Eric Schmidt thinks encryption will help Google penetrate China

Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt has already expressed his view that government censorship can be ended within a decade with the help of encryption, and now he’s singled out China where Google will work on doing so, the Wall Street Journal reports. Schmidt told the WSJ on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum that Google has been strengthening its encryption which “creates a problem for governments like China’s” that are trying to penetrate it.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said the company is intent on using encryption technologies to penetrate countries with strict censorship rules, such as China and North Korea. “It is possible, within the next decade, using encryption, we would be able to open up countries that have strict censorship laws … giving people a voice,” Schmidt said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum at Davos. In the wake of the disclosures about surveillance by the National Security Agency, Schmidt said Google has been working to strengthen its encryption so governments “won’t be able to” penetrate it. “This creates a problem for governments like China’s,” Schmidt added.