Message encryption a 'problem' – UK home secretary

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40788180

by luxpir • 9 years ago

308 261 9 years ago

bbc.co.uk

jstanley2• 9 years ago

When pressed on what kind of metadata she wanted, she replied: “I’m having those conversations in private.”

Well I would like to know who she's having those conversations with, when she's having them, and how long they last. I think it's important that she share this information with us. So that we can catch criminals.

monkeyprojects• 9 years ago

My viewpoint when talking about security is please sign this form and your bank can send your bank statements on the back of a postcard in full view of everyone.

For your convenience we will include your PIN number and card number in full on all correspondence.

jstanley2• 9 years ago

What does this mean?

lou1306• 9 years ago

Also, this is beyond ridiculous. Have fun having those "private conversations" on a backdoor-riddled machine.

amiga-workbench2• 9 years ago

I'll be Librebooting my X200 shortly, the webcam and mic are coming out too.

tomfitz7• 9 years ago

Are you law enforcement with a warrant?

DarkKomunalec6• 9 years ago

But if she has nothing to hide, why should it matter if he's law enforcement or not? After all, there's no harm in being spied on, is there?

pjc503• 9 years ago

The Home Secretary is a proxy for the security services. Not the police, I'm referring to MI5. It doesn't seem to matter who holds the job, they've been pushing this for decades.

MI5 have no interest in things like warrants or courts and a rather murky history in Northern Ireland.

PeterisP• 9 years ago

If you remove the technological protections, the communications become accessible not only to law enforcement but also to malicious people - cryptography doesn't care if you have a warrant or not.

A particular communications channel either is secure from anyone or it's vulnerable to everyone. If UK home secretary argues that we shouldn't be allowed to use secure channels, then that does imply that all such communications will be vulnerable to all kinds of criminals as well.

jlebrech2• 9 years ago

they won't be private for long

sambe• 9 years ago

Exactly this. I often hear such things from politicians who sound like they don't understand the topic, and it's usual at a point of "weakness" for civil liberties such as after terorism events. I assume it's just a form of lobbying, but I wonder if it's from other clueless people (police chiefs/unions who just want the job to be easier) or elite security services who make a conscious decision to trade public good for their own interests (ignoring the claim that they do good themselves...).

branchless3• 9 years ago

Have a read of this, I'd imagine the UK might want to tighten up their airport security a touch before encryption becomes a major issue:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/31/pipe-bomber-...

csomar2• 9 years ago

It is important that the medium she is using to make these conversation build meta-data around these conversations. And then uses AI and machine learning to detect potentially harmful content and inform the authorities.

kitd2• 9 years ago

And if she's nothing to hide then she's nothing to fear of them being made known, right?

wonderwonder• 9 years ago

Unfortunately you cant. They have already exempted themselves from any type of monitoring. Only the proletariat can be spied on or forced to account for themselves.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...

ue_3• 9 years ago

This is very true. There is class antagonism behind the surface.

dTal• 9 years ago

"You will not be safe until there is a complete information asymmetry between government and governed."

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2961

pmarreck• 9 years ago

Who decrypts the decrypters?

pmlnr• 9 years ago

“Legislation is always an alternative.”

Yeah, sure. Because people who actually have something to hide will follow all the rules.

I wonder what they are trying to redirect the media coverage from with ideas like this.

stuaxo• 9 years ago

Well there was this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-fo...

317070• 9 years ago

"However, there is a problem in terms of the growth of end-to-end encryption. "It’s a problem for the security services and for police who are not, under the normal way, under properly warranted paths, able to access that information.”

What surprises me about this argument, is that their stance is that terrorists are accidentally starting to use encryption. So, by consequence, that in the past terrorists simply did not bother with encryption?

In that case, I wonder whether the terrorists have been triggered by the simplicity of current day cryptography, or simply by the knowledge that the governments are always listening in on everything everyone is saying.

It seems to me that someone started an arms-race, be it government or terrorists, and both are willing to cause massive amounts of collateral damage in order to keep one-upping the other.

rwmj2• 9 years ago

The vast majority of terrorists are clowns who, if they happen to use encryption at all, will mess up infosec in ways that are trivial to compromise. So if the Home Secretary is saying that message encryption is a "problem" then there must be something else going on which has little to do with terrorism.

sonthonax• 9 years ago

The vast majority of terrorists are clowns.

Perhaps if you're referring to home grown Islamic terrorists. However Britain does have a problem with an experienced group of rather professional terrorists called the IRA.

marcus_holmes• 9 years ago

thanks for the mental image of clown-terrorists :( as if either weren't bad enough on their own.

Isn't it obvious? This has got f-all to do with terrorism. The bad guys have always hidden their communication.

What's getting the security services all riled up is that ordinary law-abiding citizens are suddenly encrypted.

And, of course, there's no way out of this. Either encryption is secure, or it's broken. If it's secure, it's secure for everyone. If it's broken, it's broken for everyone. Now we have open-source encryption methods that are trivial to implement, anyone can build a securely end-to-end encrypted communication system. [1]

The cat's out of the bag, spooks. You can't read people's mail any more. You'll have to find other ways of gathering intelligence.

