What The Panama Papers Reveal About The Importance Of Encryption

The biggest data leak in history exposed the tax shelters and financial machinations of hundreds of high-ranking government officials…

The biggest data leak in history exposed the tax shelters and financial machinations of hundreds of high-ranking government officials around the world. Known as the Panama Papers, the leak of 11.5 million files from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca to journalists shines a spotlight on the secret world of offshore tax havens.

Video Transcript:

If you look at how the Panama Papers were actually provided to the newspapers that brought this scoop [to the] public, they did it all through encrypted means. Encrypted chat, encrypted files, and so on and so forth. So if you have any doubt about the importance of unbreakable encryption, this absolutely shows how valuable it is.

Because there are a lot of high-level government officials across a variety of nations that are implicated in the Panama Papers, and if these governments had the means to break the encryption and see who is leaking the files, then it is possible that the leaker would not have had the courage to actually bring this information forth.

So, in terms of encryption providing value for transparency and government accountability, this right here shows us why we need it.

(Note: this video was originally produced for my company, Inflection, but they’ve kindly given me permission to share it on my personal blog as well.)