Something groundbreaking and seemingly impossible just happened in Australia -- physicists should pay close attention. According to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, 2 + 2 equals, wait for it, whatever the hell he says it equals.
Allow me to explain, as best I can, the sheer profundity -- and what prompted this extraordinary (and Orwellian) statement.
The discussion of the day, you see, was end-to-end encryption, defined by Wikipedia as “a system of communication where only the communicating users can read the messages. In principle, it prevents potential eavesdroppers -- including telecom providers, Internet providers, and even the provider of the communication service -- from being able to access the cryptographic keys needed to decrypt the conversation.”
When pushed by a tech journalist whether Turnbull could reasonably tackle the political problem of end-to-end encryption when service providers (like WhatsApp, for example) claim they can’t even, by design, break into messages on their own platforms -- the Prime Minister puffed up his chest.
“Well,” he said, “the laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that. The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia.”
Astonishing.
Catch that?
Turnbull, it seems, has discovered something about Australia which has the power to make man’s subjective and arbitrary perception of law transcend objective, mathematical truths.
If true, I predict scientists all over the world will soon flock to the Outback to examine this strange phenomenon. And who knows what will come of it. Time travel? Teleportation? Communication with extradimensional entities?
A, dare we say, direct line to God?
We can hear the newsies now…
Forget everything you’ve ever been told! Turn all of your textbooks into tinder! A new paradigm is upon us! Turnbull deals reality a fatal blow!
But, wait. What’s that?
“I’m not a cryptographer,” Turnbull went on, “but what we are seeking to do is to secure their assistance. They have to face up to their responsibility. They can’t just wash their hands of it and say it’s got nothing to do with them.”
Oh... I see.
Ahem.
THE NON-PROBLEM WITH ENCRYPTION
Cryptography has come a long way since the Enigma days. The problem with encryption today, as far as we can see, is there are, by and large, no problems with it. It works as intended.
The other non-problem with cryptography is it’s an all-or-nothing proposition. Either it’s unbreakable or it’s not. Either your communications are private or they are not.
And if it’s breakable, then it’s breakable for everyone equally -- not just a select few. Math does not discriminate in the same way humans do.
This puts authorities in an awkward position. If they, as they suggest, force backdoors into all encryption, the entirety of digital age, especially all digital commerce, will be fundamentally unstable.
The danger of breakable encryption is it could cause a death by a thousand hacks, engulfing us in an unceasing barrage of Cyberwarfare.
Unbreakable encryption, thus, is the Great Wall -- protecting us all in equal capacity from the digital deceivers, those binary black-hatted barbarians beyond the galvanizing gates of the virtual voluntary.
Author Cory Doctorow explains:
“It’s impossible to overstate how bonkers the idea of sabotaging cryptography is to people who understand information security. If you want to secure your sensitive data either at rest – on your hard drive, in the cloud, on that phone you left on the train last week and never saw again – or on the wire, when you’re sending it to your doctor or your bank or to your work colleagues, you have to use good cryptography. Use deliberately compromised cryptography, that has a backdoor that only the ‘good guys’ are supposed to have the keys to, and you have effectively no security. You might as well skywrite it as encrypt it with pre-broken, sabotaged encryption.”
NUMBERS DON'T LIE
Many lawmakers believe six impossible things before breakfast.
They, just like Turnbull, believe when there’s a will there’s always a way -- even in the face of fundamental mathematical truths.
They presume there must be a way to make 2 + 2 = 5. Not only that, there must be a way to do so without ripping the very fabric of reality.
There must be a way, for example, to create vulnerabilities in encryption without making said encryption fundamentally vulnerable.
Thing is, you can’t create flaws in a system without creating a flawed system.
And that’s the rub. In an increasingly complex world, we all rely on increasingly flawless systems (and increasingly stronger encryption).
But, fear not.
Cryptography, and your right to privacy, will win because it’s in absolutely everyone’s best interest for it to win. Especially those in power, who, arguably, have the most to lose.
Figures don’t lie, said Twain, but liars figure.
And, one might suggest, because figures can’t lie, it takes liars a little longer to figure out the truth.