[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia and the politics of encryption

[Tim Starling]

On 31/08/13 15:17, Erik Moeller wrote:
> It could be argued
> that it’s time to draw a line in the sand - if you’re prohibiting the
> use of encryption, you’re effectively not part of the web. You’re
> 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