My point was that issues like this should be mediated by courts and existing legal systems, not the unilateral decision of technologists.
And that society is going to insist that be the case, hence the most effective way to protect those persecuted minorities is via cooperation and steering how that process happens — not fighting a losing battle.
Finally, that the way to increase the effective security is stop fighting ideological battles on the issue, and find a politically workable compromise which still prevents remote exploitation — the main danger of encryption bypasses.
This is a strict improvement over the current situation, where the answer is “anyone who has money”.
As the other commenter points out, this only adds an attack vector and does not do anything to eliminate any.
The same incentives exist on all sides to find exploits regardless of an additional “legal” channel to crack the encryption. Particularly because your political enemies use the same devices and you can’t get a court order to tap their phones (usually).
[1] - https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/...
Security researchers, strangely enough, seem to care who they sell to. If the NSA stopped buying and only the UAE was interested, I expect we’d see some firms move to other business models or targets for “research”.
There is no shortage of oppressive regimes with incredible amounts of money at their disposal. People who are in it for the money don't honestly give a shit who pays them. You cannot eliminate the market for this stuff. The only option is to create better software.
It should be, and would the judge disagree, show the honourable justice disagree, make him feel who is the boss in the internets.
In particular:
> What’s not going to sell, and what the tech industry needs to get over is “lulz, it’ll impossible to intercept military or terrorist information because I need absolute privacy for my saucy emails”
Seems to be an ironic mischaracterisation of the parent’s point, which was precisely that one coubtry’s terrorism is another’s gay rights activist or high ranking foreign official.
From the article:
In 2017, for instance, the operatives used Karma to hack an iPhone used by Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, as well as the devices of Turkey’s former Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Şimşek, and Oman’s head of foreign affairs, Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah. It isn’t clear what material was taken from their devices.
“Saucy e-mails” is a bit tone deaf :(