Politicians -- those motivated by the notion of

UK Government Apparently Hoping It Can Regulate End-To-End Encryption Out Of Existence

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2022-01-12 16:30:12

Politicians -- those motivated by the notion of "doing something" -- want to end encryption. They don't want this to affect their communications and data security. But they don't see the harm in stripping these protections from the general public. Often, the argument is nothing better than "only criminals want end-to-end encryption," something they trot out as a truism despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

But these politicians (and government officials) are cowards. They refuse to call a backdoor a backdoor. They come up with all sorts of euphemisms while pretending compliance with proposed laws won't result in the creation of backdoors that can be exploited by everyone, not just the "good guys." They also deploy other euphemisms to attack encryption that protects millions of members of the public, referring to good encryption as "warrant-proof" or "military-grade." Those terms never survive examination, but the narrative persists because most members of the public have no interest in closely examining falsehoods uttered by governments.

The UK government has expressed an unhealthy determination to undermine encryption for years now. It has the fanciest of plans to undo protections enjoyed by UK residents for reason ranging from "the children" to "the terrorists." The underlying intent never changes even if the name on the office doors do. Regulators come and go but the desire remains. Even the bills get renamed, as though a different shade of lipstick would make the UK's anti-encryption pig any more desirable.

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