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UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

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Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#81

Post by blowski »

morsch wrote: post #72
blowski wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here, because complaining about intrusions on our privacy and how ineffective they are, has become de rigeur on HN and Reddit without much dissent. There clearly is a security problem in Europe at the moment, and I'm assuming that the attacks are not being organised by the security services. So will this bill reduce, increase or have no effect on the attacks? If not, then what would…

Europe doesn't clearly have a security problem. A few insane people committing political violence doesn't change the fact that Europe is among the safest places on the planet.

At a data level, you are more likely to die or be injured in a politically-motivated attack today than you were 10 years ago. Attacks are now more frequent, more geographically dispersed, and more deadly - even if only on a very small percentage level.

Even if it's not a problem today (in your opinion), then either that trend has to be reversed or it will become a problem at some point.

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#82

Post by blowski »

Sylos wrote: post #80
blowski wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here, because complaining about intrusions on our privacy and how ineffective they are, has become de rigeur on HN and Reddit without much dissent. There clearly is a security problem in Europe at the moment, and I'm assuming that the attacks are not being organised by the security services. So will this bill reduce, increase or have no effect on the attacks? If not, then what would…

You're not going to get much else than comments explaining how ineffective these measures are when you are asking how ineffective they are. That being said, let me explain how ineffective they are: Your law-abiding citizen will give up their encryption, but this doesn't raise the bar much for a criminal to get it. It's still just a matter of minutes until you have an encryption-implementation which is not compromised…

If it reduced the number of attacks by, say, 20% would it be worth it?

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#83

Post by blowski »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #76
hobs wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely no impact, because no facility on earth has the capacity to filter and find information on this scale, especially when simple techniques are employed to hide the meaning of communication. The methods needed to reduce attacks (geopolitical unrest resolved) is probably not within the capacity of the police forces we have, and even pretty good safety is so expensive no one is willing to pay for it (even if we did…

Agreed. It takes 10 minutes to find a hardware store shopping list and bomb recipe. Even then, a lot of ingredients can be purchased over time without raising any flags. Buy bleach at one store and ammonia at another, say you're cleaning if anybody asks, then find a public place to mix the two. Once someone decides to kill a lot of people, it's already too late. There is no, repeat, no way to prevent every mass murde…

It sounds like you're saying that because it can't be 100% effective, we shouldn't do it at all. You could say the same about having a lock for your front door, but I bet you've got one.

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#84

Post by nitrogen »

hx87 wrote: post #68
shostack wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any good low-tech ways to disable them similar to tape over the camera? Not sure if tape alone would be sufficient to block audio.

A white noise generator placed over the microphone, perhaps?

White noise can be filtered out if it's not louder than the source sound within the frequency bands of interest over the time interval that matters for interpreting speech. So make sure it's loud, and maybe contour the noise to match the frequency distribution of speech, and maybe make it unpredictably variable over time.

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#85

Post by yandie »

blowski wrote: post #81
morsch wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe doesn't clearly have a security problem. A few insane people committing political violence doesn't change the fact that Europe is among the safest places on the planet.

At a data level, you are more likely to die or be injured in a politically-motivated attack today than you were 10 years ago. Attacks are now more frequent, more geographically dispersed, and more deadly - even if only on a very small percentage level. Even if it's not a problem today (in your opinion), then either that trend has to be reversed or it will become a problem at some point.

Can you provide the source of your data about the risk of dying?

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#86

Post by nitrogen »

blowski wrote: post #77
hobs wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely no impact, because no facility on earth has the capacity to filter and find information on this scale, especially when simple techniques are employed to hide the meaning of communication. The methods needed to reduce attacks (geopolitical unrest resolved) is probably not within the capacity of the police forces we have, and even pretty good safety is so expensive no one is willing to pay for it (even if we did…

So if it was technically possible to filter and find the information, and voters elected governments who said they were prepared to pay for it, would that make it a better idea?

It sounds like you are trying to use the foot-in-the-door technique. But you are looking at just one concern being very hypothetically alleviated, when there are many many other reasons that have been repeatedly discussed for years. So in practice, the answer to your question is no, and there is no reasonably considered theory where the answer would be yes.

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#87

Post by nitrogen »

blowski wrote: post #82
Sylos wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not going to get much else than comments explaining how ineffective these measures are when you are asking how ineffective they are. That being said, let me explain how ineffective they are: Your law-abiding citizen will give up their encryption, but this doesn't raise the bar much for a criminal to get it. It's still just a matter of minutes until you have an encryption-implementation which is not compromised…

If it reduced the number of attacks by, say, 20% would it be worth it?

Where did you get that number? And "20% reduction" is meaningless without saying 20% of what. Like, 20% reduction of a 1/1000000 chance is not the same as a 20% reduction of a 1/3 chance.

There are two common fallacies I see here. The first happens a lot with interpreting carcinogenicity or toxicity studies, where an X% increase/decrease is quoted without an absolute value. The second happens in the stereotypical startup pitch of "if only we could get just 20% of that market" -- it's a made-up number with no basis for why that is the right number.

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#88

Post by blowski »

zerebubuth wrote: post #78
blowski wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here, because complaining about intrusions on our privacy and how ineffective they are, has become de rigeur on HN and Reddit without much dissent. There clearly is a security problem in Europe at the moment, and I'm assuming that the attacks are not being organised by the security services. So will this bill reduce, increase or have no effect on the attacks? If not, then what would…

> So will this bill reduce, increase or have no effect on the attacks? Many of the recent attacks, particularly those in the past week in Germany and in Nice, France, don't appear to have involved extensive planning. If that's the case, then it would follow that there wasn't much communication to monitor. Therefore this bill would have no effect on the attacks or attackers. However, the increased access to informatio…

I will definitely read about the "Aarhus Model" - it truly is what I believe we should be doing a lot more of. However, I'd be interested in seeing what critics say about it, and some authoritative data.

You're probably right about the other stuff as well. Personally, I'm as worried about the links between the recent attacks, mental illness and poverty as I am about radical Islam. The governments are probably being oversold on what's possible with the technology, as well as how secure it will all be.

However, I do think there needs to be some kind of quicker fix. These attacks are playing into the hands of the extreme right (and left), so something needs to be done quickly if only to prevent us electing Donald Trump and his ilk.

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#89

Post by nitrogen »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #73
morsch wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe doesn't clearly have a security problem. A few insane people committing political violence doesn't change the fact that Europe is among the safest places on the planet.

When people vote out of fear, the line between a security problem and a security perception problem becomes indistinguishable.

People's fears can be assuaged much more easily if those fears aren't actively exploited by news agencies and politicians.

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#90

Post by blowski »

nitrogen wrote: post #86
blowski wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if it was technically possible to filter and find the information, and voters elected governments who said they were prepared to pay for it, would that make it a better idea?

It sounds like you are trying to use the foot-in-the-door technique. But you are looking at just one concern being very hypothetically alleviated, when there are many many other reasons that have been repeatedly discussed for years. So in practice, the answer to your question is no, and there is no reasonably considered theory where the answer would be yes.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. The risk of saying "we shouldn't do this because it won't work" is that it only has to work a little bit for the argument against it to fail. And it will certainly work a little bit at reducing one type of terrorism, just not enough to outweigh all the other negative effects.

That said, I would also like to see more discussion of alternatives instead of just saying "it'll never work".

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