[1] within reason - clown-like incompetence will always mess up. Or even just ordinary-coder levels of incompetence. But it's still harder than plaintext.

daemin2• 9 years ago

The way I see it and it have stated before is that it's about control and keeping in power. By being able to listen in on any communication and being able to track who is talking to whom, they are able to catch and suppress leakers and whistleblowers. Thereby making sure that if they themselves do anything wrong it can be covered up easily and indefinitely.

gutnor• 9 years ago

All foreign terrorists have lived under some repressive government and privacy is unlikely to be one of their assumption. I wouldn't be surprised if they simply used the existing tools by convenience but with the same assumption the government can access their conversation as with every other medium.

Home grown terrorists may be different, but they are already consistently detected by regular police work long before they act.

marcosdumay2• 9 years ago

Everybody is starting to use encryption right now. That's because governments everywhere were caught spying on people, so modern software is written with a "encrypt by default" mindset.

This movement was triggered by spying. But it is also because encryption is mostly free nowadays, while a couple of decades ago it was almost too expensive to use anywhere. Thus you can also view the causality starting with technology improvement, and that all the encryption demand was there, latent, with the spying only perturbing things a little and unleashing a chain reaction.

voidz• 9 years ago

It's only a problem for Orwellian / Brave New World type states.

westmeal• 9 years ago

It sounds to me like she believes throwing legislation at an issue will fix it. I mean, everyone obeys the law right?

EvilGrin2• 9 years ago

Despite countless protests from politicians, the laws of mathematics trump the laws of the land.

dm3197• 9 years ago

Even maths![1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill

b3lvedere2• 9 years ago

No, she wants more laws to arrest people no matter what.

Aoyagi• 9 years ago

It's like Rudd and Abbott are competing in which will come up with more ridiculous notion. And you'd think they would choose someone competent for bloody home secretary and shadow home secretary respectively.

rwmj2• 9 years ago

There hasn't been a competent Home Sec since ... what ... Ken Clarke perhaps? Why should they start now.

yen2232• 9 years ago

For a minute there I thought you were talking about Australian prime ministers. What a coincidence!

H4CK3RM4N• 9 years ago

I feel like that phrase would've been perfectly applicable to their time as PM/opposition leader though.

throwawaymanbot• 9 years ago

The 5 eyes are in Quorum to install similar surveillance state powers under the false guise of "Security".

Britain saved Europe, from Hitler, fought against the Russians in the cold war, then itself becomes stasi like. Total shame.

dm3197• 9 years ago

I feel like the people who understand encryption and privacy advocates (myself included) are not engaging enough (or maybe effectively enough) with the public in communicating the concerns around trying to 'backdoor' encryption or giving up more of our privacy.

While I think these political statements are often ridiculous, they actually have widespread public support, if my cohort of friends and family are anything to go by.

Do we have people who are better communicators? I don't think even Cory Doctorow's posts/talks are aimed at the non-technical audience.

stefs2• 9 years ago

i think the problem is it's a highly technical, mathematical and social problem that isn't easily explained. well, the technical part is even comparatively simple. but the negative implications are usually harder to communicate. the "slippery slope" argument only gets one so far and non-criminals usually can't imagine how it would negatively affect them. "only metadata" doesn't sound too bad!

the opponents of full encryption though have it quite easy by name-dropping the FUD buzzwords - i.e. security and terrorism. and anyway, it's only metadata!

chii• 9 years ago

I found the John Oliver episode about Snowden to be very good at conveying the ideas of privacy. Just mention that the govt can decrypt your dick pics and sexting if these laws pass.

dm3197• 9 years ago

You know this argument might well work for Theresa May.

gargravarr5• 9 years ago

I've read so many arguments advocating strong encryption, all of which I agree with, and many of them are simplified as best we techies can - check out some of Troy Hunt's posts. But even avoiding the tech aspect completely, there is one thing the government simply refuses to accept.

Banning strong encryption will not stop people using it.

It will stop the 'good' and generally innocent populace using it and severely infringe on their right to privacy, but the 'bad' people will just fork an open-source messaging system that uses E2E encryption and start using that.

As commented in the article, strong encryption cannot be 'de-invented' now it's out in the open. Each and every one of these government statements is a drastically oversimplified knee-jerk reaction to the problem. Bet they think they can get tech companies to implement RFC 3514 to stop hackers.

hendzen• 9 years ago

The government can legislate the pipes. It's possible to DOS strong encryption at the ISP level. Look at China...

zebrafish2• 9 years ago

I think the strongest argument for an American audience who is unfamiliar with technology is that encryption should be included under second amendment rights.

"Guns don't hurt people, people hurt people", "blaming the manufacturer for the actions of the operator", "even if we ban them, bad guys will still use them", etc.

If the right to bear arms is defined as the right to protection against totalitarian government I would think that encryption falls into that bucket.

Maybe we should get the NRA involved in this argument...

hellbanner3• 9 years ago

It will stop the 'good' and generally innocent populace using it and severely infringe on their right to privacy, but the 'bad' people will just fork an open-source messaging system that uses E2E encryption and start using that.

And that would be the point of the ban - anyone using E2E is bad therefore, gov attacks them.

DarkKomunalec6• 9 years ago

I like to take the backdoor argument to its logical conclusion - if we're not going to allow terrorists to hide by encryption, why should we allow them to hide by speaking in private? It's about time construction companies and car manufacturers stopped giving terrorists a place to hide - make always-on microphones mandatory in all homes and cars. Don't worry - they'll need a warrant to access the recordings!

gargravarr5• 9 years ago

All private homes.

Government homes and offices are special. The general public is not allowed to know what goes on behind their doors.

