Srsly Risky Biz: Give Me E2EE or Give Me Death!

PLUS: beware of the tiny stick of regulation
02 Mar 2023 » Risky Business News

In this podcast Patrick Gray talks to Tom Uren about Signal’s vow to pull out of the UK if the proposed Online Safety Bill requires it to weaken its encryption.

Tom and Patrick agree that end-to-end encryption isn’t at stake, but Signal could well be asked what steps it is taking to mitigate child exploitation and terrorist content. Patrick thinks there are useful steps Signal could take that would be helpful, but both Tom and Pat find it hard to imagine that Signal will actually make these choices.

They also discuss the US government floating the idea of shifting legal liability to technology manufacturers when they make terribly insecure products. Tom thinks this is an attractive idea, but the government would be better off doing much more to encourage transparency first.