EFF: Detecting Ghosts By Reverse Engineering: Who Ya Gonna Call?
Detecting Ghosts By Reverse Engineering: Who Ya Gonna Call? This article was first published on Lawfare . The most recent purportedly serious proposal by a Western government to force technology companies to provide access to the content of encrypted communications comes from Ian Levy and Crispin Robinson of the Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, the U.K.’s equivalent of the National Security Agency. Cryptography luminaries such as Susan Landau , Matt Green , and Bruce Schneier have published detailed critiques of this proposal. Indeed, others from EFF have written about the proposal —known colloquially as the “ghost”—and explained why, contrary to GCHQ’s claim, the proposal really is an encryption backdoor with all the attendant security risks. But even putting aside the persuasive arguments that the ghost presents a security risk to average users, in this post, we detail some previously undiscussed reas...