With all of the COVID-19 news and panic going on, the U.S. Government has been sneakily trying to pass the so called EARN IT Bill which would remove end-to-end encryption on messages and calls, and allow a scanning software to read all of them. Websites that don’t comply will lose protections. This would require any message you send with a US based service to have the messages scanned by the US govt, and punishes any company that keeps your messages private.
shared from @anarcblr via copy-paste because reblog was glitching.
I really didn’t think this could be legit but…after some googling, I’ve come to the conclusion that. It is. It’s legit. And it is every bit as horrifying as the article makes it out to be.
Call your senators. Do not sleep on this. This is patriot act tier bullshit.
Call. Your. Reps.
In 2013, information leaked by Edward Snowden showed that Skype had a backdoor which allowed Microsoft to hand over their users’ messages to the NSA despite the fact that those messages were officially declared end-to-end encrypted. This bill will force ALL communications platforms to provide this backdoor to the government or else be sued into bankruptcy.
Creating a backdoor to all forms of encryption is just a means for hackers to inevitably obtain access to the private conversations of whistleblowers and political dissidents.
In the worst case scenario, this even includes compromising the security of organizations obligated to protect your private information including your healthcare records or financial records like social security numbers.