Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

I mean, simply use a public/private encryption algorithm that has proven to be highly secure:

- Share your public key openly

- Anyone can send a message to you using your public key to encrypt the message

- You decrypt with your private key on device

Do all the encryption/decryption on device and viola, secure messaging. (This is basically how https works.)

Of course this only allows a single device the ability to decrypt the message.

However, if you want to allow multiple devices to share a private key, they can simple send each other their own private keys using the same encrypted protocol.

In addition, for super paranoid use, a master password could be used to salt the private key so that would be required with the private key to enable decryption. (Which is similar to how password keepers basically work.)

What am I missing?

Technology is accelerating to the point where the destructive power that was formerly available only to state actors with proper command & control systems is now available to small states, groups, and even individuals -- chemical, bioweapons, delivery by drone, etc. It is now possible to mail-order custom gene sequences for garage bioengineering (yes, they do try to filter the requests against homebrew bioweapons, but the operative word is 'try'). Even computing power -- I'd be surprised if a random dozen people on this forum, properly motivated and funded, could not take down the US power grid within a year.

This scale of mass destruction in the hands of individuals is a far greater scale and scope of problem than the ability of any nutjob to go to WalMart and buy a hunting rifle to point at you, me, or a Congressman.

It is the kind of real problem that keeps serious security pros up at night. And there are many of these scenarios becoming more real all the time, even if logicallee's nuke example seems too fictitious for you.

The real question he's posing is whether its feasible to build an automated system that's sufficiently private and intelligent so that it could scan the comms without violating privacy while only alerting on genuine threats.

I think it's an interesting idea, but even if implementable, would fall to the problem. What is to prevent the people who build, maintain, operate the watch-system from abusing it? Nothing but the same level of ethical training that we have now, so this is simply adding one level of indirection.