Analysis UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd kicked off a firestorm in the tech community Tuesday when she argued that "real people" don't need or use end-to-end encryption.

... She continued: "Who uses WhatsApp because it is end-to-end encrypted, rather than because it is an incredibly user-friendly and cheap way of staying in touch with friends and family? Companies are constantly making trade-offs between security and 'usability,' and it is here where our experts believe opportunities may lie."

... The reference to "real people" struck a nerve with a host of security experts, sysadmins, privacy advocates and tech-savvy consumers who took to Twitter to point out that they were real people, and not ISIS sympathizers – as Rudd implied in her piece. Rudd essentially declared that people who use strong encryption are not normal, not real people, which is a rather dangerous sentiment.

... "There are options. But they rely on mature conversations between the tech companies and government – and they must be confidential. The key point is that this is not about compromising wider security. It is about working together so we can find a way for our intelligence services, in very specific circumstances, to get more information on what serious criminals and terrorists are doing online."