Last week I stumbled upon a blog with an article titled "cryptography could become illegal in the future". I did only read the introduction because I thought it was probably a click bait.
Today after reading "Spies still butthurt they can't get at encrypted comms data Five Eyes to tech: We have ways of making you comply"
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/31/five_eyes_2018_meeting_encryption_terrorist_content/Encryption is vital to the digital economy, a secure cyberspace and the protection of personal, commercial and government information. The five countries have no interest or intention to weaken encryption mechanisms. We recognise, however, that encryption, including end-to-end encryption, is also used in the conduct of terrorist and criminal activities
I started to think that they're crazy enough to really want to ban cryptography. (I like the "terrorist and criminal activities" excuse, you can use it for a lot of things)
I found that there is a regulation in my country about cryptography, looking to know how others countries consider the cryptography, to my surprise I found it's an industry regulated in a lot of countries, some even ban it...
In the name of the cybersecurity and using the fear, do you think cryptography could be an industry with regulations more strictly tightened
Indeed, many countries have banned cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency mining, usually stating something along those lines, which although holding some truth, plain old cash is likely the most commonly used form of liquidity among terrorists and criminals. Another common (at least cited) fear is that of monetary instability, tax evasion, moving money out of the country, etc. On top of that, some countries (including some in the previously mentioned category) have talked about introducing (or already have introduced) centralized crypto tokens (some countries like Venezuela are now requiring the token to be used for certain government services). That being said, some countries are quite open and friendly to 'traditional' (if we can say that about technology so young) cryptocurrencies (at least now they are). Regulations seem quite justifiable in many cases, not only for the mentions reasons (whatever credence they may hold), but also for the fact that (the majority of) cryptocurrency ICOs have been frequent sources of scams, failed projects, and lost investment money (in addition to the fact that crypto can easily be lost if you're not careful with your storage); While crypto exchanges have been frequently hacked, and millions stolen, again, investment money gone - and to who-knows-who? To answer your last question, yes it certainly seems that it could.
Hope that's helpful,
The Cyberius team.
