Let’s ban WhatsApp?

In the aftermath of the event of last week in Paris in which seventeen folks lost their lives due to terrorist acts, Britain’s Prime Minster (PM), David Cameron, isn’t quite sure anymore of the divinity of these once-God-sent Internet-based messaging tools. The prime minister wants them banned if the vendors would not empower the government […]

In the aftermath of the event of last week in Paris in which seventeen folks lost their lives due to terrorist acts, Britain’s Prime Minster (PM), David Cameron, isn’t quite sure anymore of the divinity of these once-God-sent Internet-based messaging tools. The prime minister wants them banned if the vendors would not empower the government to intercept and read the messages that pass through the apps.
The messaging apps that specifically annoy the PM are those that are encrypted, end-to-end, so that, if intercepted, they can only be read by folks who know the decryption codes.  Note that if these encrypted messages are allowed to run their normal course, that is, without interceptions, the sender and receiver (at the two ends) of the messages do not carry the burden of having to know about encryption/decryption – the messaging software encrypts the message written by the sender and decrypts the same message before the receiver opens it to read. The PM is basically asking that his government should be able to intercept messages and read them; either because the messages are unencrypted or the vendors provide the UK government the means to decrypt. In short, the PM is basically asking for more Internet spying powers. He wants the UK government to be able to gain access to the content of messages and not be stopped by the fact that the messages are encrypted or the fact that the vendors who carry the content might actually not even have an access to them.
How dispositions have changed for the Prime Minister! This was the same guy who, in 2009, when he wanted to be elected to his current position, said “If we want to stop the state controlling us, we must confront this surveillance state … The internet is an amazing pollinator, spreading ideas and information all over the globe in minutes. It turns lonely fights into mass campaigns; transforms moans into movements; excites the attention of hundreds, thousands, millions of people and stirs them to action … That’s foreign policy in the post-bureaucratic age – enabling the free flow of information to give people power so they can use that power to demand change.” The PM now needs to deal with the current reality in which text messaging aids terrorist activities and the encryption technology prevents effective surveillance.
The PM will be proposing a series of related preemptive legislations if he wins re-election. He pointed that the UK government needed additional legislation to make sure it continued to have the power to enforce existing legislation that allows interception of metadata after the law’s sunset clause in 2016. (The metadata of a conversation refers to the basic details surrounding the conversation – the caller, the called, the time of call, frequency of call – but not the content of the conversation.) Mr. Cameron is also asking for the government to establish a legal framework to intercept all content of Internet-based communications: “In our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which, even in extremis, with a signed warrant from the home secretary personally, that we cannot read?” He also wants listening powers to be extended to include mobile communications, not just listening to telephone calls and opening and reading people’s letters, which the UK government already has the legal power to do. Note that the PM doesn’t intend the contemplated law to be used indiscriminately, but only in extreme cases where a warrant from the home secretary has been issued.
The current development is an unfortunate one because the new wave of messaging apps is such an indispensable form of day-to-day communication for hundreds of millions of people, especially in the developing countries. Tens of billions of messages are sent out every day, with or without accompanying voices and photos. These tools have rendered their built-in counterparts in devices such as Blackberry and iPhone antiquated.
Phone carriers have always exploited the texting features in their devices as cash cows, milking customers all the way to the bank. According to Greg Bensinger in his 28 March 2013 article in The Wall Street Journal, “a single text, which may cost as much as 20 cents (US) to send or receive, costs the carriers themselves just one hundredth of a cent.” You can see why the new wave of free messaging apps appears to be “God’s favour” upon consumers but a curse for the carriers. According to market research by Ovum, “The rise of free texting apps has taken away $23 billion in revenue from carriers as of the end of 2012.”
Leading tech companies have in recent years been trying to cash in on the messaging apps bandwagon, mostly via acquisition. WhatsApp, Inc., whose texting app of the same name is currently the gold standard in messaging apps business and the most dominant, was acquired by Facebook for $19 billion last year. In 2012, SK Telecom acquired MadSmart, the producer of the popular messaging app TicToc. Yahoo! Japan was said to have purchased a 50% stake in the Japanese subsidiary of Kakao Corp. in October of 2012. Samsung preemptively developed its own texting app, ChatOn, in 2011, and has also attempted partnership with the start-up MessageMe.
In conclusion, attempts to control messaging apps use must be carefully executed, so that the common man can continue to enjoy some of the fine benefits of Internet technology.