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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

#141

Post by danbruc »

anigbrowl wrote: post #85
danbruc wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I suggest that the depraved individuals who consume such materials are already used to being outliers [...] The perception of those people also has to change. I would guess most of them will not have made a conscious choice to be attracted to children in the same way that most homosexuals will not have decided to be attracted to the same sex. So they have to deal with a desire that they can never fulfill without…

That's valid to some extent, for people who want to change. Not all of them do. Also, sometimes the most strident voices of condemnation are seeking to draw attention away from their own criminality. A couple of months ago a guy in Southern California was arrested and charged with not just possession but production of CP and other sexual offenses. He had a private room on his business premises that he used for these…

I would guess that there are, to a first approximation, two groups of people - those consuming child pornography and those producing it. The consumers are probably the much larger group and to a certain extend one could maybe even call them harmless, at least ignoring the risk that they will go further in the future and that they are driving the demand. I don't know if this is actually true, but in the discussion of prostitution you regularly come across the argument that it is a way to satisfy a desire that might otherwise be satisfied through rape or other sexual abuse. In the same way consuming child pornography might prevent a certain group of people from themselves abusing children directly. When it comes to the producers, things might be much more bleak. They are the subgroup you really want to go after. Some of them might even do this just for the money without themselves being interested in children.

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

#142

Post by danbruc »

robertlagrant wrote: post #92
danbruc wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to this, there is probably a huge spectrum, from people secretly taking pictures of naked children at the beach which you might never even become aware of to yearlong abuse and rape. And one should not lump them together to get to get a big number of cases and then pretend they are all of the worst kind. Also the decision is not a dichotomy between complete surveillance of all communication and doing nothing a…

> the decision is not a dichotomy between complete surveillance of all communication and doing nothing at all The problem is that from a security perspective, it sort of is all or nothing.

You misunderstood me, I did not want to say that you can have some partial end-to-end encryption, I meant that not outlawing end-to-end encryption does not mean that you do or can do nothing against illegal content, i.e. there are other ways to fight this problem besides outlawing end-to-end encryption.

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

#143

Post by anigbrowl »

danbruc wrote: post #141
anigbrowl wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's valid to some extent, for people who want to change. Not all of them do. Also, sometimes the most strident voices of condemnation are seeking to draw attention away from their own criminality. A couple of months ago a guy in Southern California was arrested and charged with not just possession but production of CP and other sexual offenses. He had a private room on his business premises that he used for these…

I would guess that there are, to a first approximation, two groups of people - those consuming child pornography and those producing it. The consumers are probably the much larger group and to a certain extend one could maybe even call them harmless, at least ignoring the risk that they will go further in the future and that they are driving the demand. I don't know if this is actually true, but in the discussion of…

There are two such groups, but the overlap is significant. A lot of CP is acquired by trade rather than sale. I don't think there's much evidence either way for the proposition that consumption prevents further harm.

Anyway, my point was that some of the most strident condemnation is actually performative & deceptive.

Another example literally just popped up in my news feed: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/maryland/library-va...

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

#144

Post by sakagami0 »

variant wrote: post #131
jcarrano wrote: post #77

This could be very good for Meta, just get the government to never exercise the law on you and to do it instead on smaller competitors that may threaten you. Now everyone wanting to make a communications app (or anything implementing that functionality) is risking an expensive lawsuit on the UK. Meta too, but they have the bucks and influence to weather it.

This is why big companies love regulation, and why regulation - even when well-intentioned - can be such a disruptive force to market signals.

Yup, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

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

#145

Post by anigbrowl »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #94
anigbrowl wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's a criminal statute, the UK could fine Signal and the US would help them collect. https://irp.fas.org/world/uk/us-uk-mla.pdf

Maybe the treaty's exception for offenses of a political character applies here?

I doubt that. Signal themselves say they can't read the content of messages, so the UK prosecutors could argue that they're not being targeted over the content of the messages but the fact of enabling their concealment.

Recall that in the US there is no explicit right to privacy. You might be able to make a 1A argument that manually encrypting a message is itself a speech act, but the government could theoretically ban the distribution tools like Signal and argue they have the authority under the commerce clause, which stands on a equal Constitutional footing to the 1A.

I don't think this is likely, but I could easily see it being offered as the justification to honor a UK ban.

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

#146

Post by Barrin92 »

saddlerustle wrote: post #93
d33 wrote: post #60

It's intriguing which battles they choose. It wasn't long since there was a discussion where some people were arguing that they can't make moral judgements because disobeying the law would put them in a very difficult situation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35028107&

The consequence for not obliging with the online safety bill is pulling out from the UK market. The consequence for ignoring legally sound US court orders is Meta executives going to jail.

also as the Meta representative points out the UK is 2% of Whatsapp users. Honestly another reason why Brexit was a shot in their own foot. IF they'd gotten legislation like this through in the EU that'd be a much harder market to opt out of.

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

#147

Post by baby »

saurik wrote: post #114
baby wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’ve been fighting it since adding e2e encryption to their products, but people don’t know that

They partly don't know that because Signal likes to throw WhatsApp under the bus any chance they get, rather than treating them as an ally; I wish Signal would redirect their efforts to choosing new targets, whether in their current app or in a new different product, taking on the ilk of Snapchat/Telegram or even Discord.

Where did Signal do that? Moxie was contracted by fb back then to help implement the signal protocol so I’m not sware of them dunking on whatsapp

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

#148

Post by wkat4242 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #146
saddlerustle wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consequence for not obliging with the online safety bill is pulling out from the UK market. The consequence for ignoring legally sound US court orders is Meta executives going to jail.

also as the Meta representative points out the UK is 2% of Whatsapp users. Honestly another reason why Brexit was a shot in their own foot. IF they'd gotten legislation like this through in the EU that'd be a much harder market to opt out of.

And the EU is in fact pushing for the same insanity under the "Chat Control" proposals.

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

#149

Post by wkat4242 »

OJFord wrote: post #15
jupp0r wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just take a foreign prepay number and sideload the app :) It won't really stop people.

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

#150

Post by wkat4242 »

andylynch wrote: post #116
brundolf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes - especially for politicians - although looking at what’s currently leaking in certain UK newspapers one would think they would already be pushing for /more/ privacy on WhatApp rather than less.

Most of the leaks come from the political community itself of course. Either to gather the response to a particular measure without sticking out their neck to actually propose it, or to thwart opponents.
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