Seriously, don't give the government ideas :( I am of the opinion that our current PM would gladly shove cameras up people's *sses if she thought it could catch terrorists.

izacus• 9 years ago

Thing is, the best vessel for that might be pop culture - Cory Doctorows books convey the issues of surveilance state to the general public way better than any kind of preaching does.

The issue, I think, is that mostly the issues are focusing on fringe activities which aren't approved by most of society (sexting, "hiding things") instead of taking lessons from history of our socialist countries and other widespread abuses of governmental power. We already had surveilance society and it sucked even for people who didn't do anything wrong - we need to repeat those lessons more. Especially since it seems that history in schools seems to be failing at that.

dm3197• 9 years ago

There is too much complacency and faith in our democracy in the UK. No one really believes a despot will get into power, despite it happening in recent history to similar european countries.

shakna• 9 years ago

or maybe effectively enough

I'm not sure it is that, or if there is a way to communicate with some of the governments implementing these laws.

Take Australia, recently. The government came out in favour of weakening encryption, after consultation with security and privacy experts, as well as some economics experts and the like.

The thing was though, the usual man who advised them, and has in past similar investigations before creating laws to do with technology, advised them that it was a terrible idea.

He was then dismissed, and a series of other experts were called in, until the government were able to get an expert who saw things their way.

If the decision has already been made, how is anybody supposed to influence it?

k-mcgrady5• 9 years ago

I think the problem isn't that the ideas/reasons for privacy aren't being communicated. It's that a lot of people are seriously worried they will be a victim of a terrorist attack (and the government tells them this invasion of privacy will protect them from that) and when they hear the other side's arguments they are happy to fall back on the 'I've got nothing to hide' argument. Honestly it's a nice mindset to be in so I understand why it's hard to convince them otherwise.

EugeneAZ2• 9 years ago

Let them read George Orwell "1984"

MarcScott• 9 years ago

I tried to be as non-technical as possible when I wrote this as an introduction to what cryptography is all about.

http://coding2learn.org/blog/2017/06/11/dear-theresa/

The problem is that the subject is inherently complex, and abstractions and analogies can only go so far.

dm3197• 9 years ago

That's pretty good, but for the people I'm thinking of, including Theresa May, that's about 10X too long. I like the last 5 points. It reminded me of Cory Doctorow's 'and now you've got two problems'.

Sadly we need something that is not much more than a paragraph. Maybe something that would fit in a tweet. Something that competes with 'people want to blow you up, surrender your privacy so we can catch them'.

Fifer822• 9 years ago

Oh god, I despair of this country. After a decade of conservative I have never been so disillusioned. I feel like I am stuck in a rut or like, I don't belong here. It is a horrible feeling. Deep down I know that the government is stuck in 1740 and by the time that millennials walk the halls of power, their parents will have signed away all their rights.

The very last thing I love is my country, that is for sure.

sshagent• 9 years ago

Agreed. Those semi regular approached by Work to relocate perhaps shoudln't be dismissed out of hand. Would love to leave the country until all this brexit shit washes over

hd42• 9 years ago

Iktf. The Brexit shit won't wash away, not in our lifetimes. I'm looking at France or Switzerland. This Bizarro country can't be the best that humanity can do.

scaryclam• 9 years ago

You realise that Switzerland isn't in the EU...right?

fredley4• 9 years ago

I am in the same boat. I am staying at the moment because of my work situation and my family, but I have an inevitable sense that should either of those situations change, particularly the former, I'll be actively looking to move out. The war on reasoning and facts is too intense, and even though I'm largely sheltered from it where I live and work (almost everyone I know has similar views to me on these matters), it's becoming too much to bear. I do love my country, and it has a lot to give the World, which makes it all the more painful to see it go through such a transformation.

branchless3• 9 years ago

By the time you reach they point where it is very clear you should leave it will be too late. Prepare now by selecting a country and starting the long immigration process, it's not an option you have to exercise.

beagle3• 9 years ago

It is happening simultaneously almost everywhere. Different countries are at different stages, but it doesn't look like anywhere is a safe haven. Having lived in several countries over the years, the grass is rarely greener as a whole - some parts are, and they may matter more to you, but the western world is mostly on par on everything.

Where did you think of going?

blibble2• 9 years ago

not as if the same thing is happening in France, Germany or the EU is it?

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/28/german_french_minis...

sadly it seems as if all security services in nearly all developed countries want this sort of thing, and the UK is simply a few months ahead here

mattrichardson• 9 years ago

EU are working to prevent it

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/19/eu-outlaw...

zerebubuth• 9 years ago

by the time that millennials walk the halls of power, their parents will have signed away all their rights.

I don't think this is a generational thing. Governments have always been trying to spy on their citizens since governments have existed. Back in the 1700s, John Wallis and the Rossignols were routinely reading diplomatic letters. Before the invention of the internet, the "Special Investigations Unit" of the Post Office was routinely opening people's letters and copying them to MI5. Even Snowden's revelations simply show that the government continues to pry into everyone's private lives - only the scale of the abuse has been magnified.

When so-called "millennials" walk the halls of power, they'll try to spy on their citizens too. Their bogeyman might not be terrorism - that was their parents' bogeyman, and their grandparents' were Communists, their great-grandparents' were Fifth Columnists, etc...

It's not clear how to make the situation any better when both major parties in the UK are committed authoritarians whose security policies are dictated by MI5 and GCHQ. The public, "millennials" or not, in the UK seemed quite unmoved by the Snowden revelations, and seem happy for the panopticon to continue.

mdekkers3• 9 years ago

Careful now, that sounds alarmingly subversive. You might be a pre-terrorist, and we need to see all your files, have your private encryption keys, and monitor all your communications. You know, because terrorism.

