If you have heard about the UK goverment’s recent demand to Apple that it be given access to everyone’s encrypted data, you may have sighed a deep sigh, or you may have wondered what all the fuss was about.
This article by James O’Malley is a very nice summary.. Extract:
“The British constitution has many strange traditions. We open Parliament with a knock on the door by an official known as Black Rod. When a monarch is crowned, they are anointed with oils while hidden behind a curtain. And every few years, we hold a ritual debate about whether the government can force tech companies to break their end-to-end encryption.
It’s a solemn tradition, and you know how it goes: The government or security sources outline the pressing need to access the messages or cloud storage of terrorists and child abusers. Then the plan is revealed to be laughably unworkable, and finally, as per tradition, there’s an embarrassing climbdown and the status quo persists once again.
Anyway, the reason I mention this is that it’s that time again.”
And later…
“So it’s genuinely quite a shocking thing to see that the government has demanded this capability. Both in terms of the opaque way it has happened – the existence of the “Technical Capability Notice” was only revealed by a leak – and because nobody in the government appears to have asked the opinion of anyone who knows about computers first.”
Worth a read.
Thanks to Charles Arthur for the link.
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