incidents are infrequent; unless one resides in a conflict zone like Syria, the likelihood from dying by choking on food, bicycle accident, or just walking around is over 10x greater than from a terrorist attack. Terrorists do use end-to-end encrypted products, but in absence of that they will utilize open-source client-side steganography, communicate on video games where talking about bombs is normal. They can and have developed and distributed their own messaging platforms. Or they can just find ways to get around blocks for these products; its not like terrorists are known for following the law.
The “Protect the Children” meme is just tiring. The likelihood of a child being filmed for CP by adults and actively shared are as uncommon as plane crashes, and when they do occur, they are rarely facilitated through E2E encrypted messengers. CP is typically shared through Tor or I2P sites, or even on the clearnet, by people who don’t actually do anything with kids in real life. For comparison, married police officers are statistically more likely to abuse children (10-40% depending on years of experience) than people arrested for looking at CP (1-2%)[4][5]. E2E encryption offers little advantage for CP users; their primary concern is anonymity rather than the confidentiality of their communications and content. To suggest that E2E encryption significantly impacts CP distribution reflects a misunderstanding (or deliberate misrepresentation) of how and why CP is filmed and shared. Backdooring messengers isn’t going to meaningfully reduce actual child abuse.
Most of what gets picked up as “CP” by mass surveillance tools are just teenagers doing what teenagers do, with other teens. Why do a bunch of grown government workers want to peek on teens’ intimate conversations and photos? How is this any different than a police officer peeking through a teenager’s bedroom window?
This is not to say violent terrorists and rapists shouldn’t be fought against - they are and should, the problem is that creating backdoors for E2E products is not an effective way of combating such threats.
Gang members and seasoned criminals typically lack technological expertise and do not utilize E2E encrypted messaging. Understandably, they’re not the brightest bunch. Car thieves often coordinate their activities on super insecure messaging platforms like Snapchat. The gang members who are likely violently assault you are like to boast about their actions on facebook messenger. The criminal who holds you at gunpoint probably has a phone that can be tracked. The drug dealer who introduces your child to fentanyl is likely to use unsecured SMS for coordination. Yet, does knowing their messages can be intercepted ever deter them?
Despite the fact that the most prevalent and dangerous criminals are generally not tech-savvy, law enforcement rarely employs their surveillance capabilities to address or prevent common violent crime. If you are violently attacked or robbed, police officers will likely search for camera footage, and will probably give up if they can’t find it (unless you’re rich and important enough). They might apprehend a suspect, but unless that individual is a political dissident, they are unlikely to use tools like Cellebrite to access the suspect’s phone or request messages from social media platforms. Companies like Google and Meta have the ability to monitor for drug dealers conspiring to commit violence on their platforms, yet they do not. Conversely, if a parent takes an inappropriate photo of their child, AI systems will detect it, leading to a police raid. Governments also seem adept at identifying individuals who support controversial political movements, yet they appear either incapable or unwilling to pursue the real threats - the uncivilized brutes that don’t use encryption in the first place.
The things that mass surveillance is supposedly made to prevent or justified with problems, that only effect a astronomically low percentage of the population. But mass surveillance itself effects us all. If the vast sums invested in mass surveillance were genuinely aimed at preventing crime and death, the results have been minimal. Perhaps these efforts are intended for something else?
Sources, Additoinal Reading
How likely are foreign terrorists to kill Americans? The odds may surprise you
[1]NCMEC - Production and Active Trading
Likelihood of being filmed in CP, calculated based on US youth (0-18) population as of 2023, and rates based on most recent statistics gathered (2011-2014) averaged out over 18 years.
[2] U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Lifetime Likelihood of Victimization
[3]NSC: Odds of Dying
[4] The consumption of Internet child pornography and violent and sex offending - PMC
[5] On the Front Lines: Police Stress and Family Well-Being.
[6] Impaired Driving Facts | Impaired Driving | CDC
The section where you talked about what adding a backdoor for the “good guys” would actually look like was especially good, feels like politicians don’t really think about what it would look like in practice.
