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WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

theguardian.com

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Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#11

Post by 323 »

mariojv wrote: post #3

“If the company refused to do, it could face fines of up to 4% of its parent company Meta’s annual turnover – unless it pulled out of the UK market entirely.” Wow. I wonder if it got to that point if Meta would change course and disable end to end encryption for UK users and people messaging UK users, if that would be sufficient to comply. If this lobbying causes the UK to change course, I wonder what impact that wou…

UK politicians themselves use WhatsApp a lot.

They will strike the law down a day after WhatsApp stops working in UK.

2 days after there will be massive public outrage since everybody uses WhatsApp in UK.

It's an empty threat, just like the internet porn law.

Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#12

Post by Jcampuzano2 »

brundolf wrote: post #5
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say that 98% of users are outside the UK (and those users very likely won't want reduced encryption), so whatsapp would probably just exit the UK.

I know in some non-US countries, WhatsApp is the default way of communicating (like SMS is in the US). Is that true in the UK? That could put significant pressure on the government

Basically everywhere in Latin America you practically could not survive without using WhatsApp, it is that prevalent. It is used for everything from personal communication to business communication.

Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#13

Post by jupp0r »

Digit-Al wrote: post #8
lewispollard wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone I know here (UK) uses WhatsApp as their default communication tool. I have a few friends using Signal or Telegram, but I'd say WhatsApp is by and large the default, at least for my social circle.

Signal said they may have to pull out of the UK if the bill is enacted as well. This would be a major setback for communications here. We'd basically have to go back to SMS/MMS and email as far as I can tell. I don't know this is a fight the UK government can win. Does anyone else remember that the American government tried to ban encryption (back in the 90's I think it was)? They eventually had to give up because pe…

What does it mean for Signal to "pull out" of the UK? How can the UK government enforce this law against an app whose makers have no physical presence inside the country? Force phone makers to ban the app from app stores?

Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#14

Post by _Wintermute »

Digit-Al wrote: post #8
lewispollard wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone I know here (UK) uses WhatsApp as their default communication tool. I have a few friends using Signal or Telegram, but I'd say WhatsApp is by and large the default, at least for my social circle.

Signal said they may have to pull out of the UK if the bill is enacted as well. This would be a major setback for communications here. We'd basically have to go back to SMS/MMS and email as far as I can tell. I don't know this is a fight the UK government can win. Does anyone else remember that the American government tried to ban encryption (back in the 90's I think it was)? They eventually had to give up because pe…

France effectively banned encryption in the 90s and had to backtrack, I can't see this being enacted for any length of time before even the most stupid of politicians realise it's a bad idea.

Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#15

Post by OJFord »

jupp0r wrote: post #13
Digit-Al wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal said they may have to pull out of the UK if the bill is enacted as well. This would be a major setback for communications here. We'd basically have to go back to SMS/MMS and email as far as I can tell. I don't know this is a fight the UK government can win. Does anyone else remember that the American government tried to ban encryption (back in the 90's I think it was)? They eventually had to give up because pe…

What does it mean for Signal to "pull out" of the UK? How can the UK government enforce this law against an app whose makers have no physical presence inside the country? Force phone makers to ban the app from app stores?

No +44 number sign-up, no listing in UK app stores.

Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#16

Post by Kim_Bruning »

_Wintermute wrote: post #14
Digit-Al wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal said they may have to pull out of the UK if the bill is enacted as well. This would be a major setback for communications here. We'd basically have to go back to SMS/MMS and email as far as I can tell. I don't know this is a fight the UK government can win. Does anyone else remember that the American government tried to ban encryption (back in the 90's I think it was)? They eventually had to give up because pe…

France effectively banned encryption in the 90s and had to backtrack, I can't see this being enacted for any length of time before even the most stupid of politicians realise it's a bad idea.

Would you happen to have links to some good reading material on this? People could -eg.- show it to their representatives.

Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#17

Post by tialaramex »

Digit-Al wrote: post #8
lewispollard wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone I know here (UK) uses WhatsApp as their default communication tool. I have a few friends using Signal or Telegram, but I'd say WhatsApp is by and large the default, at least for my social circle.

Signal said they may have to pull out of the UK if the bill is enacted as well. This would be a major setback for communications here. We'd basically have to go back to SMS/MMS and email as far as I can tell. I don't know this is a fight the UK government can win. Does anyone else remember that the American government tried to ban encryption (back in the 90's I think it was)? They eventually had to give up because pe…

The US said that encryption (well, good encryption) was a munition and so you needed an export license to make it available outside the US, e.g. by putting it on a web site.

Such rules are not unusual for physical objects - why sell your enemies or even potential enemies the rope they will hang you with? But for encryption it doesn't make sense because it's just information, and unlike physical objects, after writing is invented humans can trivially reproduce information, so too bad.

Eventually they whittled the "export license" step to something like a form letter Fax and IIRC Mozilla had a process where you raised a Bugzilla ticket, that caused the appropriate fax to be filled out and sent, so that was part of the release process, making it as painless as possible to comply with the stupid law.

(And now it's gone altogether)

Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#18

Post by jhasse »

jupp0r wrote: post #13
Digit-Al wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal said they may have to pull out of the UK if the bill is enacted as well. This would be a major setback for communications here. We'd basically have to go back to SMS/MMS and email as far as I can tell. I don't know this is a fight the UK government can win. Does anyone else remember that the American government tried to ban encryption (back in the 90's I think it was)? They eventually had to give up because pe…

What does it mean for Signal to "pull out" of the UK? How can the UK government enforce this law against an app whose makers have no physical presence inside the country? Force phone makers to ban the app from app stores?

Not phone makers, but Google and Apple. You wouldn't find the app in their App Stores in the UK.

Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#20

Post by omgomgomgomg »

Call me sceptic, but does not whatsapp see what you are typing when you are creating messages? They need to log the keydown event somehow, right?

And the predictive text spits out what it thinks you want to type.

And backups are possible even if you never had one before.

This is so very dodgy to me.

Maybe its e2e from the moment you submit until it arrives at the desired destination.

Which brings me to the next issue, they need to parse the text to display and when you quote a text, does it just blindly quote a blurb?

I do not believe in conspiracies and such, but there are so many double speech possibilities here...

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