Social network monitoring: trust none | Dan Gillmor

A woman uses her BlackBerry at a shopping mall in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. In neighbouring Saudi Arabia, authorities blocked its instant messaging services. Photo: Reuters

Law enforcers in the UK and elsewhere come to life harsh realities: modern communication technologies provides activists all forms an easier way to organize and implement.

But even as Governments move to crack, as Jeff Jarvis notes, activists also teaches a lesson — not only those that we can support, such as the Egyptian revolutionaries, but also those whose actions leave us cold or angry, like many of the rioters and looters who have trashed so many parts of London and other British society over the last few days. In all cases they realized they did not begin to have confidence in technology companies, if they used communication tools.

Law enforcement dilemma was highlighted by the protesters BlackBerry use of mobile devices, which encrypts text communication. So the activists could organise on the fly with no apparent fear of being identified or have the decrypted in sufficient time for the police to reply to messages.

That led inevitably to calls, research in motion (RIM), maker of BlackBerry, to help police investigations, including the unmasking of users. What RIM has touted as a brilliant feature in his service, encryption capability was to be turned towards customers – like so many of the technologies, we routinely use can be turned against us by their operators.

RANDS motives in helping the police is understandable. It wants to be seen as a responsible corporate citizen, without a doubt; But even more likely, it fears the Government sanctions if it does not cooperate.

But this assistance will lead to a renewal of a long-lasting arms race. Protesters may not have realised that rand could (or would) decrypt their messages on its servers and extradite them to third parties. Some activists would react by seeking new and more secure ways to communicate.

And so will some companies when they better understand the wider implications. After all trust companies increasingly on mobile communication, so they should ask themselves if there is any reason to trust on the units and or the carriers move data around security.

The answer could be Yes; There is no technical reason why any particular conversation should not be secure. Some technologies, such as Skype, is said to be sure. Perhaps, but I have never fully trusted Skype, given his super-complex and proprietary system; and now that it is owned by Microsoft, I have confidence in the even smaller.

The safest method is security specialists call "Start-to-end encryption" – creating what amounts to a secure channel cannot be unscrambled in the middle of the network. When you interact with a bank, using its website, it assumes the competent security procedures, you use this method; in theory, nobody in the middle (for example, your internet service provider) see anything but gobbledygook when examining the data flowing through the networks.

This kind of thing is not widely implemented in simple text, email, social networks or most other digital communications. When you use the encrypted version of Facebook or Google + social-network, for example, is your data safe up to the point that when these companies ' servers; but they can save it and if ordered by a Government, supplying it.

The dangers of systems that enable "man in the Middle" monitoring attack, or is so obvious – among other things, they offer tantalising target really bad people-that we should see more widespread deployment of seriously secure communications. Individuals who have reason to fear government or criminal intruders will migrate to really ensure systems over time, if they aren't already there. It includes smart businesses, not just reviled protesters or criminal elements who are using technology to wrong. In the meantime, it is clear that no one can place absolute trust in those companies that currently provides the hardware and network.

The more we work to create truly secure communication, the more likely will be a reactionary responses that go beyond encouraging or forcing corporate cooperation with monitoring. In some places already, including the United Kingdom, the police require that people turn over personal encryption keys or go to jail, a scandalous violation of freedom of the invasive. At one point, can we expect the authorities will require restrictions on conversations they don't push to understand in real-time.

This is an old debate, in fact — one we trøde, settled in the United States in the 1990s when the Clinton Administration put forward a plan to require all cell phones include chips, which would make it possible for the Government to spy on all calls. Security experts then explained that the idea was both impractical and dangerous to actual security, and the plan was shelved.

It comes back in some form. World Governments are terrified of the idea of unbreakable communications. (Even visible them worry paranoid leaders; British Prime minister David Cameron's call for a ban on some types of discussions on social networks is a particularly ridiculous proposals.) Only two of them understand if I am right, it will soon be illegal to have a really private conversation unless you whispering in someone's ear in a language.

Never mind that it does not work, and that it will lead to less, not more, security for all. Is it you want to live in the world?

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