Of course, if you'd join the Tories, we can make things easier for you....

Fifer822• 9 years ago

"We are under attack day and night from people who do not share our liberal values....". In order to combat that threat, lets remove those liberal values.

jff2• 9 years ago

by the time that millennials walk the halls of power, their parents will have signed away all their rights.

It's not as though 'millennials' are so big on rights, take a look at Twitter to see how happy people are to suppress e.g. free speech as long as they're the ones who get to do the suppressing.

zanny2• 9 years ago

This might just reflect on one of the more sinister aspects of democracy. You live life expecting eventually "your people" will take over some day. That generations prior were monolithic and wrong, and that since your own peers share your mindset it must mean people your age are just wiser.

Eventually, you realize that you were just in the intellectual minority of a generation that was majority unintellectual. Like every generation pretty much ever. We have just become extremely effective in isolating ourselves from exposure to the real "average". But even online, there is a vast difference between the ignorance of certain sects of Facebook or the comments on a yahoo news story and the trolls on 4chan - the later are still "our" people. Even if they want to abuse their intellectual leanings, they still grew up with that mindset. The average Facebook post or comment on a Fox News or CNN story reflects the broader, more general mindset much better.

And the outlook isn't good. For any generation.

libeclipse• 9 years ago

The tale of The Orwellian Kingdom continues...

No really. I've written about this before, but I sincerely refuse to believe that the government are doing this out of ignorance anymore.

There's been too many people telling them how it actually is, but they persist.

That leads me to conclude that either they're severely mentally dysfunctional, or there's another reason for doing this. PR maybe? Votes? Something more sinister?

SimonPStevens• 9 years ago

Power and control.

beaconstudios4• 9 years ago

they continue to do the same with other legal systems like cannabis law and speed traps with poor visibility that do more harm than good.

joosters3• 9 years ago

Let's be devil's advocate for a second. The UK's speed cameras are brightly coloured, so there is an intention for them not to be traps - that is, they would prefer road users didn't speed. You cannot seriously argue that they are trying to sneakily catch people.

If you get caught speeding by a speed trap which wasn't so visible, it is still your own fault and no-one else's. Either you are in control of your own vehicle's speed, in which case you are to blame, or you are not in control of it - which is even worse.

Speed, or do not. Just don't go crying about it and blaming others when you get caught.

mmjaa• 9 years ago

GCHQ are the only reason the UK are able to maintain their grip over the world economy. If it weren't for the UK's massive spy industry, it'd just be another irrelevant European state.

(Yes, I know: Londons' Finance Industry is a big reason for the UK's reach around the world - well, I happen to believe that GCHQ and The City work hand in hand to maintain that power.)

branchless3• 9 years ago

Totally agree. These two are all that keeps the UK at the big boy table. And all the UK establishment care about is staying at the big boy table, whatever the cost.

hellbanner3• 9 years ago

It's maliciousness, not cluelessness.

An analogy: humans have developed neo-cortex. The neo-cortex now wants to run everything, often to the chagrin and pain of the rest of the body (e.g. fad diets).

barrkel• 9 years ago

There's something deeply dysfunctional in the UK Home Office. People who've been through that mill seem to come out with a really weird myopic perspective on the world, May included.

ebcode2• 9 years ago

We've known this for quite some time:

"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." --- George Orwell, 1984

DropbearRob6• 9 years ago

There is a growing misconception that it is the role of the government to "keep their citizens safe".

Although that it is often the intention of legislation to prevent behaviour which may lead to unsafe situations. For example, making it illegal to drink and drive. You can arrest someone for breaking the law, but never can you arrest someone right up to the point of breaking the law. For example, You cannot arrest someone for being drunk and having their car keys in their pocket, or even being asleep in the car while drunk.

This is the problem with the government demanding to read all communications... the idea that they have the right in order to prevent you committing a crime. Its not only impossible to prevent someone committing a crime (anyone can snap and do truly horrible things without prior communique), its insane to think that you can arrest someone for pre-crime.

The role of the government is to pass laws. The role of the police and the justice system is to enforce these laws. It is not their job to spy on all their citizens for events which historically kill fractions of a percent compared to something as trivial as car accidents.

beaconstudios4• 9 years ago

actually, funnily enough in the UK you can be arrested for being "drunk in charge of a motor vehicle" even if you aren't in the driver's seat. That can apparently include sleeping one off in the back seat of your car.

onion2k• 9 years ago

Amusingly, here in the UK, we also have the crime of "drunk in charge of a carriage" which has been used to prosecute people for being drunk with all manner of things from bicycles to horses.

DropbearRob6• 9 years ago

as I mentioned in an above reply.. what about campervans?

fredley4• 9 years ago

Unfortunately, there's a misconception underlying this one that there are 'good people' and 'bad people', and the role of Government is to protect the former from the latter. This of course flies in the face of the reality that crime is committed by otherwise ordinary people under extraordinary circumstances.

Under this rhetoric - widely subscribed to by the right wing and tabloid press, it seems a logical step that the role of Government should be to impede 'bad people' as much as possible - "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is an obvious corollary from this position too.

dm3197• 9 years ago

I find this comment particularly interesting. I have a suspicion that believing in good and bad people is a product of fairytales and religion. I've never quite understood why authoritarianism, religion and the right seem to go together, maybe this is part of puzzle.

cmdkeen• 9 years ago

In the UK* it is an offence to be "drunk in charge of a vehicle" so you absolutely can be arrested and charged for being asleep whilst drunk in a vehicle. You'll be having to defend yourself in court as to whether it was likely that would could have driven it drunk.

