Remember GCHQ from Snowden era; A group of 47 companies, such as Apple, Google, Microsoft and WhatsApp, strongly criticize a proposal by the UK intelligence service GCHQ to intercept encrypted messages.
In one open letter published in Lawfare, the companies report that secret intelligence plans would undermine security, customers of encrypted messaging services would lose confidence and endanger citizens' right to privacy and freedom of expression.
The GCHQ proposal was first published last November in a series of essays and does not necessarily reflect a legislative agenda from the intelligence service..
In the essay, two British intelligence officials claim that law enforcement should be added as a "ghost" participant in any encrypted messaging.
This would mean that secret services would have access to encrypted messages without users knowing it.
The authors of the proposal argue that this solution is no more aggressive than current spyware in unencrypted phone conversations.
In simple words: "since we are watching you anyway, let's make it official."
Although this approach seems to eliminate the need to add any backdoors to the encryption protocols, the letter's signatories argue that this solution would still undermine users' security and trust.
Responding companies report that this proposal would require messaging applications using encryption to mislead their users by concealing messages or alerts about who is online in a conversation.
Responding to the open letter, one of the original authors of the project, Ian Levy of the National Cyber Security Center, said the proposal was purely "hypothetical" and was intended only "as a starting point for a discussion".
In a statement published by CNBC, Levy said:
"We will continue to engage stakeholders and look forward to an open discussion to reach the best possible solutions."
