John Boyer
Sep 29 ·
The U.S. and the U.K. have formed a treaty, forcing WhatsApp, Facebook, and other social media platforms to hand over the encryption keys of certain individuals, allowing these authorities to read their private messages.
This treaty has disturbing implications. WhatsApp uses the Signal protocol, which guarantees end-to-end encryption, preventing even their employees from reading your confidential messages. This means the only way WhatsApp could comply with these demands is by fundamentally altering their software in contradiction to the Signal protocol.
Consider being forced to remove the lock on your door to allow the NSA, the FBI, or the police to come visit anytime without a notice, warrant, or probable cause. This will render the online communications of everyone less secure, not just those of suspected criminals.
The U.S. government already forces companies to surrender any collected user data at will. They are now compelling businesses to undermine their security and create backdoors, thus further violating the privacy of their citizens. This new treaty is leading the U.S. in the direction of Australia’s ban on encryption, which was, on its own, an unprecedented assault on privacy.
The two governments claim this will only be used against suspected terrorists, pedophiles and other serious criminals. However, James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence, perjured himself by making the same claim, under oath, to an unaware U.S. Congress. Edward Snowden’s leaked NSA documents later proved his statements false. For decades, the privacy of millions of innocent Americans has been violated in the name of security, and things are only getting worse.
Decentralization is paramount to restoring privacy and freedom to the internet. As long as there are centralized service providers for communication platforms, the U.S. will use them to tighten its authoritative grip, silencing dissent with FISA gag orders and threats of shutting down their services.
Matrix is a secure and decentralized communication protocol. This specification is an open standard designed to make privacy and security the default of the web. Riot is one of the leading open source implementations of Matrix, providing end-to-end encrypted private chats, group chats, and VoIP in a decentralized manner.
Although Riot has made significant progress in the past few months, there is still a long way to go before it becomes a suitable drop-in replacement for platforms such as WhatsApp or Discord. The single greatest factor that is holding back mass adoption of decentralized and privacy-oriented applications is the lackluster user experience.
Start using Riot. Create an account, make an encrypted room, invite some friends and send some messages. Take note of every bug, typo or general inconvenience, and file an issue on the Riot GitHub repository. If you are a programmer, contribute to the project (open source development looks great on a resume). If you have the means, donate to the Matrix Foundation.
The usability of Riot must improve. The importance of “it just works” cannot be understated in bringing privacy and security to the masses. Try it out, get involved, and help make the internet a better place.
This is not a sponsored article. This is a call to action — to make privacy and decentralized applications the norm.
, dumbass.
