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It can only be a good thing, if it ever happens.
It's always amazed me how the majority of people are so laid back about, what is tantamount to, "wiretapping" on the web. You would not want someone installing hidden microphones and cameras in your home, "just in case" you might be having some "radical thoughts". This is really no different.
If terror groups or criminals want to organise themselves and communicate via the web, they'll find various ways to do it. The web is much like the atom bomb, it can't just be switched off and put back in the box.
It seems that a kind of "universal surveillance" is being made justifiable in the eyes of some by continual news reports giving examples where the person searched for something online. Which is why this will see some popular opposition.
The reality however is that some countries, such as the UK and US, don't want end-to-end encryption - they want to spy on their citizens (all of them, all the time) as they have now proven many times over.
We know that searching for something online is not "evidence" that should not be held up in a court of law. Anyone can search for anything, without necessarily committing a crime in the real sense - if such web searches are treated as "evidence" then we're clearly already in the age of "thought crime" (as predicted by Orwell).
The problem is that news reports focus on where the web was "abused" and where the offenders were found to have searched for information relating to the crime - but those offenders were already "on the radar" - they don't detail the plethora of real evidence and actual surveillance (following and watching these suspects movements and other intel gathering) which any conviction must have been based upon. Probably because that doesn't make interesting news.
And with regards to "radical" social media groups or websites, the more they try to shut these groups/sites down, the more determined they become, the more polarised their subscribers and potential supporters become and it simply drives them underground and forces them to communicate by alternative channels. The way to combat extremism of any sort has been to oppose it politically and ideologically, not by just closing every website that pops up (it amazes me that the government in the UK believes this will do any good).
Aside from "radical" content and "radicalisation" (a very big umbrella which will one day no doubt encompass any kind of politics aside from the status quo), we (including kids) still have full and free access to violence, violent porn / objectification of women and worse - none of which is under surveillance or in danger of being shut down. Thee will be minimal "talk" from the government, if an incident loosely related to this occurs ("we condemn it utterly...", etc), but once it dies down, it's business as usual. One could argue that incidents related to this happen every day, yet the connection is not being made so readily.
End-to-end encryption is a must, not a "nice to have". Unless you're harming someone, what you think, read, watch or do on the web or otherwise in your own home should be your business alone.
Last edited by anisoptera; 10-31-2017 at 12:11 PM.
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Euro MPs back end-to-end encryption for all citizens
