UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by maker1138 » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 9:39 PM UTC

blowski wrote: post #115

Blahah wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate you're playing devil's advocate, so I'm holding back. "There's a security problem in Europe at the moment". What are you talking about? The number of people harmed in terrorism-related events in Europe in any given year is dwarfed by the number of people who harm themselves by accident or stupidity in those same countries. And dwarfed to an even greater extent by the number of people killed by police in…

The reason I push on this argument is that by making it, we as a community sound like we're waving away the concerns of the majority. "Oh a lorry killed loads of children? Don't worry about it love, loads more people commit suicide every year." So those who do pander to those concerns end up winning the vote, and then they can trash our civil liberties. This is precisely how we British have ended up voting to leave t…

The solution to the problem is not preventing people from communicating securely.

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

#132

Post by Fiahil » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 9:44 PM UTC

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…

> say you're cleaning if anybody asks

Why would anybody asks? But, your point stands: I've been absolutely amazed that nobody had blown up our (Parisian) metro at 8:30 in the morning already. If you want a maximum casualty count, just bring a bunch of stuff and shake it in a pressure cooker. Just synchronize payload over multiple lines, and boom, you got something around thousand of casualties, plus a massive panic mouvement, and a genuine fear of public transportation for a while.

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

#133

Post by soundwave106 » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 9:48 PM UTC

flyinghamster wrote: post #45

k-mcgrady wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's to do with people 'losing their minds'. The weird thing about bills like this, or really anything effecting privacy/IT security, is that no matter how bad it is the general public have no idea it's happening. The number of people I've spoken to who know nothing about Snowden/PRISM etc despite it being front page news for months shocks me. That basically means that it's up to a small group of people…

For a long time, people who are concerned about online security and privacy have been derided as paranoid, tinfoil-hat-wearing kooks. Not only that, but it seems to me that there's been far less coverage of these issues in mainstream media than in the tech press, and most mainstream coverage seems to take the governments' side. People who get most or all of their news from TV likely won't hear anything about all this…

If this is implemented, it's going to be fun the day that someone from the government gets hacked and compromised via the very same security weaknesses they ordered.

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

#134

Post by pmarreck » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 9:48 PM UTC

blowski wrote: post #53

tetrep wrote: post #24

I think this same logic that is purportedly the reasoning behind this bill would also require us to constantly record all of our vocal communications, as that would be the only way we could ensure that criminals could not have communications that aren't accessible to law enforcement. This, of course, would require microphones on all citizens as well as many more in the surrounding environment, to ensure communication…

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…

An infamous country tried the "intrusion on privacy" route, with a result one could best characterize as "chilling." It was called East Germany. It would behoove everyone to watch the excellent dramatic film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others .

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

#135

Post by blowski » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 9:49 PM UTC

maker1138 wrote: post #131

blowski wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I push on this argument is that by making it, we as a community sound like we're waving away the concerns of the majority. "Oh a lorry killed loads of children? Don't worry about it love, loads more people commit suicide every year." So those who do pander to those concerns end up winning the vote, and then they can trash our civil liberties. This is precisely how we British have ended up voting to leave t…

The solution to the problem is not preventing people from communicating securely.

So what is the solution? If we spend all our time arguing what the solution isn't, we leave a big vacuum which is then filled with even more garbage ideas.

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

#136

Post by pmarreck » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 9:52 PM UTC

LinuxBender wrote: post #63

geggam wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most citizens carry said microphones complete with GPS and other tracking abilities... already

I agree with you. Every time I bring that up, I get down-voted due to the cognitive dissonance that folks have with their fondle-slabs. Now people are being conditioned to think it's normal for their microphone to always be on.

> fondle-slabs

you mean zombie phones? ;)

Seriously, what you're talking about is one of the reasons I've wanted to get a Blackphone... but I think I saw a blip on my radar that it may be compromised

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

#137

Post by vehementi » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 9:53 PM UTC

Blahah wrote: post #105

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…

I appreciate you're playing devil's advocate, so I'm holding back. "There's a security problem in Europe at the moment". What are you talking about? The number of people harmed in terrorism-related events in Europe in any given year is dwarfed by the number of people who harm themselves by accident or stupidity in those same countries. And dwarfed to an even greater extent by the number of people killed by police in…

> It is the media attention given to the situation, not the situation itself, that is terrifying.

In a very real sense, the media is causing the demoralization / fear in the US / West. Given we will spend trillions(?) of dollars fighting the terrorism that we ostensibly believe is causing that demoralization (due to its real harm on the country), why aren't we spending any trillions against the media? Not to censor the media directly, but, say, giving news outlets millions of dollars for every happy or accurate story they write, if we're going to spend that money anyway.

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

#138

Post by vehementi » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 9:55 PM UTC

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #104

blowski wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. Just because some number has increased, that doesn't say anything about whether it will increase further, and if so, at which rate. So: How do you know there is a trend in the first place?

Nor do we know if it has reached the level of "problem" or not. Murders could be up 100% but if it's from "negligible" to "negiligible x2" then it is not "clearly a problem".

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

#139

Post by lb1lf » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 9:56 PM UTC

justincormack wrote: post #129

blowski wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most of the last 20 years, fatalities in terrorist attacks in (Western) Europe were in single figures. There were three exceptions - the Madrid trains in 2004, London bombings in 2005, and the Oslo shootings in 2011. See http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/11/daily-c... Last year, that increased to around 100, this time based on 2 attacks (both in Paris, France). So far this year, there have been ne…

We are back in Europe to the average level of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s in terms of deaths with far fewer attacks, after a reduction in the 2000s though http://www.datagraver.com/case/people-killed-by-terrorism-pe...

While I tend to shrug off any attack with the idea that I still live in one of the safest corners of the planet (Small-town Norway), I do appreciate that people are, reasonably, more scared of Terrorism(tm) than they've been in the past around here.

I have a couple of ideas why this may be so:

a) Back in the seventies/eighties when media reported on the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the ETA in Spain or the RAF in Germany / BR in Italy, reporting was much more low key (For anything but the most spectacular events, Norwegian papers would typically publish a small note to the effect that "Members of the Basque separatist organization ETA today killed a police officer and two bystanders in whatever Spanish place you've never heard of."

Today if someone for whatever reason kills a couple of people, it is a major story with photos, interviews, analysis and whatnot. Hence, events on a similar scale as was experienced in the past now appear much more significant.

b) Violence today seems a lot more arbitrary; in the seventies, the typical terrorism victim if my recollection of the news back then is anything to go by, was someone who was targeted for something they were; police officers, magistrates, cabinet members, Israelis, whatever.

Hence we'd just shrug it off, as we weren't targets, anyway.

Today, for a significant number of perpetrators, anyone is a target - and that makes it a lot harder to just shrug an attack off as something which does not affect you; three people get blown up in a bar in Elbonia? Could've been you; after all you went to the neighbourhood pub only yesterday!

c) Additionally, as much (if not all) terrorism today appears motivated by religion (or, more precisely, by some perverted interpretation of religion), it is a godsend to anyone of a xenophobic bent. Get rid of the people you do not like; get rid of the terrorism problem at the same time!

Militant islamism basically makes xenophobia legitimate, which in turn can be argued to foster militantism, which further fosters xenophobia and downwards we go.

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

#140

Post by nl » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 9:56 PM UTC

hobs wrote: post #69

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…

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…

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

This is a very naive argument.

Of course it is possible. I can search all my Facebook messages now. We know the NSA can search a large proportion of the world's internet traffic.