UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption • Hacker News Board

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#131

Post by greybox » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 3:18 PM UTC

vincnetas wrote: post #19

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t like this argument because it makes the subject in question overly abstract in a way that would not apply in other situations. Examples: “How dare you make me become a licensed engineer just to be paid to do math?” “How dare you arrest me for this child porn? It’s just a sequence of 1s and 0s, therefore, you are criminalizing a number!”

Interesting times ahead. I would assume that child porn is illegal because it's production harms children. When we can synthesise it without child involvement, what are the reasons for banning it? It becomes on the same level as gore movies, kink adult porn or any fictional perversion book. It's up to consumer to choose to consume it or not. And at the end everything mentioned before can be turned to 1 and 0. So shou…

Possession of "synthesised" CSAM (or extream pornography such as rape) is already illegal in the UK. There have been prosecutions too. I believe the reasoning was that studies revealed that viewing synthesised content, lead to a higher chance of possessing real CSAM content, or of committing sex crimes themselves.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#132

Post by menage » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 3:18 PM UTC

vixen99 wrote: post #89

c0m wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The [monarch] doesn’t really have any power in practice Entirely untrue. The monarch has a weekly meeting with the Prime Minister. There have been many cases of the Queen getting carveouts, influencing laws, and vetting bills. There is no law forbidding the monarch from not granting Royal Assent. This notion that the British monarch has no power is an absolute farce. There’s also the whole concept of King’s Consent…

'There is no law forbidding the monarch from not granting Royal Assent'. True but I await the day that happens! The Brits don't go in for revolution but there'd be all hell to pay if this occurred. It would likely mark the beginning of the end for the House of Windsor. Anti-monarchists should hope such a thing comes to pass.

You should watch https://www.amazon.com/King-Charles-III-Rupert-Goold/dp/B071..., which examines this very premise. Surprisingly prophetic for a play originally first performed in 2014.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#133

Post by WediBlino » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 3:20 PM UTC

traceroute66 wrote: post #115

ben_w wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BBC certainly has a lot of problems with regard to actual independence, but I would like to *ahem* provide some balance by pointing to the satirical popular news quiz "Have I Got News For You" which spent the early part of the Blair years having to beep out certain references to Peter Mandelson — the Dominic Cummings of his era — that only ended with (from memory): ???: "Peter Mandelson is a hom… owner" Regular g…

> Blair years having to beep out certain references to Peter Mandelson — the Dominic Cummings of his era I thought Alastair Campbell was Blair's Cummings ?

Cambell was Blair's Tucker.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#134

Post by denton-scratch » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 3:20 PM UTC

TRiG_Ireland wrote: post #96

denton-scratch wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> under Cameron, and Blair, and quite possibly every prime minister between. There was exactly one Prime Minister between Blair and Cameron, and he (Brown) wasn't elected.

Brown was elected. He was elected as MP by his constituents, and selected as PM by the Queen, just like every other PM. Or, essentially, he was elected by the House, which is the electorate for the PM, but instead of actually holding a vote, the Queen just assumed what the result would be, which is how the UK always does it. (Ireland actually holds the vote for Taoiseach, and every party solemnly puts forward their o…

You're right; we don't elect PMs. And it's true that Brown was elected as an MP by his constituents; and I was elected chair by my local resident's association. So what?

I still think a PM that doesn't lead their party into an election lacks legitimacy, and isn't a 'proper' PM. The most recent two - Sunak and Truss - weren't elected in that sense, because they didn't have any popular mandate.

We don't elect the party of government either, though; few people can name their MP. They vote based on party leaders, as long as voting is permitted.

The idea that the PM is "elected by the House" is nonsense. No such election occurs.

Being "selected as PM" by the monarch doesn't count at all. It's completely irrelevant (I'm a republican). The monarch appoints anyone that can "command the support of the House", which invariably means the leader of the majority party.

