page = a few thoughts on cryptographic engineering – some …

url = https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com analysed @ 2021-08-02 20:17 UTC

This brings us to the central challenge of all content tracing proposals so far: to make tracing possible, a tracing system needs to turn every WhatsApp user (including the originator) into a cooperative green circle — regardless of whether users actually want to cooperate with police. Moreover, to prevent users from losing their phones and/or going offline, the system will need to force users to place the necessary tracing information into escrow as soon as they receive content, so it will remain available even if users leave the network or lose their phones.
Not only that, but each of these newly “cooperative” users might even be forced to admit to police that they also forwarded the content. Don’t want to tell the Swedish government that you made fun of their beloved King? Then you’d better not use a system that follows this pattern of enforced traceability.