1y ago

The U.K. Government Is Very Close To Eroding Encryption Worldwide

www.eff.org The U.K. Government Is Very Close To Eroding Encryption Worldwide

The U.K. Parliament is pushing ahead with a sprawling internet regulation bill that will, among other things, undermine the privacy of people around the world. The Online Safety Bill, now at the final stage before passage in the House of Lords, gives the British government the ability to force backd...

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Can't you guys tell your MPs to get that shit out of here?
- Oh believe me we will, but we have to wait for them to call an election (likely autumn 2024). They're roundly despised and they know it. They're just milking as much as they can before they're flung out of Parliament.
  They're a disgrace.
  
  Which makes you wonder what the point in this bill even is. They will barely get an opportunity to make use of it.
  
  Is there any indication that Labour would be any better on this particular issue?

Tell me that pushing this sort of 1984 inspired stuff wasn't one of the reasons for Brexit.
- It was.
  
  Username checks out
  
  They said tell them "it wasn't"!

Apple has said they’ll pull out of UK if required. I won’t use any software that abides.
- Apple are operating in China by caving in to the government. I don't think they'll be more radical with the UK.
  
  I ~~might~~ be cynical af but I believe China is a market they can't ignore, but the UK, well...they can afford to send a message there. With some quick google-fu it looks like Apple sells more iPhones about every 8 days than it sells in the UK in a year. That's comparing 2023 numbers for China to 2019 numbers in the UK for the record, I'm too lazy to look past the first few links really, and doubt that math would change enough to ruin the point.
  They also wouldn't pull out of the UK, they would likely just revert to SMS there in the messages app rather than give the UK a back door into their encryption.

This is why I'm worried about Signal. Signal is designed as a central service, which means its easy to block/kill. If similar laws are brought to the country Signal operates from then it could be shutdown. Centralized applications are easy to monetize and easy to kill.
- Alternatives that aren’t so obscure you can’t get your family/friends to switch?
  
  Perfect doesn't have to be the enemy of good. Signal is Good, it could be better. There is a architectural weakness. There will be some other messenger that ticks all the boxes in the future, hopefully they will take what signal has done and continue to improve it.
  Signal is the easy for adoption because of the phone number as identity, but its weak because of the centralization. Its currently the best option. I don't want to spend effort moving normal people to Briar or Session until its absolutely necessary, or those applications improve the onboarding experience.
  https://www.securemessagingapps.com/
  
  SimpleX is the new thing to watch imo. Even protects your metadata while still feeling modern and compfortable
  
  Simplex chat is the only one I was able to popularize and its based in the UK

Is there anything we can do about it?
- Refuse to use any software that bows to this bullshit.
  
  Keep using software that doesn't bow. Let them struggle to enforce any encryption ban. Safety in numbers.
- I think Mental Outlaw did a video on this. He said we should use foss forks of projects or something.

Oh wow, the great UK really seems to love to show the world how advanced they are. Decrypt this then 🙄
Password is only 8 characters.
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
jA0ECQMIg4RgH82c4/j+0sC6ASlYlE5UsjX2pJ7EL+c/XvjBdn2sfeaWyVZQenMW h+eMDp4vCSbhvVHpzVjwo0mJVKyLnINzjelRVQH0mPBuvs8wsGPitJ04xkixBrEI j/BDvunCqQHKh2rDSbqubuA64+74Zg2FqGsAgnTrxfK/78AFPfL1jM4GODxLt5IT duxVd06lE/zqJmhBL0uInovdKRsOjDoueHJBeXOSFpfYCoUcQsNkcOCZ7XiaaQus CUKVs1nCHWQZtjlRTxUzBRjkNFFVumXY+XI2S35ER8FveB6LdL0bqWCsJxSVUCMb +G3v5ckD/dvxVCrjxfeA4Xlvvk5ivZwsmkaWLz0KUl8tooxD3LBmbU3OTZ27sRxW SgTwGewFgxDTAlcbKaW46WI/Stbs3knYc2rQbMpu/DHqjz2GsYBENXOZEMYCnNtB tgRj6I5IqPieP2ZHUBXu8/ijL6Kl6UxKRtit7m0kttCfFWY8a1yhRfXGn57ZByxi Tj8jFHypznwgpSTE =cl6h -----END PGP MESSAGE-----
- Oi M8 do you have a loicense for that Encryption? No? Well then, pay the foine or be branded a terrurist within the Five Eyes. /s
  
  how can you even prove that it’s something encrypted and not random text?
  I’m not sure how you can “ban encryption” lol
- Give us the password, or it's two years in the clink for you me old matey.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000
  Five years if you look like a nonce or a Muslim.

