British PM Wants To Ban Encryption
David Cameron has signalled that he intends to ban strong encryption, putting the British government on a collision course with some of the biggest tech companies in the world. The British Prime Minister re-affirmed his commitment to tackling strong encryption products in Parliament in response to a question.
Strong encryption refers to the act of scrambling information in such a way that it cannot be understood by anyone — even law enforcement with a valid warrant, or the software company itself — without the correct key or password.
It's currently used in some of the most popular tech products in the world, including the iPhone, WhatsApp, and Facebook.
But amid heightened terrorism fears, David Cameron is attempting to take action.
Over the last year, encryption has become a hot tech policy issue. Following exiled whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations about mass surveillance online by the NSA and other spy agencies, tech companies have increasingly moved to incorporate strong encryption into their products to protect consumers’ data. And simultaneously, governments and law enforcement officials have upped their rhetoric, warning that proliferation of the tech could help terrorists and criminals evade capture.
When Apple implemented strong encryption by default in late 2014, for example, a senior US police officer warned that the iPhone would become the “phone of choice for the pedophile” as a result. And European police chief Rob Wainwright said in March 2015 that encryption is now the “biggest problem” in tackling terrorism.
It’s a difficult situation. On the one hand, it’s easy to sympathise with law enforcement, who fear that large amounts of communications data they previously had access to are now “going dark.”
But security experts warn that any attempt to weaken encryption or introduce “back doors” for the authorities can have unintended and dangerous consequences. There’s no back door that can only be used by the good guys, they argue, and weakening the tech will put consumers at risk from criminals and hackers.
Yahoo : http://bit.ly/1Lb41cV
