The Wikipedia founder has told MPs that the site could defy the government's 'snooping bill' should it come to pass.
Jimmy Wales spoke to MPs about the Draft Communications Data Bill, saying that Wikipedia, his little website you may have heard of it, could encrypt data to mask exactly what pages users look at on the site.
So while the powers that be could see that you are on Wikipedia somewhere, they wouldn't be able to tell if you're looking up explosives or warts or a detailed analysis of Warren G's Regulate.
Cryptic
Wales told MPs, "If we find that UK ISPs are mandated to keep track of every single web page that you read at Wikipedia, I am almost certain we would immediately move to a default of encrypting all communication to the UK.
"That kind of response for us to do is not difficult. We don't do it today because there doesn't seem to be a dramatic need for it or any dramatic threat to our customers, but it's something that I think we would do, absolutely."
He added that this encryption would mean the government would have to hack into the system to find out what people are reading, which "doesn't sound like something a civilised democracy wants to be involved with. It's more like something I would expect from the Iranians or the Chinese, frankly".
The government is hoping to bring in the Bill to force ISPs and phone networks to store details of all calls, emails, social networking activity and web history of every citizen just in case it's ever needed in a police investigation.
The controversial Bill has been through the public consultation phase and is now being debated by MPs.
From The Telegraph
