Ireland wants to give its cops spyware, ability to crack encrypted messages • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by thatguy0900 » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 1:15 PM UTC

LtWorf wrote: post #109

thatguy0900 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to do anything. I think it's a problem with no moral solution. When Elon turned on location data in Twitter and everyone saw all the homegrown American Maga influencer accounts were foreign it should have opened eyes but Noone really cared. You have a choice between closing the internet or letting them brain rot your populace in the open. It's not a theoretical power, nato and the US European led world o…

You can't see me but i rolled my eyes.

OK, what's your solution? Continue to let every foreign power spew propaganda unhindered? Do you find the dissolution of nato by an extremist foreign sponsored American party less serious than I do? The mere concept of America openly threatening invasion on nato would have been completely unthinkable a year ago.

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

#112

Post by GJim » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 1:34 PM UTC

randcraw wrote: post #98

How very... British of them.

Poor trolling attempt.

2/10 Must try harder.

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

#113

Post by thestructuralme » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 10:59 PM UTC

Every ‘lawful access’ proposal eventually becomes either a backdoor (which attackers also get) or targeted exploitation (which doesn’t scale and incentivizes stockpiling 0-days). The technical reality doesn’t bend to policy language.

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

#114

Post by elevation » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 2:56 PM UTC

If Ireland is still used as a tax haven for large multinationals (including the companies that provide widespread encrypted messaging) then it would be the ideal venue for anti-privacy lobbying -- large companies may be able to close a token office in a small country to move beyond the reach of sanctions, but if that country is enabling billions of dollars a year in tax savings, then their influence may be the biggest global threat to user privacy.

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

#115

Post by ranger_danger » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 12:37 PM UTC

throwaway85825 wrote: post #92

bell-cot wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you see two police on the corner and think... Not to speak highly of the NYPD - but it is the character of most violent criminals to refrain from attacking you when police officers are standing close at hand.

There's a famous video of an apple store robbery and the thief walks past a cop on the way out. Police don't do anything anymore.

> Police don't do anything anymore

This is false and a gross oversimplification based on one specific thing, which is that petty theft in particular has taken a backseat in many areas as it's not a felony and is usually a waste of time and money to persue, especially when the thief just gets turned loose with no big consequences.