On 31/08/13 15:17, Erik Moeller wrote:
It could be argued that itâs time to draw a line in the sand - if youâre prohibiting the use of encryption, youâre effectively not part of the web. Youâre subverting basic web technologies.
China is not prohibiting encryption. They're prohibiting specific instances of encryption which facilitate circumvention of censorship.
So, what to do? My main suggestion is to organize a broad request for comments and input on possible paths forward.
OK, well there's one fairly obvious solution which hasn't been proposed or discussed. It would allow the end-to-end encryption and would allow us to stay as popular in China as we are now.
We could open a data centre in China, send frontend requests from clients in China to that data centre, and comply with local censorship and surveillance as required to continue such operation.
It would be kind of like the cooperation we give to the US government at the moment, except specific to readers in China instead of imposed on everyone in the world.
It would allow WMF to monitor censorship and surveillance by being in the request loop. It would give WMF greater influence over local policy, because our staff would be in direct contact with their staff. We would be able to deliver clear error messages in place of censored content, instead of a connection reset.
-- Tim Starling
Their orders would be classified; disclosure of them would be a crime. Not a problem for us, but a big problem for staff on the ground in China.
Fred