An anonymous reader writes: On the first day in his new posting as head of British Intelligence, new GCHQ chief Robert Hannigan has added his voice to the now-weekly stream of objections by US and UK government officials to the post-Snowden trend towards 'zero knowledge' storage, suggesting that online communities are actually demanding increased surveillance. He said that most internet users want "a better and more sustainable relationship between the [intelligence] agencies and the tech companies."
Hannigan added that British surveillance groups would not be able to tackle future terrorist threats without increased support from "the largest US tech companies which dominate the web".
"However much they may dislike it," he said. "they have become the command and control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals, who find their services as transformational as the rest of us."
The criticism is the latest in a string of government announcements in the wake of Edward Snowden's urging of consumers towards zero-knowledge storage such as SpiderOak, and also Apple's new policy of client-side encryption in iOs 6. On 26th September FBI director James Comey criticised zero-knowledge storage at a conference on child abuse, whilst similar criticisms followed in October from the departing Attorney General Eric Holder and UK National Crime Agency chief Keith Bristow. In the same period leaks from President Obama outlined a 'doomsday' scenario for cyber-terrorism.