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Ireland wants to give its cops spyware, ability to crack encrypted messages

theregister.com

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Re: Ireland wants to give its cops spyware, ability to crack encrypted messages

#51

Post by direwolf20 »

alephnerd wrote: post #41
miroljub wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is strange is that this happens in several countries at the same time. Probably a coincidence that it all happens just before the World Economic Forum summit in Davos. It could be they sent the new agenda a bit earlier to allow governments to prepare themselves.

People really overestimate the WEF's influence. It's basically a fairly boring corporate conference that consists of side means and some side parties. There might be some shenanigans happening, but that happens at "nerdy" GDC as well. Years ago, we had to "invite" Register, DarkReading, SDxCentral, etc "reporters" to free booze sessions during RSA to keep them happy in the era before Nikesh Arora called out conferenc…

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Re: Ireland wants to give its cops spyware, ability to crack encrypted messages

#52

Post by direwolf20 »

jMyles wrote: post #10
voxic11 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make it technologically impossible, but they can also come and arrest you just for using such technology. So its not really a technical problem, its a social/political one.

Sure, but then they need to send a physical person, which is expensive and impossible to scale. Making it extremely expensive is probably good enough. (Feels like we have this same discussion over and over on HN.)

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Re: Ireland wants to give its cops spyware, ability to crack encrypted messages

#53

Post by unethical_ban »

voxic11 wrote: post #5
zexodus wrote: post #2

I'm so tired of these... Is there really no way we can make it technologically impossible for them to exfiltrate user data?

You can make it technologically impossible, but they can also come and arrest you just for using such technology. So its not really a technical problem, its a social/political one.

It needs to be done on both fronts.

Privacy-conscious apps and communications tools need to be developed, and we need to build the consensus that privacy is important.

edit: Anyone know why Briar doesn't have the feature for known contacts to be a "courier" for other contacts?

Background: Briar is the encrypted messaging app that works over tor, local wifi and bluetooth. If Alice sends a message to Charles but she isn't connected, the app will hold it until it detects Alice and Charles are in proximity.

My desired feature: If Bob is a verified contact with both Alice and Charles, Briar should be able to hand the message from Alice to Bob, and then deliver it to Charles.

Re: Ireland wants to give its cops spyware, ability to crack encrypted messages

#54

Post by an0malous »

cjs_ac wrote: post #18
shevy-java wrote: post #11

What is strange is that this happens in several countries at the same time. I never found out why this is the case, because there can be many explanations. In general the global tendency is that the more and more digital data is there, the more and more states want to surveil people and invade onto their privacy. This is functional erosion of rights. I don't know of many states that counter that trend.

Every Western government is receiving the same briefings from its intelligence and counterintelligence agencies: these powers are needed in case the third world war starts.

I think western governments want these tools just to maintain order, they used to rely a lot on their ability to manufacture consent among their populous but the Internet allows people to discover inconvenient truths that threaten the old order. Everyone used to be pretty happy with the appearance of freedom and democracy in the western world because they didn't know any better and mainstream media was tightly controlled so they couldn't find out either, now they're learning they're neither free nor have any say in their governance from alternative media so here come the crackdowns on free speech and any form of protest or dissent.

Re: Ireland wants to give its cops spyware, ability to crack encrypted messages

#55

Post by rodolphoarruda »

shevy-java wrote: post #11

What is strange is that this happens in several countries at the same time. I never found out why this is the case, because there can be many explanations. In general the global tendency is that the more and more digital data is there, the more and more states want to surveil people and invade onto their privacy. This is functional erosion of rights. I don't know of many states that counter that trend.

Sounds more like a lobby thing. Once a government finds a new "recipe" to be worked out with global vendors, meaning, a new way to allocate budget with a strong social justification (e.g. protect children, fight terrorism etc.), governments from other nations jump into the matter and literally copy/paste it locally. In short, whoever comes up with a creative idea to allocate public budget will serve as the basis for others to copy.

Re: Ireland wants to give its cops spyware, ability to crack encrypted messages

#56

Post by gmueckl »

jMyles wrote: post #10
voxic11 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make it technologically impossible, but they can also come and arrest you just for using such technology. So its not really a technical problem, its a social/political one.

Sure, but then they need to send a physical person, which is expensive and impossible to scale. Making it extremely expensive is probably good enough. (Feels like we have this same discussion over and over on HN.)

I don't understand this take. There is no real way in which a private person can make law enforcement "more expensive". The government can always find means as long as it is supported by a sufficiently big fraction of its people.

Re: Ireland wants to give its cops spyware, ability to crack encrypted messages

#57

Post by mothballed »

direwolf20 wrote: post #50
JasonADrury wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per the DOJ, there's also this: >An officer who purposefully allows a fellow officer to violate a victim's Constitutional rights may be prosecuted for failure to intervene to stop the Constitutional violation. >To prosecute such an officer, the government must show that the defendant officer was aware of the Constitutional violation, had an opportunity to intervene, and chose not to do so.

Who represents the government in these cases?

The government prosecutes the government and is judged by the government and a jury screened under voir dire by two government lawyers?

Kind of like when a robber comes to your house, you have him arrested, and when you go to court you look up and he is the one swinging the gavel.

Of course, interesting the cop has to know there is a constitution violation. Somehow ignorance of the law is always an excuse for the cops but the citizenry must know all 190,000 pages of federal regulations and 300,000+ laws and by god if they forgot one they are fucked.

Re: Ireland wants to give its cops spyware, ability to crack encrypted messages

#58

Post by thewebguyd »

digiown wrote: post #48
TingPing wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have to make custom software illegal at some point.

They don't have to make it illegal. They can just create all kinds of barriers like only allowing government approved OSes for essential services, and then using custom software can become grounds for suspicion and subject you to searches, etc.

I'm certain this is the direction we are all heading, unfortunately.

Governments will sanction the major proprietary OSes and compel Apple, Google, Microsoft to participate in their surveillance programs, and those will have remote integrity attestation and will be the only hardware and software you will be able to use to access essential services and the internet as whole, most likely.

The usage of alternative software won't be outright illegal, but will get you on a watchlist. Like you said, they don't need to make other software illegal, just make circumventing the blocks illegal.

They can't arrest everyone, but, it's one more gray area thing that can and will be used against you should the government ever decide they have a bone to pick with you specifically so you can get away with it for a long time, until suddenly you don't.

Re: Ireland wants to give its cops spyware, ability to crack encrypted messages

#59

Post by 627467 »

So, it is always going to be a cat and mouse game. As long as the rules are clear let the game begin. Just dont try to tilt the game in your favor by using legal threats (ie Chat control and alike).

Anyone can try to break encryption, why can't the police force? But dont say others arent allowed to use malware/Spyware - or malware/spyware countermeasures - if you are using it yourself.

You already have (theoretical) access to state resources. You dont need more help

Re: Ireland wants to give its cops spyware, ability to crack encrypted messages

#60

Post by atmosx »

budududuroiu wrote: post #8

Whenever these people ask for more power in order to "stop/prevent crime", there should be a bot that replies a list of times when the police didn't act to stop crime, despite having full knowledge of the crime occuring and potential to stop it from happening. EU member and supporter of Chat Control, Romania, had a massive scandal where a kidnapped 15 year old girl called emergency services multiple times to report s…

Two years ago a woman in Greece phoned the police, begging for a patrol car because her ex was about to “kill her.” The officer mockingly replied, “Police cars aren’t taxis”. Seconds later she screamed, “He’s here! He’s going to kill me” (screams). She was murdered outside the police department moments later.

https://www.ertnews.gr/eidiseis/ellada/ag-anargyroi-plirofor...

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