Privacy is not about protecting criminals. It is a default that all folks should be able to enjoy, just the same as having the freedom to walk down any public road (well OK, pavement or side walk).
There are legal restrictions on privacy and freedoms, e.g. you commit a crime and are sentenced to prison time, you lose your freedom to walk around.
I’m totally against backdoors in security products. We all know that backdoors that Microsoft had, Cisco too if I remember correctly, the Apple one from the last 12 months, they all get leaked or discovered at some point and then everyone’s data is wide open (and that include governments themselves). If any second person knows about a backdoor, the risk has just doubled of it getting out.
You either have an attempted 100% security, or you have none. There is no such thing as being 85% secure.
The linked article is an excellent example of a criminal employing all sorts of advanced technology for privacy and security, and he still gets busted. It may take a bit longer, but it will happen, especially if you have harmed others or if you have been sharing / selling elsewhere.
At the end of the day, it is the other people (customers or partners) who will give you up, or when your end-point hardware get compromised. E2EE is only good for when it leaves your device. Your customer / partner’s device decrypts that data.
Luckily, criminals have two big things that count against them, OK three actually:
- Greed, which means they want more, and they will repeat their crimes
- Modus Operandi where they stick to what worked well up to now
- Arrogance, which leads to taking risks or getting slack over time as they widen their network
A criminal, who thinks they are being very clever, is busy falling foul of my 3rd point above.