Most software already has a “golden key” backdoor: the system update

(credit: martinak15)

Leif Ryge is an artist, hacker, and journalist living in Berlin. He used to tweet as @wiretapped but is on hiatus until Twitter stops suspending Tor users' accounts.

In 2014 when The Washington Post Editorial Board wrote "with all their wizardry, perhaps Apple and Google could invent a kind of secure golden key they would retain and use only when a court has approved a search warrant," the Internet ridiculed them. Many people painstakingly explained that even if there were somehow wide agreement about who would be the "right" people and governments to hold such an all-powerful capability, it would ultimately be impossible to ensure that such power wouldn't fall in to the "wrong" hands.

Yet, here is a sad joke that happens to describe the reality we presently live in:

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