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UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

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Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#201

Post by hgomersall »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #181
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…

The BBC don't seem to care about being impartial when it comes to the royalty. They publish loads of articles about the upcoming coronation and I have yet to see any republican points of view.

There's no such thing as impartiality. Everything has an editorial line which colours what opinions are allowed.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#202

Post by hgomersall »

Veen wrote: post #104
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…

It's worth pointing out that right-wingers say precisely the opposite and can produce plenty of evidence showing the BBC's left-wing bias.

The problem is often reality having a left wing bias.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#203

Post by hgomersall »

ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #102
afavour wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It was just a quick quip how we regard as "democratic" a country (?) called "United Kingdom", language is funny like that. Sure, UK is a great place to live for many of their citizens, and a great country overall, culture and so forth. It's not for nothing we are speaking their language and not Esperanto or something. But it's not a democracy, and that is fine. If you ask me (I know you didn't, but just in case), not…

The problem is that people are very bad at assessing what is in their best interest. For sure, the result is a pretty thorny ethical debate, but you can't deny that the ability of the electorate to veto things would not necessarily result in an improvement.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#204

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

hgomersall wrote: post #201
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BBC don't seem to care about being impartial when it comes to the royalty. They publish loads of articles about the upcoming coronation and I have yet to see any republican points of view.

There's no such thing as impartiality. Everything has an editorial line which colours what opinions are allowed.

There's degrees of bias though. The BBC has a charter that is supposed to prioritise impartiality, and yet they show strong bias in many topics.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#205

Post by hgomersall »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #204
hgomersall wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as impartiality. Everything has an editorial line which colours what opinions are allowed.

There's degrees of bias though. The BBC has a charter that is supposed to prioritise impartiality, and yet they show strong bias in many topics.

That's the point I'm making. It's like having their charter saying that pi is 3: reality is no less malleable.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#206

Post by cryptonector »

ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #18
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.

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…

Clearly Parliament is sovereign, and Parliament is elected, therefore the UK is a democracy. And it's been so for nearly 400 years. Not that any of that guarantees that the UK is a "good democracy", but a democracy it is.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#207

Post by iso1631 »

bee_rider wrote: post #186
iso1631 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, they definitively lobby, as listed in the sibling comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35687508 I'm just not sure that "rich person lobbies government" is the jackpot that republicans think it is. The day that Biden, Trump. Obama, Bush II, Clinton, Bush I and before don't get lobbying on a regular basis from major donors then I'll consider it one. Indeed I'd rather Charlie spend an hour a week lobbying…

Huh, interesting, well there goes one of their few redeeming virtues in my mind, I guess.

I guess the question is would an elected head of state mean more lobbying from more corrupt people. Sure Charlie might lobby against something happening in his back yard, and that's a pain, but I'd rather that than have big pharma lobby to loosen safety features on drug approvals, or big food lobby to bypass animal welfare

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#208

Post by dragonwriter »

cryptonector wrote: post #206
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…

Clearly Parliament is sovereign, and Parliament is elected, therefore the UK is a democracy. And it's been so for nearly 400 years. Not that any of that guarantees that the UK is a "good democracy", but a democracy it is.

> Clearly Parliament is sovereign, and Parliament is elected

Its not though. The House of Commons is elected. The House of Lords and the Crown are not elected, and all three are integral components of the Parliament. [0]

[0] https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/relations-with-othe...

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#209

Post by dragonwriter »

circuit10 wrote: post #24
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…

The king doesn’t really have any power in practice, I think the royal family mainly exist for tradition/tourism reasons at this point At least according to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index it’s one of the most democratic countries at 18th in the world (to be fair that’s made by a UK company but I don’t see why they would be biased)

> The king doesn’t really have any power in practice

No, even aside from soft power, the monarch has some hard power (which can serve as a powerful lever for soft power, as well). Notably, for instance, the requirement for Monarch’s consent (not just the more pro forma Royal Assent) to legislation affecrtng the hereditary revenues, personal property or personal interests of the Crown or the Duchy of Lancaster or Cornwall, including the Royal Household and the Royal Palaces (including the Palace of Westminster), the Crown Estate and the Crown Estate Commissioners, the Monarch's private estates, and the Monarch's interest as a landlord or an employer.

Re: UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

#210

Post by upofadown »

xoa wrote: post #137
beardyw wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 commun…

>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.

Through TLS? That is certainly not E2EE. That is because a trusted third party (certificate authority) is involved to insure that you are actually communicating with the bank. End to end means exactly that. You are able to communicate securely with only the trust of the entity you are communicating with.

You definition pretty much covers any effective use of cryptography for privacy. That would make the distinction meaningless.

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