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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Former UK foreign secretary Lord William Hague has predicted that unbreakable encryption will need to be banned [theregister.co.uk], or the public will face more "severe and draconian" restrictions on civil liberties:

Lord Hague has predicted that Western societies will enact laws and regulations against unbreakable encryption – while conceding that the technology has always existed.

The former UK foreign secretary, who is also a historian and author of a biography of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, told delegates at the Infosec trade show that a book-based cypher written by an 18th century politician remains unbroken. "Unless we know the book it's based on," or can find example of the same code being used in other messages, then it will remain unbroken, he said.

Technology firms need to cooperate or else law enforcement will lose the ability to investigate serious crimes, including tax evasion, people trafficking and terrorism, according to Lord Hague. This is because criminals and terrorists use communication technologies also used by mainstream consumers such as iMessage and WhatsApp – those are Lord Hague's examples. Unless government and their security agencies retain the ability to spot malicious activities through electronic intelligence, restrictions on civil liberties would have to be more "severe and draconian", he argued.

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