Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UK drops 'spy clause' for scanning encrypted messages, admits not 'feasible'

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 160 posts

Re: UK drops 'spy clause' for scanning encrypted messages, admits not 'feasible'

#11

Post by robin_reala »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #10
pydry wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theyre authoritarian control freaks. The UK is undergoing progressive Russification with bipartisan support (Labour under Starmer and the Tories are both on board with it). Protesting is now effectively illegal thanks to a new law criminalizing it if it's a "nuisance". You're still technically allowed to hold up a blank piece of paper but the police will threaten to arrest you if you write something on it. That happe…

Yes, it is, in fact, illegal to pray in many locations of the U.K., and people have been arrested and charged for it. Think about it: prayer, an interior orientation of the mind to God; not even any audible speech is necessary to commit a heinous, treasonous act.

[citation needed]

Re: UK drops 'spy clause' for scanning encrypted messages, admits not 'feasible'

#12

Post by pydry »

slashdev wrote: post #6
nonrandomstring wrote: post #2

I've read six of these "Oh no we didn't back down" stories this morning. What worries me is the appearance of wishful thinking around the language of "technically feasible". Follow this road far enough and we'll have government ministers with marketing credentials defining what is "technically feasible", instead of scientists. https://cybershow.uk #016 | S2 | Special | UK Online Safety Bill Published on Friday 01st S…

The thing is it is always technically feasible, even for end to end encryption ( you just do the scanning before encrypting on the device, or upload the plain text copy of all the messages to a government service.) I’m worried that it won’t offer any protection in the end.

"Technically infeasible" is code for "we asked the American tech companies for a backdoor, they told us to fuck off and we dont have the cojones to actually ban whatsapp". The phrase is only intended to imply that they didn't lose a political battle.

Actual technical feasibility is beside the point. Whatsapp probably already has backdoors they just don't want to hand the keys over to 10 downing street.

Re: UK drops 'spy clause' for scanning encrypted messages, admits not 'feasible'

#13

Post by garblegarble »

PrimeMcFly wrote: post #7
pipo234 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger picture of why UK is hell bent on surveilling their citizens, communities is that the number one problem is that governments are losing control over society. Off course the whole point of democracy is that governments should fear their citizens, rather than vice versa.

> The bigger picture of why UK is hell bent on surveilling their citizens It's just their culture. It probably won't change till they get rid of the anachronistic monarchy.

>It probably won't change till they get rid of the anachronistic monarchy.

It's nothing to do with the monarchy - indeed, if anything I think the consensus amongst pro-monarchy folks is that the monarch is a constitutional escape hatch in the event of a government getting out of control.

Both the Conservative and Labour parties have an authoritarian streak to them when in government, and a solid percentage of the population seem to trust that our institutions know what they're doing and can keep their databases secure (although I hope that's been shaken in the last month with a number of police and electoral register database leaks).

Re: UK drops 'spy clause' for scanning encrypted messages, admits not 'feasible'

#14

Post by pipo234 »

PrimeMcFly wrote: post #7
pipo234 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger picture of why UK is hell bent on surveilling their citizens, communities is that the number one problem is that governments are losing control over society. Off course the whole point of democracy is that governments should fear their citizens, rather than vice versa.

> The bigger picture of why UK is hell bent on surveilling their citizens It's just their culture. It probably won't change till they get rid of the anachronistic monarchy.

I don't understand enough about UK to see why anachronistic monarchy would be at the heart. (To lesser extent) we see a lust for surveillance in many other democratic countries too.

Isn't an easier explanation that society is getting more complex while politicians double down on managing their reputation, which inevitably results in loosing trust in institutions? (Or something along those lines.)

Re: UK drops 'spy clause' for scanning encrypted messages, admits not 'feasible'

#15

Post by jjgreen »

slashdev wrote: post #6
nonrandomstring wrote: post #2

I've read six of these "Oh no we didn't back down" stories this morning. What worries me is the appearance of wishful thinking around the language of "technically feasible". Follow this road far enough and we'll have government ministers with marketing credentials defining what is "technically feasible", instead of scientists. https://cybershow.uk #016 | S2 | Special | UK Online Safety Bill Published on Friday 01st S…

The thing is it is always technically feasible, even for end to end encryption ( you just do the scanning before encrypting on the device, or upload the plain text copy of all the messages to a government service.) I’m worried that it won’t offer any protection in the end.

Just move one end a bit, smart move!

Re: UK drops 'spy clause' for scanning encrypted messages, admits not 'feasible'

#17

Post by bananapub »

The reporting on this is horrific, including by the businesses involved.

Absolutely nothing legally was changed. The government put out a press release saying some worthless crap, that's the entire thing that happened.

edit: sorry, not a press release, sent a minion to read out a non-binding statement, who then confirmed the the law was not actually changed at all: https://www.reuters.com/technology/uk-minister-says-position...

Re: UK drops 'spy clause' for scanning encrypted messages, admits not 'feasible'

#18

Post by pcrh »

Mindwipe wrote: post #3

They really didn't! The bill went through it's third reading in the Lords with literally no changes yesterday! These stories are going to make people complacent that this terrible, terrible bill has gone away. It hasn't, it passed, more or less unchanged (except to make the age verification piece a little bit worse).

Could you expand on that?

Re: UK drops 'spy clause' for scanning encrypted messages, admits not 'feasible'

#19

Post by jjgreen »

PrimeMcFly wrote: post #7
pipo234 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger picture of why UK is hell bent on surveilling their citizens, communities is that the number one problem is that governments are losing control over society. Off course the whole point of democracy is that governments should fear their citizens, rather than vice versa.

> The bigger picture of why UK is hell bent on surveilling their citizens It's just their culture. It probably won't change till they get rid of the anachronistic monarchy.

The other way around I'd say, the expense and misbehaviours of the monarchy are tolerated by the ~ 70% of the population who are authoritarian minded.

Re: UK drops 'spy clause' for scanning encrypted messages, admits not 'feasible'

#20

Post by reidrac »

pcrh wrote: post #18
Mindwipe wrote: post #3

They really didn't! The bill went through it's third reading in the Lords with literally no changes yesterday! These stories are going to make people complacent that this terrible, terrible bill has gone away. It hasn't, it passed, more or less unchanged (except to make the age verification piece a little bit worse).

Could you expand on that?

As I understand it, they just said they aren't going to do it because is not technically feasible, but the bill includes the clause to do it, if it was possible.

I can't see anything to celebrate here. The bill should have been amended further.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/sep/06/whatsapp-signa...

They didn't change the bill, but also said "If the appropriate technology doesn’t exist which meets those requirements, then Ofcom will not be able to use clause 122 to require its use".

Post reply on HN