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UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

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Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#101

Post by petre »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #44
petre wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, in the US the government just classified encryption as weapons unsuitable for export. A more clean approach, rather than think of the children shenigans, all while certain members of the royal family have ties with a convicted child trafficker and his wife.

> in the US the government just classified encryption as weapons unsuitable for export. ... You realize that that hasn't been the case for ~20 years, right?

Yes. I'm not blaming, it was a rather bureaucratic move though and it did not stop US citizens from using encryption, nor export. Tampering with the ECC crypto factors was much more ellegant.

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#102

Post by hkt »

RansomStark wrote: post #96
stephen_g wrote: post #2

Those stunts sound super creepy and messed up. Weird, manipulative campaign. This shouldn't really be legal surely in democracies to have campaigns that "appear to be the result of grassroots campaigns and children's charities, while downplaying any Government involvement", when it's a political manipulation campaign paid for, coordinated and organised by the Government themselves. I really hope the counter-campaign…

This is normal for the UK. It was the current government, well it's previous coalition instantiation that created the nudge unit[0]. A group of behavioural psychologists that use mind tricks to convince people to do as they are told, whether that is to drink less, or stop smoking or to follow COVID rules. A group that has since been spun off as a business to sell coercion as a service, to any two bit dictator, or fre…

Or do away with the aristocracy. Now seems like a good time.

We have the same unaddressed issues as America does on race, but also with class. Social mobility was just a way of introducing crippling brain drain into working class communities - something which led to them being effectively criminalised as an underclass through ASBOs and the like.

(For the alternative to social mobility, the old line: "rise with your class, not above it")

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#103

Post by dan-robertson »

jevoten wrote: post #40

> The new campaign, however, is entirely focused on the argument that improved encryption would hamper efforts to tackle child exploitation online. I bet cars and homes without microphones and cameras spying on their residents also hampers their efforts to keep children safe - are those next on the chopping block? They're already spying on near every street corner, after all. Funny how they never say "Technology has…

I think complaining about ‘think of the children’ arguments is bad because:

1. These arguments appeal to people and making fun of them makes you sound like an ass. If your goal is to just complain to your in-group then I suppose that’s fine, but it won’t convince many people outside.

2. The arguments are true to some extent. CSAM online is a big thing, it’s hard to combat and seems shockingly common. (Though I’ve not worked for a big internet company that is likely to interact with this problem so this is all second hand). We are fortunate to mostly not be exposed to this part of society.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t support e2ee, but it does mean that it’s unfair to dismiss these arguments as a secret ploy to spy on your communications and unrelated to any actual problem.

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#104

Post by hkt »

justin66 wrote: post #99
KaiserPro wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shall we pretend that the family that has ruled Britain for 1200 years has no political power? Har har. That's like saying the Church of England still has significant political power. it still has the ability to take tithes, although they are mostly optional. The present royal family only really dates back to victoria, I mean sure they are tangentially related to the german/dutch/scots/danish that ruled before, but…

> The queen has "influence", but not political power. There’s a very peculiar differentiation to make.

Also not true. The Queen is a lobbyist with legally enshrined privileges, see this report:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/07/revealed-que...

"A series of government memos unearthed in the National Archives reveal that Elizabeth Windsor’s private lawyer put pressure on ministers to alter proposed legislation to prevent her shareholdings from being disclosed to the public."

Not to mention the lobbying Charles undertook, which took years to uncover, again because of his privileges as part of the royal family:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jun/29/prince-charl...

""I would explain that our policy was not to expand grammar schools, and he didn't like that," said Blunkett, who held the post from 1997 to 2001. "He was very keen that we should go back to a different era where youngsters had what he would have seen as the opportunity to escape from their background, whereas I wanted to change their background."

Call it influence or power, fundamentally it is rich people getting to exert pressure on the legislative and executive that none of us get to exert.

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#105

Post by humazed »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #44
petre wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, in the US the government just classified encryption as weapons unsuitable for export. A more clean approach, rather than think of the children shenigans, all while certain members of the royal family have ties with a convicted child trafficker and his wife.

> in the US the government just classified encryption as weapons unsuitable for export. ... You realize that that hasn't been the case for ~20 years, right?

