UK to ban unbreakable encryption, unveiling tomorrow

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The UK's Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron is planning to introduce a bill to ban all forms of unbreakable encryption in the UK tomorrow.

Cameron and the UK intelligence services claim that criminals, pedophiles and terrorists are taking advantage of devices and programs to commit their illegal acts.

If the bill becomes law, all companies will be forced to give encryption keys to the the government upon warrant and/or build a backdoor for the government into the devices and services.
Companies who refuse to comply if this goes into law, will be banned from the UK.

Though there is a good chance Conservatives/Tories will break tradition, going against the leadership (Prime Minister) to vote with the opposition to pass the bill to the Lords.
There is also a good chance if the bill does pass the House of Commons, the House of Lords will try and block it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -laws.html

I am not a resident of the UK, but I am for this new law. The laws surrounding the internet are outdated in a lot of countries, the UK are actively trying to make the internet a safer place with I applaud.

There are those that are against such laws because they believe it takes away their privacy of the internet, but at the end of the day, you're not going to be monitored unless you do something illegal. I love privacy, but I know I have to sacrifice it when using the internet and I am ok with that.

M three green 57 avocado.

Actually the U.S. Government through numerous agencies regularly monitors all internet traffic for suspicious activity, regardless if you are doing something illegal or not.
The U.S. Government also scans and collects all electronic communications worldwide in order to keep peace and security worldwide (it was originally started to defeat communism).

So every time you use a check, credit card, use the internet, send a text, call someone, download a program etc... the U.S. Government collects and scans it.
Though they aren't supposed to collect data that invades the privacy of U.S. Citizens.

All those who do illegal activities, especially organized crime and terrorists will build their own networks with better encryption out of reach of governments to operate.
Anyone with the means will do so, rendering this activity useless.

This is literally the first step in an effort by the UK Conservatives to expand the surveillance state, the current PM has been open about monitoring all forms of communications and expanding the CCTV system to cover all areas of the UK.

This is most likely against the European Charter of Human Rights that the UK is bound too and against EU law.

Once you allow the government to revoke civil liberties and rights on some issues, it opens the door for further expansion.

I'm not from the UK either, though it is worrisome and despicable when a democratic government elected by the people (or in this case by the minority of voters) violates the liberties and rights which it actively attacks other countries for, through out modern history.
It's equally as despicable when a peace loving democratic country does the same.

You have to take the good with the bad, especially with the internet because there is no way in stopping it completely.

Benjamin Franklin most famous quote says "Those who give up freedom for security, deserve neither..."

So Cameron is the St. Patrick of the interwebz. I agree, that's not going to work.

Stop looking at coders like we know how to script banishment spells.

Weren't the 6 million CCTV cameras the first step?

Not event that.
He's openly stated the UK has been too tolerant on everyone, which has lead to the current crime, terrorism and societies ills.

You literally had to go through the judicial system to use the evidence against a UK citizen.

Though to the defense of the government, when you have bombings going off nearly every other day for 15 years until the mid 80s, you are bound to be forced to do something.

Like Germany and Russia, we should all go old-school: Use typewriters and postal services to communicate. Let's watch them open billions of letters every day to find that ONE scary message. Sh-yeah!

LOL.

Though in all seriousness Germany has extreme privacy laws that protect EU and it's own citizens both physically and digitally.
Many parts of these laws were put into EU law and the EU Charter of Human Rights.

Ms. May (UK Home secretary) has also requested that UK ISPs be forced to keep the internet browsing history of all internet activity in the UK for one year as part of this new bill.

I'm curious about why people think we would have enough vegetative biomass for a breathable atmosphere if all 7.X billion humans each used written communication to this day. As much as you probably don't want to read this, these days, any organization with enough big data & SIGINT chops can infer everything a postal service is sending.

Because most people don't use paper to write on, on a daily basis.
Also a large if not majority of the population cannot afford paper and writing utensils.

Today a large part of the world's paper is made from recyclable materials, with another large part from Tree farms (yes they farm trees for industrial purposes now too).

Very little amount of paper comes from non farmed trees.

They've become very efficient at producing paper, requiring less material for each page.

So it is plausible for the whole world to use tons of paper a week and not have any issues from it.

With global population growth slowing to near stagnation levels, and eventually becoming negative (by 2030 if it keeps up at the current rate of decline), I wouldn't worry about paper products straining the environment.

You should be more worried about fossils fuels and their by products.

It isn't going to stop or prevent paedos and terrorists. It's just going to treat every individual as a criminal, make people even more on their guards with suspician and fear...and it will all make us easier to control.

Did you know that the US Postal Service reportedly photographs each and every envelope that is mailed?

Yes, but unless they photograph both sides of an envelope, putting the return address on the back would undermine any sender/receiver datamining.

Why would they not do both sides? It's not like the image of an envelope takes much storage space.