If encryption is the art of hiding information from the view of all but its intended recipients, then Tim Burrell Saward e Charlie Bruce have just become the magicians who reveal every trick. Their 3D-printed “robot receiver” is like that little boy in the fairy tale who shouts “the emperor has no clothes”: it listens and deciphers any encoded message, making any pretense of secrecy vain.
Aside from the initial shock (mine, for sure) and the inevitable privacy concerns, this device called Cipherling poses deeper questions: Does digital security really exist? And if not, how should we rethink our increasingly interconnected society?
A receiver that listens to everything
The world of secret communications is about to experience an earthquake of catastrophic proportions. The receiver developed by Burrell-Saward and Bruce (and promoted as an open source project on a crowdfunding platform, which technically could be a contradiction) is not a simple listening device, but a truly autonomous system capable of identifying, analyzing and decoding messages coming from any part of the globe. He sits there and starts “listening” to everything.
In its apparent simplicity, the device hides complex algorithms that work tirelessly to crack codes that theoretically should be unbreakable. I wonder if our national security systems have already considered this threat, or if we are once again behind the curve in technological evolution (as often happens, after all).
The ease with which this receiver can be reproduced using 3D printing raises significant ethical questions: are we democratizing surveillance or opening Pandora’s box of the end of privacy?
The implications for global security
Imagine this scenario: governments, corporations, ordinary individuals; no one would be safe from eavesdropping. The receiver could potentially pick up military communications, industrial secrets, coded personal conversations. A capability that until yesterday was the exclusive preserve of government agencies with multi-million dollar budgets is now accessible to virtually anyone.
The national security of many countries could be compromised if this technology falls into the wrong hands. At the same time, however, there are those who argue that more forced transparency could lead to a more honest world. I find this a rather naive argument: history teaches us that the tools of surveillance are very rarely used for the common good.
The paradox is that just as we develop systems of cryptography increasingly sophisticated, we simultaneously create technologies to make them obsolete. It's an arms race that seems to have no end.
Ethics and legislation: are we ready?
Lawmakers, as usual, are lagging behind innovation. This universal receiver raises questions that no current law can adequately address. Should we make it illegal to own such a device? And how can we control its spread when it can be printed at home?
Perhaps it's time to completely rethink privacy in the digital age. We can't keep pretending that our secrets are really secrets. Burrell-Saward and Bruce's receiver is just the latest manifestation of an inconvenient truth: In the information age, transparency is no longer a choice.
And so, while we worry about our frivolities, the real epochal change could come from a small printed device that silently listens to everything we desperately try to hide. Maybe we should start living as if our every word could be heard; also because, in a sense, it soon will be.
