In 2011, the United Nations declared internet access a universal human right. That was a necessary step forward for digital freedom, but it’s far from sufficient—it needs to add encryption to the list.
Even in free societies with ample access to the World Wide Web, the freedom to use the internet means nothing if we don’t have privacy. And privacy means nothing if we don’t have encryption. That chain of logic isn’t obvious to everyone, so let’s break it down in reverse:
Why is encryption necessary for privacy?
Most people will imagine encryption as a padlock. When you send an encrypted message over the internet, its contents are “locked” to everyone but the recipient who holds the only key. “That’s nice,” you might say. “But what if someone breaks the lock without the key? What if someone has a blowtorch?”
And that’s where the metaphor breaks down. With physical locks, there’s always a way to pick them, saw them, or melt them open. And if a lock is robust enough to resist all but the most motivated (and well-financed) lock-pickers, then the lock itself is probably too expensive for the general public.
Encryption, however, is not a physical lock—it is software. Once written, it costs virtually nothing to maintain and distribute. That’s important because the more things we encrypt, the stronger our online privacy. If only the sensitive information is encrypted, encryption becomes a signal to surveillance organizations that the information inside is worth monitoring!
But more important, unlike physical locks, encryption is protected by the laws of mathematics, which are unbreakable in the purest sense possible. The standard encryption algorithm RSA, for example, is based on factoring or solving a multiplication problem in reverse.
It’s easy to multiply two prime numbers to get a substantial number (hundreds of digits long), but you’d need a supercomputer and more than a few lifetimes to waste if you wanted to figure out which two numbers you started with.
Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on.
— Edward Snowden
That makes encryption the only practical tool we have to keep data private even if it is intercepted. Like Edward Snowden said, “Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on.”
Why is privacy necessary for freedom?
“Okay,” you might be saying at this point, “I can see why criminals would need privacy. But I have nothing to hide. The NSA isn’t interested in my chocolate chip cookie recipes.” Perhaps not. But the issue is less about the information gained by those who spy on us, and more about what it does to us.
Surveillance changes us. It’s a well-documented psychological phenomenon; people behave differently when they know they are being watched, and usually not for the better. Observation impairs performance, damages trust, and encourages conformity in those being observed.
It doesn’t matter whether you have any skeletons in your closet; just the fact that your closet is open for scrutiny limits your decisions about how you dress, walk, talk, and interact with other people.
That’s an especially tragic consequence for societies that purport to be “free.” Neil Richards, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, sums it up beautifully:
When we are watched, tracked and monitored, we act differently. There’s an increasing body of evidence that internet surveillance stops us from reading unpopular or controversial ideas. Remember that our most cherished ideas—that people should control the government, that heretics should not be burned at the stake and that all people are equal—were once unpopular and controversial ideas. A free society should not fear dangerous ideas, and does not need complete intellectual surveillance. Existing forms of surveillance and policing are enough.
— Neil Richards
A step in the right direction
With the growing need for encryption in a free society, it’s no surprise that the U.N. has taken a special interest. In a 2015 report from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, special rapporteur David Kaye said:
Encryption and anonymity, and the security concepts behind them provide the privacy and security necessary for the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression in the digital age. Such security may be essential for the exercise of other rights, including economic rights, privacy, due process, freedom of peaceful assembly and association, and the right to life and bodily integrity.
— David Kaye
That’s a firm step toward progress, but the report did make an allowance for “court-ordered decryption” on a “case-by-case basis” (the equivalent of giving the TSA a universal key to your luggage). Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple have spoken out against similar legislation in the U.S., despite officials at the highest levels remaining “sympathetic” to law enforcement.
Let’s hope the U.N. continues to be sympathetic to the link between encryption and freedom itself.
Comments
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How to make a crypto.
Imagine you have two books. Both books are identical and have 1000 pages.
On each page of the books there is a ten by ten grid much like the battle ship game.
Both the horizontal and vertical sides are numbered zero through nine.
In each of the grid blocks there is a character from a key board.
Each character from the key board is listed at least once in the table.
The rest of the grid is filled in with random characters from the keyboard.
The location of each character is the encrypted code that is the output ( such as 4,9 or 1,5 ).
Each page is only used to encode one character of the message.
The sender and receiver agreed to which page to start the encoding and decoding of the first message. This is for the first message only.
Inside the encrypted message the sender tells the receiver which page they will start the next encrypted message on.
The encrypted message also includes “page commands.”
Page commands specify a page number and where it is to be relocated in both the sender’s and receiver’s books. There is no limit to the number of page commands.
Both books can have billions of pages.
Page commands can rearrange any number of pages.
By this method, no one would know the start or end of any message or word.
Letter frequencies of the alphabet don’t apply because each character has it’s own encryption and IS NOT connected to how any other character is encrypted.
You can also use a “wrap around”. This comes into play if a message “passes” the last page in the book. The coder simply wraps around to page one again and continues from there.
The encrypted message can also contain as many nonsensical characters as the user wants on either end or in the body of the message. Encoded these would look like any other character(s).
This process lends itself well to computer programming.
George Andrews
Every site you go to wants full control over your phone all your information. I like my privacy. I have nothing to hide, My time online is mostly about the love of God and loving one another but still don’t want anyone knowing everything I say and try to tell me who to connect to.
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