[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia and the politics of encryption

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,

HEAR HEAR !!

Thanks,
     Gerard


On 3 September 2013 00:17, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> 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
>
>
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