1y ago

Today The UK Parliament Undermined The Privacy, Security, And Freedom Of All Internet Users

www.eff.org Today The UK Parliament Undermined The Privacy, Security, And Freedom Of All Internet Users

The U.K. Parliament has passed the Online Safety Bill (OSB), which says it will make the U.K. “the safest place” in the world to be online. In reality, the OSB will lead to a much more censored, locked-down internet for British users. The bill could empower the government to undermine not just the p...

19 comments

Well, the UK already left the EU, and now they are leaving the internet, too.
No End-to-End encryption? Well, that would mean no HTTPS either if you take it seriously. Which would mean no secure internet for anything: For banking, for shopping, for dealing with any forms requiring privacy, no way to log in to about any site on the internet with basic security enabled.

Just means most encrypted chat apps will pull of of their market even Apple said the would so no FaceTime or iMessage coming soon to UK citizens. Also what really sucks for them is the syncing of messaging between other Apple devices would most likely have to be disabled as well.
- I'm just waiting with baited breath to see how far this goes. It's astounding, it's incomprehensible that we would even entertain the idea of backdooring e2e.
  
  That's bated breath btw. Unless you're tryna catch something with your CO2.
- It feels so wrong to be rooting for Big Tech, but I really want them to just pull the plug and watch the UK react
- If, for example, Signal pulls of of their market, how can you force people not to use it? Signal never had office or any legal representation in my country and I'm using it?
  What does that mean "pull of of their market" for some app you can download and use as you wish?
  
  Easiest way is prevent download of the app from the App Store based on your region especially on iOS that is hard to get around.

So despite what Cory Doctorow said at DEF CON, it seems the government isn't actually saving us?
- This is specifically a UK problem. The Tories have been trying to do absolutely removed things with banning encryption for a long time now.
  
  Unrelated beyond the Tories being removed with banning things for no real reason: I've just discovered that they've effectively banned the sale of sodium hydroxide (drain cleaner) and potassium hydroxide (used to make soap), before I could buy them on eBay or get the sodium hydroxide at any super market, but now I have to go via a chemical supply company, taking literal weeks, and paying £7 for 100g of sodium hydroxide, where I used to be able to get 500g for £2.
  They're scum for an endless list of things but this has really annoyed me.

How to contact your MP: https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-an-mp-or-lord/contact-your-mp/
- Problem is they want an address, I don't feel comfortable giving my address now for fear of being noted down as an encryption user. This has been used in France to accuse people of crimes.
  
  This has been used in France to accuse people of crimes.
  I'm intersted about that, do you have an article speaking of that or anything?

FreedomBox facilities installation of a end-to-end encryption chat server Matrix which is compatible with Element.
FreedomBox is Debian FOSS that also supports Let's Encrypt for HTTPS encryption. The goal of FreedomBox is to permit setup via only the webUI which it mostly gets right.
Chatting via Element this way is nice since you're self-hosting the service and not relying upon a centralized server that could required a backdoor. I highly recommend it.

Brexit and now this… 🤦🏾‍♂️

19 comments