UK Confuses Gullible Reporter Into Believing It Changed Its Position On Encryption

from the tricking-the-press-is-so-easy dept

We’ve talked a few times about how UK Prime Minister David Cameron has made it abundantly clear that he wants to backdoor encryption to make sure law enforcement and intelligence agencies can read private communications. Back in January, he made it clear that the UK “must not” allow there to be any “means of communication [that] isn’t possible to read [by the government].” Just a few weeks ago, he once again made it clear that there should be no “safe space” where anyone can communicate without the government being able to spy on you (that there already is the ability for two people to converse in person without being spied upon is left ignored).

“We just want to ensure that terrorists do not have a safe space in which to communicate. That is the challenge, and it is a challenge that will come in front of the House.

“We have always been able, on the authority of the home secretary, to sign a warrant and intercept a phone call, a mobile phone call or other media communications, but the question we must ask ourselves is whether, as technology develops, we are content to leave a safe space?a new means of communication?for terrorists to communicate with each other.

“My answer is no, we should not be, which means that we must look at all the new media being produced and ensure that, in every case, we are able, in extremis and on the signature of a warrant, to get to the bottom of what is going on.”

This is, of course, no different than what the FBI has been whining about in the US as well. Basically they’re both demanding backdoors into encryption, so that the government can access whatever it wants. They are demanding this because they’re basically ignorant of how such backdoors effectively undermine security, put more people at risk and open up that access to much more than just the government.

However, it’s not just the government officials who are confused about this. It appears that reporters and supposedly respected publications can’t get it right either. Business Insider — which seems to get the little things wrong on a fairly consistent basis — has a big story up trumpeting that the UK has made a giant “U-turn” and will no longer seek to attack encryption.

Except this is neither huge, nor a U-turn. It’s not even really notable, other than the statements show just how confused basically everyone is about the issue. The problem is that some people falsely interpreted the original statements to mean that the UK wanted to ban encryption, rather than simply backdoor end-to-end encryption. Those are two different things. So the statement that Business Insider’s Rob Price got from the government is simply correcting his false impression that anyone was planning an outright ban on encryption — something no one has actually proposed.

But Number 10 is now emphatically denying that Cameron is considering such a ban, telling Business Insider, “The Prime Minister did not suggest encryption should be banned.”

“We accept and completely recognise the importance of encryption,” a representative said, highlighting its use in e-commerce as an example of why it will not be outlawed. The person did reiterate, however, that the British government believes “terrorists cannot have a safe space in which to operate” online ? raising the question of how it hopes to achieve this.

See? This is neither huge nor a U-turn. It’s simply the UK government reiterating what Cameron said: that they would like to figure out ways to backdoor end-to-end encryption. Which is, you know, the same thing he’s been saying for months. The real story here is that this is a really dumb idea that will make the internet less safe — but there is no change in position by Cameron. Just a confused reporter for a publication that apparently has no reporters or editors who understand the subjects they’re writing about.

Filed Under: backdoors, david cameron, encryption, end-to-end encryption, journalism, reporting, uk