Specialist in the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI), but also online privacy and Internet governance: Meredith Whittaker is all of these things at the same time. President of the Signal foundation, which supports the development of the eponymous messaging service, she defends the security of conversations, through end-to-end encryption and open source. A former Google employee, she is also co-founder of the AI Now Institute, an American research organization dedicated to the social implications of AI. Based for a few months in Paris, she is participating in the Vivatech show, organized from May 22 to 25.
For a few days, the founder of Telegram messagingPavel Durov, and the owner of the social network Elon Musksuggest – without proof – that Signal contains vulnerabilities in its encryption system… What do you say to them?
In the United States, we have a word for it: “bullshit” [conneries]. It is dangerous and irresponsible to make such statements about a technology that represents a life or death issue for many users: human rights defenders, journalists, their sources, whistleblowers, people fleeing authoritarian regimes… If they want to attack Signal, let them do it! But without denigrating a technology verified and validated by numerous experts for more than a decade, because it is open source.
In France, end-to-end encryption is criticized: the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, would like to require platforms to create backdoors, allowing law enforcement to access encrypted content. European police officers say the same thing. Does this worry you?
For decades, political leaders have dreamed of a magic wand allowing them to access encrypted content without compromising the security of communications, useful for human rights defenders but also businesses, governments… Unfortunately, there is no has no magic wand. The gap between these political desires and technical realities is enormous.
Their argument is that end-to-end encryption harms investigations, prevents law enforcement from accessing evidence, preventing crimes… What do you say?
These arguments have been around for decades and persist, despite our times experiencing unprecedented mass surveillance. Law enforcement has never had access to so much data. To the point that it poses a problem for them, because you have to be able to process them and draw meaning from them.
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