> When pressed on what kind of metadata she wanted, she replied: “I’m having those conversations in private.” Well I would like to know who she's having those conversations with, when she's having them, and how long they last. I think it's important that she share this information with us. So that we can catch criminals.
Have a read of this, I'd imagine the UK might want to tighten up their airport security a touch before encryption becomes a major issue:
> Ms Rudd is meeting with representatives from Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and others at a counter-terrorism forum in San Francisco.
Well, these will simply be the companies whose tools we won't be using anymore. The World does certainly not depend on any US companies or the UK government's approval to securely use encryption.
There is a growing misconception that it is the role of the government to "keep their citizens safe". Although that it is often the intention of legislation to prevent behaviour which may lead to unsafe situations. For example, making it illegal to drink and drive. You can arrest someone for breaking the law, but never can you arrest someone right up to the point of breaking the law. For example, You cannot arrest so…
>For example, You cannot arrest someone for being drunk and having their car keys in their pocket, or even being asleep in the car while drunk.
An aside, but this is not true.
"According to Alabama state law, Hand was deemed to be in “constructive possession” of the vehicle, and although he wasn’t driving and the vehicle was parked, the keys being in the car was the determinant that triggered the arrest.""
Oh god, I despair of this country. After a decade of conservative I have never been so disillusioned. I feel like I am stuck in a rut or like, I don't belong here. It is a horrible feeling. Deep down I know that the government is stuck in 1740 and by the time that millennials walk the halls of power, their parents will have signed away all their rights. The very last thing I love is my country, that is for sure.
I am in the same boat. I am staying at the moment because of my work situation and my family, but I have an inevitable sense that should either of those situations change, particularly the former, I'll be actively looking to move out. The war on reasoning and facts is too intense, and even though I'm largely sheltered from it where I live and work (almost everyone I know has similar views to me on these matters), it'…
By the time you reach they point where it is very clear you should leave it will be too late. Prepare now by selecting a country and starting the long immigration process, it's not an option you have to exercise.
not as if the same thing is happening in France, Germany or the EU is it? https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/28/german_french_minis... sadly it seems as if all security services in nearly all developed countries want this sort of thing, and the UK is simply a few months ahead here
EU are working to prevent it https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/19/eu-outlaw...
the Parliament doesn't have any ability to legislate to stop it
the governments of the member states (essentially the Council) want it, so it will happen
The tale of The Orwellian Kingdom continues... No really. I've written about this before, but I sincerely refuse to believe that the government are doing this out of ignorance anymore. There's been too many people telling them how it actually is, but they persist. That leads me to conclude that either they're severely mentally dysfunctional, or there's another reason for doing this. PR maybe? Votes? Something more si…
GCHQ are the only reason the UK are able to maintain their grip over the world economy. If it weren't for the UK's massive spy industry, it'd just be another irrelevant European state. (Yes, I know: Londons' Finance Industry is a big reason for the UK's reach around the world - well, I happen to believe that GCHQ and The City work hand in hand to maintain that power.)
Totally agree. These two are all that keeps the UK at the big boy table. And all the UK establishment care about is staying at the big boy table, whatever the cost.
There is a growing misconception that it is the role of the government to "keep their citizens safe". Although that it is often the intention of legislation to prevent behaviour which may lead to unsafe situations. For example, making it illegal to drink and drive. You can arrest someone for breaking the law, but never can you arrest someone right up to the point of breaking the law. For example, You cannot arrest so…
actually, funnily enough in the UK you can be arrested for being "drunk in charge of a motor vehicle" even if you aren't in the driver's seat. That can apparently include sleeping one off in the back seat of your car.
Amusingly, here in the UK, we also have the crime of "drunk in charge of a carriage" which has been used to prosecute people for being drunk with all manner of things from bicycles to horses.
Ah, great lie of metadata. What those in power don't want us to know is that metadata is just a weasel word for incomplete data. It tells a story about you and those with whom you associate or intersect. What's worse is that incomplete data cannot tell the whole story by design. All incomplete data lies as all summaries, to some extent, do. Some would like us to believe that this incomplete data is somehow less harmful. It is not. Incomplete data can only accuse, it can never convict nor can it exculpate - it can only implicate and paint false pictures on massive scale. To filter the false positives and turn incomplete data into data, I seriously doubt that less work than traditional police work is required to process the output. It is only a benefit to those who wish to retroactively target known and presently target unknown individuals, matching a particular signature, and assassinate them unjustly. As such, at its worst, a danger to every one of us and, at its best, a lethal distraction to those who would otherwise protect us. When they say they only gather incomplete data they lie. They gather all of it - would you believe someone who tells you "just the tip and only for a second"? I wouldn't.
But if she has nothing to hide, why should it matter if he's law enforcement or not? After all, there's no harm in being spied on, is there?
Is the home secretary using that argument? We ought to use strong arguments. This thread's arguments aren't strong.
She wants to institute pervasive spying (targeted spying can be achieved by individually planting hardware backdoors, or simply recording the suspect entering their password).
But pointing out the harms of pervasive spying is a weak argument, because she didn't deny (or even address) those harms?
> When pressed on what kind of metadata she wanted, she replied: “I’m having those conversations in private.” Well I would like to know who she's having those conversations with, when she's having them, and how long they last. I think it's important that she share this information with us. So that we can catch criminals.
Are you law enforcement with a warrant?
If you remove the technological protections, the communications become accessible not only to law enforcement but also to malicious people - cryptography doesn't care if you have a warrant or not.
A particular communications channel either is secure from anyone or it's vulnerable to everyone. If UK home secretary argues that we shouldn't be allowed to use secure channels, then that does imply that all such communications will be vulnerable to all kinds of criminals as well.