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Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime

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

#251

Post by ben_w »

centimeter wrote: post #217
umvi wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually a lot of countries do ban knives. And guns. And anything else bad actors might abuse.

“Anything else bad across might abuse” includes things that people can’t possibly delude themselves into thinking it would be rational to outlaw, such as cars and caustic cleaning agents. Of course, shockingly few of these ban-heavy countries, with the exception of the East Asian ones, have considered the much more effective strategy of adopting laws to reduce the number of bad actors . Switzerland is almost unique i…

> Switzerland is almost unique in only adopting laws to reduce the number of bad actors (very strict immigration system)

Strict? 25% of Switzerland’s population is foreign-born[1], and they are in the Schengen area, so no passport needed to cross the borders. I’ve cycled through at least three, none of which were even marked.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Switzerland#/...

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

#252

Post by ben_w »

mmm_grayons wrote: post #246
hannofcart wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue with nukes is that it's simply not possible to detonate one without causing collateral damage. Sure, how about a howitzer then? What you're failing to see or refusing to admit is that you too want to restrict access to weapons based on a certain threshold of collateral damage/body count each of them can inflict. It's just that for some (perhaps most) of us, an AR-15 is way past our threshold. As for the t…

No, I don't want to restrict ownership of howitzers. Though personally, I'd prefer an M61 vulcan. So no, I wouldn't say I'd restrict based on body count.

Just to be clear, you’d be fine with a personally owned nuke if it didn’t have fallout?

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

#253

Post by matheusmoreira »

umvi wrote: post #187
elmo2you wrote: post #154

> Security alliance worries encrypted messaging apps can be used by bad actors Same goes for kitchen knives. I don't hear them call for banning those, or have every sale of one tracked and monitored (which would only illustrate the lunacy of their "argument" even more).

Actually a lot of countries do ban knives. And guns. And anything else bad actors might abuse.

Bad actors abuse the government and even the legal system every day. We should probably get rid of those as well.

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

#254

Post by albinofrenchy »

nirui wrote: post #197
elmo2you wrote: post #154

> Security alliance worries encrypted messaging apps can be used by bad actors Same goes for kitchen knives. I don't hear them call for banning those, or have every sale of one tracked and monitored (which would only illustrate the lunacy of their "argument" even more).

"Kitchen knives" went too far to be an example. How about door locks? I still don't get the idea that having a weakened security system could somehow benefit security. Based on many real-life hack stories I've heard, it's usually the "bad actors" who's taking advantage of unsecured apps to attack normal people, this is the very reason why developers are making apps more secure to begin with. Another point is, insecur…

Governments would absolutely try to ban locks if they were as effective as encryption at keeping anything secure.

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

#255

Post by pmachinery »

varjag wrote: post #216
pmachinery wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge swathes of post-war German police, judiciary, political personnel were Nazi Party members[0], but we don't attribute crimes carried out in the Third Reich to West (or East) Germany or its institutions. If you want to pretend the KGB, or the regime it operated under[1], was just the same as the NKVD under Stalin, then please provide examples of the same crimes (mass killings) occurring from 1954-1991. [0] https:/…

Do you really suggest that West German police was basically Gestapo that changed the name? Because that's what MGB to KGB transition was. The status was changed from Ministry to Committee, that's it. The policy has been changed under Khrustchev, but thousands of the same butchers that committed massacres of 1930s were serving (often in the same offices) until late 1970s.

Okay since you want to pretend you don't understand my point: if around 40 members of the embryonic BND came from the SS, even by the head of the BND's own admission[0] in 1953, does that mean "the BND killed millions of people" is a reasonable statement?

Of course not, it's as ridiculous as claiming the KGB, the intelligence agency of anti-Stalinist USSR, killed millions of people, just because an utterly different (Stalin) regime did so while employing some of the same personnel.

If the KGB is just a name change, as you keep trying to pretend, then as I already asked, where are the mass killings perpetrated in the KGB era (1954-1991)?

[0] "Reinhard Gehlen, head of the Org and later president of the BND, [stated] that around 40 of his employees came from the SS and SD ... If there was ignorance on the matter, it was only because no one wanted to know"

Apparently even today, on Hacker News, some people still don't want to know and prefer their own fantasy version of history instead.

