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UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

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Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#81

Post by calcifer »

KaiserPro wrote: post #43
adventured wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United Kingdom is a monarchy ruled by Queen Elizabeth (the mother of Andrew), even though the British people go far out of their way to pretend that's not the case. It's why Boris Johnson had to meet with the queen about forming a new government. Why is she involved at all? It's because she rules the United Kingdom in fact. Andrew's family rules Britain (for what, 1200 years? [1]), that's quite relevant to the co…

> Shall we pretend that the family that has ruled Britain for 1200 years has no political power? Har har. That's like saying the Church of England still has significant political power. it still has the ability to take tithes, although they are mostly optional. The present royal family only really dates back to victoria, I mean sure they are tangentially related to the german/dutch/scots/danish that ruled before, but…

> That's like saying the Church of England still has significant political power.

Yes, they have no political power except the 26 unelected, unaccountable bishops they have in the House of Lords, where every law must pass through.

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#82

Post by ashtonkem »

salawat wrote: post #60
mattlondon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The royal family has no involvement with the UK government. The queen is officially head of state, but in reality does what she is told by the current party in power (queen's speech is written for her for example).

The fact the Queen is exceedingly good at doing exactly what a Head of State should endeavor to do (not use power) does not mean they never will. Something to keep in mind. Especially with an informal Constitution. Not that a formal one makes much difference when the people who interpret it start doing mental gymnastics.

She uses power, we just don’t get to see it. She gets final review over any law that affects her estates before it’s submitted to parliment, which includes anything related to tax and employment law.

The whole “the queen is just this beloved and powerless figurehead” is propaganda.

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#83

Post by stjohnswarts »

FabHK wrote: post #22

If only some large tech company could come up with a way to deal with CSAM while still allowing for e2e... /s

Apple's plan was awful. How about there be no scanning at all? If you don't want your stuff scanned then don't put it on icloud or encrypt it before you put it there. I personally don't want scan-all-the-things policing software put on any of my devices. That should require a warrant at the least.

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#84

Post by stjohnswarts »

detaro wrote: post #74
FabHK wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram is not e2ee, by default, IIRC. You have to manually switch to an encrypted chat. Are those group chats typically e2ee?

Telegram doesn't support e2ee for group chats.

Yep, no way to make them encrypted.

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#85

Post by Kim_Bruning »

tobbob wrote: post #4

End to end encryption will surely make a government's task of protecting the public much harder. It allows paedos, terrorists and the like to communicate freely, and any efforts to track what they're up to must be an absolute nightmare. The problem is, getting rid of encryption is replacing a bad situation with a disastrous situation. If you ban locks so the government can obtain access to the house of a terrorist, i…

E2E encryption is a form of security. It also protects the victims of these people; and it protects the police. So the question is not black and white, but more about shifting the balance between different people. And in this case I'm not sure it'd shift it in the right direction.

Drug dealers might be able to intercept police communications and be long gone. Pedophiles might be able to more easily track down their (next) victims. And terrorist groups tend to invest more and more in hacking units, and weakened defenses for police, off duty soldiers, and civilian targets can't possibly be a good idea.

Finally the big one is state level actors using weaknesses in encryption to attack, impersonate, and undermine politicians; spearphish infrastructure and communications personnel, and just cause all-round havoc.

In short, to paraphrase Franklin: Those who give up essential security to purchase a little security, err... end up with no security at all?

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#86

Post by JetSetWilly »

ashtonkem wrote: post #82
salawat wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact the Queen is exceedingly good at doing exactly what a Head of State should endeavor to do (not use power) does not mean they never will. Something to keep in mind. Especially with an informal Constitution. Not that a formal one makes much difference when the people who interpret it start doing mental gymnastics.

She uses power, we just don’t get to see it. She gets final review over any law that affects her estates before it’s submitted to parliment , which includes anything related to tax and employment law. The whole “the queen is just this beloved and powerless figurehead” is propaganda.

Indeed, I recall the stink when this came out: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/28/queen-secret...

She used "Queen's consent" to make sure she is the only person in Scotland who is exempted from a law designed to cut carbon emissions.

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#87

Post by stjohnswarts »

tobbob wrote: post #4

End to end encryption will surely make a government's task of protecting the public much harder. It allows paedos, terrorists and the like to communicate freely, and any efforts to track what they're up to must be an absolute nightmare. The problem is, getting rid of encryption is replacing a bad situation with a disastrous situation. If you ban locks so the government can obtain access to the house of a terrorist, i…

If you want your communications to go to the government, I suggest you make a zip file and send it off to them. Personally I don't think any phone, tech device, or anything else should have spying software on it. It should require a specific warrant for a person, place, and time limit. The government has Far Too Much power already, we don't need to give it any more. Sure it allows criminals to do crime but it also allows the rest of us to carry on our lives without being spied on at every turn.

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#88

Post by lotsofpulp »

tjpnz wrote: post #11

Any insights as to why the big players are implementing E2E while ignoring P2P? Is this a control issue or purely related to technical challenges?

In the US, people have meager upload bandwidth. I assume to deliver a comparable experience as serving from the cloud, P2P would require much more upload bandwidth for individuals.

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#89

Post by unethical_ban »

ben_w wrote: post #34
stephen_g wrote: post #2

Those stunts sound super creepy and messed up. Weird, manipulative campaign. This shouldn't really be legal surely in democracies to have campaigns that "appear to be the result of grassroots campaigns and children's charities, while downplaying any Government involvement", when it's a political manipulation campaign paid for, coordinated and organised by the Government themselves. I really hope the counter-campaign…

Sadly, this isn’t the first case of the U.K. government going for something this super creepy. I’ve personally seen London’s “Secure Beneath the Watchful Eyes” posters, which are felt like a parody by its own opponents to discredit it: https://mindhacks.com/2007/01/09/secure-beneath-the-watchful...

"In a Godless society, Government creates the panopticon."

Or something. It sounds profound.

Re: UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

#90

Post by alkonaut »

steelstraw wrote: post #80
alkonaut wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US let authorities invent and market an encrypted communication tool, tricking criminals into using it (and surely some non criminals). In many ways I much prefer that, to the UK thing…

Which ones are compromised? Or conversely, which ones are not compromised? Signal?

The one FBI orchestrated was “Anom”.

https://www.engadget.com/fbi-encrypted-chat-app-anom-crimina...

I’m not sure why criminals use these botique services rather than sticking with the major ones.

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