David Cameron’s approach to cyber security is teetering dangerously close to authoritarianism

Tinkering with this is a slippery slope towards authoritarianism a far cry from what you might expect to see in the UK

Earlier this month in the aftermath of the Paris attacks, David Cameron pledged to deny terrorists any safe space to communicate online. However, to make this possible, what he is essentially pledging is a ban on end-to-end encryption.

Encryption is the backbone of online security. It allows the safe transfer of sensitive information such as passwords and credit card details, in addition to safeguarding most of the data we use online. Without encryption there would be no e-commerce, no online banking, and certainly no cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin.

Outlawing the use of encryption would be like imposing a ban on envelopes and forcing all correspondence sent via the Royal Mail to be in the form of postcards.

>See also:Who's the idiot now, prime minister? David Cameron's encryption ban is just as ignorant as Steve Emersons Fox News gaffe

Whilst Cameron may simply have been looking to reassure the British public that the government will be taking further measures to safeguard the nation from unwanted attacks, unfortunately, the current option being proposed is an ill-advised one. Not to mention, it contradicts the UKs own vision of establishing itself as the safest place for e-commerce in the world, as well as the upcoming changes to the EU data protection act.

Even if there was enough of a consensus for a ban on encryption to go ahead, it isnt a technology that can easily be made to go away. Whether we like it or not the encryption genie is out of the bottle and its not something we can put back.

What Cameron has proposed would mean having backdoors or intentional secret flaws built into apps so that suspicious content can be accessed by the government if it needs to. Crucially however, there is no way to guarantee that only the good guys will use it you cant deliberately introduce a flaw into a piece of software and prevent it from being used maliciously.

Similarly, the idea of having these rules applicable to software for one country alone wouldnt work from an international standpoint. Would Britons be required to avoid software from creators that fall outside of the UKs jurisdiction? Would visitors to the UK be expected to replace the software on their laptops, and have all messages to and from the UK be scrutinised by the government for contamination by encryption?

Governments might grudgingly accept that encryption is here to stay and instead focus on ways that enable them to crack the code they could try to limit the size of encryption keys, force the use of approved algorithms or require people to register a copy of their keys with the authorities but none of these approaches are practical, and even if they were would just serve to make the life of an attacker easier.

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David Cameron’s approach to cyber security is teetering dangerously close to authoritarianism