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UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

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Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#111

Post by tasqa »

Blahah wrote: post #105
blowski wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here, because complaining about intrusions on our privacy and how ineffective they are, has become de rigeur on HN and Reddit without much dissent. There clearly is a security problem in Europe at the moment, and I'm assuming that the attacks are not being organised by the security services. So will this bill reduce, increase or have no effect on the attacks? If not, then what would…

I appreciate you're playing devil's advocate, so I'm holding back. "There's a security problem in Europe at the moment". What are you talking about? The number of people harmed in terrorism-related events in Europe in any given year is dwarfed by the number of people who harm themselves by accident or stupidity in those same countries. And dwarfed to an even greater extent by the number of people killed by police in…

I simply cannot upvote your comment enough. Very consise and to the point IMHO.

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#112

Post by morsch »

blowski wrote: post #97
yandie wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide the source of your data about the risk of dying?

For most of the last 20 years, fatalities in terrorist attacks in (Western) Europe were in single figures. There were three exceptions - the Madrid trains in 2004, London bombings in 2005, and the Oslo shootings in 2011. See http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/11/daily-c... Last year, that increased to around 100, this time based on 2 attacks (both in Paris, France). So far this year, there have been ne…

That's nearly 300 (speficially, 278) fatalities over the last two years, not this year.

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#113

Post by filoeleven »

nitrogen wrote: post #84
hx87 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A white noise generator placed over the microphone, perhaps?

White noise can be filtered out if it's not louder than the source sound within the frequency bands of interest over the time interval that matters for interpreting speech. So make sure it's loud, and maybe contour the noise to match the frequency distribution of speech, and maybe make it unpredictably variable over time.

One neat idea from Neal Stephenson's Anathem (with likely analogues elsewhere) is essentially a chatterbox that records people speaking in a conversation, chops up the audio into syllables, and plays those back at random to foil eavesdroppers. This might work better than white noise, assuming you trust the computer that's doing the scrambling!

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#114

Post by saulrh »

logfromblammo wrote: post #55
saulrh wrote: post #5

> “Doors are now almost ubiquitous and are the default for most houses and buildings. If we do not provide for access to people's bathrooms when it is necessary and proportionate to do so then we must simply accept that there can be rooms beyond the reach of the law,” There are well-established and functional methods for extending law into areas that you can't see all the time. You don't need to ban encryption, in ex…

The state's enforcers do not fear doors, because they have boots for kicking, and stout legs to fill them. Even the heavier doors can be breached by prybar, ram, cutting torch, or explosive. But when your bathroom door is protected by 256-bit encryption, the peace of your metaphorical deuce-dropping is (statistically) guaranteed until such time as the sun leaves the main sequence and devours the Earth. The states con…

Exactly my point. Just like you don't mount cameras in everybody's bathrooms, you don't outlaw encryption. Instead, you install spy software on your target's computer, or you plant a bug in their light fixture, or subpoena Facebook to see if they ever messed up and said anything unencrypted. You can still find things out even if someone is being serious and uses end-to-end encryption, just like you can still find things out even if someone is being serious and burns their incriminating poo-peanuts.

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#115

Post by blowski »

Blahah wrote: post #105
blowski wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here, because complaining about intrusions on our privacy and how ineffective they are, has become de rigeur on HN and Reddit without much dissent. There clearly is a security problem in Europe at the moment, and I'm assuming that the attacks are not being organised by the security services. So will this bill reduce, increase or have no effect on the attacks? If not, then what would…

I appreciate you're playing devil's advocate, so I'm holding back. "There's a security problem in Europe at the moment". What are you talking about? The number of people harmed in terrorism-related events in Europe in any given year is dwarfed by the number of people who harm themselves by accident or stupidity in those same countries. And dwarfed to an even greater extent by the number of people killed by police in…

The reason I push on this argument is that by making it, we as a community sound like we're waving away the concerns of the majority. "Oh a lorry killed loads of children? Don't worry about it love, loads more people commit suicide every year."

So those who do pander to those concerns end up winning the vote, and then they can trash our civil liberties. This is precisely how we British have ended up voting to leave the EU.

There has been a significant increase in the frequency and effectiveness of terrorist attacks in Europe. People are growing more worried about it. We need to make those people feel safe again, and we're not going to do that by saying "my privacy is more important than reducing terrorism".

The argument you make at the end is the strongest point: on the one hand we are nurturing terrorism by not dealing with the fallout of globalisation, and our governments have been sold an expensive algorithm that they believe can handle the problem, when in reality it will make us even less secure. Meanwhile, the media can sell more advertising with the increased attention, so they're quite happy to add fuel to the fire.

However, all these arguments end up being lost in whether it will work or not, and the Donald Trumps will always win that argument because they go to a lower denominator. If we want to win it, we need to show more genuine empathy.

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#116

Post by blowski »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #109
blowski wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're saying that because it can't be 100% effective, we shouldn't do it at all. You could say the same about having a lock for your front door, but I bet you've got one.

No, I think you're taking it too far. We only need to conclude that the minimal benefits from the proposal (i.e., few attackes would actually be averted) are vastly outweighed by the extreme cost to our civil liberties. There do exist more reasonable compromises. For example, we as a society have already said that you can search someone's property if you get a court order. That's a smaller cost, because the authoriti…

Other people - probably the majority of the UK population based on opinion polls and elections - weigh the balance differently. We (HN readers) are probably in the extreme minority, and we are not necessarily right.

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#117

Post by inetsee »

I can't help but wonder how this bill, on top of Brexit, will affect the state of technology entrepreneurship in the UK. Why should an entrepreneur start up a technology business in the UK if his efforts will be hampered by politicians who have no clue about how technology actually works?

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#118

Post by blowski »

morsch wrote: post #112
blowski wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most of the last 20 years, fatalities in terrorist attacks in (Western) Europe were in single figures. There were three exceptions - the Madrid trains in 2004, London bombings in 2005, and the Oslo shootings in 2011. See http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/11/daily-c... Last year, that increased to around 100, this time based on 2 attacks (both in Paris, France). So far this year, there have been ne…

That's nearly 300 (speficially, 278) fatalities over the last two years, not this year.

Oh yes, sorry you're right. Even so, the numbers have increased significantly in the last couple of years.

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#119

Post by junko »

nitrogen wrote: post #89
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people vote out of fear, the line between a security problem and a security perception problem becomes indistinguishable.

People's fears can be assuaged much more easily if those fears aren't actively exploited by news agencies and politicians.

Devil's advocate for the Internet. I'd say that our being so connected helps spread and magnify these fears, and the fact that most of us carry smartphones et cetra helps keep us consistently in that state of mind.

Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

#120

Post by sdoering »

tasqa wrote: post #111
Blahah wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate you're playing devil's advocate, so I'm holding back. "There's a security problem in Europe at the moment". What are you talking about? The number of people harmed in terrorism-related events in Europe in any given year is dwarfed by the number of people who harm themselves by accident or stupidity in those same countries. And dwarfed to an even greater extent by the number of people killed by police in…

I simply cannot upvote your comment enough. Very consise and to the point IMHO.

And I can only second this.
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