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

theregister.com

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

#51

Post by Arathorn »

bennyelv wrote: post #47

Something strange is going on here. Nothing has changed about the bill, yet all news outlets are reporting as if it has. All that happened was that somebody said "yeah but we won't use these controls so don't worry". What is the authority of that statement? The bill hasn't been changed.

The root cause of the confusion seems to be https://twitter.com/mer__edith/status/1699405364968423828, which appears to be based on a wildly overenthusiastic misreading of this coverage: https://www.ft.com/content/770e58b1-a299-4b7b-a129-bded8649a.... Basically, the government tried to deflect this by saying "don't worry, we'll pass this into law, but we'll only implement this when the scanning tech is ready", and inexplicably this was seen as a win?!?

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

#52

Post by pjc50 »

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's more the press. The monarchy are irrelevant, but the press massively support authoritarianism as long as it's against other people.

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

#53

Post by PrimeMcFly »

jjgreen wrote: post #28
PrimeMcFly wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the other way around, that's perfectly consistent with what I'm saying and I agree.

If the monarchy were to vanish into thin air for some reason, that 70% would still be there.

Sure, but I wasn't talking about it vanishing into thin air, but a cultural revolution that would result in people willingly wanting it gone.

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

#54

Post by PrimeMcFly »

pydry wrote: post #32
PrimeMcFly wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They couldn't ban WhatsApp even if they wanted to.

They could it would just make them very, very unpopular. This clearly isn't a hill they're prepared to die on. The fact that they tried this at all signals how weak this government is though, as well as how blithely unaware they are of it.

No, they couldn't. They could remove it from appstores and block certain domains, and that's it. They couldn't actually stop people from using it.

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

#55

Post by PrimeMcFly »

pipo234 wrote: post #36
PrimeMcFly wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand enough about UK to see why anachronistic monarchy would be at the heart. Not saying the monarchy is at heart, just that the culture won't change until they have some sort of cultural revolution and get rid of it.

Yikes! Historically, revolutions are bloody and generally do not end well. Cultural revolutions less so. Having said that, I would not mind seeing King Charles abdicate; England, Wales, Scotland, N-Ireland become proper republics; help the remnants of upper class strongholds adapt to reality, if that's what you mean. :-)

> Yikes! Historically, revolutions are bloody and generally do not end well. Cultural revolutions less so.

I specifically said cultural revolution because I tried to imply a non-violent revolution. Not all revolutions are violent. Think technological revolution.

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

#56

Post by miohtama »

bananapub wrote: post #41
cbluth wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this narrative sounds like an acceptance of a cat n mouse game that has barely got started

it's not very secret. a bunch of western governments want to be able to spy on the comms of their citizens and lazy terrorists/pedophiles/whatever with poor opsec. basically everyone including normies moving to well-encrypted chat systems makes this very hard (requires court-ordering/NSL/coercing software companies to 0wn their own customers), so instead they want to standardise making it easy for governments. the UK…

Casual spying on citizens is new to Western governments (unless you count East Germany as Western).

However in some countries your phone must have mandatory government spyware on your mobile phone and PC:

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

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

#57

Post by PrimeMcFly »

tcldr wrote: post #39
PrimeMcFly wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You realise the 'anachronistic monarchy' is just a tourist attraction/diplomatic lever at this point, right? It's not. It still has power, and it's still costing tax payers a shitton so one family can live above everyone else. More importantly there are plenty of royalists who support it.

What interests do you think they have in boosting surveillance powers?

What interest do UK authorities have in being so petty as to charge people for 'stealing' less than 10p in electricity?

I'd say the answers are related.

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

#58

Post by PrimeMcFly »

bananapub wrote: post #48
PrimeMcFly wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You realise the 'anachronistic monarchy' is just a tourist attraction/diplomatic lever at this point, right? It's not. It still has power, and it's still costing tax payers a shitton so one family can live above everyone else. More importantly there are plenty of royalists who support it.

christ alive buddy. the royal family costs the UK tax payer ~100m a year[0], which is about the cost of the three nuclear bombs in the US or less than one of the ill-advised F-32 purchases Australia is making. it's also maybe a 1/10th of the amount of money stolen by Tory mates for their various PPE crimes during the early pandemic. every country has very very dumb shit they piss money up the wall over, but it's not…

That's ~100m that could be put towards things that actually help people and improve peoples lives.

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

#59

Post by pjc50 »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #33
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.

I try to take a charitable, open-minded position in this. Two of us in the cybershow are parents. Taking on analysis of this bill was a tough decision, but something we felt obliged and qualified to do as parents and security experts. There are obviously grave harms around digital technology, plus its obvious myriad benefits. Covert communications enabling criminal and anti-social activity is just one small part. Our…

> Our thought experiment is to assume good faith.

At this stage, and in the dying days of a flailing Tory government, that simply makes you a mug.

Also from today: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66720994 ; this is specifically to protect murders carried out by and on behalf of the state in Northern Ireland. Along with historical matters such as the "spycops" scandal, and the abuses of PREVENT, there is a strong risk that mass surveillance will be used in political ways and in the service of misconduct. Accountability is poor and therefore trust is poor.

> Who are the marginal influencers?

The Daily Mail. Well, that and the security services who've clearly been pushing this.

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

#60

Post by pjc50 »

hcfman wrote: post #35
hcfman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the UK. The Netherlands is like that as well and it's lost it's democracy. They can now hack anyone, not just criminals, without a judge being involved or even any evidence. They can shutdown speech that they don't like and they regularly commit criminal acts against non-criminally involved citizens organised by non-accountable organisations.

Oh, and the Netherlands also holds provably completely sham court cases where the authorities pervert the course of justice in order to shutdown repercussions of criminal activity that they have been involved in.

[citation needed]
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