It is not only e-commerce. A digital information network like the Internet is without doubts of great usefulness, be it commerce, business, science, or keeping

It is not only e-commerce. A digital information network like the Internet is without doubts of great usefulness, be it commerce, business, science, or keeping personal relations. However, a communications network where trustworthiness, integrity, and privacy of communication is not kept is not worth much. This is why: Human communication uses universally some kind of medium to transmit some kind of symbols. This is pretty much universal whether we use gestures, sound waves, smoke signals, handwritten letters, telegraph lines and Morse code or digital networks. To be able to communicate, we need to have trust that the symbols match the reality which they are supposed to describe - be it a bank transaction, a business plan, or a marriage proposal. If symbols and reality do not match, they do not have any value. This is so important that we judge individuals in how well what they say matches what they do, the property which we call honesty and trustworthiness. It is much of the yarn which binds the social fabric. It is quite the same as with money - anyone can print numbers on pieces of paper but to have people agree these pieces represent some value, it needs trust. Without this trust, business is hardly possible. In many realms, privacy is also required, or more technically, confidentiality of individual communication. Especially in business, but also in domains where individuals need to be protected from organizations which have more power than them, and not always benevolent intentions (think of gay people in Russia or Iran). Furthermore, integrity and confidentiality of information is intertwined, as digital signatures do not work without private keys, and security certificates need to be kept safe. This becomes even more important as much software is distributed via the cloud. Without confidential keys, there is no integrity of software. Disabling or crippling encryption is like demanding that no private dwellings can have locks on the doors, so that police can enter at any time and check whether somebody has stolen something. Clearly, theft is not desirable, but preventing theft is not worth it to generally abolish the security of people's private living space.