Amber Rudd fails to understand the internet

[nox_uk]

Whatsapp doesn't have it though. If they did they'd be legally obliged to share it. Currently since they don't have anything they can't share anything hence the "uproar".

I imagine Facebook would love to be "forced" into stopping E2E as they could then mine the data happily for more targetted advertising.

Edit: I may be wrong it looks like they could potentially still be storing metadata. As such I would expect the government to have access to this. So why don't they force the person on the receiving end to reveal the message.

yes they are storing the metadata, which is what i am referring to regarding the information sharing. it's even in the WhatsApp ToS. And it's the metadata which is more useful not the contents of the message itself.

Steganography has been around for ever and even if the encryption was broken, would most likely to be in place to protect the conversation anyway rendering breaking encryption often utterly pointless

there is absolutely no logical reason why the government would need this

 

[Mynight]

yes they are storing the metadata, which is what i am referring to regarding the information sharing. it's even in the WhatsApp ToS.

It should only need a court order to find out who he was messaging then.

I have no issues with sharing metadata upon a court order. Chances are GCHQ already has the data anyway.

 

[nox_uk]

It should only need a court order to find out who he was messaging then.

I have no issues with sharing metadata upon a court order. Chances are GCHQ already has the data anyway.

& I have no issues with the government having all this metadata all the time. Obviously I would prefer it if they & WhatsApp didn't have it, but given that WhatsApp have it and use it for advertising, i would rather it was used to *try* to stop further attacks. They could have bought WhatsApp and had it all anyway. For all we know they did...

 

[scorza]

We can already investigate terrorists' communications with existing powers. Any attempts to override encryption will cost far more than they are worth.

The amount of business we'd lose if we passed some stupid anti encryption law would be astronomical.

Well obviously we can't, otherwise the authorities would know who the last week's nutter messaged right before he destroyed many people's lives.

 

[Mynight]

Well obviously we can't, otherwise the authorities would know who the last week's nutter messaged right before he destroyed many people's lives.

If Facebook has the metadata they will have released it assuming the government issues a court order rather than just said "gimme it" as such they will already know who it was assuming not a "burner phone". If that was the case it's not as though defeating encryption would help them any more.

What they're arguing for now is real time access to it all including plain text messages.

& I have no issues with the government having all this metadata all the time. Obviously I would prefer it if they & WhatsApp didn't have it, but given that WhatsApp have it and use it for advertising, i would rather it was used to *try* to stop further attacks. They could have bought WhatsApp and had it all anyway. For all we know they did...

Personally I would still prefer it was based on court order. Unencrypted SMS in the Paris attacks was the communication method, either we're at the point the authorities have too much information to handle that they can't filter it effectively or they're just incompetent. Neither of those will be solved by access to even more data.
(probably another reason I haven't thought of)

I may not be a lawyer but I'm pretty sure all this blanket surveillance is contrary to the Human rights act.

 

[Lagmeister]

Well obviously we can't, otherwise the authorities would know who the last week's nutter messaged right before he destroyed many people's lives.

You think that hasn't happened already? You honestly believe that the police would push out all information about an ongoing investigation to the public? That itself is amusing, let alone your stance on saying the government must have an exclusive lock on what is esentially some pretty interesting mathematics.

This is just another shallow attempt to erode our rights on the basis that people should be scared of the foreign types, when its just another authoratarian power grab.

 

[platypus]

I suppose the view of taking the UK back to a technologically and, amongst other things, civil rights prehistoric age fits with scorza's rose-tinted yearning for the return of the British Empire.

 

[scorza]

If Facebook has the metadata they will have released it assuming the government issues a court order rather than just said "gimme it" as such they will already know who it was assuming not a "burner phone". If that was the case it's not as though defeating encryption would help them any more.

What they're arguing for now is real time access to it all including plain text messages.



Personally I would still prefer it was based on court order. Unencrypted SMS in the Paris attacks was the communication method, either we're at the point the authorities have too much information to handle that they can't filter it effectively or they're just incompetent. Neither of those will be solved by access to even more data.
(probably another reason I haven't thought of)

I may not be a lawyer but I'm pretty sure all this blanket surveillance is contrary to the Human rights act.

The sooner we repeal the Human Rights Act the better, probably the most terrorist-enabling acts of leglislation in history. Talk about shooting ourselves in the foot.

You think that hasn't happened already? You honestly believe that the police would push out all information about an ongoing investigation to the public? That itself is amusing, let alone your stance on saying the government must have an exclusive lock on what is esentially some pretty interesting mathematics.

This is just another shallow attempt to erode our rights on the basis that people should be scared of the foreign types, when its just another authoratarian power grab.

