UK home secretary Amber Rudd thinks real people don't care about encryption

[captain_to_fire]

On 8/2/2017 at 5:39 PM, Jinchu said:

More importantly when there is a weak point in security someone (probably not a good guy) will exploit it. Then the normal people will suffer. 

Just like how Anthony Weiner learned the hard way: "Security is only as good as the person standing in front of the computer."

On 8/2/2017 at 5:39 PM, Jinchu said:

Encryption is "severely limiting our agencies' ability to stop terrorist attacks"

Which begs the question ever since the Patriot Act and the explicit NSA surveillance, how many terrorists have been incarcerated and even if there are suspected terrorists identified, how many are correctly identified as true terrorists carrying out acts of violence because of breaking encryption and spying? 

 

[jaggysnake57]

4 hours ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Translation: don't worry, we can count on your stupidity to pass any law we want.

 

Nice theory. It doesn't survive the "dick pic test", though.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

No, not really. I mean, some, for sure. You have plenty of counter-examples in this thread alone as well.

They will move assuming they currently are on said platform. You are telling me terrorist groups organize themselves through Whatsapp. I'd be glad to see the evidence.

 

Actually, this:

is literally a "think of the children" argument.

so your idea of a proof that people want privacy is people sending dick pics.......really

 

btw the average age in the UK is 40 and there are more woman than men........

4 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

1. You will need a poll to prove that your point is supported by most people. Before that, use "some people" instead.

the last general election 

4 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

 

2. Any examples of an authoritarianism government that's good? Bad things happen when your government becomes your parent

adding more surveillance .= authoritarian

4 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

 

3. Mere annoyance cannot stop large terrorist groups like ISIS. It's just like trying to stop bankers from grabbing on more money by forcing them to spend more in charity.

your right it wont stop them but it makes it harder for them to operate

4 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

 

4. "if the government cant access information from messaging services like whatsapp any way then the terrorists moving to another platform that they cant read is no different other than mainstream readily available services are no longer safe", so from what you said, this has no benefits but has harmed safety of the people?

no its made it more difficult for them.

 

let me be clear, i do not want to see a backdoor in apps like whatsapp, id just see no encryption at all.

[ScratchCat]

While we're at it, let's remove encryption on government communication to, it's not like we need to protect our launch codes.

 

I think these "real people" would care about encryption if the alternative was having their bank account plundered because they used an open wifi hotspot.

 

[Jito463]

48 minutes ago, ScratchCat said:

I think these "real people" would care about encryption if the alternative was having their bank account plundered because they used an open wifi hotspot.

Even with encryption, I would never access my bank account over an open WiFi hotspot.

[Rune]

always knew I wasn't real.

[Jito463]

7 minutes ago, Rune said:

always knew I wasn't real.

Plot twist: We always knew it, too.  

[SSL]

The uncomfortable reality is that terrorism has become a fact of life. Desperate attempts by Western governments to stop all attacks by any means look no less than childish. Mitigation should be approached with standard intelligence-gathering procedures, which by all accounts have been effective. Aside from that, terrorism is a psychological weapon and this kind of nonsense is just fuel to the fire.

 

Another thing to think about is that law enforcement should not be excessively easy. This is counterintuitive, but making the government work a little bit to catch criminals helps to preserve the balance of freedom. As I said before regarding terrorism, some crime is inevitable and law enforcement is only one among many tools to reduce criminality overall in a society. "Perfect" law and order is as inadvisable as it is unattainable.

[Falconevo]

Government is full of poorly educated retards on such subjects, they are also pushing an agenda for something bigger.

As for encryption, the UK is a nation of shoppers and remove secure communications (HTTPS/SSL) from retail outlets and you will see the economy fall to pieces.

Their so called advisers are on the same agenda pushing payroll, so they will say what ever they need to for a bonus in their back pocket.

[Lurick]

How about we remove their encryption first and see how they like it?

[Drak3]

1 hour ago, Rune said:

always knew I wasn't real.

but you're real to me <3

 

 

 

 

 

Despite my best efforts </3

[Trik'Stari]

I'm just going to say this.

 

If you have nothing to hide, they have no reason to look. Nothing to hide is not a defense, it's just an idiotic statement by people with little knowledge of the law, the concepts behind those laws, and history.

 

Yes, they'll move on to other platforms each time, and guess what? People are still going to get killed. Playing digital whack-a-mole solves nothing and ultimately WILL lead to a more authoritarian government with a more militarized police force. Why? Because "we need more funding because what we are doing isn't working!", because government officials won't admit to being wrong in the first place and are terrified of looking impotent and possibly losing their funding/job. This will ultimately lead to them abusing their power some day to prevent someone from making them look bad, and then that becomes more and more common because "hey the boss did it", etc.