In the same way reading communications can be perfectly legal and is often helpful in establishing conspiracy cases. Accepting that Governments can legally intercept communications with some form of due process shouldn't be viewed as going after "pre-crime". It has always been the case before now that legal interception powers also enable illegal Government (or indeed non-state) snooping, that should be dealt with by robust interventions by an independent judiciary.

* Road Traffic Law is one of the relatively few criminal areas that is UK wide

DropbearRob6• 9 years ago

well I'll be damned...

What is the legal definition of being in charge?

There is no legal definition for the term "in charge" so each case will depend on its exact circumstances and facts. Generally, a Defendant is "in charge" if he was the owner/in possession of the vehicle or had recently driven it. He is not in charge if it is being driven by another person or is "a great distance" from the vehicle.

Matters are more complicated where a person is sitting in the vehicle or "otherwise involved with it". In charge can include attempting to gain entry to the vehicle and failing, having keys to the vehicle, having intention to take control of the vehicle or even "being near the vehicle".

This opens a WHOLE can of worms for me as I do live in the UK.. and I regularly get drunk and sleep in my campervan. According to this particular interpretation, all campervan owners who get drunk and sleep in the van can be arrested. Im thinking that due to there is no legal definition of "in charge" that this could definitely be argued in court.

DropbearRob6• 9 years ago

OK, so I have decided that my example of not having the intention to commit the crime is a bad one as it has been flagged up by everyone regarding how in the UK you can indeed be arrested for this.

heres my solution to the situation in the UK. If you are EVER planning on sleeping it off in the car, get a breathalyzer locking cabinet for your keys.

http://www.alcolockgb.com/

this way you can prove unambiguously that you are unable to operate the vehicle even if you wake up and are over the limit... there.. problem solved. Now lets get back on track about the right to read all communications.

even if they backdoor all chat messages, you can still use your own encryption within that channel. Everyone can do this using free open source software and even custom keyboards in android (I don't use iPhone so I don't know about them).

What happened to good old fashioned spycraft following people around and occasionally plutonium pelleting someone in the leg with an umbrella.

J-dawg2• 9 years ago

I happened to catch a Radio 4 documentary [0] on Sunday about the government's "Prevent" strategy, which aims to find evidence of extremism in places such as schools and "nip terrorism in the bud". It featured several worrying stories (including a school calling the police because a boy was talking about a toy gun he'd been given as a present [1]).

The most worrying part was when they interviewed a senior police officer and he actually said words to the effect of:

"We are operating in a pre-criminal space."

And went on to attempt to justify retaining people's data when they have intervened in this way.

So they are now actually talking openly about pre-crime, and using people's children against them.

[0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08yp16m

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/27/bedfordshire...

biofox• 9 years ago

I have no problem, in principle, with the prevent strategy. If impressionable children are at risk of being brainwashed into a dangerous ideology, then the state should step in, just as it does with any other form of abuse.

Hasn't "pre-crime" always been a part of policing, in the form of intelligence gathering and crime prevention?

My main concern is schools, and (increasingly) the police acting irrationally and disproportionately.

DanBC3• 9 years ago

The PREVENT strategy could have been useful. But schools over-report (because that's the safest thing to do when you're compelled to report) and there doesn't seem to be sensible triage in place to filter out over-zealous referrals.

Here's an example of what the PREVENT agenda should be about: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2016/9.html

or this case: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/3171.html

cr18952• 9 years ago

For example, You cannot arrest someone for being drunk and having their car keys in their pocket, or even being asleep in the car while drunk.

An aside, but this is not true.

"According to Alabama state law, Hand was deemed to be in “constructive possession” of the vehicle, and although he wasn’t driving and the vehicle was parked, the keys being in the car was the determinant that triggered the arrest.""

https://www.tidesports.com/dashawn-hand-sleeping-car-not-dri...

DropbearRob6• 9 years ago

from the article. "Hand was parked in a near-campus parking lot, sitting in the driver’s seat with the headlights on and the vehicle cranked, but was asleep with the car in park."

"The vehicle cranked" is the key there.. he is shown to be operating the vehicle while under the influence.. If he was asleep in the car without it being on, I doubt they would have a case.

sleazybae3• 9 years ago

can't arrest someone for being drunk and having their car keys in their pocket

yes you can, at least in Florida. i had to recently take a driving class to avoid points on my license, and one of the points the instructor really impressed on that class was that IF you're in the parking lot in your car, (asleep or awake, doesn't matter) AND a police officer stops you AND gives you a sobriety test AND your BAC is over the limit, you're getting cited for sure.

be responsible and get an uber or a lyft or a taxi or any of the other options available to you.

csomar2• 9 years ago

Well driving while drank is pre-crime too.

choward• 9 years ago

Exactly. It's just trying to prevent you from breaking motor vehicle laws like driving down the wrong side of the road.

gjjrfcbugxbhf• 9 years ago

In the UK being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle is a crime. 'In charge of' includes for example being near the vehicle with the keys in your possession and certainly includes being asleep in the vehicle. If charged with this crime you are required to prove (to a balance of probabilities standard i.e. about 50:50) that you were not going to try to drive it until you were sober. NB I don't necessarily agree with the legal situation in the UK I'm merely stating the reality.

solatic3• 9 years ago

There is a growing misconception that it is the role of the government to "keep their citizens safe".

