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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

#151

Post by Zenst »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #127
3v3rt wrote: post #38

Interesting to see that at the same time the EU privacy watch dog is proposing to mandate encryption and outlaw these kind of decryption methodologies[0]. While still an opinion, it is good to see that in this area the EU is among the most progressive governments around. [0] https://secure.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/sha...

Interesting indeed. I thought it peculiar that the UK government released the Tony Blair report just before the BRexit vote. That report certainly got many people riled up about the 'establishment' and possibly could have changed the BRexit voting result. My point is that if the UK had stayed in the EU then the UK surveillance bill might have been dead in the water because it might have comflicted with EU law.

The EU referendum was on the 23rd June 2016 and the Chilcot report (as it is known formerly) was released 6th of July 2016. So those facts aside your point, do you have any conflicting EU laws in mind? I ask as currently the UK has not left and then looking at 2 years notice so any new UK law coming into play for years (due to the time to formulate them), will be complying within current EU laws and regulations.

TL;DR No and no. But I respect the premise.

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

#152

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#153

Post by mtanski »

blowski wrote: post #135
maker1138 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution to the problem is not preventing people from communicating securely.

So what is the solution? If we spend all our time arguing what the solution isn't, we leave a big vacuum which is then filled with even more garbage ideas.

It doesn't make the Politicians Fallacy anymore valid.

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

#154

Post by wildmusings »

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 appreciate you're playing devil's advocate, so I'm holding back.

And if his views were genuine, would you then be rude? I find this implication troubling and corrosive to open discussion.

>It is the media attention given to the situation, not the situation itself, that is terrifying. Europe is extremely safe and does not have a security problem.

I couldn't disagree more. If such incidents were rare two decades ago and increasingly common today, then clearly something is going wrong. In fact, you try to make that same argument later in your post, saying that we creating the terrorism through our actions and making ourselves less safe. Which one is it?

There's a difference between self-inflicted harm and violence inflicted on strangers. Terrorist attacks in France over the last year are almost 50% on top of the normal murder rate. And while most murder victims are killed by people they were in personal conflict with, the victims of terrorism are random. There is good reason to fear them more.

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

#155

Post by StavrosK »

LinuxBender wrote: post #63
geggam wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most citizens carry said microphones complete with GPS and other tracking abilities... already

I agree with you. Every time I bring that up, I get down-voted due to the cognitive dissonance that folks have with their fondle-slabs. Now people are being conditioned to think it's normal for their microphone to always be on.

To be fair, calling them "fondle-slabs" can't be helping your argument.

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

#156

Post by blackrose »

blowski wrote: post #81
morsch wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe doesn't clearly have a security problem. A few insane people committing political violence doesn't change the fact that Europe is among the safest places on the planet.

At a data level, you are more likely to die or be injured in a politically-motivated attack today than you were 10 years ago. Attacks are now more frequent, more geographically dispersed, and more deadly - even if only on a very small percentage level. Even if it's not a problem today (in your opinion), then either that trend has to be reversed or it will become a problem at some point.

Ah yes, and you are more likely to injure yourself playing a video game or hitting a parked police car [0] in the past week than you were 10 years ago. Self-harm from inattention is more frequent and more dispersed these days. We should probably only let people play games like Pokemon Go if they're not moving or driving or walking in a street.

But seriously, no one is saying they don't want to "reverse" things. There are just many ways to do that that actually solve the issue (old fashioned going out and getting the bad guys?) that don't diminish our rights.

[0]: https://twitter.com/BaltimorePolice/status/75552242792132608...

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

#157

Post by blackrose »

LinuxBender wrote: post #63
geggam wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most citizens carry said microphones complete with GPS and other tracking abilities... already

I agree with you. Every time I bring that up, I get down-voted due to the cognitive dissonance that folks have with their fondle-slabs. Now people are being conditioned to think it's normal for their microphone to always be on.

> fondle-slabs

It's hilarious because it's true.

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

#158

Post by marcosdumay »

kiba wrote: post #145
reitanqild wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There has been a significant increase in the frequency and effectiveness of terrorist attacks in Europe. People are growing more worried about it. This is important to understand. Also it is important to understand that right now Europeans are losing security for no good reason: We could help a lot more refugees in surrounding countries than we can integrate here. It is really that simple IMO. Seens we are allowing…

We are getting a flow of immigrants because the civil war in Syria did not stop, and instead rage on and on destroying the infrastructure and economy there that is needed to sustain the civilian population there. We are squeamish because we do not want to send young men and women to die in some godforsaken country, doing god know what for god knows how long. Remember the last time that happened? Oh yes, the Iraqi occ…

> Remember the last time that happened?

Wait, what?!

The Iraq occupation is what caused this madness. The solution is certainly not doing another one.

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

#159

Post by bsder »

blowski wrote: post #135
maker1138 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution to the problem is not preventing people from communicating securely.

So what is the solution? If we spend all our time arguing what the solution isn't, we leave a big vacuum which is then filled with even more garbage ideas.

The solution is to go on with your life. You cannot stop terrorism, but you can take out it's sting. We seem to have forgotten the lessons about the IRA, et al.

In addition, when people say "solutions" what they mean is "something that doesn't inconvenience me or require me to do anything".

However if you want "real" solutions, here are some:

1) Start denouncing ALL religion as the force for stupidity that it actually is. "I believe in an imaginary sky being with no evidence and you can't convince me otherwise" should be LAUGHED AT as the absurdity it is.

2) Get everybody off of petroleum so that there isn't any money for people to fight about over in the middle east.

3) Quit supporting dictators and bombing countries for geopolitical reasons.

4) Start fixing double digit unemployment rates instead of making them worse with "free trade" agreements that only allow companies to use open borders while preventing workers from doing the same.

5) Make mental health care a much bigger priority than it currently is.

Unfortunately, these solutions don't feed into people's preconceived biases and xenophobia and don't put more money into rich people's pockets. So they are all non-starters.

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

#160

Post by leesalminen »

nitrogen wrote: post #141
blowski wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. The risk of saying "we shouldn't do this because it won't work" is that it only has to work a little bit for the argument against it to fail. And it will certainly work a little bit at reducing one type of terrorism, just not enough to outweigh all the other negative effects. That said, I would also like to see more discussion of alternatives instead of just saying "it'll never work".

The alternatives I want to see discussed all involve cultural changes. Sometimes when I try to discuss these with people they get fixated on shifting 100% of blame onto the attackers and 0% onto culture/society/foreign policy/poverty/whatever, but assigning blame is a completely pointless activity and the question needs to be what will actually work , not what will feel good to our primitive instincts for vengeance.…

- Convincing violent groups to be less violent; demonstrating that they can get more of what they want by participating in society than by attacking it (a multi-generational issue)

I do think that this is going to be the correct path for us as a society, long term. There are a lot of obstacles though; convincing people their theological beliefs have been manipulated, fixing the havoc created around the world from globalization, and the profits gained by some (powerful) people.

- Finding a place for the "lone wolf" types to feel like their needs and concerns are addressed, including mental health

Mental health availability in the US needs to improve immediately.

- Getting first-world powers to stop purposely destabilizing other countries

Ha ;)

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