 

Some times a slippery slope is actually a real thing.

[Jinchu]

16 hours ago, hey_yo_ said:

Just like how Anthony Weiner learned the hard way: "Security is only as good as the person standing in front of the computer."

 

 

This is  important point. However, I feel like in the UK the government is trying to back pedal to times when this was not the case. I have also wondered about how many possible terrorist attack have been stopped since Patriot Act.

 

My biggest problem is that I cannot trust my government or police to do the right thing. There are police officers that look criminal records of their daughter's boyfriends etc... I fear that also this kind of system will be abused. I do not live in UK, maybe it is different there. 

[Jinchu]

8 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Even with encryption, I would never access my bank account over an open WiFi hotspot.

The original quote is about end-to-end encryption. WhatsApp could still encrypt the traffic between their server and your phone. Thus the only party able to see the conversation, would be someone with access to the server. I still do not like it.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

13 hours ago, jaggysnake57 said:

so your idea of a proof that people want privacy is people sending dick pics.......really

No, although I'm not surprised that's as far as you understood.  

The point is that people "with nothing to hide" do care about privacy once confronted with silly things they actually do being spied on. They just aren't always aware of what being able to see everything actually means to them.

 

13 hours ago, jaggysnake57 said:

let me be clear, i do not want to see a backdoor in apps like whatsapp, id just see no encryption at all. 

Sorry, you can't have it. There will be encryption for those who "have something to hide"(TM), so you're just depriving the general public of it. That's a big problem for things like e-commerce, with zero law enforcement benefits. Good job. 

[Prysin]

On 02/08/2017 at 11:39 AM, Jinchu said:

Source: http://nordic.businessinsider.com/home-secretary-amber-rudd-real-people-dont-need-end-to-end-encryption-terrorists-2017-8

 

I get it. It is scary not to be in control. It is scary that someone might be planning horrible things and there is no way for the government to access the discussion. However, this is not new. Modern encryption algorithms have been around since the 70's. Modern governments have better capabilities for surveillance than ever. More importantly when there is a weak point in security someone (probably not a good guy) will exploit it. Then the normal people will suffer. 

Apparently OP didnt think REAL PEOPLE use dark theme. So he hid all the text in his quote instead of hitting the "remove formatting" button that appears when copying black text into LTT quote box.

[Prysin]

8 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

I'm just going to say this.

 

If you have nothing to hide, they have no reason to look. Nothing to hide is not a defense, it's just an idiotic statement by people with little knowledge of the law, the concepts behind those laws, and history.

 

Yes, they'll move on to other platforms each time, and guess what? People are still going to get killed. Playing digital whack-a-mole solves nothing and ultimately WILL lead to a more authoritarian government with a more militarized police force. Why? Because "we need more funding because what we are doing isn't working!", because government officials won't admit to being wrong in the first place and are terrified of looking impotent and possibly losing their funding/job. This will ultimately lead to them abusing their power some day to prevent someone from making them look bad, and then that becomes more and more common because "hey the boss did it", etc.

 

Some times a slippery slope is actually a real thing.

Or they move off platform. Look at Afghanistan and Irak. Taliban and Al Qaeda used human messengers that was loyal to the organisations goals, and only knew PARTS of the information. They then delivered to other messengers that was trusted. The CIA released a long whiny story about it because for YEARS they couldnt crack this network, even with waterboarding. Primarily because they never found a single piece of the puzzle with all the facts. Even the higher ups in terrorist orgs deliberatly make sure they dont know all the details incase they get caught. They desentralize all the stuff to the point where they "may be the encryption key to unmask the web and find the servers, but they dont actually store the info"

 

 

The encryption fight is simply another wretched tool for leftwing governments to chill freedom of speech by targeting legal citizens that has "nothing to hide but dissent for the established forces"

[Prysin]

11 hours ago, SSL said:

The uncomfortable reality is that terrorism has become a fact of life. Desperate attempts by Western governments to stop all attacks by any means look no less than childish. Mitigation should be approached with standard intelligence-gathering procedures, which by all accounts have been effective. Aside from that, terrorism is a psychological weapon and this kind of nonsense is just fuel to the fire.

 

Another thing to think about is that law enforcement should not be excessively easy. This is counterintuitive, but making the government work a little bit to catch criminals helps to preserve the balance of freedom. As I said before regarding terrorism, some crime is inevitable and law enforcement is only one among many tools to reduce criminality overall in a society. "Perfect" law and order is as inadvisable as it is unattainable.