But in the absence of a General Election, the appointee cannot claim a popular mandate, and shouldn't do anything that would "surprise" people. Truss, outrageously, claimed to have a popular mandate, relying on the mandate that Johnson won. But he won his mandate more-or-less exclusively on the Brexit thing.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#135

Post by AlecSchueler » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 3:22 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #68

traceroute66 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The BBC certainly has a lot of problems with regard to actual independence, but I would like to *ahem* provide some balance by pointing to the satirical popular news quiz "Have I Got News For You" which spent the early part of the Blair years having to beep out certain references to Peter Mandelson — the Dominic Cummings of his era — that only ended with (from memory): ???: "Peter Mandelson is a hom… owner" Regular g…

That last example would mean more if The Sex Pistols hadn't long ago been thoroughly absorbed into and reapprpriated by the establishment.

Imagine if they'd shared a contemporary work calling the monarchy a fascist regime.

As it stands it was just a cute joke, and in a way only served to reinforce the soft power of parliament by entering into a playful discourse with it.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#136

Post by blibble » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 3:23 PM UTC

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…

constitutional monarchies also dominate the top of democracy ratings

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

turns out separating politicians from the concept of The State works quite well

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#137

Post by xoa » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 3:24 PM UTC

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

I strongly disagree, this makes zero sense, and I'd never heard of it in decades up until on HN just the other day. End-to-end means exactly what it says on the tin: END to END, with no middleman. The specific identity of what each "end" is, whether human, organization, or even a machine and not a human at all, is irrelevant. The point is that Alice and Bob can communicate information and nobody except "them" (noting that "Bob" here could be Future Alice too as in an E2EE storage service like a password manager) has access to plain text, only the ciphertext. This in contrast to things like email, where your goal is to communicate to Bob, but the relays it travels through also have access to the plain text even if the transmission between each hop is encrypted.

So if I'm talking to my bank through a link where only my bank and I have access to the info, that's absolutely E2EE. Same as if I'm logging into or commenting HN. HN is my "final destination" for the communication of information, and only myself and HN can see the plain text text during said communication (though of course in the case of comments HN then takes it and publishes it at my directive).

In contrast other sites may be both E2EE and not. If I'm accessing Migadu or MXroute or Google in order to find out something specifically from them, the HTTPS connection is sufficient for E2EE, since they're the other party. If I use webmail to send an email to someone else, the fact that I connect to their service via HTTPS doesn't make for an E2EE communication, because they're not the intended recipient, but a middleman, yet can read the plain text anyway.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#138

Post by AlecSchueler » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 3:24 PM UTC

Karellen wrote: post #82

traceroute66 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Aah, the good old days when the BBC was un-biased. I'm curious, around when do you think that changed? And was there a specific story they reported on (or didn't report on) that really solidified the change for you?

Not the person you asked but I'd say there was a noticeable shift during the stewardship of Laura Kuenssberg as political editor, beginning in 2015.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#139

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 3:24 PM UTC

InCityDreams wrote: post #125

darrenf wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the bill was eventually dropped If you're referring to the Electronic Communications Bill, it did indeed become an act. And in fact it contained an explicit section prohibiting the imposition of escrow (which has not been removed by any subsequent amendments): https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/7/part/III 14 Prohibition on key escrow requirements (1) Subject to subsection (2), nothing in this Act shall confe…

>Friend, who has changed his mind because we have learned much more about the matter. All credit is due to him for that. Complimented for being a rational human being, no less.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Taylor_(British_politician... : appears to be the now almost vanished old school type of conservative. Member of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, so at least knows some tech people. Europhile, to the extent of quitting the party over Brexit. Pro-space exploration. Anti-Iraq-war.

No wonder he quit.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#140

Post by PhilipRoman » Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 3:25 PM UTC

jonas21 wrote: post #122

Brian_K_White wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"citation needed" I certainly agree that there is really only oligrachy everywhere, and I certainly do not think any individual hero ruler would be better. The statement only observed a bad thing. It did not advocate or even hint at some other bad thing as a proposed solution. Putting words into someone else's mouth is worse even than whatever they might have said if they had actually said it. It's an actual wrondoin…

> "citation needed" From the sibling comment by PhilipRoman: > But I would ask you this - when you are jailed for speaking, would it be of some comfort to know that the decision to jail you was decided by 100 politicians instead of 1? I realize this comment was written 5 minutes after yours, so you had no way of knowing, it is amusing how quickly the parent turned out to be right.

I'm a bit confused, how is the quoted part from my comment relevant here? I'm a liberal and as such, I don't "endorse a country who literally has a single king-like ruler, who will throw you in jail if you speak ill about them"