"Many Nazi functionaries including Silberbauer, the captor of Anne Frank, transferred over from the Gehlen Organisation to the BND ... Instead of expelling them, the BND even seems to have been willing to recruit more of them"

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

"The then-opposition leader and SPD head Kurt Schumacher [...] described the Gehlen Organization as 'riddled' with former members of the murderous Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the SS's intelligence agency"

While relevant to your initial question:

"The British press at the time openly mocked the 'Gestapo boys' working at the BND's headquarters in Pullach, near Munich."

https://archive.is/uKG93

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

#256

Post by matheusmoreira »

SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #6

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?

The end game is computers that cannot run software that hasn't been signed by the government. The copyright industry invests a lot of money into creating hardware that obeys them instead of their actual users. They aren't actually that important in the long run. Governments are a far bigger threat to computing freedom.

Governments think computers are too powerful and mere citizens should not be allowed to have free and unrestricted computers. Cryptography used to be a military tool but it has been democratized. Everyone has access to high quality, widely available cryptographic software. This means citizens are able to subvert the government by denying it access to information. Governments think they are always justified in everything they do and it's an affront to their power when they experience resistance.

In order to safeguard our freedom, we need to be able to manufacture hardware just as easily as we can write software. Currently, computer hardware manufacturing costs billions and there are very few companies doing it. They are natural targets for regulation and legislation.

We need to be able to make computer hardware at home.

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

#257

Post by woadwarrior01 »

jowsie wrote: post #181
innocenat wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are joking, but it's illegal in Japan to carry a locked-blade knives or folding knives with blade longer than 5.5cm. You need a solid reason to carry those, like if you just buy it from the shop (in the original package), or if you are a chef, etc.

Same in the UK, but the police can also decide you don't have a valid reason for a legal to carry pocket knife, and charge you anyway.

Likewise in Ireland[1].

[1]: http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1990/act/12/section/9/ena...

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

#258

Post by TeMPOraL »

mmm_grayons wrote: post #209
hannofcart wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The premise of your argument seems to be that the number of victims that a weapon can be unleashed on should not be a criterion for banning it. Am I getting that right? If so, can I please be allowed to have my own private nuclear warhead? I promise to only use it as a deterrent against a similarly armed government getting too "oppressive". I promise not to set it off in a bout of drunken depression.

Ahh, I love the McNuke argument. It's like "what about the roads" but for firearms policy. I've actually thought pretty hard about it, but no, I don't think so, and I believe my reason is consistent with the ideology I expressed above. The issue with nukes is that it's simply not possible to detonate one without causing collateral damage. Fallout, radiation poisoning, etc. So the government can in fact act to keep th…

Private ownership of nuclear weapons has a slightly different problem that isn't usually brought up in the "nuclear garden gnome" discussions: it has a capability to break the MAD doctrine. If your country allows anyone to own a warhead (and perhaps also a delivery system), then from the outside perspective, you're an unpredictable first strike threat. Which means suddenly the best option is to preemptively glass you, in order to not have to deal with you anymore.

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

#259

Post by LocalH »

zo1 wrote: post #247
LocalH wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you propose we eradicate petty crime while still maintaining the most amount of liberty?

Large scale, automated and auditable camera surveillance coupled with AI, linked directly to a crime + mugshot database. Do it right, and no liberty or privacy is lost for honest individuals. While petty thieves will lose liberty, of course.

How do you propose this system be hardened against abuse? How do you consider that “no privacy is lost for honest individuals” when they’re on camera everywhere they go?

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

#260

Post by varjag »

pmachinery wrote: post #255
varjag wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really suggest that West German police was basically Gestapo that changed the name? Because that's what MGB to KGB transition was. The status was changed from Ministry to Committee, that's it. The policy has been changed under Khrustchev, but thousands of the same butchers that committed massacres of 1930s were serving (often in the same offices) until late 1970s.

Okay since you want to pretend you don't understand my point: if around 40 members of the embryonic BND came from the SS, even by the head of the BND's own admission[0] in 1953, does that mean "the BND killed millions of people" is a reasonable statement? Of course not, it's as ridiculous as claiming the KGB, the intelligence agency of anti-Stalinist USSR, killed millions of people, just because an utterly different…

People working in KGB did not "come" from MGB, it was the same bloody organisation, and referring to KGB for NKVD purges is perfectly semantically correct. Also the analogy for "Nazi members" would be CPSU members, who were anyway in all positions of power in USSR. It makes no sense, you are being intentionally obtuse.
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