An equal battle || Privacy vs Security
“Whatsapp is responsible for the London Bridge terrorist attack in 2017.”
Wait, what?
The entire London Bridge attack was planned using Whatsapp and due to the strong encryption embedded in Whatsapp, MI5 (UK Intelligence Agency) was completely blind about that attack. So they directly pointed their finger towards Whatsapp, claiming that Whatsapp creates blind spots for illegal operations and the whole world has to suffer the consequences.
This is one of the most controversial topics in the tech world. “Privacy vs Security” Should we give up our privacy for the sake of security?
On May 20, 2013 former NSA whitehat hacker, Edward Snowden released over 9,000 documents about NSA hacking tools which are used to spy on humankind including their fellow Americans. But NSA rejected the fact that they are spying on Americans and about the rest of the world they said that it is required for the protection of their country. As the famous saying “history repeats again”, after the London attack also governments emphasized the fact that there should be backdoors in the social networks so that Intelligence Agencies can access. If Whatsapp, Viber or Facebook agrees with that, that will be the biggest data breach in the entire human history. The most sensitive information and personal life matters of millions will be revealed to the outside world and that will be the end of the privacy.
When it comes security, the fact that hackers and illegal operators always hide behind the veil of privacy, can’t be rejected. Tor and Dark web are the common examples. Tor network hides the identity of real user while darkweb contains all kinds of illegal operations. The main issue is due to the well designed protocols, tracking the dark-web activities or onion routing is nearly impossible. Privacy mostly comes with anonymity. And this anonymity leads to the breach of security. So as it is mentioned earlier this topic is highly controversial.
However regardless of the laws and regulations,plenty of evidences exist to prove that law enforcement agencies use tools and various software that directly affect to the privacy. The best example is vault 7 of wikileaks.
Vault 7 is a series of documents that explains most of the CIA hacking tools in detailed manner. Believe or not there are techniques available to convert your own smart TV in to a covert microphone (“Whipping Angle”). The most protected digital devices (Isolated Devices) are not safe anymore. With the server power of governments most of current cryptosystems will be useless in near future. Since large number of hacking tool were released, massive uncontrollable attacks and global pandemics are guaranteed.
So that is how we have lost our privacy due to the national security. In the name of security, people have to be digitally naked in the binary world. Since we don’t have to put down our real cloths most of us won’t bother. But when the moment comes that we realize, our every single move is recorded and every single word we say is backed up, that would be more embarrassing than walking naked.