What misconception? This is the basis of the social contract between society and its government, to safeguard the natural rights of society, the foremost of which (Life, among Life, Liberty, Property/Pursuit of happiness) is the safety and security of members of society. Read up on Locke and Rousseau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

The role of the government is to pass laws

This is a tautology. Legislation is but a means in which some forms of government (excepting, for instance, dictatorships) act to secure the natural rights of society. Legislation is not a goal in and of itself for government.

This is the problem with the government... the idea that [the government should try] to prevent you [from] committing a crime

See natural right #2 - the right to liberty, which in context means the right to act as you please until you actually cross the line by committing a crime. The right to liberty is not mutually exclusive to the right to life; legitimate governments act to secure both in tandem.

ue_3• 9 years ago

Why do you think this social contract persists to this day, or if it ever did? Locke and Rousseau were theorisers. Do you really think governments, least of all the UK government, is founded on the ideas of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? Even those which claim to be in some way like the US seem to be doing nothing toward these principles. So I think GP's point stands. What relevance does this social contract have when we see it is violated all the time?

act to secure the natural rights of society.

This is obviously not the case, as evidenced by the fact that governments act against securing rights we previously held, for example censorship and invasion of privacy.

See natural right #2 - the right to liberty

Natural rights are a funny thing - everyone claims they exist yet I see no evidence that they do (or even should), they change depending on who you ask, and various countries have their own ideas of what they mean. What you call "legitimate" is wholly based on your own opinion of it. Proudhon (whom you must be familiar with) particularly took issue with the right of property in the French republican constitution of his day. He noted that it is unlike the rights of equality and justice, too.

I'm all for theorising and implementing policy based on our philosophical investigation, but it's not clear to me that the investigation is valid, and that it has been implemented to a sufficient degree. To say our governments are based on the ideas of freedom put forth by Locke is as farcical as saying the Soviet Union was based on the ideas put forward on Socialism by Marx in his criticism of political economy.

qubex4• 9 years ago

Rights aren't natural, they aren't inherent, they are assigned (or granted) by a given constitutional context. In some systems there are rights that do not exist in other systems, even very fundamental ones.

Governments are extending their mandate and they are curtailing/"ungranting" certain other rights (principally, the uncodified "right to privacy"). Insofar as Parliament is sovereign in the UK and is the ultimate source of all rights, this is within their remit and requires no exceptional super-majority or constitutional amendment process.

Whether this is desirable or otherwise is quite another matter.

thehardsphere• 9 years ago

The Right to Liberty, which we will secure for you by taking away as much of it as possible.

mtgx2• 9 years ago

This is the problem with the government demanding to read all communications... the idea that they have the right in order to prevent you committing a crime. Its not only impossible to prevent someone committing a crime (anyone can snap and do truly horrible things without prior communique), its insane to think that you can arrest someone for pre-crime.

This is exactly what Bruce Schneier saw with his "data mining for terrorists" essay more than a decade ago. Trying to prevent terrorist attacks is impossible if you rely on data mining alone, because of all the false positives it can create, making it useless in actually preventing real attacks.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/data_mining_f...

salad77• 9 years ago

or example, You cannot arrest someone for being drunk and having their car keys in their pocket, or even being asleep in the car while drunk.

Yes you can. In the UK (since we're discussing the UK, that's important), the offense is being in charge of a motor vehicle whilst incapacitated by drink or drugs. Incapacitated is defined as being over the limit defined in law (80mg in England/Wales and 50mg in Scotland - don't cross the border after a drink!).

Mere possession of the keys or being inside the vehicle [alone] or sitting in the driving seat is treated exactly the same as driving drunk. Some pubs will offer a 'hold your keys' service where you put the keys behind the bar and come back the next day to collect the keys and car when you're below the limit for driving.

Zhenya• 9 years ago

While I agree with you in general, the following point is incorrect:

>or even being asleep in the car while drunk.

If the keys are in the ignition, you are DUI.[0]

Even sleeping in the car is also considered a DUI in some states[1]. Beware!

[0] http://caselaw.findlaw.com/co-supreme-court/1006683.html

[1] http://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2015/07/how-to-sleep-it-off...

inlined• 9 years ago

I think outlawing conspiracy to commit a crime is the (potentially) reasonable way governments have bridged the gap and enforced prevention.

thaumasiotes• 9 years ago

You can arrest someone for breaking the law, but never can you arrest someone right up to the point of breaking the law.

Attempted murder is criminalized, but that's a weak counterpoint.

Criminal conspiracy, however, is exactly the crime you're claiming can't exist.

raesene6• 9 years ago

ah more security cluelessness from the UK Government.

The frustrating piece is that they're ignoring their own internal experts on this. The people running the National Cyber Security Centre are very bright and have stated that they think backdoors are a bad idea

from http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/05/problems-end...

"Ian Levy, the technical director of the National Cyber Security, told the New Statesman's Will Dunn earlier this year: "Nobody in this organisation or our parent organisation will ever ask for a 'back door' in a large-scale encryption system, because it's dumb." "

proactivesvcs• 9 years ago

The UK government has a habit of ignoring its own experts, to the degree of firing them if they give advice the government don't like. Drug policy is another area that suffers from this approach.

k-mcgrady5• 9 years ago

I was just about to mention this. For anyone interested Professor David Nutt[0] was fired from his role as the government's chief drug advisor after claiming ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/30/drugs-advis...

pimmen2• 9 years ago

I've seen plenty of debates with nut-jobs like an anti-vaxxer or climate sceptic facing off against an MD or climatologist respectively on television, with a journalist as a moderator to make sure it's on a level that's understandable by the audience and to make sure it doesn't degrade to name calling.

