At this point, the internet’s encryption credibility appears to be hinging on the promises made by personalities like Mark Zuckerberg, and – one Meredith Whittaker.
Meanwhile, encryption is “the ultimate democracy” – once breached for one it protects, and exposes everyone.
While we know who Zuckerberg and his Meta/WhatsApp are – Whittaker is not nearly as high profile, even though she is the president of the Signal Foundation, which has repeatedly over the last years advertised itself as producing “the ultimate” end-to-end encryption app.
Whittaker in the past worked in senior positions at Google for 13 years (until she quit as one of the 2018 “walkout” organizers focused on alleged sexual misconduct and lack of diversity).
Whittaker was also a senior advisor on AI to former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan, appointed in late 2021.
The global market for reliable mainstream end-to-end encryption apps has only shrunk since, not least because of the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov.
Singal has always tried to position itself as somehow more reliable than Telegram, and right now, Whittaker appears to feel the time has come to cement that position – even if only declaratively.
For this: if Signal – and WhatsApp – are “forced to store messages” of their users, then Signal for one will leave the Swedish market, Whittaker told Swedish public broadcaster SVT.
This is about a draft law that she claims would force Signal to install encryption backdoors.
The bill is a proposal at this point, that may or may not become law later in the year, and is supposed to allow various levels of Sweden’s law enforcement to access message history of crime suspects.
This is not unlike the many initiatives at the European Union (EU) level – and in many countries beyond.
And the Swedish push seems unlikely to succeed, perhaps since the coolest heads in the room seem to be that of the country’s military.
SVT reports that the letter from the Army said the proposal could not be implemented “without introducing vulnerabilities and backdoors that can be exploited by third parties.”
So it’s unlikely – but Whittaker chose to make this her hill to die on:
“If you create a vulnerability based on Swedish wishes, it would create a way to undermine our entire network. Therefore, we would never introduce these backdoors.”
