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Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

theregister.com

261–270 of 292 posts

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#261

All surveillance should start with ministers first. Their private lives streamed 24/7 over internet for the public to watch. Of course, this is only for national security since humans are corruptible, and these people have vastly most control over a nation's resources, thus, 24/7 monitoring of their private lives, by the public, is super important... for national security ... or else how we can be sure they have not…

If Flock is legal in the USA, then it's also legal for a private individual to make their own Flock network.

When police do it they get to call it “investigation” but when I do it all of a sudden it’s “stalking”

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a misunderstanding. In this case "majority" (or "majoritarianism") really means plurality . British (and US) democracy fetishizes winners , i.e. whoever comes first, whether or not they represent a majority of the electorate. In Britain you get all the power with 30% of the vote. Some might call that undemocratic.

it isn't undemocratic, the purpose of the system is to produce governments that are able to govern look at the last few governments, now imagine that we had a system that meant it was impossible to form a government if the government wasn't popular. there is no natural majority for any position that a political party in the UK can realistically take. you don't end up with greater democracy, you end up handing unlimit…

Capitalization would make your arguments easier to parse.

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For kid's online safety, it would be sufficient for each device to ask upon installation if it's for an adult or a kid But the voices call for "robust" systems... And some parties are trying to implement that, and from there difficulties I mentioned in the other post.

Those are the ulterior motives people I referred to. Asking on installation is robust enough because parents buy devices for their children and set them up. You could make it even more robust if you required a cellphone store employee to do it. Whatever way someone is authenticated as a cellphone store employee would surely leak, but again: robust enough . An example of something not robust is asking the child upon a…

> You could make it even more robust if you required a cellphone store employee

And you would accept a device that would require a third party for setup?!?!?!

That is what I meant with "either proving identity or lunatic workarounds"...

That "robust enough" is full grounds to have a population rise, given that an expectable combination of stupidity as ineptitude and stupidity as radical psychosis from the state can shift the "robust enough" to substantial dystopia. Have they (the keir starmer bunch) or have they not issued a law without the crucial details - how to do it, the whole matter is absurd without full clarity on "how to do it"?

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#264

All surveillance should start with ministers first. Their private lives streamed 24/7 over internet for the public to watch. Of course, this is only for national security since humans are corruptible, and these people have vastly most control over a nation's resources, thus, 24/7 monitoring of their private lives, by the public, is super important... for national security ... or else how we can be sure they have not…

If Flock is legal in the USA, then it's also legal for a private individual to make their own Flock network.

In the US, it's "legal" for "law enforcement" to use Stingray equipment, which transmits on licensed cellular spectrum and interferes with customers who use the spectrum, sometimes even preventing calls for emergency services. This should be a plain and simple violation of FCC regulations, but who's going to enforce that law against law enforcement?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_use_in_United_States_...

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno about 2/3rds, but there should definitely be some kind of supermajority required for things like joining or leaving the EU. Even a 55% requirement would be a lot better than a simple majority imo.

Then we'd have to hear the Brexiteers whining on and on about democracy. This way we get to see their project fail. I don't know which one is worse.

There is nothing inherent to democracy that says that everything needs a simple majority for a decision.

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#266
post #164
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For whom have you voted? We have almost no referenda sure, but sometimes there are strong hints in the manifestos, or things to learn from past behaviour of each party

I think Labour on the last one but the Tories had anti privacy stuff too and none of the minor parties had any hope of getting in in my area.

Maybe consider voting Reform the next time around?

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#267
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turnout was about 72%, so really it was (approx) Leave 37%, Remain 35%, Don’t Know/Care 28%. Also worth pointing out that the hard Brexit we got, where we left Schengen and abandoned much of our cross-European programmes, was almost unthinkable, and not seriously considered by the media. Whenever it was brought up, it was decried as “project fear” by those who pushed for it.

I don’t think the UK was ever in Schengen (at least as far as my visa was concerned). That is one bright spot here. Traveling to the UK is much easier than travel to Europe for much of the world. The UK allows for paying for QoS so you can pay a large fee and get a visa soon or a much smaller fee and get one in two weeks. By comparison, Schengen visas from all participants are granted equitably by fee and the wait ti…

Yes you’re right, of course, I was conflating the ability to move freely within the EU member states with the Schengen Agreement which was not correct. Border control was always necessary between Britain and the Schengen area, it was just streamlined.

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno about 2/3rds, but there should definitely be some kind of supermajority required for things like joining or leaving the EU. Even a 55% requirement would be a lot better than a simple majority imo.

Then we'd have to hear the Brexiteers whining on and on about democracy. This way we get to see their project fail. I don't know which one is worse.

Democracies require supermajorities for stuff all the time, it's pretty typical, especially for constitutional changes.

And in this case, it would also mean that Britain would've joined the EU with a 55%+ majority as well.

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To take my mother as an example she hadn't thought about it properly at all. She was surprised that her daughter (my sister) had voted Remain because apparently my mother who knows about the EU funding which enabled what my sister did, hadn't connected "EU funding" to the EU she was voting to Leave. "Oh" was basically all she had to say about that. In the broader scheme of things you could also see this in the respon…

If voters can't understand ranked choice voting or similar, how could we possibly expect them to understand the impact of what they are voting on? It's a self-defeating argument.

They don't understand FPTP. I used to assume that under FPTP More votes beats Less votes the idiots will go OK, we lost. But it became apparent that instead they go "If the person I voted for doesn't win then it's rigged" and so it doesn't matter what system we use. "We won" is the only outcome they believe is possible so since it won't matter and any other outcome will be considered "cheating", we should use a better system to pick actual outcomes.

Re: Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

#270
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they even have a referendum on joining the EU? Just skimming through, it looks like [0] they only had a referendum on EEC membership which sounds like it would predate the EU. It is a bit of an unfair ratchet where people can sidle in to the EU but require strong consensuses to leave. It should be symmetrical. Particularly when the scope of the EU seems to be a bit vague and regularly expanding to micromanage var…

This brings to mind the government set up in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress: it takes 2/3rds to pass a law, but only 1/3rd to repeal it. The thinking being if a law isn't good/useful enough to garner 2/3rd support, it shouldn't be law. And if a law is so bad that it can't even get more than 1/3rd the people to support it, it should no longer be a law. Sadly, I don't think it'd work today. People are too divided, it's t…

> And if a law is so bad that it can't even get more than 1/3rd the people to support it

What? That's not what you wrote. If it only takes 1/3rd to repeal a law, then you need to keep up 2/3rds support indefinitely, not 1/3rd.

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