>... You realize that that hasn't been the case for ~20 years, right?

that's not true, try submitting an app to apple store, and you will get hit with a lot of Encryption Export Regulations prompts.

please see https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/complying...

>When you submit your app to TestFlight or the App Store, you upload your app to a server in the United States. If you distribute your app outside the U.S. or Canada, your app is subject to U.S. export laws, regardless of where your legal entity is based. If your app uses, accesses, contains, implements, or incorporates encryption, this is considered an export of encryption software, which means your app is subject to U.S. export compliance requirements, as well as the import compliance requirements of the countries where you distribute your app.

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#106

Post by jonplackett »

The other day I was telling my mum about how in China they can monitor and delete anything you post online. Even delete an entire type of post made by millions of people based on a keyword etc etc.

Her response, rather than the horror I was trying to i instil, was “I think we ought to have that here!”

So it does worry me that public support could go the wrong way on this if they spend a lot of time on messaging.

I hope that the high level of mistrust of the government - built up especially through covid - will prevail.

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#107

Post by foldr »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #79
foldr wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the UK government to be “spying on every street corner”, these cameras would have to be hooked up to some kind of central system. They’re not (and indeed most are privately owned).

Said surveillance is available at a moment's notice and without a warrant. Just because they can't do the show "24" level of surveillance doesn't mean it's not bad, real bad, out there for someone who just want's to live their life relatively unscrutinized. Can't really believe anyone on HN is standing up for 24 hour surveillance with cameras.

Private individuals and organisations are not obliged to give their surveillance footage to the police without a warrant. There's no centralized system, so the data is not in any way available 'at a moment's notice'.

>Can't really believe anyone on HN is standing up for 24 hour surveillance with cameras.

As explained in the guidelines, there's a broad range of opinion on HN. However, I wouldn't say I'm 'standing up for' it. I'm fairly ambivalent about CCTV. I don't think it makes a large amount of difference, either positively or negatively. I do, however, think it's important to be accurate about how (un)sophisticated and (in)effective the surveillance apparatus actually is.

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#108

Post by larryflint »

narrator wrote: post #61
samwillis wrote: post #3

I find it amusing that WhatsApp and its e2ee is used as a common target for regulation by the government when their own ministers are using it to organise all sorts of shenanigans; illegal parties during lockdown, “anonymous” briefing of journalists, leaking compromising information about their peers. Not to mention that it always seems like the government is run via WhatsApp (probably need the e2ee for that!). Ultim…

Power deserves scrutiny. Politicians should have less privacy than the average person.

LOL. Your right. If anything politicians should be denied E2EE

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#109

Post by foldr »

jevoten wrote: post #70
foldr wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the UK government to be “spying on every street corner”, these cameras would have to be hooked up to some kind of central system. They’re not (and indeed most are privately owned).

Don't forget to count automated license plate readers, too: https://www.thenewspaper.com/news/48/4865.asp And in the context of a crime investigation, all those private cameras will have their recordings looked at by the police - though I concede "spying" is too harsh a word for that.

>And in the context of a crime investigation, all those private cameras will have their recordings looked at by the police

This might happen in a parallel universe where the police were well resourced and competent. In reality, they rarely bother to access CCTV footage. It's not a particularly quick and easy process.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/met-police-fail-to-sol...

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#110

Post by jevoten »

dan-robertson wrote: post #103
jevoten wrote: post #40

> The new campaign, however, is entirely focused on the argument that improved encryption would hamper efforts to tackle child exploitation online. I bet cars and homes without microphones and cameras spying on their residents also hampers their efforts to keep children safe - are those next on the chopping block? They're already spying on near every street corner, after all. Funny how they never say "Technology has…

I think complaining about ‘think of the children’ arguments is bad because: 1. These arguments appeal to people and making fun of them makes you sound like an ass. If your goal is to just complain to your in-group then I suppose that’s fine, but it won’t convince many people outside. 2. The arguments are true to some extent. CSAM online is a big thing, it’s hard to combat and seems shockingly common. (Though I’ve not…

> The arguments are true to some extent. CSAM online is a big thing

As is sexual abuse inside private homes. Any child-protection argument that applies to spying online, applies ten times over to spying at home. How many children are raped each year, because you're unwilling to let a few cameras into your house? We pinky swear we'll only use the video feeds to investigate "serious" crimes.

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