When it isn't the USA it's their daddy Britain, ffs.
- Privilege breeds idiocy

@igalmarino @privacy it won't erode encryption worldwide - any more than China did. They'll just pull out of the UK
- In a selfish way... I'd like for the UK to do this and for it to go horribly horribly wrong for them. Maybe that would finally get the US reps to get their heads out of their butts so l don't have to keep signing petitions and writing essays about why weakening encryption is a horrible idea.
  
  @DarkArc this is generally referred to as accelerationism and I think it's a cromulent ideology.
  If you think the only way to get to a sane world is to achieve and pass through the insane one first, then doing it as quickly as possible makes sense.

UK hermit kingdom speedrun, especially with the rumors of Scotland getting independence.
- Scottish Indy movement has been put back by 10+ years after the political and possibly illegal financial fuckups of the main indy party SNP.
  They still have control over most of Scotland, but their political power in Westminster is still fairly small, this might change next election though
- especially with the rumors of Scotland getting independence.
  Yeah, that's not how it works.

There are so many trends with technology that seem to favor another 1930's Europe situation. The 1940 film "The Great Dictator" describes it pretty well, and it is sad how much love and compassion seem to be out of favor as people march more and more towards mechanized hate-driven systems of society. I really hope a pro-humanism civil rights movement takes hold, like Martin Luther King Jr's kind of teaching, but it seems to not happen that a popular person like that comes to the top. Even a Carl Sagan type person with mass popularity to much of what Sagan shared in his books and speeches would be a good direction.

Worldwide? No they aren't. This is clickbait.
- Sure, the title sounds like clickbait, but the point is: if a big enough player passes these laws, then the other countries may follow.
  
  yeah, it doesn't destroy anything on the worldwide scale.
  but it weakens.
  erosion is a rather perfect term for it
  
  If this, then that. Ok.
- If they force messengers to implement backdoors into the protocol, I doubt they will limit it to UK users. Also, conversations with UK users won't be private anymore even if the other party is from another country.
  Client-side scanning might not be enforced for other accounts but when the infrastructure is there other governments will want to use it, too.
  
  That definitely won't happen. Full E2EE apps like Signal, iMessage, and WhatsApp aren't going to risk the worldwide backlash that would come with implementing backdoor access. The UK market isn't that big and definitely not worth it, they'd pull out of the UK entirely first.
  
  I wonder if it will be analogous to the situation in China. Is an iMessage conversation safe if one party is based in China and their data is stored in data centers there?

Just two years ago the politicians fearmongered that quantum computers will break every encryption without delay. This bill speaks quite different story.
- They will... when they finally get invented. For now though, law enforcement will have to do annoying things like "following the word of law" and convincing judges who clearly do not understand the national security implications of kids going to the wrong school to give them warrants.

Welp I don't live in the UK so there is not much I can do. I would encourage any UK citizen to protest this immediately. If it still passes openly break the law to make the UK government into a laughing stock

Or we could all just vote for people that aren’t corrupt… or at least, yet!
If you don’t know who isn’t corrupt, vote for independents that understand technology. I know it’ll never happen so things will continue to go downhill but gees, what do governments have to do to get people to wake up? 🤬
Hell, i’ll be happy if people just stopped believing ‘for the sack of the children’ crap and realise its all about controlling the population! 🙄🤦‍♂️
- Yea voting is great, but when was the last time the UK had a prime minister that anyone voted for?
  
  We've had four unelected PMs in seven years. (Although TBF two of them did then won elections.)
  The answer to your question is Boris Johnson, this time last year.
- we could all just vote for people that aren’t corrupt
  Audiences who flock to liars and deceivers seems to be trending in bad direction. Business leaders, politicians. What Cambridge Analytica unleashed as mass psychology tactics in 2014 may be very difficult to undo.
  corrupt… or at least, yet!
  Things like term limits seemed to help stop some of the problems of people corrupting once they got into positions of power. But now it seems crowds of more and more people are choosing pre-corrupted, cheering on corruption.

I get the importance, but the global implications are being slightly overstated. It may be the thin end of the wedge in terms that it may lead other governments to follow suit. But all that will happen in the short term is that many IM clients will withdraw from the UK. Apple will probably just disable iMessage in the UK.

NWO is happening before our very eyes, guys
- No. It‘s the opposite of a new world order.
  It‘s the old order doing everything to preserve its power.

xmpp + omemo => good luck

Android VM in the cloud: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36906140
Early days for this product; comments show some concerns.

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