All they have to do is create a "user analytics package" which happens to read client side text. We would never know if it was implemented or not. Alternatively they can look at existing analytics packages and look at the dependency graph and take over one of those to capture the screen and read info.
We'd know by merely looking at the network tab in the web inspector.
Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime
71–80 of 281 posts
Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it would still be trivially easy for criminals to use it Maybe it's not about the criminals? Governments have a tendency to seek to increase control of citizens, surveillance being part of it. Saying it's about "tools for terrorists and child traffickers" is the traditional rethorical ploy no-one can argue against. You wouldn't want to protect child traffickers would you?
Beware, government is not those who command it. If there was some real democracy out there where citizens all should be actively implicated in the government (as opposed to supposedly delegate it), then what would it mean to have citizen wanting to increase control on citizen?
Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it would still be trivially easy for criminals to use it Maybe it's not about the criminals? Governments have a tendency to seek to increase control of citizens, surveillance being part of it. Saying it's about "tools for terrorists and child traffickers" is the traditional rethorical ploy no-one can argue against. You wouldn't want to protect child traffickers would you?
Beware, government is not those who command it. If there was some real democracy out there where citizens all should be actively implicated in the government (as opposed to supposedly delegate it), then what would it mean to have citizen wanting to increase control on citizen?
Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime
#741. How is this really different to government-mandated microphones and cameras in your house, school, workplace, etc? 2. What’s the endgame here? Open-source encrypted messaging software is widely available. The cat is out of the bag. Every country on Earth could outlaw the technology and it would still be trivially easy for criminals to use it. Do the people behind these proposals not see that?
> How is this really different to government-mandated microphones and cameras in your house, school, workplace, etc? The difference is that the infrastructure is in place and can be turned on at will so it feels within the reach of the people who think they deserved to do that. They think that deserve it because they believe that the job they do is the most important thing in the world and they can suddenly gain acce…
Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime
#751. How is this really different to government-mandated microphones and cameras in your house, school, workplace, etc? 2. What’s the endgame here? Open-source encrypted messaging software is widely available. The cat is out of the bag. Every country on Earth could outlaw the technology and it would still be trivially easy for criminals to use it. Do the people behind these proposals not see that?
The modern secret services are based on British Empire's model, itself an outgrowth of Elizabethan intelligence services.
The reason the "5+J eyes" -- btw, Israeli eyes don't count? -- insist on knowing everything about everyone in "the realm" is because Catholics and Protestants were having a very nasty, and very bloody, power struggle in England. The queen of england had reasons to fear her own subjects, and the "intelligence services" that supported her certainly viewed say 1/2 of the English population as potential enemies.
This is their mindset. Nothing will change this state of affairs until the current ruling set is booted, once and for all. They've had a multi-century run. Time to take a bow.
Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime
#76Frictionless E2EE at scale is cancerous on society and the FYEV/JP alliance know this all too well. As this subject has been iterated over many times, will keep this comment short. * FB deploying frictionless, unbreakable encryption at scale makes the job of law enforcement harder, and makes it easier for less sophisticated criminals to get away with conspiracies (a word which, by the way, simply refers to two or mor…
Do I want to make it harder for the law enforcement of the CCP occupation in Xinjiang to do their jobs? Hell yes. Law enforcement of the DPRK (North Korea)? Law enforcement of the Iranian regime? The law enforcement that lynched George Floyd and many other Black, Indigenous, and PoC Americans? What about the law enforcement that seizes people's cash in the airport without charging them with any crime? The Chicago law enforcement who terrorized public housing residents and profited off the drug trade, and operated a secretive detention site at Holman Yards that allegedly operated as a black site, not registering the names of inmates? The law enforcement of Bull Connor who brutalized civil rights protestors? Absolutely, I want to make their jobs harder.
Point is not to say that all law enforcement everywhere is bad--but rather, that it is quite often right and just to resist or frustrate the efforts of those who enforce a given law. Just like we have the right to bear arms and speak freely to check the power of unjust government, so too we need the right to secure communications in the digital age. It's good for the government to have to work hard to do their job--it will keep the resourced focused on real crimes that threaten our safety, not political, economic, and other crimes that have no victims.
> makes it easier for less sophisticated criminals to get away
Up until 2003 (!) it was a crime in some parts of the US to have intimacy in a same-sex relationship--and it still is today in 70+ countries, with the death penalty in 12.
In Thailand it is a crime to insult the king, and criticism of the state is criminalized de facto or de jure in countless other countries. In Iran, defense lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh was sentenced to 38 years and tortured for fairly and effectively defending clients when the regime violated its own constitution to punish them for political and religious crimes. Here in the US, another woman legal trailblazer, Lynne Stewart, was the subject of a surveillance campaign against her attorney-client communications for passing messages from her client, who was banned from all communication with the outside world under a SAM order, resulting in a 10-year prison sentence.
In North Korea, it is against the law for anyone to leave the country without an exit permit, which is not granted to civilians. In Saudi Arabia, women cannot leave the country without their wali's permission via a mobile app. Crossing the border without permission is a crime.
In fact, of all types of criminals, political and "morality" criminals tend to be the least sophisticated in terms of financial, technical, and social capital. The rich and powerful, whether or not they are on the right side of the law, won't be affected by this.
Someone like Epstein is more than capable of getting E2EE/secure communications, even if he doesn't understand a thing and has to pay a million dollars for someone to set it up for him. The Mexican drug cartels have their own network of cell towers (mostly atop existing towers they have illegally attached to) for their communications. Take that, lawful intercept. But everyday people whose only crime is having a prohibited opinion or identity will never be able to do that.
Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it's quite extreme view. Apps should protect users and police should seek to end crime. Only when these two needs cross we get something fair. If one side gives in we all lose.
Offering lawful access to widely deployed encryption is hardly an extreme view. Our IC and their partners, as well as our bureaucrats, are mostly in agreement. An extreme view might entail banning certain forms of math on the internet entirely, rather than simply regulating the widely deployed frictionless math.
Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
We'd know by merely looking at the network tab in the web inspector.
Only if you're the targeted person. Not everyone's text has to be forwarded. Not everyone has to get the same code either, so you'd have to check it every time.
Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime
#791. How is this really different to government-mandated microphones and cameras in your house, school, workplace, etc? 2. What’s the endgame here? Open-source encrypted messaging software is widely available. The cat is out of the bag. Every country on Earth could outlaw the technology and it would still be trivially easy for criminals to use it. Do the people behind these proposals not see that?
> How is this really different to government-mandated microphones and cameras in your house, school, workplace, etc? The difference is that the infrastructure is in place and can be turned on at will so it feels within the reach of the people who think they deserved to do that. They think that deserve it because they believe that the job they do is the most important thing in the world and they can suddenly gain acce…
Re: Five Eyes and Japan call for Facebook backdoor to monitor crime
#80five eyes is exactly what you would call the secret evil organization in a super robot anime