Free Speech, Encryption and Privacy

Give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth - Oscar Wilde.

Privacy

Personally, I very rarely (never) use encrypted email. But then, I have enough trouble getting people to pay attention to what I have to say without them having to decrypt it first. Having said that I do keep a copy of PGP on my system.

At the moment, I mainly use the internet for trivial purposes. In ten years time, however, it will probably have replaced both letters and the phone as the main method of communication. While encryption is not yet important to me, the idea is.

The electronic trail we leave behind us is getting longer all the time. Every time we use a bank card, that transaction is logged indefinitely. Every time you use a supermarket loyalty card, not only is the time and location of the transaction logged, but also what you bought. Over a year or two your local supermarket will know how much alcohol you drink each week, how many people you live with, their sex, approximate age, and so on.

This is bad enough, but on the internet the situation is even worse. As more and more shops, services and banks become aware of the possibilities of the 'net, the amount of available data will multiply exponentially. On the internet you have no control over who has access to this information, what sites it passes through or what they do with it.

At the moment, we all have a limited right to privacy, and the government has the right to invade this only when there is evidence of criminal activity - and even that is limited.

Encryption

Modern encryption systems are the only way of ensuring privacy on the internet. When you send a message to someone else, or look at a page on the WWW, that information is passing through many other sites on the 'net. There no laws to prevent the operators of these sites storing, using, distributing or selling this information about you.

With encryption the ability to enforce our right to privacy becomes almost absolute. This means that we have to decide whether to allow privacy to everyone, including criminals, or to no-one - including you.

This is a issue that everyone is going to have to make their own minds up about. And soon, or it is going to be taken out of our hands.

Whether or not you chose to use encryption it's important that you do have the choice, and with each year that goes by it's going to be even more important.

Free Speech

I'm lucky enough to live in the UK where the internet is (mainly) treated in the same way as other mediums. The British government has, so far, resisted pressure for new laws to censor the internet by the simple and obvious method of ensuring existing laws also apply to the internet. Why do we need different rules for the internet to elsewhere? If it something would be legal in a library, why should it be illegal on a computer?

In other countries, including the US, there have been endless campaigns for laws restricting the publication of items that would be perfectly acceptable in, for example, a library or art gallery. Of course, the people behind these campaigns are invariably not those normally found in libraries or art galleries.

So what's the link between free speech and encryption? All around the world people are persecuted, abused and tortured for expressing their beliefs. It's not surprising that many people choose to do so privately or not at all. Even where there is no element of fear, it has been shown time and time again that people express themselves in differently according to who is listening. A worker who thinks their boss is listening will change their opinions from when talking in private. See here for a humorous example of this. Free speech only has meaning if there is privacy as well.

If anyone does want to send me an encrypted message my public key is given here. Privacy and free speech should be a right. You may not want to use it yourself, but if you do, it should be there.

Links

Note - the following links relate to the UK, except where noted.

Upgrade export versions of Netscape to US standard cryptography Crypto Law Survey International, highly recommended Labour - "The information superhighway" Current UK government policy statement DTI proposal for key escrow systems by previous (Conservative) UK government Critique of DTI proposals Critique of DTI proposals by Cyber-Rights and Cyber-Liberties Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties UK EFF On-Line Freedom of Speech Campaign US and international Yahoo! UK & Ireland - Government:Law:Privacy Assorted links in a similar vein