I wonder how the public in the UK feels about their country quickly devolving into an oversurveilled state.
There are a bunch of things the public doesn't seem to care about until it is too late.
Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
21–30 of 299 posts
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#22"Developers of apps that use end-to-end encryption to protect private communications could be considered hostile actors in the UK." <-- What about HTTPS, the thing that secures most websites especially banking sites. Old farts making laws about things they know nothing about! FFS
It sounds like the KC appointed to review it is doing his job, at least.
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#23This is a terrible headline, despite being the original.
The "watchdog" is a KC (senior barrister) officially appointed to review the legislation. He's warning that this could be considered hostile activity under the act, which would be a bad thing. In other words, he's criticising the act for being overly broad, a view that most on HN agree with, and his criticisms of it presumably carry some weight, given his official role.
As usual, this has provoked a load of ill-informed knee-jerk rants about the UK government from people who didn't read past the headline. This act is an absolute stinker, but let's maybe criticise what's actually happening rather than some imagined cartoon variant of it.
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#24I wonder how the public in the UK feels about their country quickly devolving into an oversurveilled state.
Remember, remember, the fifth of November…
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#25> He warns that developers of apps like Signal and WhatsApp could technically fall within the legal definition of "hostile activity" simply because their technology "make[s] it more difficult for UK security and intelligence agencies to monitor communications. Sounds like Let's Encrypt would also fall under that. This has got to stop. If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites, not the stree…
> This has got to stop. If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites, not the streets they walk on.
That would be against everything european governments stand for.
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#26It makes a lot of sense. Whoever wants to continue developing "these apps" will do it privately, and sell the service to those who want to keep doing things in hiding. Well done, watchdog! So again, it just harms the general public, while making it harder to catch criminals.
Actually it opens them up to being phished by the government. There have been several high profile cases where because of searching for custom communication services, groups ended up being vulnerable.
How many cases have there been of groups successfully finding and use private communication services?
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#27I wonder how the public in the UK feels about their country quickly devolving into an oversurveilled state.
1984 is used as a manual
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#28> He warns that developers of apps like Signal and WhatsApp could technically fall within the legal definition of "hostile activity" simply because their technology "make[s] it more difficult for UK security and intelligence agencies to monitor communications. Sounds like Let's Encrypt would also fall under that. This has got to stop. If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites, not the stree…
> This has got to stop. If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites, not the streets they walk on. That would be against everything european governments stand for.
> That would be against everything european governments stand for.
I really struggle to understand why the hell this is always only applied to european governments? The idea to take 1984 as a book of requirements seems to extend *far* beyond europe.
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#29I think there is a point to this. I’m not saying I’m a fan. But the reality is that it is too simple to communicate secretly, and the government has an interest in protecting its citizens. This is true in many aspects. (Health, technology, electronics, traffic)
Btw. The https communication comparison does not hold, there is always a third party that can read what you say. E2E chats are effectively communication where evidence is instantly destroyed.
Want to have a private communication, I think offline is the right approach.
I agree that it sucks, but it’s probably not about you. It’s about nefarious people that use this as an uber advantage.
Re: Independent review of UK national security law warns of overreach
#30Soon in the UK: "That photo you took looks too noisy. You could be hiding data in it!"