Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales used his keynote presentation at IP Expo in London to blast the UK government’s ambition for mass internet monitoring. Wales warned that the basic human right to privacy should not be eroded. Speaking about prime minister David Cameron’s recent comments about the need for the country’s administration to read communication between people, Wales said: “It is not feasible and it is completely moronic and stupid!”
Wales said security is built into the strategy for most new websites. “It is the moral thing to do. “Using https by default is the only option for users. If you are not secure, you allow the administration to look at user data.”
In his presentation Wales showed a slide which estimated that, in 2016, 65% of all internet traffic would be encrypted. All Wikipedia pages are now encrypted he said; while the authorities can see that someone has visited Wikipedia, they cannot tell what pages the user has viewed.
He said: “As a direct result of Edward Snowden, people have a high level of understanding of the need to be safe and diligent on the internet. Demand for SSL (secure socket layer encryption) on service providers has surged. Global SSL traffic has surged. Over 80% of traffic on mobile network will be encrypted in 12 months.”
View full story
