31–40 of 205 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Boris Johnson is a backbench MP who rarely turns up for work
Unfortunately and remarkably — even when combined with "repeatedly lost jobs due to dishonesty" — that hasn't been sufficient for him to be rendered politically irrelevant.
I don’t know how they spin it (that is if at all they bother), or anyone else tries to explain it, it just doesn't make sense. It simply does not. I’d say it is worse or weirder than Firefox’s Pocket moment, but somehow on the same lines. I uninstalled Signal when that feature was released. I still install it now and then for an hour or so just to spin it, but earlier, whatever those few friends were on it, I used to try to use it. Now I don’t. Now for me Singal is just a useless relic.
Maybe it still works for Snowden and people who are at risk and I hope it keeps working for them. But if they are the only target audience then Signal is already irrelevant and they CAN BE replaced by that small target audience and them “walking” from UK or anywhere else for that matter really doesn’t matter.
> The government, and prominent child protection charities have long argued that encryption hinders efforts to combat online child abuse - which they say is a growing problem. So take using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. What they should be doing, is rather then increase the risk of for the majority who use encryption for valid reasons (privacy, not nefarious), is invest in services to allow individuals to gain help,…
Make no mistake: the Online Safety Bill has absolutely nothing to do with protecting children. End-to-end encryption is the first line of defence against government approved mass surveillance. If it falls, the rest will follow. It will only be a short period until the operation is expanded under the guise of additional "protections" against the citizens.
A huge educational campaign is necessary to convince people and the average politician that being pro-encryption doesn't mean being criminals or pedophiles. So it's a lost battle already, and the intelligence services everywhere know it's just a matter of time.
Eventually a pro-privacy activist will be found with child pornography and everybody will cheer and applaud any form of privacy-stripping law.
The children angle is insidious, and where the discussion keep devolving even in tech-savvy forums like this one, instead if seeing it's convenient and very effective marketing to hide anti-privacy goals.
> The government, and prominent child protection charities have long argued that encryption hinders efforts to combat online child abuse - which they say is a growing problem. So take using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. What they should be doing, is rather then increase the risk of for the majority who use encryption for valid reasons (privacy, not nefarious), is invest in services to allow individuals to gain help,…
> So take using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It is worse. Encryption does protect children instead of endangering them. So these "charities" aren't even doing their job.
https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/49376/documents/282...
> The government, and prominent child protection charities have long argued that encryption hinders efforts to combat online child abuse - which they say is a growing problem. So take using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. What they should be doing, is rather then increase the risk of for the majority who use encryption for valid reasons (privacy, not nefarious), is invest in services to allow individuals to gain help,…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know, man. After Brexit, it feels anything can happen.
Lots of bills people thought would never pass have. The recent legislation undermining of protests being one of them. I can see it happening too.
(I know the Commons can override the Lords if it wants to, but it's not at that stage yet)
Isn't this situation the entire purpose of Signal..? Don't they already operate in the most authoritarian countries in the world? I don't understand why they would walk.
You have to consider how this would happen. If the government bans E2EE, Apple and Google will have to ban E2EE from their UK stores. Apps like Signal will then have to make a choice. Either publish an app that does not use E2EE or get removed from the app stores. What Signal are saying is that they would accept the ban rather than publish an app with weakened encryption. Apple users will not be able to make their ow…
Recent update on WebKit about PWA, however, makes anything possible now on iOS devices.
https://webkit.org/blog/13878/web-push-for-web-apps-on-ios-a...
Technically you need browser anymore to run proper messaging apps.
Signal seems to have lost the plot, after everything that went down -- the exodus, sudden interest etc etc, right when they prioritised that crypto thing above everything else and actually released it. In my circle across 4 continents only one person knew about that damn crypto. Heard of it. That niche. But then maybe Signal is supposed to be “that niche”. I don’t know how they spin it (that is if at all they bother)…
> Critics say companies could be required by Ofcom to scan messages on encrypted apps for child sexual abuse material or terrorism content under the new law.
So, what's going on here? Is it going to be E2EE between user and user and then also a copy E2EE between user and the government? What a time to be alive.
Or is the law going to require them to scan encrypted messages for child abuse and terrorism content? Unless they are required to hand over the keys then... how is that going to work?
Signal seems to have lost the plot, after everything that went down -- the exodus, sudden interest etc etc, right when they prioritised that crypto thing above everything else and actually released it. In my circle across 4 continents only one person knew about that damn crypto. Heard of it. That niche. But then maybe Signal is supposed to be “that niche”. I don’t know how they spin it (that is if at all they bother)…
I use Signal every day to communicate with my friends. None of them is a software developer or a technical person. If you are not the target audience of Signal, it does not mean that nobody else is.