There hasnt been much of an attempt to stop terrorism in EU and US. They dont care about their citizens, they dont give A SINGLE SHIT.

 

Infact, terrorism is GOOD for the establishment, as the fear and anxiety allow them to push for more and more government power and invasion into the peoples private life. Adding ontop of this vague and broad criminal legislation that carry heavy fines or long jail sentences. Terrorism is a TOOL, not just for the terrorists, but for the establishment.

 

Look at Poland, Austria, Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand..... what does all of these countries have in common? They dont take in large numbers of migrants or muslims, and THEY DONT BOMB THE MIDDLE EAST.

 

So when these radical muslims blow up people, it is simply karma, because they got attacked first, they had their families shreded by shrapnel, their goats shot for fun by trigger happy white men, their doors kicked down in the name of the "US marines"....  Where is most terrorist strikes happening in the EU?

the UK - Which had a massive Afghan presence

Germany - which also had a huge Afghan and libyan presence

France - who blew up Libya and helped throw Egypt into chaos

Belgium - Who is the home of the EU parliament, the toxic cesspit that signed off on the europeans massacring middle easterns

 

 

I dont think the politicians are smart enough, or even devious enough, to plan this route out from the start. It started with "charitable, helpful virtue signaling" and devolved into capitalizing on the political value of the situation they created.

[handymanshandle]

I'd say contrary. They may not concern themselves about encrypting everything. But I think they'd want their personal information stored behind several layers of security and be handled in a safe manner. 

 

They probably want their desktops to not be vulnerable to being accessed by someone unauthorized to access it.

[handymanshandle]

Just now, wcreek said:

I'd say contrary. They may not concern themselves about encrypting everything. But I think they'd want their personal information stored behind several layers of security and be handled in a safe manner. 

 

They probably want their desktops to not be vulnerable to being accessed by someone unauthorized to access it.

But all in all, the UK Intelligence community makes the US Intelligence community seem reasonable and sane. Which is saying a lot and that's not good. That either group of intelligence agencies are that bad that they're not following the motto of "Innocent until proven guilty" and of course not scrutinizing the everyday lives of their citizens.

 

But then again, I suppose the UK lacks those rights that the US has and what would be unfathomable here and a violation of our first amendment rights here is some how still okay even if there is nothing that says they can't restrict your speech or thought.

 

Kinda creates an appreciation for the US when you realize how many western countries don't share the same kind of freedoms that the US has.  

In Germany, you have government sponsored censorship of lots of things.

In the UK, there's thought police basically.

In Canada, they're trying to get thought police.

I know this list is longer, but for the sake of length these are just examples.

[Starberyl]

54 minutes ago, Prysin said:

There hasnt been much of an attempt to stop terrorism in EU and US. They dont care about their citizens, they dont give A SINGLE SHIT.

 

Infact, terrorism is GOOD for the establishment, as the fear and anxiety allow them to push for more and more government power and invasion into the peoples private life. Adding ontop of this vague and broad criminal legislation that carry heavy fines or long jail sentences. Terrorism is a TOOL, not just for the terrorists, but for the establishment.

 

Look at Poland, Austria, Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand..... what does all of these countries have in common? They dont take in large numbers of migrants or muslims, and THEY DONT BOMB THE MIDDLE EAST.

 

So when these radical muslims blow up people, it is simply karma, because they got attacked first, they had their families shreded by shrapnel, their goats shot for fun by trigger happy white men, their doors kicked down in the name of the "US marines"....  Where is most terrorist strikes happening in the EU?

the UK - Which had a massive Afghan presence

Germany - which also had a huge Afghan and libyan presence

France - who blew up Libya and helped throw Egypt into chaos

Belgium - Who is the home of the EU parliament, the toxic cesspit that signed off on the europeans massacring middle easterns

 

 

I dont think the politicians are smart enough, or even devious enough, to plan this route out from the start. It started with "charitable, helpful virtue signaling" and devolved into capitalizing on the political value of the situation they created.

 

I agree with some portions of your statement and I disageee as well. China and Japan does infact allow refugees to enter their country but under very strict and to an extent, psychologically oppressive methods of assimilating these individuals. China is known to oppress its darker skin muslims in comparison to it's pure Han Chinese population that happen to take part in the religion. Most mosques, churches or places of worship operating in China have its content filtered, scanned and approved to ensure its content does not involve invalidating the legitimacy of the Communist Party. In doing so, it's difficult for such religious groups to corregulate and form groups based on ideological systems. In addition, there is mounting evidence that the government is growing more oppressive towards its islamic population and probably for good reason. 

