Jimmy Wales threatens to encrypt Wikipedia if UK passes snooping bill
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has joined the opposition to the Communications Data Bill that was proposed by the UK government earlier this year. Civil rights groups have raised the alarm about provisions that could require British ISPs to keep records of every website their customers visit for 12 months. Now Wales is threatening to enable encryption on Wikipedia for UK Web users to protect their privacy.
"If we find that UK ISPs are mandated to keep track of every single webpage that you read at Wikipedia, I am almost certain we would immediately move to a default of encrypting all communication to the UK, so that the local ISP would only be able to see that you are speaking to Wikipedia, not what you are reading," Wales told members of parliament. He said this wouldn't be a difficult change to implement.
