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Open Letter from Security Researchers in Relation to the Online Safety Bill [pdf]

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Re: Open Letter from Security Researchers in Relation to the Online Safety Bill [pdf]

#151

Post by wholinator2 »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #125
raxxorraxor wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe has similar bills with chat control. There was no serious expert that did not warn about the severe negative repercussions. Representatives still didn't seem to be interested and the EU isn't particular democratic so anyone could be held to account. I think technology must provide ways to ensure free and secure communication without a possibility of surveillance. The political class cannot be entrusted to shie…

I agree generally, but we have to be realistic that decentralization/onion routing/public key encryption and all the other technical tricks at our disposal will only slow the corporations/the state down. Yes, it convenient for the FBI to have a web form to be able to get access to your gmail inbox or whatever, but they will happily just arrest you and beat you with a wrench until you give them your private keys. The…

Yeah, i think we also have to be wary of defeatism when it comes to things like this as well. Of course they could just kidnap and torture you, they've always been able to do that. But this is about their ability to get information on millions of people simultaneously. It would be pretty unrealistic for the FBI to simultaneously kidnap and torture every member of an ethnic or political group. But if that data is all online then that information becomes easy and instant to get. So yeah, 1 person could be captured, that's not what this is about. This is about the simultaneous capture of _everyone_, which is wholly something outside the realm of possibility currently.

We shouldn't give up just because a bad thing already exists.

Re: Open Letter from Security Researchers in Relation to the Online Safety Bill [pdf]

#152

Post by tremon »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #111
tremon wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the purpose of this exercise? What's the value of equating one emotionally-charged label with a different emotionally-charged label? As to your question: yes, most authoritarians are conservative in nature, given that the world has mostly been moving away from authoritarianism over the past few decades.

My point is very simple: Attitudes (among politicians) toward the surveillance state do not seem to split along political lines between left and right. I wish they did. Also, I completely disagree that the world has mostly been moving away from authoritarianism. On the contrary. There was a time when at least the direction of travel seemed assured. Now I'm no longer so sure. [Edit] Just so you know where I'm coming f…

Let me elucidate my point further then, as well: I think that any attempt to map a political decision or opinion on a binary scale serves no purpose (other than satisfy our tribalistic vestiges). It doesn't matter if it's left vs right, Tory vs Labour or republican vs democrat. The world just isn't that black and white, no matter how much you wish for it.

So please, debate policies on their content, not on their label. Reducing everything to a binary decision only serves authoritarian agendas.

Re: Open Letter from Security Researchers in Relation to the Online Safety Bill [pdf]

#153

Post by daniel-cussen »

bavell wrote: post #80
zarzavat wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You much overestimate how politically involved the UK public is. Most people don’t know what this bill is. In the UK there’s a concept of the “Westminster bubble”. Politicians believe that people care deeply about “online safety”, which is all that matters really.

Known as "DC brain worms" here in the US

[dead]

Re: Open Letter from Security Researchers in Relation to the Online Safety Bill [pdf]

#154

Post by noduerme »

lrvick wrote: post #128
noduerme wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what the micro-nations were on about, people trying to dredge sand up off reefs and take over drilling platforms since the early 1980s to establish "data havens". The long term trend is that no nation will ultimately resist backdoors on encrypted platforms, because militarily they cannot resist the pressure (internally or externally). The micronation thing is silly, as is relying on a shrinking number of coun…

Or just used decentralized e2ee comms that already exist?

Sadly, a centralized, monetized space-based signaling system seems less like pie-in-the-sky to me at this point than does any particular decentralized platform gaining sufficient network effect to become a widely used standard.

Re: Open Letter from Security Researchers in Relation to the Online Safety Bill [pdf]

#155

Post by Lorin »

Loquebantur wrote: post #75
bell-cot wrote: post #58

Sigh... Beyond the security researchers' own little "computer savvy 1%" bubble, is there any intended audience for such Open Letters? Could they actually communicate with normal people if they (somehow) wanted to? Are there laws in the UK that make it too risky to just say something like "This bill will make it so much easier for the next Wayne Couzens to find his perfect Sarah Everard."?

