Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 394 posts

Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable

#371

Post by megous »

cperciva wrote: post #326
megous wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's no single law. Is there a law in Somalia that allows US killing arbitrary people there, unilaterally? Is there such a law in Yemen? Syria? In Syria if you follow the letter of the law, and intention of the (idiot) leader there, he's against the US involvement, it would be a murder. What law was in Vietnam, that killing was somehow justified by it?

In international arena, there's no universal law.

Some idiots killed a few thousands Americans, and then some Americans did go on a killing rampage as a revenge, murdering 10s of thousands mostly unrelated people. That's about how it looks from the outside.

Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable

#372

Post by DanBC »

brokenmachine wrote: post #364
DanBC wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's absolutely no evidence he had mental illness, and you do harm to people with mental illness when you incorrectly link violent behaviour to mental illness. More important is his time in prison - where most UK terrorists were radicalised - and if you were saying that UK prisons don't rehabilitate I'd agree.

"absolutely no evidence"... except the random crazy violent act against innocent strangers that made international headlines. It's a bit odd to pretend those are the actions of a well-adjusted, sane person.

Most violent people do not have mental illness.

You cause harm to people with mental illness when you ignorantly link violence to mental illness.

Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable

#373

Post by danmaz74 »

nicky0 wrote: post #369
danmaz74 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what I meant or wish. But it's a (for me sad) fact that at that point the expression "compared to the other EU countries" won't have any sense anymore. And if May will go with hard Brexit, as many predict, it will even become easier to trade with eg Canada than with the UK.

You can say "compared to the other European countries" instead. It has the bonus of being more inclusive! No longer will your statement exclude Norway, Switzerland etc.

Depending on context, this comparison may or may not make sense. Keep in mind that Norway and Switzerland are both part of the single market, which the UK will probably opt out of (as it would require the free movement of workers).

Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable

#374

Post by tscs37 »

pjc50 wrote: post #300
sergior wrote: post #272

Earlier 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…

> People who will want to conceal contents of their messages could still send them encrypted via WhatsApp or other platform Even if posession of encrypted messages without the ability to decrypt carries a 10 year prison sentence? (Yes, this has serious enforceability problems, but that doesn't mean it can't become law)

If you have a suicide-bomber, I doubt they will care much about the 10 year prison sentence.

The "Terrorists" really don't care about the law or the prison sentence behind breaking it.

Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable

#375

Post by framp »

pjc50 wrote: post #367
clubm8 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will you prove what I possess is encrypted data and not random bits?

No, how will you prove that it's random data and not encrypted data? What if you're ordered to provide a password to decrypt it or go to jail? https://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2017/02/justice-naps-m... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25745989

Deniable encryption

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-540-77566-...

Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable

#376

Post by toyg »

kbart wrote: post #365
toyg wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand: China.

China just reinforces the parent comment. How many online services do you use from China?

China is doing just fine, economically speaking. When they first implemented the Great Firewall, a lot of people predicted it wouldn't last under economic pressure. 20 years later, and it's still going strong. That was my point.

The lack of adoption of Chinese services elsewhere has more to do with cultural and technological issues than anything related to censorship.

Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable

#377

Post by guilhas »

natch wrote: post #351
guilhas wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can ask the same. Why should a suspected rapist, assassin, drug dealer, corrupt politician, be free or unjustly imprisoned, because of lack of evidence? Do you think we should help criminals? Nowadays here are other more efective ways, than encrypted WhatsApp (secrecy), to fight bad governments and ridiculous laws. North Korea and Saudi Arabia are obviously very extreme examples. Internet encryption must be the lea…

I like how you leap from "suspected" to "Do you think we should help criminals?" North Korea and Saudi Arabia and China and the UK would claim that their justice systems are working just fine. As would my local sheriff jurisdiction where they can't even manage to hire anybody who bothers to do so much as use turn signals. If they can't even manage to do that tiny thing, greatest country on earth or no, I don't trust…

It was the same leap you made with > "Saudi Arabia punishes rape victims. We should help with that?"

There is no temptation if they need a warrant issued by judge authorizing for the officer to request to the company information related with that suspect. Upon which the company might charge administrative costs to handle the request.

I am saying suspect of a crime committed or with complaint filed against. As stated before I am against mass surveillance and crime "prediction". Even terrorism is a small problem compared with economic/political corruption.

Otherwise the governments might block applications. Or secretly spy on us, with the company help if needed. All done without any supervision.

Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable

#378

Post by guilhas »

natch wrote: post #349
guilhas wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can ask the same. Why should a suspected rapist, assassin, drug dealer, corrupt politician, be free or unjustly imprisoned, because of lack of evidence? Do you think we should help criminals? Nowadays here are other more efective ways, than encrypted WhatsApp (secrecy), to fight bad governments and ridiculous laws. North Korea and Saudi Arabia are obviously very extreme examples. Internet encryption must be the lea…

>Why should a suspected rapist, assassin, drug dealer, corrupt politician, be free or unjustly imprisoned, because of lack of evidence? "suspected" That includes you, so... be careful.

If the suspect definition is wrong should be changed. Of course I am not aware how.

But I cannot feel safe just because one application company is saying everything is encrypted.

I am just afraid the day security is so good, there will be no more corruption leaks, and the ruling classes can do whatever they want with total privacy.

My unfair imprisonment is less important, than a fair imprisonment of a corrupt politician. I think...

Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable

#379

Post by SubiculumCode »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #294
SubiculumCode wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose we came upon a time where some new technology had emerged allowing anyone with an average intelligence to be able to create a virulent bio weapon from materials so​ common and available that their restriction is impossible. In this world, we are almost surely doomed, but perhaps the only hope for survival on earth (ignore space diaspora for the moment) would be from instituting an all pervasive surveilance pr…

Disagree should not equal downvote.

Obviously there are some really passionate freedom lovers here verging on fundalmentalists; will brook no alternative viewpoints from even being hypothesized.

Re: UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable

#380

Post by Silhouette »

daemin wrote: post #370
Silhouette wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure, but wouldn't it be nice if the interviewer at least challenged the assumption that such measures do protect people overall? Leaving aside the question of whether there would be any benefit in the case of attacks like the one we saw last week, which is debatable in itself, there's also the question of whether the reduced security would do more harm than good. The interviewer could explore the impact of onlin…

The media can't really challenge the government any more, unless the government has done something truly unpopular. If they do challenge on something which doesn't have strong public opinion then they [the media] risk losing interview and access rights to the politicians.

On the other hand, if you're just being a free mouthpiece for whatever politician is on your show anyway because you're not allowed to actually interview them, you might as well tell them to take a hike and present real news and analysis instead, or go for satire. Heck, if the alternative was just letting politicians repeat whatever they want unchallenged, you could do a whole show presenting "alternative facts" and you still wouldn't be any worse off.
Post reply on HN