How police backdoors for online services let sextortionists target children

There is no such thing as a back-door that only lets the good guys through.

Cory Doctorow

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A padlocked barn door. The rusty padlock is emblazoned with a toy ‘Junior Police’ badge. Its hasp has been severed and a light-flare is shining through the severed portion. The barn door has been superimposed with a Matrix ‘waterfall’ effect. Image: Paulo Valdivieso https://www.flickr.com/photos/p_valdivieso/42906748201 CC BY-SA 2.0, modified https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

An “Emergency Data Request” (EDR) is a warrantless demand by a police officer to a tech company, designed for white-hot emergencies when a cop needs an online service to cough up some of its user data to save a…

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