Obama and Cameron’s ‘solutions’ for cybersecurity will make the internet worse | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | The Guardian:
The UK’s Cameron suggested earlier in the week he wants to outlaw certain forms of encryption, which could potentially lead to some of the world’s most popular messaging apps
(like iMessage and WhatsApp) being banned in the UK. That speech had
been ridiculed from all angles for the past few days, with various
experts labeling it a nightmare for Internet security – on par with authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China – and economically devastating for the British information technology industry.
Meanwhile, the White House has proposed a huge expansion of penalties under the highly-controversial law that was used to prosecute Reddit co-founder and privacy rights advocate Aaron Swartz. If passed, the administration’s proposal could further criminalize mundane Internet activity – for example, potentially allowing for a ten-year jail sentence for sharing your HBO GO password – all to supposedly target foreign hackers that the law would likely never reach.