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Comment by corndoge | Hacker News Reader

You know, every time I see something like this, I really hope the legislation passes. Then as the enforcement attempts to handle their impossible task we get to sit back and watch as Tor and I2P and EFF get funded, citizens and politicians gain a basic understanding of encryption, and governments learn that one does not simply ban crypto.

It would be fun. So more power to them! Let's see Britain create their own crypto free internet! Let's watch the public uproar as Google and WhatsApp becomes unavailable in Australia! These things are just big opportunities to get people familiar with what's at stake.

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This is dangerous. Bad laws usually involve discretion so, sure, everyone would be in violation of the letter of the law, but the govt would choose and decide who gets sued. That's worse.

Exactly. If a law like this were to get passed, they'll pick and choose cases to prosecute for use of end-to-end encryption.

Someone suspected of a crime for which there's no strong evidence could potentially be imprisoned just for talking to someone over an encrypted channel. "We can't get them on the main charge, but we can always just charge them for the encryption. If they weren't doing anything shady then why would they be using encryption anyway?"

It would be a horrible precedent.

Stop feeding the wrong wolf. Your attitude is incompatible with free society; if everybody held your beliefs, then free society would end tomorrow.

Let's watch the public uproar as Google and WhatsApp becomes unavailable in Australia!

You mean more or less like western Internet isn't available in Chine, don't you?

Yeah I knew someone would pull the China card, being a communist country that doesn't even pretend to support western ideas of freedoms they're obviously an exception

Nope. Banning of encryption actually works for the most part in China. You should fear politicians who want to do the same in your country.

Care to elaborate how China has banned it? Last time i was there I had no problem using VPN, and a dozen or so services that utilise encryption, PGP didn't magically stop working the moment i touched down. Customs were far more concerned about my camera batteries than tools of digital freedom on my laptop.

Seems like you are conflating the efforts of the Great Firewall with the word encryption here.

I thought that went without saying. It should be pretty obvious that this doesn't include communist states and governments that don't pretend to allow Western ideas of freedom.

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