Why can't the same thing be organized for politicians implementing policy? Let them face the concerns of the experts right in front of the public, the public has the right to be concerned if it's evident that politicians don't know what they're doing and aren't consulting people who do know.

Invite a computer engineer or something with any sort of experience in the field of network security to comment the Home Secretary's statements and ask her questions, maybe even through the journalist, and I'm happy.

hellbanner3• 9 years ago

This isn't cluelesness, it's maliciousness.

jlebrech2• 9 years ago

how about arresting known terrorists first, then focus on what normal people are doing.

raverbashing• 9 years ago

Meanwhile people can support ISIS and advocate for attacks in plain sight and that apparently isn't a problem

So I see how "worried" they are about that

gargravarr5• 9 years ago

More than one of the terrorist incidents in France were arranged by simple, unencrypted SMS, and the security services couldn't catch them beforehand.

We don't need to give the security services more data. We need them to focus on better dealing with the data they currently have access to.

Freak_NL• 9 years ago

This is another statement that is part of a trend in many countries, and it is worrying to be sure. But I suspect that the aim of these audacious statements is not to actually ban the technology of strong end-to-end encryption. Rather, it is to force the Google, Apple, and Facebook to provide backdoors in their popular messaging platforms (e.g., WhatsApp) that can be used by law enforcement.

They don't care about someone using GnuPG to mail someone something private (because that would be impossible to legislate effectively), but they do care about the big honey-pot of always-on end-to-end encryption offered to anyone with an off-the-shelf smartphone.

The call for legislation and a ban on strong encryption is meant to put pressure on Google, Apple, and Facebook to cooperate with the Five Eyes without too much fuss, and simply let them in. I can't see it making any sense otherwise.

Whether that access is to act on signals of religious radicalisation and planned acts of terrorism or something much more encompassing (big data predictive crime analysis and other scary stuff) I don't know.

cjsuk• 9 years ago

Home secretary a 'problem' - me.

benevol• 9 years ago

Ms Rudd is meeting with representatives from Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and others at a counter-terrorism forum in San Francisco.

Well, these will simply be the companies whose tools we won't be using anymore. The World does certainly not depend on any US companies or the UK government's approval to securely use encryption.

justinjlynn• 9 years ago

Ah, great lie of metadata. What those in power don't want us to know is that metadata is just a weasel word for incomplete data. It tells a story about you and those with whom you associate or intersect. What's worse is that incomplete data cannot tell the whole story by design. All incomplete data lies as all summaries, to some extent, do. Some would like us to believe that this incomplete data is somehow less harmful. It is not. Incomplete data can only accuse, it can never convict nor can it exculpate - it can only implicate and paint false pictures on massive scale. To filter the false positives and turn incomplete data into data, I seriously doubt that less work than traditional police work is required to process the output. It is only a benefit to those who wish to retroactively target known and presently target unknown individuals, matching a particular signature, and assassinate them unjustly. As such, at its worst, a danger to every one of us and, at its best, a lethal distraction to those who would otherwise protect us. When they say they only gather incomplete data they lie. They gather all of it - would you believe someone who tells you "just the tip and only for a second"? I wouldn't.

petre• 9 years ago

If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy.

titzer• 9 years ago

See also: envelopes considered 'a problem' by tyrannical government.

junkculture2• 9 years ago

The Paris attacks were coordinated over plain old encrypted SMS. Didn't see that coming.

The Australian PM thinks the laws of mathematics can be bent to those of Australia.

Now this genius.

Fact is, communications are ubiquitous now, and even if every byte was unencrypted, they won't be able to catch every crook.

dpedu• 9 years ago

Don't you mean UNencrypted SMS?

junkculture2• 9 years ago

I did. Typo. Thanks.

throw2016• 9 years ago

Western identity has become so enmeshed with liberalism, progressiveness and democracy that few are willing to step out of that safety zone to question the reality on the ground while those in power continue to rehash tinpot ideas and hysteria about safety.

A similar statement from a third world official would be met with an unequivocal flood of ridicule and accusations of backwardness.

Too many value the comfort of easy judgements. This will be met with apologism, muddying the waters and sophistry.

pimmen2• 9 years ago

As was circulated recently on HN, this basically stems from the government thinking computers are appliances.

"Hey! Your device creates and sends packages, could it just not create and send packages of this type? We'll even help with the quality control if you can't do it yourself! All we need is a backdoor!"

How is this not the same as messing with people's mail?

"Hey, you know this pen, paper and stamp thing? Can you just make the pen not write these kinds of letters, that terrorists usually writes? Ok, but can't we have a human (in lieu of AI) read through people's mail to make sure these types of letters aren't sent around with the intent to provoke violence? If you can't do it, we'll gladly send some agents to help you with quality control!"

snakeanus• 9 years ago

The civil liberties in the UK are a big joke. It's like they are in a race with China on who will have the biggest censorship and on the control of their citizen's internet activities.

b3lvedere2• 9 years ago

Home Secretary Amber Rudd wants harmful content to be auto-blocked

What IS harmful content exactly?

skiman10• 9 years ago

I love the footer with the author's contact information!

