Securing Private Communications

Book excerpt: It has become glaringly clear that any communicative act online is subject to breach by intelligence agencies, cybercriminals, advertising networks, employers, and corporate data miners, to mention the most obvious intruders. Internet users, seeing no other choice than to hop onto the web-based bandwagon, have come to depend on a networked communications environment that is fundamentally insecure. Now lawmakers worldwide are gearing up to intervene. Arguing for a stricter stance on protecting private communications security, this groundbreaking study offers a conceptual and legislative toolkit leading to a step-by-step regulatory model in EU law. The proposed model is tested in two detailed case studies on HTTPS and cloud communications. From the interlocking perspectives of fundamental rights, systems design, and political organization, the regulatory model proposed is tested on HTTPS, which covers the user-provider relationship in web browsing, and on "cloud" communications that affect interdomain and intradomain communications. The case studies are based on the infamous DigiNotar breach and the MUSCULAR programme disclosed by whistle-blower Edward Snowden and contain original legal, security economics, and computer science research, conducted jointly with scholars trained in these disciplines. Responding to a general positive human right to communications security that is emerging from European fundamental rights law, this book not only provides one of the first interdisciplinary studies to appear in the academic literature on EU communications security law, but also offers broad recommendations to the EU lawmaker and gives directions for future research. It is sure to become a first point of discussion, reference, and legislative action for policymakers and practitioners in Europe and beyond.