Absolutely sick and tired of what I call "minority report" laws where you didn't cause any harm, but you are flagged and penalized for having had the potential to cause harm. Illegal is illegal, you don't need to make precursors illegal.
Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
131–140 of 299 posts
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#132This is a terrible headline, despite being the original. The "watchdog" is a KC (senior barrister) officially appointed to review the legislation. He's warning that this could be considered hostile activity under the act, which would be a bad thing . In other words, he's criticising the act for being overly broad, a view that most on HN agree with, and his criticisms of it presumably carry some weight, given his offi…
Seems very coordinated, like whenever there’s an article on the Trump administration crushing free speech by cutting funding/sanctioning/suing anyone critical of it, it quickly gets flagged into oblivion, but anything the UK and others do gets spun out of proportion and hangs around on the front page for ages.
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Labour have dropped to 17% because their left wing has moved to the greens, Libdems and nationalists. Reform support has stopped growing at 25% and that's mainly Tories moving across. The only people that harp on about "two tier Keir" are the extreme right wing loonies.
Absolutely. Labour betrayed their core voters, who are looking for something else, but won't touch Reform UK because they're even more disgusting than the current right-wing Labour-in-name-only government.
No true scotsman
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#134Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#135I think there is a point to this. I’m not saying I’m a fan. But the reality is that it is too simple to communicate secretly, and the government has an interest in protecting its citizens. This is true in many aspects. (Health, technology, electronics, traffic) Btw. The https communication comparison does not hold, there is always a third party that can read what you say. E2E chats are effectively communication where…
The regime is counting on people like you.
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> mass surveillance comes from the European Council, the thing is that literally are "just" the locally elected leaders...
Factually incorrect.
The European Parliament is elected. The Council is appointed, so there is no direct democratic incentive for the council to act on and no direct electorate to please.
On top of that the actually elected European Parliament can only approve (or turn down) directives authored by the Council. They have no authority to draft policies on their own.
To make matters even worse the European Council, which drafts the policies, has no public minutes to inspect. Which obviously makes it ripe for corruption. Which evidently there is a lot of!
Looking at the complete picture, the EU looks like a construct designed intentionally to superficially appear democratic while in reality being the opposite. The more you look at how it actually works, the worse it looks. Sadly.
Europe deserved something better than this.
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#137> 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…
I agree with your point and this is just a minor thing but it annoys me whenever it comes up:
Telegram is a terrible example. It is one of the few messengers that do not support end-to-end enrypted group chats. It is also heavily moderated. Your group will not be closed immediately but before anyone could pick up their pitchfork and certainly before it reaches a critical mass.
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#138> 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…
This is about the astonishing lack of ability in the political class in the UK. The security services are honestly wagging the dog and they think they can force some kind of key escrow eventually, but instead they’ll just destroy software development in the UK and possibly financial services. It’s the same with the multi billion ID cards and digital ID which is almost impossible for a government as incompetent as thi…
And whatever is foisted on the public will be so insecure you’ll have to deal with your identity constantly being stolen, and it being your problem to fix it.
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#139> 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!
Don't worry, WiFi sensing will eventually remove our walls and curtains for free in that respect.
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually it opens them up to being phished by the government. There have been several high profile cases where because of searching for custom communication services, groups ended up being vulnerable.
How many cases have there been of groups successfully finding and use private communication services?
I don’t know, I can’t read their chats..