Trump Picks Anti-Encryption Attorney General, Signal Encrypted Messenger Downloads Skyrocket
Donald Trump’s choice for Attorney General may indicate an administration hostile to encryption and online privacy. Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, the incoming administration’s Attorney General pick, has long adopted a critical stance against encryption. He has stood in direct opposition to end-to-end encryption, citing his experience in law enforcement when calling for government officials to have complete access to encrypted devices. Earlier this year, Apple remained in a standoff with the FBI over allowing law enforcement agencies access to a locked device owned by a mass shooter in....
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Signal, the cross-platform encrypted messaging service is facing criticism this week, after the company Signal Messenger told the public it was integrating the cryptocurrency mobilecoin. Moreover, controversy surrounds the company’s founder and CEO Matthew Rosenfeld, known as ‘Moxie Marlinspike’ over his previous ties with the Mobilecoin project. The Relationship Between Mobilecoin and Signal During the last week, Signal Messenger has been under fire for integrating the privacy-centric cryptocurrency mobilecoin (MOB). The subject has been trending on social media and....
There has been a lot of talk about Donald Trump and his plans to build a physical wall around Mexico. But how this makes the controversial figure a disputed messenger of Bitcoin? Let's check out: There has been a lot of talk about Donald Trump and his plans to build a physical wall around Mexico. This plan would be set in motion to prevent remittance solutions originating in the US, and coerce the Mexican government into paying for this wall in the end. But Bitcoin will quickly sneak around this border, making Trump’s plan seem ever more silly than it was in the first place. For a....
France and Germany are pushing for the EU to restrict the use of encryption. In a joint proposal released earlier this week, the interior ministers of the two countries attacked messaging services that offer end-to-end encryption, such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal, for posing difficulties during law enforcement investigations. The proposal calls on the establishment of backdoors in encrypted services to “strengthen controls on borders outside of the EU,” “better share crucial information between member states,” and to “fully equip democracies on the question of encryption. The push....
Tor, the (in)famous encrypted web browser, may not be strong enough to resist the next generation’s attacks on encryption. What will the next generation of encryption tools look like? Tor came to the forefront of the privacy debate through providing an encrypted web browser used by such services as the Silk Road. In the years since Edward Snowden leaked the NSA’s mass collection of metadata, the amount of Internet users interested in encryption grew dramatically. However, Tor’s encryption may not be completely trusted. In fact, 80% of user types may be de-anonymized within six months,....
An Israeli surveillance firm claims it can break the encryption behind the popular messaging app WhatsApp. Wintego claims it can compromise the data transmitted in encrypted conversations contained in WhatsApp through a program called CatchApp. According to brochures handed out at a recent policing event, CatchApp uses a man-in-the-middle attack to intercept traffic in between the sender and the recipient. This capability to compromise WhatsApp’s encryption is supposedly contained in WINT, a hacking device small enough to be stored inside a backpack. WINT is touted as being able to....