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posted by CoolHand on Monday December 28 2015, @06:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the big-brother-in-action dept.

Apple may have said that it opposes the idea of weakening encryption and providing governments with backdoors into products, but things are rather different in China. The Chinese parliament has just passed a law that requires technology companies to comply with government requests for information, including handing over encryption keys.

Under the guise of counter-terrorism, the controversial law is the Chinese government's attempt to curtail the activities of militants and political activists. China already faces criticism from around the world not only for the infamous Great Firewall of China, but also the blatant online surveillance and censorship that takes place. This latest move is one that will be view very suspiciously by foreign companies operating within China, or looking to do so.

http://betanews.com/2015/12/27/china-passes-law-requiring-tech-firms-to-hand-over-encryption-keys/

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Monday December 28 2015, @09:56PM

    by Hyperturtle (2824) on Monday December 28 2015, @09:56PM (#281876)

    I agree with this.

    My summarized view is that this is a harbinger of what is yet to come.

    Unlike DVD regional zoning, we can presume the firmware or what have you in China with the hardware unlocks... simply won't be removed when regional languages are changed on the menus. As we have all seen, we get all the languages installed anyway... it's a matter of turning it off or on in a menu not necessarily accessible by the user. (just check a few application folder for help files, assuming any were installed. megabytes of languages you likely can't use in addition to yours).

    Instead of being able to send private messages to one another, with the government/advertisers/power you don't like/mom and dad being unable to read the secrets, it will be that anyone using a non-sanctioned method of sending notes will immediately be flagged for review, and then later accused of terrorism or child porn (or perhaps both).

    I mean -- both terrorism and child porn have been used to demand access to contents. The drug war is becoming a bogeyman that doesn't resonate as much with the parents of today, and so that is getting the back seat unless its tied to terrorists and porn somehow.

    I sometimes do not entirely agree with jmorris (and its mostly philosophical), but this is something I'd beat the same drum regarding. Simply using another type of encryption is becoming less of an option; if there is only one store to get your encryption programs from and they are all rooted by the government as a matter of the vendors being allowed to operate as a business... then it's a matter of business to violate your privacy in adherence to a matter of policy. You won't be able to take your business somewhere else in protest if they are all required to do it.

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