They bury the central tenet in the middle, staying true to being inept at public communication: > There is no technological solution to the contradiction inherent in both keeping information confidential from third parties and sharing that same information with third parties. It would be more effective to tweet that sentence wherever the discussion is remotely touched. Nobody, including politicians, reads such length…

How is two pages lengthy? This isn't War & Peace. Should a TikTok be posted instead?

Re: Open Letter from Security Researchers in Relation to the Online Safety Bill [pdf]

#156

Post by pjc50 »

tialaramex wrote: post #116
pjc50 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. "Small-c conservative". Starmer seems to have decided that the path to victory is to copy Tory policy and attitude as closely as possible, hoping that this will get him favourable press coverage or support from the particular set of "floating" voters in marginal constituencies that he needs. But the Labour party have never been especially liberal . They're just as likely to enact controlling social policy. And,…

> (Don't try to jam the American two-party lens onto UK four-plus party politics, it will not help you make sense of the actual situation). Because the UK has FPTP elections, in practice it's a two party system but which two parties varies by locale, resulting in some weird interactions that aren't really seen in the US. You aren't going to get elaborate rainbow coalitions under that model, as you might in say German…

Long way off topic, but: I've always wondered why the US, fifty states not all of which are even contiguous, separated by huge distances, has not evolved regional parties?

Re: Open Letter from Security Researchers in Relation to the Online Safety Bill [pdf]

#157

Post by noduerme »

pessimizer wrote: post #63
noduerme wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what the micro-nations were on about, people trying to dredge sand up off reefs and take over drilling platforms since the early 1980s to establish "data havens". The long term trend is that no nation will ultimately resist backdoors on encrypted platforms, because militarily they cannot resist the pressure (internally or externally). The micronation thing is silly, as is relying on a shrinking number of coun…

> If I were Musk and had that chain up in the sky, If you were Musk, and if Musk were some sort of superhero fighter for communications freedom. If Musk wants private communication for himself and his friends, I'm sure he can manage it.

I shouldn't have said "If I were Musk". That's so douchey. I feel like my 90 year old uncle.

I should've said, "If I owned a global chain of communications satellites, I would..."

But then again, would I? I'm not so sure. I ditched and walked away from a really brilliant E2EE platform I had built before I launched it in 2012, whose purpose was to touch off and gamify democratic revolutions in totalitarian states, precisely because I had a dream about it being used by nazis in the west to carry out mass organized violence. I woke up and realized it probably would be used for that, and I shut down the whole project. As a matter of fact, I have a 14 page long handwritten note I wrote addressed to Elon Musk warning him not to do things like that when he tries to de-moderate Twitter, which (since I don't know him, and he wouldn't care) I never sent.

So yeah, even if I were him, I probably wouldn't do what I just said. But it was a really douchey way that I put it. Sorry.

Re: Open Letter from Security Researchers in Relation to the Online Safety Bill [pdf]

#158

Post by unmole »

psychphysic wrote: post #136
scarface_74 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it an “opinion” that Elon Musk blocked links to Mastadon and the account that was tracking his plane using publicly available information? Or do you just refuse to read anything that contradicts your world view?

And we're into ad hominem attacks. I'm sure I deserved that for asking your opinion.

> And we're into ad hominem attacks.

Where?

Re: Open Letter from Security Researchers in Relation to the Online Safety Bill [pdf]

#159

Post by lrvick »

psychphysic wrote: post #145
lrvick wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just used decentralized e2ee comms that already exist?

Any good ones? Last I "used" was BitMessage I ran it for maybe a week and never looked back.

Try Matrix.

Re: Open Letter from Security Researchers in Relation to the Online Safety Bill [pdf]

#160

Post by psychphysic »

lrvick wrote: post #159
psychphysic wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any good ones? Last I "used" was BitMessage I ran it for maybe a week and never looked back.

Try Matrix.

Ah didn't even occur to me.. of course. I have been running my own server for a few months using Oracle free tier. Think I'll stick to matrix.org going forwards.
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