Apparently the Hungarian government is planning to criminalise the use of encryption software. Fools! Or, at least, fools if they go through with this.

Hopefully they will get some advice to pull them back from this ill-conceived measure. I’ve got some friends there who will be affected and it makes everyone in the nation incredibly insecure. Internet traffic over HTTPS is encrypted and some services, quite sensibly, don’t now accept anything else. Ones you have probably heard of like Google and Facebook. Also, who would want to use an online banking service that didn’t both encrypt traffic and protect its stored data?

It isn’t the first government to consider such measures and I’m sure it won’t be the last. I hope they aren’t one of the ones that goes for it; banning encryption puts law-abiding citizens at significant risk while doing very little to hamper or even inconvenience criminals and terrorists. Those likely to use encryption for nefarious purposes probably won’t be bothered by the prospect of a two year sentence if caught and certainly can find ways to hide their encryption and communicate secretly.