Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

Post by ryeights » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

smudgymcscmudge wrote: post #32

cwyers wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's misleading -- the article and the article's headline say nothing about adding a backdoor. There's not enough detail in the article to say exactly how this decision will affect WhatsApp. (The headline on Bloomberg, "Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K. Police" is more restrained.)

On re-reading the sort article, I realize it only says they will be compelled to share "encrypted messages" and "information to support investigations". It never says anything about decrypting the messages. If that is literally all it is, then it is quite misleading.

Post by naniwaduni » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

verizonuser wrote: post #244

Simon_says wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are they going to outlaw encryption libraries? Yes. Absolutely. That's the only logical endgame.

What indication is there of this?

Post by GordonS » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 5:54 PM UTC

verizonuser wrote: post #242

GordonS wrote: post #220

The idea that moves like this will "keep us safe" is utterly preposterous; there are a multitude of other ways in which terrorists (or the boogeyman de jour ) could communicate - are the UK and US governments going to insist on backdooring IRC, Slack and face-to-face conversations? Are they going to outlaw encryption libraries? I truely fear for the future that western governments, in particular the 5 eyes members, a…

Disagree on hypocrisy. US still affords significant freedoms and largely respects human rights. Whether your communications can be decrypted or intercepted on networks that are government regulated anyway is not hypocritical. Residents of the US are still free to use whatever mathematical algorithm they want to encrypt their comms. Transporting OTP's across physical borders is trivial, and not technically illegally i…

Post by Sammi » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #238

hnthrow0693 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly leads you to believe that posting your credit card number on hacker news is somehow equivalent to not being outraged by the U.S. sharing _encrypted_ messages of suspected terrorists with the UK? Let’s not pretend the world is so black and white.

I was arguing against the idea of "if you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to hide". It's a bad attitude to have because allowing the government to have that power at all is a problem, even for terrorists and murderers and pedophiles. Because we don't know if people are those things until we investigate them, which means the government gets broad powers to investigate people to look for those kinds of cri…

    First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—

         Because I was not a socialist.

    Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
         Because I was not a trade unionist.

    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
         Because I was not a Jew.

    Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Post by shantly » Sat, Sep 28, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

MarcScott wrote: post #255

Simon_says wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are they going to outlaw encryption libraries? Yes. Absolutely. That's the only logical endgame.

I've said this before, but you can't outlaw the maths. There's nothing stopping anyone from rolling their own encryption, using well documented algorithms. You'd need to literally outlaw Wikipedia. Hell, even one-time-pads could still be used by truly motivated bad actors that wanted to communicate securely.