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Signal would 'walk' from UK if Online Safety Bill undermined encryption

bbc.com

171–180 of 205 posts

Re: Signal would 'walk' from UK if Online Safety Bill undermined encryption

#171

> The government, and prominent child protection charities have long argued that encryption hinders efforts to combat online child abuse - which they say is a growing problem. So take using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. What they should be doing, is rather then increase the risk of for the majority who use encryption for valid reasons (privacy, not nefarious), is invest in services to allow individuals to gain help,…

I agree. Next step. Majority of CP is filmed in homes where children live. To protect the children every home must have a government monitored camera in it so that the safety of the children can be insured. You don't have anything to hide do you? No criminal activity going on?

There is no way this doesn't quickly turn into full government monitoring of everything being sent over technology. Before that even, I assume the search for CP will be done via image hashes provided by a government database. Whats to stop the government from simply putting a hash of information it does not want public? The snowden files or something similar. Quickly identify and remove leakers.

Its a very slippery slope.

Re: Signal would 'walk' from UK if Online Safety Bill undermined encryption

#172
How is that different from the CIA being able to sniff and access their servers thanks to the US patriot act? will they 'walk' from the US too? [1]

Oh, my bad, i almost forgot! it's the tech that's being tested to power the digital online passport, we'll get to see it first with twitter [2], then meta, then it'll expand everywhere else

Ahh, the joy of the bitcoin, who said china was evil with their social credit system? The existence of the patriot act makes everything obvious

[1] - https://www.aquaray.com/en/blog/posts/cloud-act-patriot-act-...

[2] - https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1596615573303357440

Re: Signal would 'walk' from UK if Online Safety Bill undermined encryption

#173
post #99
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people will say the same when you lose right to encryption, and both will be wrong.

Except you can't kill someone with encryption. Your freedoms end where my freedoms begin, and guns are just a tool to change that dynamic. They serve no other purpose, unless we're talking hunting, for which you can still get guns, after some education. I don't get how Americans seem to think it makes sense to require a license to drive a car but not to own a gun? Who is more dangerous, a guy driving a sedan or one h…

"Except you can't kill someone with encryption." You can damn sure wreck their lives without it though. Lets say a generally good guy is thinking about running for office. He has a encrypted chat with some old friends where they occasionally make off color jokes about whatever protected class happens to be in favor at the time, gay, trans, black, whatever.

He runs for office and the people in power simply pull up his chat logs, accuse him of being a racist and thats it for him. This is just one obvious example but there are millions. He is in an open marriage, gay, a swinger, satanist, you name it, it will be used against him.

Its a way for the government in power to stay in power.

Re: Signal would 'walk' from UK if Online Safety Bill undermined encryption

#174
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll find very few people understand strong encryption and why it's important to have. They thing is the Brits had a right and gave it up for no reason at all, and will give up more, without a fight.

> gave it up for no reason at all * UK: Gun deaths per 100,000 people - 0.20 * USA: Gun deaths per 100,000 people - 12.21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...

Gun deaths include suicide and justified homicide, not just murder. More than a half of American gun deaths are non-criminal. American non-gun murder rate murder rate exceeds UK total murder rate, so I'd say the reason is not guns.

Re: Signal would 'walk' from UK if Online Safety Bill undermined encryption

#175

And this is from country where certain celebrities abused children for decades in plain site without any encryption. Where children of entire towns were mass-abused also in plain site and under the nose of police. Where members of Royal family are known kiddy fiddlers without anything serious happening to them.

well sure but those are the royals and minorities. Can't be arresting them. Its everyone else that has to be monitored, those are the real baddies.

/S

Re: Signal would 'walk' from UK if Online Safety Bill undermined encryption

#176
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans kill more people by non-gun means than say Australians total (per year per 100k). Whatever their problem is it's not guns.

Guns are definitely a major problem - a lot of people who shouldn't have access to guns do and use them. I'm not talking about intentional, targeted murders or settling gang disputes - those will happen anyway regardless of the law. However, easy access to guns mean that people in an unstable mental state might use one to commit (mass?) murder in an act of folly that they would otherwise not do (or at the very least…

Those who want to kill a lot of people just rent a truck and wait for a big public gathering.

What you describe is a definition of a nanny state.

Re: Signal would 'walk' from UK if Online Safety Bill undermined encryption

#177
post #25

> The government, and prominent child protection charities have long argued that encryption hinders efforts to combat online child abuse - which they say is a growing problem. So take using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. What they should be doing, is rather then increase the risk of for the majority who use encryption for valid reasons (privacy, not nefarious), is invest in services to allow individuals to gain help,…

Make no mistake: the Online Safety Bill has absolutely nothing to do with protecting children. End-to-end encryption is the first line of defence against government approved mass surveillance. If it falls, the rest will follow. It will only be a short period until the operation is expanded under the guise of additional "protections" against the citizens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jFqhjaGh30

Re: Signal would 'walk' from UK if Online Safety Bill undermined encryption

#178
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans kill more people by non-gun means than say Australians total (per year per 100k). Whatever their problem is it's not guns.

Guns are definitely a major problem - a lot of people who shouldn't have access to guns do and use them. I'm not talking about intentional, targeted murders or settling gang disputes - those will happen anyway regardless of the law. However, easy access to guns mean that people in an unstable mental state might use one to commit (mass?) murder in an act of folly that they would otherwise not do (or at the very least…

> I'm not talking about intentional, targeted murders or settling gang disputes

Once you exclude these....

> commit (mass?) murder in an act of folly that they would otherwise not do

These become so rare that they are effectively non existent when compared to literally any other cause of death.

Re: Signal would 'walk' from UK if Online Safety Bill undermined encryption

#179
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> encryption hinders efforts to combat online child abuse So do opaque walls and the absence of surveillance cameras in cars and homes. Oh don't worry - the recordings will be securely stored, and only available with a court order, only issued for "serious" crime! It's strange that as surveillance proliferates, the shrinking scraps of privacy we have left are deemed a growing problem, not a vanishing one.

I don't think breaking encryption is a good idea, but I will say that until recently law enforcement could tap phones, rip open envelopes, and get a court order to break into your house and search it. There was never the level of privacy against law enforcement that encryption offers.

You could always just not write things down. The government is prohibited from torturing information out of people.
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