The relevant discussion is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yIPuHsB8q8
UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable
321–330 of 394 posts
Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
My point is, there is nothing wrong with pushing a slot machine's buttons, even if it is done in a way that defeats the RNG. The difference between this and counting cards in a game of Black Jack is, the RNG can easily be fixed to prevent this. You provided it as an example of "organized crime", and doing so heavily suggests that it is wrong. We tend to conflate "wrong" and "unlawful", and for good reason: the law is…
My argument is that even small organized crime groups were capabale of sophisticated operations so it's absolutely not far-fetched to assume that they may be able to implement end-to-end encryption apps. Whether this "organized crime" is "wrong" does not make much difference. It might be even easier to find people to implement it as not many would have moral issues. Speaking of moral issues, cheating on casino is pre…
OK, so our disagreement is very simple: exploiting the flaws of a slot machine is not cheating in my book. Neither is counting cards now that I think of it.
The rules for slot machines are ostensibly very simple. As long as you're only pushing the buttons that are supposed to be pushed without deteriorating them, you are acting within the rules of the slot machine, and as such cannot cheat.
The presence of hidden rules such as "don't push the buttons in this particular order and timing", or "don't push the buttons in a way that reliably causes you to win", are just silly and unfair. Especially considering casinos are exploiting gamblers' minds in the first place. Don't like slot machine exploiters? Fix your slot machines.
Likewise for counting cards: the player is merely acting upon information naturally gathered buy observation and play. Asking players not to act upon such information is intrusive —and unheard of in competitive play. Don't like card counters? Invest in a continuous shuffling machine.
Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable
#323I assume someone has already brought this up, but it is late and I can't read through 300 comments. From what I recall and have read, this individual has been on the radar of the security services since 2010 and so was a known potential threat. With a history of violence and criminal behavior. Yet effective monitoring of such individuals WAS NOT DONE and apparently isn't. Instead, there is this post-hoc demand that all of the public must give up their right to privacy because the idea of 'pre-crime' prevention is actually viable...
complete and utter bollocks.
So a blanket violation of law abiding citizens rights is more important than actually keeping tabs on known threats more closely and effectively. Pedophiles are viewed with less disdain than terrorists it seems. And the threat of terrorism is trumpeted to the heavens while pedophilia is apparently more rampant is UK society...
It is quite illogical that law abiding people suddenly snap and decide to drive their cars into groups of tourists. How prevalent are the actual potential terrorists - i.e. those with a history of violence, trouble with the law, radicalization, etc? If I knew those stats, then I personally would be better able to judge the claims of the authorities. But I don't have those stats and so the logical assumption is that their claims are exaggerated shite designed to drum up fear and etc etc. Meanwhile idiotic claims that all encryption must be banned or tapped, even for law abiding businesses (does no one remember Cameron's proposals?) are floated... nothing but Band-aids all the way down.
I could move back to America, but at this point, that is like jumping out of the frying pan. I really need to learn a second language, preferably Mongolian.
Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
My argument is that even small organized crime groups were capabale of sophisticated operations so it's absolutely not far-fetched to assume that they may be able to implement end-to-end encryption apps. Whether this "organized crime" is "wrong" does not make much difference. It might be even easier to find people to implement it as not many would have moral issues. Speaking of moral issues, cheating on casino is pre…
OK, so our disagreement is very simple: exploiting the flaws of a slot machine is not cheating in my book. Neither is counting cards now that I think of it. The rules for slot machines are ostensibly very simple. As long as you're only pushing the buttons that are supposed to be pushed without deteriorating them, you are acting within the rules of the slot machine, and as such cannot cheat. The presence of hidden rul…
"The presence of hidden rules..." except they are not hidden. IANAL and don't have link at hand, but there was recently a legally pretty well based argument in a case of a player who had an assitant able of recognizing cards from the back pattern.
"you're only pushing the buttons" except they were not only pushing a button, they were also recording sequences and sending them abroad for analysis.
But as you directly say that exploiting the flaws of a slot machine is not cheating and that it's fair, I guess I won't be able to persuade you otherwise.
Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't have to, because it is already written and fairly easy to use. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to encrypt a message using asymmetric cryptography, that will be difficult - if possible to break. People who will want to conceal contents of their messages could still send them encrypted via WhatsApp or other platform regardless if there is a backdoor or not. UK Home Secretary has just displayed unprece…
And you have just displayed a high level of social incompetence. How this will manifest in practice is not the UK government attempting to outlaw mathematics, but UK judges being instructed to accept the fact of encryption usage as circumstantial evidence of criminal liability in prosecutions. That is to say, if all your communications are encrypted, that can be treated as probable cause for arrest and detention, or…
"John Oliver: Edward Snowden dick pic". That's how you explain it to the public.
Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
You just called a lot of really honorable people murderers. Murder is unjust killing. Killing civilians to make a point or to cause chaos is, by definition, murder. Let's not equate that with all the legitimate things armed forces are for.
Sorry, many soldiers are murderers. There's clear intention to kill. And justification does not happen simply because some idiot in power tells someone to go kill other people for political reasons. And coalition is also killing civilians for political reasons, more than thousand of them a month ATM. It is obviously calculated. It's just that someone determined murdering perhaps 5-10 thousands civilians is a OK to gi…
Murder is, by definition, an unlawful killing.
Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable
#327Poorly timed opportunism. Police have said the attacker acted alone, so he wasn't using encrypted comms to talk to anyone.
He sent a message 2 mins before the attack, and they want to know what that message was and who it was sent to, in case he wasn't acting alone.
However, can't they already find out who the message was sent to? Whatsapp obviously has to have that information, and it appears they will give it to law enforcement:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/01/22/whats...
I'm not sure that knowing the contents of that message will really help more than knowing the person who it was sent to.
It seems that they had this guy on their radar a few years ago, but didn't think he was worth keeping an eye on, so even if they could decrypt whatsapp messages it wouldn't really have helped them.
Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable
#328We're a very long way from being a totalitarian state and likely to remain so for quite some time but, make no mistake, this is the thin end of a very long and ultimately very fat wedge. It therefore behooves us well to hold the government to account when they try to get us to swallow more of that wedge. Sure, encryption helps terrorists as well as ordinary citizens but it's my belief that freedom and privacy are mor…
Every time a person in a position of power calls for the intentional weakening of cryptographic systems - be it via backdoors, limits on key length or whatever, I long for a gutsy interviewer to ask them - preferably live - whether they advocate that position out of ignorance or malice. There really aren't many other alternatives.
More likely they would say they want to do it because it would be "helping the police and security services to do their job" and be "protecting the people".
Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable
#329We're a very long way from being a totalitarian state and likely to remain so for quite some time but, make no mistake, this is the thin end of a very long and ultimately very fat wedge. It therefore behooves us well to hold the government to account when they try to get us to swallow more of that wedge. Sure, encryption helps terrorists as well as ordinary citizens but it's my belief that freedom and privacy are mor…
I'm not sure that's even true. This seems more like a clipper chip moment, and more than being the beginning of a slippery slope, it made the government a laughing stock and probably sped up the pivot to encryption. This too will fail spectacularly.
Even looking at the recent Westminster attack, is it realistic to think that monitoring of his WhatsApp messages would have prevented anything from happening? Was he already under surveillance? Could the attacker really have written anything so specific and unequivocal that it would have actually made police go to Westminster and stop his car? Police with limited resources can't just go investigating everyone who sends messages, so I doubt it would have helped anyway.
I hope you're right, but I don't think so.
The next time there is an attack, I don't think there will be an outcry that the all-pervasive surveillance has failed us, only an outcry against the terrorists (who, let's face it, are the real offenders).
Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable
#330We're a very long way from being a totalitarian state and likely to remain so for quite some time but, make no mistake, this is the thin end of a very long and ultimately very fat wedge. It therefore behooves us well to hold the government to account when they try to get us to swallow more of that wedge. Sure, encryption helps terrorists as well as ordinary citizens but it's my belief that freedom and privacy are mor…
Every time a person in a position of power calls for the intentional weakening of cryptographic systems - be it via backdoors, limits on key length or whatever, I long for a gutsy interviewer to ask them - preferably live - whether they advocate that position out of ignorance or malice. There really aren't many other alternatives.
I would rather interviewers asked if that means that Jo Public should also be allowed the tools to read the politicians private messages as well.
I'm all for a Utopian society where nobody needs to encrypt private messages, but so long as there are people in power who feel they need special treatment, then I will continue to demand the same level privacy as them.