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UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

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Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#71

Post by junofan »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #67
derelicta wrote: post #11

The fact that every "democratic" superpower seeks to criminalize or prohibit E2EE at the same time gives the impression there is some sorta coordination between state actors to do so.

> some sorta coordination between state actors There's no smoky backroom where Biden and Macron and Sunak and Scholz sit in high-back leather chairs with glasses of whisky scheming about how to counter each threat to their power (with their super-secret puppeteers present only as a grim silhouette in the shadows, or maybe as an unexpected call at a climactic moment). The only coordination that exists at the level of…

What do you think Joe Biden talks about with Macron, Sunak, and Scholz when he calls them up on the phone?

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#72

Post by slavboj »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #67
derelicta wrote: post #11

The fact that every "democratic" superpower seeks to criminalize or prohibit E2EE at the same time gives the impression there is some sorta coordination between state actors to do so.

> some sorta coordination between state actors There's no smoky backroom where Biden and Macron and Sunak and Scholz sit in high-back leather chairs with glasses of whisky scheming about how to counter each threat to their power (with their super-secret puppeteers present only as a grim silhouette in the shadows, or maybe as an unexpected call at a climactic moment). The only coordination that exists at the level of…

No, you have your lower-level guys coordinate transnational policy. That is the entire point of organizations like the Atlantic Council!

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#73

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

beardyw wrote: post #64
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #35

So, what's going to happen with secure banking? Will local govt officials (councillors) get to spy on all my credit card transactions and sneak a peak at my account passwords and PINs? This will basically make e-commerce a risky business. If I buy something from overseas, will I then get in trouble for setting up an end-to-end encrypted link with their shop or is it more likely that international sites will just stop…

End-to-end implies traffic between individuals. So for instance WhatsApp can't read your messages but the end recipient can. That said, my bank did try to reassure me they had end-to-end encryption for my web access. It's not the same thing.

> End-to-end implies traffic between individuals

That's certainly one interpretation, but I'd counter that an HTTPS connection to an online shop is also end-to-end as the contents are encrypted such that any intermediate ISP cannot sniff the contents, but only myself and the online shop are able to.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#74

Post by tekknik »

afavour wrote: post #56
ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that we regard as "democratic" (because they are good guys, or so we'd wish) a country with king and lords (even a House of Lords, or even "Lords Spiritual" [1]), is the greater joke. [1] Just a random click https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_House_o... on the Bishop of Chichester https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_of_Chichester#List_of_b... reveals a list of bishops going back as far as…

I’m sorry but this is a very simplistic take. The King has no meaningful power at all, MPs have power over the Lords and they are democratically elected. I’m not for a second saying the system is wonderful and beyond reproach. But suggesting it’s equivalent to an autocracy or something is just flat out wrong. If you want to complain about the U.K. political system complain about first past the post or the creeping an…

if a voter ID is free and requires no effort on the citizens part, how is it anti-democratic? is this to say that all IDs are anti-democratic?

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#75

Post by jabradoodle »

tialaramex wrote: post #58
jabradoodle wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a tiring narrative. They do have power, e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Action_Against_Iraq... That the royal family is useful for tourism is also laughable

You need to learn to at least read between the lines. "On the advice of her government" means it's what the government decided to do. Why so? Because although they had sufficient numbers to ensure the bill wouldn't become law, using Consent allowed them to prevent debate.

You need to learn to read. I am stating that the monarch has the power to veto legislation, not that the power was used in opposition to the advice of ministers.

That you don't see an issue with democratic debate being shutdown on the advice of a government minister to the monarch is another issue.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#76

Post by ly3xqhl8g9 »

jabradoodle wrote: post #43
ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that we regard as "democratic" (because they are good guys, or so we'd wish) a country with king and lords (even a House of Lords, or even "Lords Spiritual" [1]), is the greater joke. [1] Just a random click https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_House_o... on the Bishop of Chichester https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_of_Chichester#List_of_b... reveals a list of bishops going back as far as…

Yes, you've pointed out some of the ways in which the UK is not democratic, and many would like that to change. Democracy is not a 0 or 1 thing, it is a scale. There is statistically a good chance you are from the US, which has no concept of Lords, but which has its own very serious shortcomings.

Very much not from US. Just pointed out a hypocrisy of our language. As an aside, US has lords as well, perhaps even more powerful than UK lords, they just go by other names: Supreme Court judges, some Senators [1], some CEOs, and the like.

[1] Just the top: Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), almost 51.5 years mandate, most kings couldn't even dream of such a lengthy reign, https://www.senate.gov/senators/longest_serving_senators.htm

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#77

Post by tekknik »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #67
derelicta wrote: post #11

The fact that every "democratic" superpower seeks to criminalize or prohibit E2EE at the same time gives the impression there is some sorta coordination between state actors to do so.

> some sorta coordination between state actors There's no smoky backroom where Biden and Macron and Sunak and Scholz sit in high-back leather chairs with glasses of whisky scheming about how to counter each threat to their power (with their super-secret puppeteers present only as a grim silhouette in the shadows, or maybe as an unexpected call at a climactic moment). The only coordination that exists at the level of…

> There's no smoky backroom where Biden and Macron and Sunak and Scholz sit in high-back leather chairs with glasses of whisky scheming about how to counter each threat to their power

Why whenever anybody says anything that can be construed as conspiratorial do we automatically assume it is? World leaders can meet without the conspiracy, they do it all the time.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#79

Post by chacham15 »

seanhunter wrote: post #13

The UK has threatened this on and off for a while. I recall around 2000 they proposed a bill which would have forced everyone who wanted to use encryption to escrow a key with the government. I used to watch some TV in those days and the UK programme "NewsNight" had a discussion about it. There proposing the idea was some poor government flunky. There explaining the flaws in the idea was Whitfield Diffie[1]. Diffie j…

> It would be essentially infinitely valuable as a cyberattack target.

While I understand what you mean, there are already keys which are "infinitely valuable": root CA keys. If you have those, you can essentially impersonate anyone. Therefore, we must have ways to protect these sort of keys.

That being said, a root CA key is probably locked up on an air gapped machine vs some machine which actively using the key to scan through traffic.

Mainly pointing out here that the idea of value vs cost has to have some point at which we protect it regardless of the value because thats how the hierarchy of trust works in our CA system.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#80

Post by zabzonk »

traceroute66 wrote: post #40
seanhunter wrote: post #13

The UK has threatened this on and off for a while. I recall around 2000 they proposed a bill which would have forced everyone who wanted to use encryption to escrow a key with the government. I used to watch some TV in those days and the UK programme "NewsNight" had a discussion about it. There proposing the idea was some poor government flunky. There explaining the flaws in the idea was Whitfield Diffie[1]. Diffie j…

> UK programme "NewsNight" had a discussion about it. There proposing the idea was some poor government flunky. There explaining the flaws in the idea was Whitfield Diffie Aah, the good old days when the BBC was un-biased. These days you would get a government flunky, and on the other side of the table a pro-government flunky from a lobbying outfit whose real accreditation has been carefully omitted by the BBC and th…

i worked for the BBC for several years back in the 80s, in computer services radio (basically designing and writing applications to support radio broadcasts) and it really has always been a crowd of right-wing arse lickers. the "talent" may appear to be slightly left-of-centre, but the management certainly is not.
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