Terrorists use the Dark Web to hide
Security agencies say they need more access to encrypted devices to peer into shadows
Terrorists increasingly use hidden parts of the Internet to avoid surveillance, relying on the open Web for recruiting, then moving to encryption and the “Dark Web” for more nefarious interactions, experts said.
United Kingdom Home Secretary Amber Rudd said Sunday that this is one reason why government agencies need access to encrypted services to protect the public, reigniting a more than 20-year debate over the competing needs of security and privacy.
“We need to make sure that organizations like WhatsApp — and there are plenty of others like that — don’t provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other,” she said on the BBC.
London terror suspect Khalid Masood sent a WhatsApp message to an unknown person just before Sunday’s attack that killed four people and injured more than a dozen. The message’s contents — and its intended recipient — couldn’t be accessed by police because the popular, Facebook-owned messaging service encoded them. The communications are a main line of inquiry as police in London piece together the case.
The burgeoning of secret, unaccessible corners of the Internet worries law enforcement agencies, which have talked for several years about the dangers posed by criminals and terrorists who can “go dark” by using strong encryption.
“That is a shadow falling across our work. The darkness is spreading through the whole room,” FBI Director James Comey said last week at a security conference at the University of Texas-Austin.
Privacy advocates said it’s impossible to provide access only to law enforcement without endangering the privacy of the public. “The minute you have a mechanism in place to overcome the encryption, that opens it up for any hacker to get at it,” said Joel Reidenberg, a cybersecurity and privacy law professor at Fordham Law School in New York.
“The darkness is spreading through the whole room.”
FBI Director James Comey