If the laws are this regressive and encompassing, the very least we as citizens can do is to lobby for full transparency in requests - after all the data belongs to the individual (regardless of what the TOS claims) and the individual deserves to know about requests on his data immediately.
UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption
21–30 of 236 posts
Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption
#22So, how are companies supposed to keep customer data safe from hackers without encryption exactly?
This kind of thing can only make the people of the UK less safe, more at risk, and more likely to be hacked and otherwise digitally abused.
If you wanna keep the people safe, you don't ban encryption. Better would be to mandate it.
Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption
#23Dear UK government,
Good luck with that.
Signed,
An open source software developer outside your jurisdiction
Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption
#24I think this same logic that is purportedly the reasoning behind this bill would also require us to constantly record all of our vocal communications, as that would be the only way we could ensure that criminals could not have communications that aren't accessible to law enforcement.
This, of course, would require microphones on all citizens as well as many more in the surrounding environment, to ensure communications of unwilling citizens can be monitored as well. And, of course, we'd need video as well to get those pesky sign language users[0].
These sort of bills always make me wonder if we'll ever see a moral stance taken by tech companies. There's a few skirmishes that happen every now and then but there doesn't seem to be any general consensus on what companies will tolerate in both themselves and their business partners. I'd love to see a "Fair Trade"-esque branding used as an indication that the product and its supply chain don't include actors who support government surveillance.
[0]: OT, but it makes me realize you can literally make illegal gestures due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United...
Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption
#25If I want to keep my communications encrypted online, I'm going to do so. The only people who won't have the same luxury as me are those that follow the law. I don't get it.
If encrypted communications are illegal, then anyone using them is an automatic target for investigation and the encryption itself may be probable cause to open up their lives and property. It's considerably more difficult to conceal the fact of encryption on the wire than (say) a gun in your home.
Ciphertext is supposed to be impossible to distinquis from random noise, so how are they going to prove I am not just sending random noise, with a PGP header?
As for asking why I would do such a thing? I think the law is wrong and want to make the court waste their time.
Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption
#26It's such a pointless war on its own law-abiding citizens. It makes me sad. People that really care about privacy, people who need to hide what they do will not be majorly impacted. * The main threat is metadata anyways, not the data itself. Locating where you are (e.g. with millions of cameras and facial recognition) is a much worse threat. * They will still use full disk encryption, free software, PGP or AES, etc.…
It provides a sort of scapegoat for attacks. The government can't be seen as doing nothing against the threat of terrorism, so when the adversary uses encryption to cover their tracks, the government can point and say 'we did our best to outlaw their method of communication'.
It must be this. Even politicians will be greatly impacted. Since anything can be used against them. Even the most innocent text message if leaked. And none of them is guaranteed to have control over it.
Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption
#27It's such a pointless war on its own law-abiding citizens. It makes me sad. People that really care about privacy, people who need to hide what they do will not be majorly impacted. * The main threat is metadata anyways, not the data itself. Locating where you are (e.g. with millions of cameras and facial recognition) is a much worse threat. * They will still use full disk encryption, free software, PGP or AES, etc.…
I agree with most of what you wrote. Just one comment: > (e.g. with millions of cameras and facial recognition) The vast majority of CCTV in the UK is not networked, and owned by small private companies (e.g. your local corner store), and rarely store data long enough to be of use to anyone unless something sufficiently serious happens to cause a request to be made quickly. While there are areas covered by networked,…
Yes but although privately owned I believe quite a large number are managed remotely by a few large security monitoring companies. Anecdotally I've heard from contacts who work with the security services on defense research projects that these are very much accessible.
Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with most of what you wrote. Just one comment: > (e.g. with millions of cameras and facial recognition) The vast majority of CCTV in the UK is not networked, and owned by small private companies (e.g. your local corner store), and rarely store data long enough to be of use to anyone unless something sufficiently serious happens to cause a request to be made quickly. While there are areas covered by networked,…
UK is being watched by a network of 1.85m CCTV cameras. EDIT: Curious how stating a fact is worth downvotes. What am I missing?
You can't state facts that go against the hivemind here, otherwise a downvote will occur.
Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption
#29It is to an extent funny to think that governments think they can sit on top of communications and implement mass surveillance. If you make it illegal to encrypt your stuff, the knowledged/tech savvy people will start to work on using steganography. There will be an explosion of cat pictures in the Internet. Good luck finding the hideous cat :-)
All the government does now is inconvenience to the majority of citizens who they have nothing to worry about anyway.
Re: UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption
#30If I want to keep my communications encrypted online, I'm going to do so. The only people who won't have the same luxury as me are those that follow the law. I don't get it.
If encrypted communications are illegal, then anyone using them is an automatic target for investigation and the encryption itself may be probable cause to open up their lives and property. It's considerably more difficult to conceal the fact of encryption on the wire than (say) a gun in your home.
Encryption is not illegal, but even if it were then everyone should still use it, because not using it reveals much more information.
In a society were encryption is illegal or even seriously treated as "probable cause", then the authorities are likely to pick out anything in your day-to-day activities to use against you in an offensive legal process. So "not using encryption" is a fool's defense that makes literally zero rational sense - except from the perspective of a government psyops agent trying to spread FUD about encryption and discouraging its widespread adoption amongst the population.