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Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime

asia.nikkei.com

81–90 of 281 posts

Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime

#81
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the USA, email that has been stored for longer than some (fairly short) period I don't remember offhand doesn't require a warrant to access. Just think about that for a while.

Yep, after 180 days it only requires a subpoena (which does not require any court). See the Stored Communications Act.

In my country, our constitution has been updated recently enough that the privacy article explicitly mentions telecommunications: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24680273

Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime

#82

I live my life assuming everything already has a backdoor and the article title is misleading the populace. Sure, the Five Eyes and Japan might be asking for a backdoor but I postulate the chance they don't already have access to all information they desire is zero. At this point everything is just meant to wear everyone down and increase tolerance until the day "government has access to everything" doesn't matter to…

One thing that may help is making laws cut both ways. For instance, it is illegal in my country to not carry health insurance[1]. However, it naturally follows that it is equally illegal for an insurer to refuse coverage.

La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain. (1894)

[1] among my stock of anecdotes from the States, that I pull out for people here who have never lived there: "uninsured motorist coverage" ... kepashang? (wtf?)

Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime

#83
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is this really different to government-mandated microphones and cameras in your house, school, workplace, etc? The difference is that the infrastructure is in place and can be turned on at will so it feels within the reach of the people who think they deserved to do that. They think that deserve it because they believe that the job they do is the most important thing in the world and they can suddenly gain acce…

Nit pick - the best science at the moment suggests that radiation from Chernobyl killed just two hundred people, and Fukushima zero. Your point is a good one but the specific example turns out to be untrue.

I don't want to get into a death toll deal discussion but people killed by KGB and Stasi is just as low.

A politician here a journalist there, people looking at death toll statistics must be wondering what was the big deal about Stasi, Chernobyl, KGB, Fukushima and so on.

Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime

#84
post #2

Is it not a slippery slope to wanting access to email and pretext for intercepting?

In the EU, the metadata retention directive killed most of this. Though there was a temporary lapse of insanity and some of it was annulled, but it's now making a comeback in various forms... https://radiobruxelleslibera.com/2020/10/09/data-retention-s...

Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime

#85

If it undermines people's trust in Facebook's privacy, I'm for it. We need general adoption of strong open source secure messaging, and Facebook/WhatsApp stands in the way of this by being "good enough". If anything, this sort of announcement might just as well be a false flag tactic: look how secure Facebook is, 5-eyes is pleading for them to be less secure. [/tinfoil hat]

> If it undermines people's trust in Facebook's privacy, I'm for it.

First they came for Facebook; everybody liked that.

It's to catch the terrorists. You wouldn't say no to that, right?

I have nothing to hide, said the commoner.

Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime

#87
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, you're wrong. I've had interviewers ask why I host my own blog instead of using Facebook, and said it was very unusual that they couldn't check out my social background. Well, why would an employer need to check your social background? They should care about your skills more than anything else.

Well I can be the most technically skilled of my domain, and yet be a total bastard that would bring nothing but trouble in whatever team I would join. Thus said, a call to previous employers should do the trick.

How is viewing a Facebook profile in the control of that total bastard a good way of determining whether they should be given a job?

Personally I'm on no social network, on purpose. I've never had any issues. If it was an issue for an employer that I didn't have a Facebook account that their issue not mine.

Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime

#88
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nit pick - the best science at the moment suggests that radiation from Chernobyl killed just two hundred people, and Fukushima zero. Your point is a good one but the specific example turns out to be untrue.

I don't want to get into a death toll deal discussion but people killed by KGB and Stasi is just as low. A politician here a journalist there, people looking at death toll statistics must be wondering what was the big deal about Stasi, Chernobyl, KGB, Fukushima and so on.

> I don't want to get into a death toll deal discussion but people killed by KGB and Stasi is just as low.

You cant be serious.

Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime

#89

1. How is this really different to government-mandated microphones and cameras in your house, school, workplace, etc? 2. What’s the endgame here? Open-source encrypted messaging software is widely available. The cat is out of the bag. Every country on Earth could outlaw the technology and it would still be trivially easy for criminals to use it. Do the people behind these proposals not see that?

Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I, and the foundational mindset of "secret services" in Anglo-sphere ("5 eyes") explains everything. The modern secret services are based on British Empire's model, itself an outgrowth of Elizabethan intelligence services. The reason the "5+J eyes" -- btw, Israeli eyes don't count? -- insist on knowing everything about everyone in "the realm" is because Catholics and Protestants were hav…

Secret services also provide continuity in methods, if not personnel, across hostile administrative changes. For instance, the KGB inherited its methods (continuously) from the Cheka, which had inherited its methods (discontinously) from the Okhrana.

"He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okhrana

Detim to tili du kombat wit inyalowda, to gonya du sheru du owta wit kowmang. (He who continually struggles against Inners will become divisive himself.)

Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime

#90
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it would still be trivially easy for criminals to use it Maybe it's not about the criminals? Governments have a tendency to seek to increase control of citizens, surveillance being part of it. Saying it's about "tools for terrorists and child traffickers" is the traditional rethorical ploy no-one can argue against. You wouldn't want to protect child traffickers would you?

Beware, government is not those who command it. If there was some real democracy out there where citizens all should be actively implicated in the government (as opposed to supposedly delegate it), then what would it mean to have citizen wanting to increase control on citizen?

When it comes to secret services? Naive.
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