David Cameron against Encryption

“British Prime Minister David Cameron to ban encrypted messengers” — headlines like this one are all over the news at the moment, and with good reason. Opinions vary from “Let’s protect

“British Prime Minister David Cameron to ban encrypted messengers” — headlines like this one are all over the news at the moment, and with good reason.

Opinions vary from “Let’s protect Great Britain from tragedies like a terror act in Paris” to “Aaaaargh, the end is nigh, all encryption will be banned!”

Curiously, none of them are true. So, what EXACTLY has happened? Nothing at all: Cameron was asked a simple question when addressing one of his keynotes: “Do we want to allow a means of communication between people which, even in extremis, with a signed warrant from the home secretary personally, we cannot read?”. He himself has answered it: “no”, he said, we don’t, and should the Conservatives win the next election, he will push through measure to ensure that they’re able to read messages.

The media, have, of course, twisted this quote and tampered with it again and again in their headlines. Firstly, Cameron never mentioned encryption yet the media took it going on what he implied. It’s useful here to be cautious of reading between the lines too much.  Secondly, there is one nasty little law in Britain which already does deal with encryption.

Encryption in private applications is unlikely to be banned. There are more elegant ways for this. For instance, they can request access to data from the corporations themselves (hello Blackberry).  Also, you may impose requirement onto service providers to store a year’s worth data at the territory of the said state or put all communications on the wire at once (for example, SORM-2 is the new Russian legislation).

This is happening all over the world: in Britain, where the aforementioned mass hysteria started recently, the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act was passed in 2014, and now the lawmakers are discussing Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill. The rhetoric behind it remains the same: to fight terrorism and other dangerous people.

Soma

So, what is all this fuss about with WhatsApp, Telegram and other secure messengers? Haven’t you had enough of Snowden? It is perfectly clear that any power wants to become absolute and to gain full control over its citizens? “One cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy sentiments”, they say. Alas, neither government’s over-staffing secret service, nor the latter’s growing empowerment helps to achieve primary objectives. But there’s no news in it.

As far as this concrete encryption ‘ban’ is concerned, Cory Doctorow explained why this idea is completely idiotic. The other ‘ban’ than Cameron’s government doled out (porn filters) was woefully in-efficient. In fact, does it work at all? Well… not really.

Tips
Sign up to receive our headlines in your inbox
  • For all other countries