Australians learning encryption at social parties

Australians are learning encryption at "crypto parties" to hide data from criminals and governments as the digital arms race heats up, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on Thursday.

"Crypto parties" have been held in Brazil, Germany, the United Kingdom and now Australia to teach people about online encryption in the wake of revelations of mass global surveillance exposed by Edward Snowden.

ThoughtWorks consultant Tom Sulston, who trained journalists how to encrypt their communication Australian Federal Parliament's Press Gallery last week, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to remain anonymous when searching online, users should use an Internet browser called TOR.

"(It's) a piece of software that allows us to send our traffic through a number of different computers on the Internet," he said. "Each time it's encrypted it does that with another layer, so you get 'the onion' building up with many layers of encryption."

Activists have said encryption tools are vital to allow them to keep their activities secret and protect the identities of whistle- blowers.

However, Intelligent Risks Chief Executive, Neil Fergus, said terrorist organizations are also using encryption creating problems for law enforcement and intelligence agencies. "Look at this insidious grooming that's been done by hard-core ( Islamic State) members of young, impressionable Sunni Muslim youths in Australia and elsewhere in the world. They are trying to use encrypted tools,"Fergus said.

Crikey political editor Bernard Keane describes the to-and-fro of encryption and surveillance as an arms race.

"We're getting this virtuous circle from the point of view of the government that their mass surveillance plans are revealed, citizens try to use encryption to avoid them, and then that itself just becomes the basis for further extension of surveillance powers," Keane said.

The United Nations special rapporteur on privacy said encryption was a human right in the digital age. Endi