Goodreads asked Bill Ward:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Bill Ward My new thriller Encryption tackles very topical issues. The leaks by Snowden reveal how everything we write is being read by the world’s security services. Encryption will make readers think about our respective governments and the things they do in our name.
While the story is fundamentally a murder mystery it raises important questions about our privacy, the role of the NSA and GCHQ in our daily lives, and what sort of world we want to inhabit.
In researching this book, I was staggered to discover there is evidence of a surveillance product used by different Security Services, which has been known to be installed as part of a commonly used software update, which avoids detection by anti-virus software.
There has even been talk of the same thing happening via iTunes. We can only guess why it took Apple five years to apply a straightforward fix to stop it happening. One view is that the NSA didn’t want it fixed!
As one of my reviews says,” Encryption forces readers to examine foreign policy and national security with a more critical eye... and in doing so, readers may find they do not care for what they see.”

flag