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Message encryption a 'problem' – UK home secretary

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Message encryption a 'problem' – UK home secretary

#81

Post by dm319 »

tomfitz wrote: post #69
pjc50 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Home Secretary is a proxy for the security services. Not the police, I'm referring to MI5. It doesn't seem to matter who holds the job, they've been pushing this for decades . MI5 have no interest in things like warrants or courts and a rather murky history in Northern Ireland.

I'm not sure of the relevance of this to jstanley's argument, nor my rebuttal.

I think GP's point is the warrant isn't needed. I guess whether it is relevant to your comment depends on whether your point is that a warrant is required despite their authority, or that you are simply pointing out that those in authority have a default duty/right to an individual's private conversations.

Re: Message encryption a 'problem' – UK home secretary

#82

Post by ascorbic »

discombobulate wrote: post #46
ascorbic wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A republican bomb maker was convicted literally yesterday. This isn't ancient history.

That's interesting. Looks like he was a member of the Continuity IRA[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_Irish_Republican_Ar...

I don't know how much of this you know, but there are several "dissident" republican and loyalist terror groups that have remained active since the Good Friday Agreements. The Omagh bombing, with the biggest loss of life of any attack in the Troubles, was carried out by dissident republicans after the agreement. The last republican bombings on British soil (not in Northern Ireland) were by the Real IRA in 2001, but they've continued in Northern Ireland, including in the past few years.

Re: Message encryption a 'problem' – UK home secretary

#83

Post by DarkKomunalec »

PeterisP wrote: post #80
tomfitz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 communicat…

> will be vulnerable to all kinds of criminals as well.

But legal authorities would never abuse their power (without you even knowing about it, unlike in other cases of abuse).

Re: Message encryption a 'problem' – UK home secretary

#84

Post by dm319 »

izacus wrote: post #38
dm319 wrote: post #12

I feel like the people who understand encryption and privacy advocates (myself included) are not engaging enough (or maybe effectively enough) with the public in communicating the concerns around trying to 'backdoor' encryption or giving up more of our privacy. While I think these political statements are often ridiculous, they actually have widespread public support, if my cohort of friends and family are anything t…

Thing is, the best vessel for that might be pop culture - Cory Doctorows books convey the issues of surveilance state to the general public way better than any kind of preaching does. The issue, I think, is that mostly the issues are focusing on fringe activities which aren't approved by most of society (sexting, "hiding things") instead of taking lessons from history of our socialist countries and other widespread a…

There is too much complacency and faith in our democracy in the UK. No one really believes a despot will get into power, despite it happening in recent history to similar european countries.

Re: Message encryption a 'problem' – UK home secretary

#85

Post by dm319 »

chii wrote: post #28
dm319 wrote: post #12

I feel like the people who understand encryption and privacy advocates (myself included) are not engaging enough (or maybe effectively enough) with the public in communicating the concerns around trying to 'backdoor' encryption or giving up more of our privacy. While I think these political statements are often ridiculous, they actually have widespread public support, if my cohort of friends and family are anything t…

I found the John Oliver episode about Snowden to be very good at conveying the ideas of privacy. Just mention that the govt can decrypt your dick pics and sexting if these laws pass.

You know this argument might well work for Theresa May.

Re: Message encryption a 'problem' – UK home secretary

#86

Post by biofox »

J-dawg wrote: post #56
DropbearRob wrote: post #30

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…

I happened to catch a Radio 4 documentary [0] on Sunday about the government's "Prevent" strategy, which aims to find evidence of extremism in places such as schools and "nip terrorism in the bud". It featured several worrying stories (including a school calling the police because a boy was talking about a toy gun he'd been given as a present [1]). The most worrying part was when they interviewed a senior police offi…

I have no problem, in principle, with the prevent strategy. If impressionable children are at risk of being brainwashed into a dangerous ideology, then the state should step in, just as it does with any other form of abuse.

Hasn't "pre-crime" always been a part of policing, in the form of intelligence gathering and crime prevention?

My main concern is schools, and (increasingly) the police acting irrationally and disproportionately.

Re: Message encryption a 'problem' – UK home secretary

#88

Post by tomfitz »

DarkKomunalec wrote: post #79
tomfitz wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> She wants to institute pervasive spying (targeted spying can be achieved by individually planting hardware backdoors, or simply recording the suspect entering their password).

I can see targetted spying is possible today. It sounds like she wants targeted spying to be cheaper, and restricted by the judicial system.

> But pointing out the harms of pervasive spying is a weak argument, because she didn't deny (or even address) those harms?

The argument I replied to wasn't pointing out the harms of pervasive spying. Nor was your argument.

"If she wants law enforcement to be able to see other's metadata, she should expose her metadata" is weak. We needn't waste time with that.

There are stronger arguments, such as asserting our right to privacy, or perhaps that it isn't technically possible without critically compromising encryption for everybody.

Re: Message encryption a 'problem' – UK home secretary

#89

Post by gregn610 »

onion2k wrote: post #77
beaconstudios wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Wanton or Furious riding" is also an offence.

Re: Message encryption a 'problem' – UK home secretary

#90

Post by joosters »

beaconstudios wrote: post #42
libeclipse wrote: post #19

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…

they continue to do the same with other legal systems like cannabis law and speed traps with poor visibility that do more harm than good.

Let's be devil's advocate for a second. The UK's speed cameras are brightly coloured, so there is an intention for them not to be traps - that is, they would prefer road users didn't speed. You cannot seriously argue that they are trying to sneakily catch people.

If you get caught speeding by a speed trap which wasn't so visible, it is still your own fault and no-one else's. Either you are in control of your own vehicle's speed, in which case you are to blame, or you are not in control of it - which is even worse.

Speed, or do not. Just don't go crying about it and blaming others when you get caught.

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