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Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

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Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#31
The water flowed under this bridge 20 years ago. This whole discussion seems like it’s happening in the wrong decade.

The issue now is that it’s so easy to collect circumstantial information that is constantly leaked by GPS-enabled apps, searches, card purchases, clicks, cell phone tower data, etc. that governments don’t really need the actual contents of messages any more.

I’m still glad Signal exists, but it’s part of a very complex world of privacy and not magical armor.

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#32

Governments seem to want to have it both ways. As new technologies are introduced they assume that capabilities and practices available to analogous predecessors must remain available to them (e.g. wire-tapping phones => undermining cryptography) but they don’t feel the same way about public benefits or rights associated with other technology that is being replaced (anonymous cash transactions => ???) It also seems l…

Then these governments have forgotten that they serve at the pleasure of the people. We permit them to exist specifically for the purpose of protecting our rights, not expanding their own. The rights we possess are inherent and automatic because we're human beings, they are not granted by government or anyone else, and if a government fails to aid us in preserving them, that government is no longer legitimate.

Jefferson said all this far better than I ever could:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#33
post #22

Who persuades politicians it’s a good idea for the security services to be able to scan all their messages? I am absolutely certain that the politicians have absolutely no clue what they’re being asked to implement.

It would avoid losing access to all your messages if you forget the PIN for your phone.

I find it interesting they ask for these abilities when I suspect GCHQ is in and out of everyone’s phones if they want to be - certainly the idea Boris’s messages can’t be found is laughable. I am surprised they haven’t set up any security focused messaging apps that operate as honeypots for the monitoring of criminality…

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#34
> “You cannot create a back door that only the good guys can go through,”

Alright, technical argument here. This is false and tech talking heads are spreading this lie for ideological reasons.

You don't need to backdoor the protocol, just the specific targeted client.

Now, if Signal said this is unfair because competitors won't also backdoor their app then I am with them. What the UK should probably have done is to force phone makers as opposed to app makers to facilitate a backdoor.

Signal can scan messages before encryption and report to the authorities just fine. Whatever the UK government desires, Signal should accept it as the will of the UK people, especially given that politicians' stance on this has been public and endured election cycles.

I do get their stance, people will stop using them if they cave in and the UK gov should know that as well.

I don't know UK law but dragnet surveillance is illegal in the US but targeted warrantful requests to backdoor apps is lawful.

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#35
post #26

Governments seem to want to have it both ways. As new technologies are introduced they assume that capabilities and practices available to analogous predecessors must remain available to them (e.g. wire-tapping phones => undermining cryptography) but they don’t feel the same way about public benefits or rights associated with other technology that is being replaced (anonymous cash transactions => ???) It also seems l…

> but they don’t feel the same way about public benefits or rights associated with other technology that is being replaced When the government creates a law within recorded history — something like a wiretapping law — then the spirit of the law is well-known at time of creation. Usually, that "spirit" is that it's created to explicitly grant a capability to the government to do a thing for the benefit of the public u…

This is why the Federalist Papers are some of the most important documents when understanding the intent of the Constitution and Bill of Rights – and simultaneously the least read!

I'm not saying that case law isn't also an important aspect of the 'law' and that the constitution shouldn't be amended – I'm not really a hardcore 'originalist' – I just mean that any time a SCOTUS ruling comes out, it's clear that in the public square discussion, nobody has read these very important contextual documents and it is maddening.

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#36

Who persuades politicians it’s a good idea for the security services to be able to scan all their messages? I am absolutely certain that the politicians have absolutely no clue what they’re being asked to implement.

The laws don't apply to politicians, in fact they're explicitly excluded.

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#37
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. It's a class war. When you say the words "class war" far too few people think about the isomorphism to "actual, real" war, but it's there. Sure, the government isn't dropping bombs on London, but the ends are the same.

> Sure, the government isn't dropping bombs on London, but the ends are the same. They're very much not. Wat a complete nonsense.

You're right – in the short term.

In the mid- to long-term, I'm not so sure.

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#38
Hasn’t Apple already shown it’s possible to add another party silently to an encrypted exchange?

> Passwords: Users can now create a group to share a set of passwords. Everyone in a group can add and edit passwords to keep them up to date, and since sharing is through iCloud Keychain, it’s end-to-end encrypted.

So there goes the backdoor encryption argument, it’s possible to add another member to a group of people with on device access?

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#39

> “I think what has happened over the you know, handful of decades in which the surveillance business model has interpolated our core infrastructure — to the point that we’re surveilled in to an extent we don’t have a sense of — is that that choice has been made for us,” Whittaker said. This is an honest question: did she mean to say "infiltrated", or is this usage of "interpolated" a valid one that I just don't unde…

Interpolate: to alter or corrupt by inserting foreign matter; but I have only seen it used this way for text
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