I don't know what has happened and what hasn't happened in the investigation so far, all I know is that politicians are saying they need to be able to read this guy's WhatsApp messaging and I can't think of a good reason why they shouldn't. Frankly we should be afraid of this global jihadi movement, if we don't start fighting back at some point then it's inevitable that we will lose - then your precious right to privacy really will be the least of your concerns.

 

[Mynight]

The sooner we repeal the Human Rights Act the better, probably the most terrorist-enabling acts of leglislation in history. Talk about shooting ourselves in the foot.

Don't be silly. Shooting ourselves in the foot would be allowing our government to write their own version with all the caveats for when they dont feel like applying it. At the moment breaches are answered to a higher power last thing we want is for those who would breech it to be in control of it.

 

[platypus]

Don't be silly. Shooting ourselves in the foot would be allowing our government to write their own version with all the caveats for when they dont feel like applying it. At the moment breaches are answered to a higher power last thing we want is for those who would breech it to be in control of it.

But..we can hold our government accountable.

 

[Mynight]

But..we can hold our government accountable.

Ahh I have the solution. We need guns and lots of them to keep our government in check. It seems to work really well in America.

 

[TwsT]

Ahh I have the solution. We need guns and lots of them to keep our government in check. It seems to work really well in America.

well at least then we can have statistically more gun deaths than terrorist deaths to ignore

 

[datalol-jack]

To hold the government to account you need at least to have an informed citizenry and a viable opposition. We are presently lacking in both departments. Regular elections don't help if the boundaries are so set as to make most of the seats a no contest. More guns only help more people kill each other, not the government, if we're really going down the Second Amendment route.

 

[Mynight]

well at least then we can have statistically more gun deaths than terrorist deaths to ignore

You're one of those glass half full people aren't you .

 

[Amp34]

Screw it, lets just have the entire internet in plain text. Amber Rudd can even pick the font

But it's the private companies we need to worry about, not the government. Certain corporations would love to be able to monitor all our data, just think of the advertising money (and fraud)...

While I agree, there should be some regulation on what data companies can collect and what they can do with it there is a big difference between companies and government in this respect.

You consent to your data being collected when using the services of companies - you get to choose if you allow them to have your data. If you don't want them to, you don't use their service.

Government on the other hand - there is no option. If they make it legal they can scrape all your data from as many places as they want, without any authorization from you, other than perhaps renouncing your citizenship and leaving the county. The latter is a little more involved than just not signing up on Facebook.

There's also a difference between what may result. Companies can do little with that data, other than sell it on and use it for their own profit. Governments can use it to take away your liberty and even your life. Now obviously you hope if you're doing nothing wrong then that won't happen, but everyone has broken the law at some point - if someone in power really had it in for you then with all that data they could eventually find something to destroy and possibly incarcerate you, and that's with a government similar today. If you use the slippery slope argument then what happens if the government becomes even more authoritarian?

 

[Mynight]

You consent to your data being collected when using the services of companies - you get to choose if you allow them to have your data. If you don't want them to, you don't use their service.

To an extent, Facebook, Google, others are all very good at tracking you across sites regardless of if you use their service or not.

Despite not having a Facebook account myself I can all but guarentee they have a profile on me just because of sites like this that have a Facebook button.

Can't really opt out of it anymore bar blocking trackers/not using the web.

 

[Caged]

I don't know what has happened and what hasn't happened in the investigation so far, all I know is that politicians are saying they need to be able to read this guy's WhatsApp messaging and I can't think of a good reason why they shouldn't. Frankly we should be afraid of this global jihadi movement, if we don't start fighting back at some point then it's inevitable that we will lose - then your precious right to privacy really will be the least of your concerns.

What are you willing to give up for this cause? Is there anything that you could be asked to give up in the name of fighting the 'global jihadi movement' that would cross a line for you?

 

[Haggisman]

[...] politicians are saying they need to be able to read this guy's WhatsApp messaging and I can't think of a good reason why they shouldn't[...]

Does "it's impossible*" not count as a good reason?

Are you sure you're actually against terrorism, because to be honest, coming out with things like "The sooner we repeal the Human Rights Act the better" makes it sound like your ideology actually has a lot in common with theirs.




* whilst not theoretically impossible, for all practical purposes it is without a pre-existing backdoor.

 

[Amp34]

There are several people on here that ideologically are pretty much toe to toe with islamic terrorists. They just refuse to realise.

Whether that be restricting rights, freedoms, religious choice, draconian sentencing for "crimes" or other options.

But then people on the extremes, even if on the opposite side, do tend to end up in very similar political positions.

 

[platypus]

Are you sure you're actually against terrorism, because to be honest, coming out with things like "The sooner we repeal the Human Rights Act the better" makes it sound like your ideology actually has a lot in common with theirs.

He's an extremist that just happens to hate a different group of people to the islamic extremists.