Internet firms to be banned from offering unbreakable encryption under new (UK) laws

[Newsjock]

Source: The Telegraph (UK)

Internet and social media companies will be banned from putting customer communications beyond their own reach under new laws to be unveiled on Wednesday.

Companies such as Apple, Google and others will no longer be able to offer encryption so advanced that even they cannot decipher it when asked to, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Measures in the Investigatory Powers Bill will place in law a requirement on tech firms and service providers to be able to provide unencrypted communications to the police or spy agencies if requested through a warrant.

... It will also require internet companies to retain the web browsing history of their customers for up to a year.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11970391/Internet-firms-to-be-banned-from-offering-out-of-reach-communications-under-new-laws.html

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Nasty sounding law.

I suppose that means we've probably already got a similar one in the works, if it hasn't already been put in place in secret.

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. I imagine they will attack VPN soon, as BBC has done.

No logical reason to prevent strong encryption EXCEPT for tracking normal Internet information.
Internet businesses and credit card companies ought to be loudly against this idea.

[GoneFishin]

2. I guess there will be a market for peer-to-peer encryption tools.

[FLson]

4. There's already one

and it's very Black, in Black Market. This will just help it be more successful. Criminals now and in the future will not be bothered by this, sadly.

[Hydra]

5. This isn't meant to catch criminals

It's to keep an eye on the normals.

[FLson]

7. Yup. n/t

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

13. It's called Black? Or Black Market?

Cause if you're talking TOR, I thought that was the quickest possible way to get yourself more under surveillance, more in the crosshairs, with them keeping your data far longer in hopes that they'll get around to breaking the encryption before they ever get rid of it.

[cstanleytech]

3. God they are freaking stupid, weakening encryption like this just will end up screwing over people

down the road and it will do jack shit to stop "terrorists".

[Hydra]

6. They're not worried about terrorists

This is to keep an eye on the normal people.

[starroute]

8. It will also piss off the corporations and financiers

Businesses depend on secure encryption more than all but a tiny percentage of individuals, both to protect their own communications and to maintain the trust of their customers. And since nobody trusts governments not to get hacked, any software that can be decrypted without knowing the keys is automatically insecure.

London may not be a financial capital much longer once this goes into effect.

[bananas]

9. Does this make PGP illegal in Britain?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy

[cprise]

11. "Does it ban PGP?" makes for an interesting litmus test

Another test is, does it ban Point To Point (P2P)?

I predict this law will cause a LOT of conflict between the UK gov't and tech industry and all sorts of computer users.

[Helen Borg]

12. Sounds like...

Lots of people in the UK will be starting to talk in person again! May be a good thing!