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Real people don't need end-to-end encryption says UK Home Secretary

uk.businessinsider.com

21–30 of 92 posts

Re: Real people don't need end-to-end encryption says UK Home Secretary

#21

Dear UK secretary: your department lost credibility to talk about "real people" needs when the UK police helped Murdoch's "News of the World" to hack into "real people" phones. But I don't expect you to understand your own responsibilities so let's just wait until Vladimir Putin hacks into any server containing your private information. Then UK politicians will understand.

Nah, she's an "important" politician, so she's not "real people", she's allowed to use encryption. Phone hacking? Well celebs are not real people either, they should be able to apply to use encryption, in her mind.

Re: Real people don't need end-to-end encryption says UK Home Secretary

#22

> Real people often prefer ease of use and a multitude of features to perfect, unbreakable security. So this is not about asking the companies to break encryption or create so called "back doors". Who uses WhatsApp because it is end-to-end encrypted, rather than because it is an incredibly user-friendly and cheap way of staying in touch with friends and family? Companies are constantly making trade-offs between secur…

Actually I think it's a pretty devious argument. This is effectively saying that most people value convenience over security & privacy. Given the track record of corporate surveillance and ad supported content this is absolutely correct. After all WhatsApp users are already OK with Facebook collecting their metadata for advertising purposes.

>After all WhatsApp users are already OK with Facebook collecting their metadata for advertising purposes

They aren't either OK or not OK. The overwhelming majority of WhatsApp users simply don't know. They don't even think about it. In fact, the average user doesn't even know that WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, or even that it used to be a paid subscription

Re: Real people don't need end-to-end encryption says UK Home Secretary

#24
Basically she's saying chat apps in the UK shouldn't be allowed end-to-end encryption.

So the terrorists will setup a chat system that look like payments.

In the mean-time, the UK government will use our chat to identify harmless political dissidents, groom them online and then fail to incite them to violence. Given previous performance, they will meet some of their targets, get a few pregnant and then get sued 20 years later when someone reports on how idiotic the police and spies really can be while everyone sane scratches their heads about the targeted pro-solar-power "terrorists", who happened to piss off Lord McOil who had a quiet chat with his Eton buddy in GCHQ which got them classified as dangerous.

After 5 years, Boris, our new PM, will decide to give government departments access to find benefit cheats and illegal immigrants. The system they'll build will cost more than they recoup and will be a drop in the bucket compared to what they could have recovered if they had spent 1/10th of that money chasing rich tax dodgers.

A couple of years later, they will give councils access to the whole country's chat to try and catch some fly-tippers.

In this time, the civil servants will actually use the system to stalk ex-girlfriends, random crushes and celebrities or spy on wives and husbands.

Eventually, some civil servant will accidentally leave a hyper-storage-cube on the bus containing the last 5 years of everyone's chat and it'll turn up on 4chan.

The resulting misery and damage will be justified by the government because they once caught a "terrorist" who was standing in the street screaming "Allah is great" and stabbed a policeman. In reality he was a normal guy who had suffered from Bipolar Disorder but the NHS couldn't afford to treat him and classified him low risk, so ended up having a breakdown.

Re: Real people don't need end-to-end encryption says UK Home Secretary

#25
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has shown with the NSA and FISA courts that a constitution will not prevent practices like this.

It's a necessary but not a sufficient condition. That doesn't make it useless.

I think the US proves that the "constitution" as any mechanism for safety is absurd. It's ignored or abused when it's convenient.

Re: Real people don't need end-to-end encryption says UK Home Secretary

#26
post #12

The problem is largely the UK's lack of a constitution. There are no checks or balances in the UK. Parliament can literally do anything they want. The courts can't block Parliament. Parliament can just abolish the courts. The house of lords can't stop the house of commons, the commons can just override the lords. The queen won't veto the commons because she fears parliament will just abolish the monarchy.

You should check out Venezuela's constitution

Re: Real people don't need end-to-end encryption says UK Home Secretary

#27
post #12

The problem is largely the UK's lack of a constitution. There are no checks or balances in the UK. Parliament can literally do anything they want. The courts can't block Parliament. Parliament can just abolish the courts. The house of lords can't stop the house of commons, the commons can just override the lords. The queen won't veto the commons because she fears parliament will just abolish the monarchy.

As an anecdote related to this, there is a law that came into force in the UK in 2009 which made illegal drawings showing fictional characters who appear to be under 18 engaging in sex, or in the presence of sex. A similar law came into force in the United States (the PROTECT act), and it was stricken down by SCOTUS because a clause making illegal drawn pornography turns out (unsurprisingly) to violate the constitutional to free speech. Currently there are about 20 prosecutions per annum (and it is rising) under this law in the UK. I don't think this truly hideous law will be stricken down by a court (even the ECHR, which is May's sworn enemy) nor will it be repealed by parliament, because nobody cares about disgusting speech.

Re: Real people don't need end-to-end encryption says UK Home Secretary

#28
post #12

The problem is largely the UK's lack of a constitution. There are no checks or balances in the UK. Parliament can literally do anything they want. The courts can't block Parliament. Parliament can just abolish the courts. The house of lords can't stop the house of commons, the commons can just override the lords. The queen won't veto the commons because she fears parliament will just abolish the monarchy.

I'm really not trying to be pedantic, but that's not true. The UK has no written constitution but it does have a constitution. It's important to make the distinction because it is entirely possible that this proposal is unconstitutional (and I wonder if that's why the Home Secretary is asking for companies to voluntarily adopt it rather than passing legislation).

It smells unconstitutional to me because it is an attack on individual sovereignty and the right to privacy. I would love to hear an expert or two give their opinion on the matter.

Re: Real people don't need end-to-end encryption says UK Home Secretary

#29

Basically she's saying chat apps in the UK shouldn't be allowed end-to-end encryption. So the terrorists will setup a chat system that look like payments. In the mean-time, the UK government will use our chat to identify harmless political dissidents, groom them online and then fail to incite them to violence. Given previous performance, they will meet some of their targets, get a few pregnant and then get sued 20 ye…

:) The Black Mirror of HN comments

Re: Real people don't need end-to-end encryption says UK Home Secretary

#30
post #26
post #12

The problem is largely the UK's lack of a constitution. There are no checks or balances in the UK. Parliament can literally do anything they want. The courts can't block Parliament. Parliament can just abolish the courts. The house of lords can't stop the house of commons, the commons can just override the lords. The queen won't veto the commons because she fears parliament will just abolish the monarchy.

You should check out Venezuela's constitution

You should check out Israel's.
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