"You can reach Dave securely through encrypted messaging app Signal on: +1 (628) 400-7370"

Felt like a small little needle pointed at the UK's government.

diego_moita• 9 years ago

In UK, Murdoch's "News of the World" hacks into the phones of hundreds of people and politicians continue the debate about privacy as if it doesn't matter.

In US, Russia hacks into Hillary's email server and politicians on Capitol Hill start using Whispering Systems' Signal and begin to understand why strong encryption is necessary.

Don't worry too much, someday Vladimir Putin will show to the UK government why strong encryption is a good idea.

pjc503• 9 years ago

Ironically, private Whatsapp is extremely important in the UK government at the moment - it's where all the anti-PM plotting is carried out. Or so the leakers say.

I do find it interesting that UK politics has not yet been visited by the email leak fairy. I don't know what conclusions to draw from this though.

firmgently• 9 years ago

I heard someone explaining how the phone hacking worked the other day (Steve Coogan in a great chat with Adam Buxton on YT for anyone who likes them). Two journalists would phone the target at the same time. One kept them talking, the other could be sure to get their voicemail because the line was busy. They'd try the default password of 0000 which 'nobody bothers changing' (I may have the number wrong, I'm going from memory and don't use voicemail) and frequently, it worked. So in terms of skillz it's somewhere up there with the fappening... default passwords, encryption wouldn't have prevented it.

(not that I disagree with your general point btw)

nthcolumn2• 9 years ago

Not being able to disable the voicemail service entirely is a sore annoyance to me.

syrrim• 9 years ago

extremists should not be allowed to upload content at all.

If this is what they want, then they should convict the extremists first, and then make sure they don't have internet behind bars. Until then, they are still citizens, and you have no right to treat them specially.

AJRF• 9 years ago

“I’m having those conversations in private.”

The irony.

nthcolumn2• 9 years ago

That's what she thinks.

rcthompson• 9 years ago

I wonder if the only reason we have unrestricted access to good encryption tech now is because politicians don't understand it and underestimated how inconvenient it would be for governments, and are only now realizing their error.

magicfractal• 9 years ago

If something decreases the power of the state (e.g. Encryption) you can bet state officials will be against it.

gumby• 9 years ago

"how will we issue ASBOs automatically if our computers can't read everyone's texts?"

andreasgonewild• 9 years ago

It's only a problem if you insist on knowing everything, leave people alone to mind their own business and the problem magically disappears. We all know who the "real" terrorists are.

https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis

paradite3• 9 years ago

Now we finally have the complete comparison on how different governments try to tackle terrorism:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14827837

almonj2• 9 years ago

Get rid of all government programs. Instantly a huge amount of wealth will be gained and productivity will skyrocket. It is very important to remember: nothing the government does is good. What is the minimum amount of manipulation and lies it takes to cover up a problem? This is the question every government worker ponders every day of their job. Every one of these people are lying, scheming, delusional people. They manipulate and they lie, they shuffle things around and create busy-work for disgusting twisted crab-people.

paradite3• 9 years ago

That's way too cynical and oversimplified to be considered a substantial comment.

almonj2• 9 years ago

Or for this reason, because it may be questioned whether the same simple essence can be expressed by many diverse attributes. There are, indeed, many definitions of compound things but only a single one of a simple thing, nor does it seem that its essence can be expressed except in a single way.

mtl_usr• 9 years ago

No secure communication AND Brexit ?

Hope Europeans bankers will enjoy their new offices in Berlin, Amsterdam and Paris.

detaro• 9 years ago

Eh, banks pretty much are on the side of backdoored encryption - e.g. see recent proposals to make it easier for them to MITM TLS in their own networks, and compliance requirements for the messaging products they use.

thrillgore• 9 years ago

"I'm having those conversations in private"

Ah yes, the old "Fuck you, we got ours" mentality.

pstuart• 9 years ago

How about a GoFundMe to pay for crackers to accesses the politicians' personal data and distribute it?

bllguo• 9 years ago

This is absolutely horrific. The path the UK is on is terrifying. On the bright side they are quite far ahead down this road compared to other Western countries, so when the UK inevitably collapses first, other governments can learn their lesson.

type04• 9 years ago

I don't think it would collapse but we might see a terrible junta dictatorship there in a near future

cryptonector• 9 years ago

IIRC the Bataclan terrorists didn't use any crypto at all.

Using crypto makes you stand out, and doesn't really complicate traffic analysis.

Corollary: not using crypto makes it easier to look like hay in a huge hay pile, even if you're a needle.

Ad-hoc-but-disciplined plaintext comsec for small committed teams is not that difficult to establish and master, and can work very well for them.

But for the rest of us, plaintext comsec just doesn't work. And defending privacy relative to state actors, foreign and domestic, is a legitimate activity within the bounds of due process (e.g., your affairs can get searched with a legal warrant, and so on).

It's important to understand that when the State wins the crypto wars, not only does it ensure for itself access to people's data pursuant under Due Process, but also without Due Process at all. It's like making all houses and walls out of glass just so people can't hide from the police: it's insane.

And worse than that: the State winning the crypto wars does not make it easier to prevent attacks. If anything it can make mounting attacks easier for terrorists, depending on the particulars of the crypto war outcome.

hd42• 9 years ago

1.3 bn people are using WhatsApp. If we assume that only 70% of those have encryption enabled, that's a billion people whose data is standing out, therefore no one is really standing out any longer.

Message encryption a 'problem' – UK home secretary

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