 

That being said, China does have its fair share of terror attacks, and being a Chinese immigrant myself, I fully support the governments take on regulating religious doctrines and ensuring defectors do not arise. Japan and its xenophobia operate in similar terms, the younger generations although progressive in certain ways, still maintain the values that allow their society to remain homogeneous, which seems incredibly typical among most oriental asians. I being a Singaporean Chinese, do not feel safe around darker skin communities, nor red necks and so like other Asians, we reside in together in homogeneous communities within western civilization ( IE. Any China town, Richmond/BC ). Perhaps one might point out that Singapore is also a "multicultural nation" in which I do agree but we have employed unsavory and socially conservative laws like the prosecution of homosexual activity, LGBT individuals as well as misogynistic religious courts, all in favor of preventing the Malaysians and Chinese from clashing in a bloodbath like the past. Ironically, under such circumstances, peace ensues and terror attacks are minimalized. Authoritative methods of governing people can potentially prevent terrorism but at the expense of "liberal" values such as, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and in my own country's circumstance, LGBT rights.

 

So I agree with the evaluation of oriental societies, but we do oppress our communities. We do this not out of prejudice primarily but rather through the practical and quantitatively discriminative application of authority, something western societies tend to "skimp" out on because they're oh so "progressive." 

[Sauron]

Name ONE case where wiretapping prevented a terrorist attack.

 

On the other hand, what would happen if things WEREN'T encrypted and anyone could listen in to your e-banking?

 

The government already has more than enough data (arguably way too much) on pretty much all of its citizens, as well as on quite a lot of outsiders, to single out potential terrorists and prevent attacks. Listening in to everyone's whatsapp won't tell you when a sleeper cell will suddenly decide to ram a truck into innocent bystanders.

22 hours ago, jaggysnake57 said:

the average person dosnt care about the government reading there messages because most of them have nothing to hide

That's a silly argument, the right to privacy exists for a reason, just because right now you have nothing to worry about from the government doesn't mean you never will. Besides, there is information that might be irrelevant to the government but could be of interest to others who may wish to hurt you, and that information might get leaked at any time, especially if the government doesn't encrypt it. Just imagine what having your political opinions out there for anyone to see might imply.

[Sauron]

13 hours ago, ScratchCat said:

While we're at it, let's remove encryption on government communication to, it's not like we need to protect our launch codes.

Actually let's do that. If the politicians have nothing to hide they shouldn't mind me taking a look, right...?

[Humbug]

Governments are made out of people. Nothing special about them.

And people (especially anonymous ones) cannot be trusted with your private pics, search engine results, text messages, whatever...

[jaggysnake57]

4 hours ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

No, although I'm not surprised that's as far as you understood.  

The point is that people "with nothing to hide" do care about privacy once confronted with silly things they actually do being spied on. They just aren't always aware of what being able to see everything actually means to them.

 

Sorry, you can't have it. There will be encryption for those who "have something to hide"(TM), so you're just depriving the general public of it. That's a big problem for things like e-commerce, with zero law enforcement benefits. Good job. 

now who isnt understanding.......im not saying people with nothing to hide dont want privacy im saying mos people dont care about end to end encryption in messaging services....and thats the only place i would stop it.

[LAwLz]

25 minutes ago, jaggysnake57 said:

now who isnt understanding.......im not saying people with nothing to hide dont want privacy im saying mos people dont care about end to end encryption in messaging services....and thats the only place i would stop it.

Well, people actually do care.

Just look at the video where people talked about dick pics.

 

Most people don't understand the need for encryption because they haven't even thought that they might be spied on. As soon as you bring the cruel reality to their attention they will side with encryption (unless they have been fed a ton of FUD of course).

 

 

I want to ask you something and I want you to answer honestly.

What do you think would happen if E2EE chats were banned? I assume that you are OK with some encryption since you said it was the only place you would stop, but why are you so against that particular application of encryption?

 

Is it because terrorists use it to communicate? Because there is quite little evidence to support that theory. I don't remember exact numbers, but the vast majority of criminal communications are not done over E2EE channels. They are done over burner phones, in person, on unencrypted services, and so on.

 

Even if it was outlawed, there would be nothing to stop terrorists from just switching to another program. It would maybe taken them a day to create their own system which was decentralized and could not be blocked. You can not prevent someone from just downloading and spreading the source code of a free (as in freedom) program.

Here is the source code for a messaging program (including the server, which means anyone can host the backbone of the network) they could switch to if they wanted. Wire is a great program by the way, highly recommended.

 

 

So most terrorists would not be affected at all by a ban, and those who would be affected could just switch to something else which would be impossible to shut down.

So why do you want E2EE messaging to be banned?