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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

An NYPD social media campaign promoting backdoored encryption appears to have failed miserably [theregister.co.uk] after a Twitter hashtag was "hijacked". The press release for the campaign mentions murderers, rapists, terrorists, child abuse, domestic violence, and human trafficking, and the press conference [youtube.com] included sympathetic victims:

A social media campaign by the New York Police Department (NYPD) and the Manhattan District Attorney to garner public support for forcing tech companies to install encryption backdoors has backfired spectacularly. "The debate over encryption is often referred to in terms of privacy and security, with little regard for the impact on crime victims," said [manhattanda.org] District Attorney Cyrus Vance at the launch on Monday.

[...] As we saw in the UC Davis case [theregister.co.uk], there are plenty of social media "gurus" willing to take money to try and manipulate social media. So the law enforcement team launched #unlockjustice, a campaign to let the public scream their disapproval of end-to-end encryption. You can see where this is going. The response to the campaign has not been what the NYPD is looking for.

Strong crypto prevents serious crimes like identity theft, stalking, sabotage and espionage. #UnlockJustice [twitter.com] with strong security and crypto. — matt blaze (@mattblaze) April 18, 2016 [twitter.com]

Giving government authority over every intimate aspect of your private life is a wide gate to enslavement #UnlockJustice — Jonathan Zdziarski (@JZdziarski) April 19, 2016 [twitter.com]

People deserve stronger protection than criminals. Default strong encryption protects civilians against muggers and thieves. #UnlockJustice — the grugq (@thegrugq) April 18, 2016 [twitter.com]

The failed campaign also drew attention to the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), which had already been using the #UnlockJustice hashtag to highlight excessive mandatory sentences.

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