Governments will always try to monitor citizens '\' 'safe' communications - and companies will always help

Prosecutors in the United Kingdom and elsewhere come to grips with a harsh reality: modern communication technologies give activists of all kinds an easier way to organize and deploy.

But also the governments, against which, as Jeff Jarvis notes move, activists are also learning a lesson - and not just the ones we can support, such as the Egyptian revolutionaries but also those whose actions make us angry or cold, as many of the rioters and looters who 've trashed so many parts of London and other British communities in recent days. In all cases, they will realize that they do not start it, the technology company, whose communications tools they used to trust.

The law enforcement dilemma was highlighted by encrypting the protesters 'use of BlackBerry mobile devices, the text communications. So the activists in a position on the fly without immediate fear have been identified, or organize the messages decoded in sufficient time to respond to the police.

This inevitably led to calls to Research in Motion (RIM), manufacturer of the BlackBerry to help to police investigations, including the exposure of users. What RIM has been touted a brilliant feature of the service, the ability to encrypt data to be converted to the customer - as so many of the technologies that we use routinely are turned against us by their makers.

RIM 's motives in supporting the police are understandable. He wants to be seen as a responsible corporate citizen, no doubt, but more likely, fear government sanctions if they cooperate 't doesn.

But that assistance will lead to a renewal of a longstanding arms race. The protesters may not have realised that RIM could (or would) decrypt their messages on its servers and hand them over to third parties. Some activists will respond by looking for new and more secure ways to communicate.

And so will some businesses, when they better understand the broader implications. After all, businesses increasingly are relying on mobile communications, so they should ask themselves if there is any reason to trust the security of the devices and or the carriers that move the data around.

The answer could be yes, there is no technical reason why not to save a particular conversation. Some technologies, such as Skype, will be completely safe. Maybe, but I've never fully trusted, given Skype's proprietary super-complex system, and now that it's owned by Microsoft, I trust it even less.

The safest method is what security experts call "end-to-end encryption" - to create what amount can be decrypted by a secure channel that can not in the middle of the net. If you communicate with a bank through its website, provided that practices safety agency, you are using this method, in theory, no one in the middle (eg your internet service provider) will see anything but gibberish in the Examination of the data over the networks.

Such a thing is not far to plain text e-mail, use social networks, or most other digital communications. If it is the encrypted version of Facebook or Google + social network, for example, the security of your data to the point reaches the company 'servers, but they can save, and if they are arranged by a government, you give it.

The dangers of systems, the "man in the middle" attacks or surveillance to allow so obvious - among other things, they offer tantalizing targets for really bad people - that we will eventually see more widespread use of seriously secure communications. People who have reason to fear the government or criminal attacks will migrate to really secure systems over time, if not there already. These include intelligent enterprise, not only insulted protesters or criminal elements that use the technology to do wrong. It is now 's clear that no one delivers the absolute confidence in the company instead of the current hardware and networking.

The more we really need to create a secure communications work, the more likely it is a reactionary response to the promotion or coercion beyond corporate cooperation with surveillance. In some places already sold, including the UK, may require the police that people turn over personal key or go to jail, invasive outrageous violation of freedom. At some point, we can expect authorities to understand limitations conversations they may require 't tap water, and, in real time.

This is an old debate, actually - that we 'd thought in America in the 1990s, when the Clinton government to require a plan that all cell phones, chips that allow the government to all calls spy would. Security experts said then that the idea was impractical and dangerous, real security was, and the plan put on ice.

It will be back in some form. The world 's governments are terrified by the idea of ??unbreakable communications. (Also visible concern paranoid leader, David Cameron, the British Prime Minister 's call for ban on some types of discussion about social networks is a particularly ridiculous suggestion.) If I' m right, it will soon be illegal to create a truly private have conversation, unless you 're someone whispered' s ear in a language only the two of you understand.

Never mind that it won 't work, and that they lead to less, not more, security for all. Is this the world will you live?