In the UK, running a blog over HTTPS is “terrorism”, says Scotland Yard
privateinternetaccess.com
privateinternetaccess.com
Count 1: "Membership of a proscribed organisation. On or before 22 September 2016 Samata Ullah belonged or professed to belong to a proscribed organisation namely ISIS (Daesh). Contrary to section 11 Terrorism Act 2000."
Count 2: "...he knew that a person receiving it intended to use the skills in which he is being instructed or trained for or in connection with the commission or preparation of acts of terrorism...."
Count 3: "...with the intention of assisting another or others to commit acts of terrorism, engaged in conduct in preparation for giving effect to his intention namely, by researching an encryption programme..."
It goes on like this. It appears that he wasn't just running a blog informing people of how to secure their privacy but was intentionally trying to help terrorists. I for one am very concerned about the UK's government pushing us more towards a "North-Korean-like" run country, however I don't see anything too unsettling about this. It seems clear that there was more to this than him just running an encrypted blog that made this guy a suspect. Everything references the fact he was specifically trying to help terrorists. That is presumably what this court case will be about, not him just running a private blog teaching encryption to the general public.
>A person commits an offence if, with the intention of—
(a)committing acts of terrorism, or
(b)assisting another to commit such acts,
he engages in any conduct in preparation for giving effect to his intention.
That the conduct happened to be encryption is basically irrelevant. Had he been purchasing giant shrimp in order to further some bizarre terror plan then that would be the exact same offence. The author of TFA would be well advised to familiarise himself with UK terror legislation before making such sweeping and incorrect generalisations. It's the intent that is the offence, not the conduct.
Which is not to say that the UK doesn't have a frighteningly totalitarian attitude to crypto, just that this isn't a good example of it in action.
[0] http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/11/section/5
Edit: add link
The only major issue I have with it is that reading and researching (i,e, searching the web) is now recorded and used as key evidence, and the days where one could go to the library and read in secrecy is gone. That used to be a rather sacred activity, and all the reasons for why such spying is ripe for abuse seems to have been forgotten.
If this is everything you need to be a 'terrorist', I am at least guilty on 3 accounts. I'd bet most of you here are too.
The article concludes: "According to Scotland Yard, learning and teaching mathematics is apparently terrorism."
As a result hosting services outside of the UK are more appealing and talk of registering companies abroad are increasing.
It's sad because every developer I know wants to do the normal thing but draconian news and laws will make people look elsewhere. Negatively affecting the community and most definitely harming it in the long run. The idea of a reduced or harmed dev community in the UK is tragic.
Teachers always said math is important in life.