UK pulls back from clash with Big Tech over private messaging

Post by simonjgreen » Thu, Sep 07, 2023, 6:02 AM UTC

tremorscript wrote: post #215

I don't really like the headline, it makes it sound negative. Big Tech tends to have negative connotations, nowadays. So, here the FT is trying to say that a democratically elected government is living in fear of private firms. While it may be true that our government are now living in fear of not just Big Tech but all types of Big whatever, the fight was way beyond just big tech. Sure Big Tech helped but it still is…

Post by p-e-w » Thu, Sep 07, 2023, 6:06 AM UTC

tremorscript wrote: post #215

I don't really like the headline, it makes it sound negative. Big Tech tends to have negative connotations, nowadays. So, here the FT is trying to say that a democratically elected government is living in fear of private firms. While it may be true that our government are now living in fear of not just Big Tech but all types of Big whatever, the fight was way beyond just big tech. Sure Big Tech helped but it still is…

Post by eastbound » Thu, Sep 07, 2023, 6:21 AM UTC

bodge5000 wrote: post #199

ascorbic wrote: post #53

The whole UK government is run via WhatsApp. The threat to withdraw service should have concentrated minds.

That was certainly true for Boris, I can only imagine if he was in on it a lot of the other senior tories would have been as well. That's obviously not a good thing at all, and also I would think illegal, but I guess at least it's encrypted. The irony.

Post by JimDabell » Thu, Sep 07, 2023, 6:27 AM UTC

ChrisKnott wrote: post #77

glitchc wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, by definition if the key is to be used, and to be used more than once, it cannot be kept safe. The key has to go through multiple hands on its way from the senior government official responsible for its safekeeping to the peon assigned to unlock a specific phone at a specific point in time. It could be copied at any one of those points. No amount of technology or cryptography can solve the master key problem. T…

Doesn't this problem exist throughout the tech industry though? Microsoft, Google, Apple etc are keeping the keys that allow you to push updates secret, aren't they?

Post by midoridensha » Thu, Sep 07, 2023, 6:32 AM UTC

jiqiren wrote: post #197

kmeisthax wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't even limited to the UK. In the US, we have presidents, vice presidents, and presidential candidates all under investigation for mishandling records by running their own e-mail servers. The most charitable explanation being that they don't want to have to deal with separate personal and work devices; the less charitable explanation being "fuck records laws".

I was a federal contractor for NASA and let me tell you about government email: quota of 250MB of storage (2010-2012). I spent every morning moving emails with attachments to local folders on my Mac (which had no backups) to keep from going over quota. If I went on a 2 week vacation emails would start to bounce to me. After that fiasco I understood why Colin Powell told Hillary Clinton to just run her own email serve…