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For the past few years, we have heard a number of stories and debates regarding our digital privacy. Many big tech companies such as Apple, as well as social media companies like Facebook, claim that information transmitted through their devices and services is secure. And it probably is, but is that necessarily a good thing?
Following the San Bernardino, CA shooting in 2015, Apple refused to unlock the shooters’ iPhone, garnering praise from the general public and condemnation by law-enforcement. Now this issue has reemerged following the attacks in France.
Pavel Durov, co-founder of Telegram
Telegram is the Russian counterpart to the US messaging service WhatsApp, created by Pavel Durov, who also founded the Russian version of Facebook. Durov left Russia after he refused to yield information about Ukrainian protesters to the Russian government in 2014, later starting Telegram. Telegram claims to be the most secure and highly encrypted messaging service in the world, which is definitely a selling point for its users. However, highly encrypted messaging is also a selling point for terrorists. It has been found that Telegram is a very popular tool among ISIS, and French officials are frustrated with failed attempts to retrieve terrorists’ private conversations from the servers. So effective is Telegram’s security that officials don’t even know where the servers are. French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve said, “They had done everything to make it a technological nightmare to find where their server is.”
This raises a few questions. Do we hijack our own safety by demanding that much privacy? Should such companies and services cooperate with law-enforcement? Should we lower our demand for privacy by not communicating sensitive information or providing too much information about ourselves online? We must consider these questions carefully, for by winning the war for personal privacy we may lose the war for national security.
For more information on the story please refer to: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/world/europe/telegram-isis-privacy-encryption.html?ref=world
My initial response is that, here in America, our Founding Fathers are generally correct, if you give up a little freedom for security, you’ll end up with neither. In order to reach this end, one must take the argument to the logical extreme: with time, if we continue to let the government tap into our privacy, they will have created a sturdy, ample platform to jump into a high level of tyranny at any time. For this reason, I will mostly likely never feel completely comfortable with allowing such actions. This is not because I don’t think that it will produce a short term aid, I do. It is because I worry about the future. I worry enough about our country’s future government overreach enough to give up some short term security for a better chance at upholding the constitution.
I found this article to be very interesting and brings up an important question of how far the right of privacy should go. Earlier this week there was an article about the case of Whatsapp in the Wall Street Journal by Sam Schechner that talked about how certain government in the EU are pushing to have the same restrictions and abilities to monitor app-based messaging systems like they can for normal messages and phone calls. The question there is less about privacy as it is about if there are exceptions to already in place laws and rules for telecom companies and if those app-based messaging systems fall under that. However, in the article above, the issue of privacy is in question. I personally believe that we already post more information and are more public than any other generation in time and for the government to skim over that for our protection does not seem like a direct infringement of my rights as much as for my own protection and safety.