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Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach

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Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach

#121
post #107
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did those people post?

One example is: "I think it’s time for the British to gang together, hit the streets and start the slaughter."

Congratulations. You found one.

What about the other 11999?

Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach

#122
post #81

> He warns that developers of apps like Signal and WhatsApp could technically fall within the legal definition of "hostile activity" simply because their technology "make[s] it more difficult for UK security and intelligence agencies to monitor communications. Sounds like Let's Encrypt would also fall under that. This has got to stop. If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites, not the stree…

Curtains should also fall under the same category because they do make it more difficult for UK security and intelligence agencies to monitor suspect activities. Then of course you also have walls... The argument is so fundamentally stupid that they should be embarrassed just putting it down in writing!

Both you and the poster above you may be misunderstanding the point that Jonathan Hall KC appears to be making. If you take a look at what he actually writes [1], then it is pretty clear that he is presenting these hypothetical cases as examples of obvious over-reach.

This is a warning from the independent reviewer that the law is too potentially broad, not an argument to retain these powers.

[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69411a3eadb57..., pages 112 and 113

Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach

#123
> Developers of apps that use end-to-end encryption to protect private communications could be considered hostile actors in the UK.

So say if my UK friend connected directly to my PC with SSH/RDP, both uses end-to-end encrypted link, to chat with me using `wall`, `write` or Windows Task Manager, then all of sudden this is a hostile and Mr Big Ben will just launch laser at me to burn me to death. Wow, this is just messed up.

Someone should check the cognitive of those lawmakers, because these guys are clearly not good at their jobs. If such they failed to understand such simple concept, how can they understand much much more complex construct such as society?

Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach

#124
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This has got to stop. If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites, not the streets they walk on. That would be against everything european governments stand for.

> That would be against everything european governments stand for. I really struggle to understand why the hell this is always only applied to european governments? The idea to take 1984 as a book of requirements seems to extend *far* beyond europe.

yes, and here is a fun fact, most of the push for mass surveillance comes from the European Council, the thing is that literally are "just" the locally elected leaders...

not some vague far away "the EU (personalized)" thing

which also mean you can locally enact pressure on them

furthermore the EU supreme court(s) might have more often hindered mass surveillance laws in member states then the council pushing for them...

and if we speak as of "now", not just the UK, but also the US and probably many other states have far more mass surveillance then the EU has "in general".

so year the whole "EU is at fault of everything" sentiment makes little sense. I guess in some cases it's an excuse for people having given up on politics. But given how often EU decisions are severely presented out of context I guess some degree of anti-EU propaganda is in there, too.

Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why you got heavily downvoted. Yes, there are governments that are worse than European, but the decline of European government is the fastest. You may be surprised that the UK is the world leader in the number of people arrested because of internet posts. And that Germany, which is still way behind the UK, has more people arrested for the same reason than Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Belarus,…

> I don't understand why you got heavily downvoted. Because his post contributes nothing to the discussion. > Yes, there are governments that are worse than European, but the decline of European government is the fastest. What makes it the fastest? > You may be surprised that the UK is the world leader in the number of people arrested because of internet posts. And that Germany, which is still way behind the UK, has…

>"That is because Germany and UK are beacons of democracy when compared to the countries that you listed."

Give them a little time. They'll catch up. Comparatively to what the UK used to be it is sliding down, more and more. One should be more concerned about what is happening in their country rather than consoling themselves that there are worce places.

Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach

#127
post #120
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see why governments think they are doing this to protect the people. they're not doing this to protect people, they're doing this to ensure there cannot be rebellion against unpopular policies. Organization is harder if all communications is monitored. But this is how gov't get to be kept in check - the risk of "rebellion". If this risk is removed, you get authoritarian states - see north korea.

I know its satisfying to think of the government as some singular nefarious entity, but the reality is far worse: There is no one in charge. It’s chaos all the way down.

No need for a formal command structure when everyone's interests point in the same direction. Self organisation will occur readily enough.

Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach

#128
post #77
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I believe people should be jailed for speech, but merely referring to what he said as “anti-immigration” is very much burying the lede

For people too lazy to click, the second post was: > I think it’s time for the British to gang together, hit the streets and start the slaughter. > Violence and murder is the only way now. Start off burning every migrant hotel then head off to MPs’ houses and Parliament, we need to take over by FORCE. I'm not sure what the punishment for such a clear but ineffective incitement to violence should be, but it shouldn't…

Sounds fine.

Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach

#129
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments always focus on the tools and not the people. Troubleshooting and resolving the root cause requires work. They do not get paid to work or care meaning they could sit on their hands and still get paid.

> they could sit on their hands and still get paid Could? I know of government employees who literally cannot do their job, yet somehow they've been employed for over twenty years. When I say they can't do their job, I mean they have to ask coworkers how to do something that is and always has been a job requirement, and they have to "ask for help" every time. People are actually enabling massive amounts of waste and…

Indeed. I work with governments all over the United States from federal, to states to counties, and even to larger cities. This is a consistent pattern I see as well. We have senior IT people who don't even know basics about firewall configuration. In one place, I waited 2 weeks for the IT person to figure out how to even get into the firewall configuration. Then they proceeded to completely screw it up in obvious ways, and then once we got the firewall completely configured, we could not get the app to work. It took another 2 weeks, and burned 40 hours of engineer time on our side, before somebody on their end realized that they had modified the wrong firewall!

I wish I could say that was an unusual experience. In another jurisdiction it took two months and we finally got to the point where even providing specific coaching telling them that it wasn't working because they opened the TCP port numbers we said instead of UDP, even though UDP was heavily emphasized. The stonewalling and constant battling ended up delaying our launch to the point where the decision makers decided to just can it instead of fight with their own IT organization.

Now that said, I have worked with some truly incredible and brilliant people on the government side. There definitely are some fantastic people that work for the government. Unfortunately they seem to be in a minority.

Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach

#130
This was easy to predict. It also shows how backwards are the UK security bureaucracy as you can simply clone Signal and tweak it, and deploy your own blend. Also, perhaps an LLM can do it as well, what if the prompt is "keep me safe from a totalitarian government"?
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