UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/revealed-uk-government-publicity-blitz-to-undermine-privacy-encryption-1285453/

by danyork • 5 years ago

310 136 5 years ago

rollingstone.com

stephen_g• 5 years ago

Those stunts sound super creepy and messed up. Weird, manipulative campaign.

This shouldn't really be legal surely in democracies to have campaigns that "appear to be the result of grassroots campaigns and children's charities, while downplaying any Government involvement", when it's a political manipulation campaign paid for, coordinated and organised by the Government themselves. I really hope the counter-campaign mentioned is good (although hard to compete with the already hundreds of thousands of pounds already allocated to this already).

tialaramex2• 5 years ago

I mean, the present UK government also broke a whole bunch of other laws, so, why would they care if it's illegal?

The current British Prime Minister was literally fired from a previous job as a journalist because he can't stop telling lies. It's worth making a distinction from Trump here. Trump wasn't a liar, Trump was a bullshitter. A Liar knows what the truth is, and is trying to convince you of a falsehood, bullshitters have no idea what is true or false, they don't care. In some ways this makes Boris worse - he's deliberately trying to mislead you, which is harder to evade, is his claim that he enjoys making model buses a lie? Probably, but why is he lying about that? There were various theories. With Trump what he's saying has no connection to anything, so, it offers no clues as to the facts but at least you know that.

But like Trump, Boris is very popular with people who don't know much of anything. For them, the results of their support for Boris (everything got worse) are disheartening, but they're unable to join the dots. Who knows why this has happened, it surely can't be Boris' fault, wouldn't he tell us?

ben_w7• 5 years ago

Given that distinction between liar and bullshitter, I think Johnson is not even capable of comprehending that “truth” is a concept, let alone that other people can and do judge him for saying untrue things.

Main example that gives me this belief is this: https://youtu.be/wzUDRyciqVM

Where Boris Johnson says “well actually there’s no press here” to a man who responds by turning to and pointing out the press cameras filming both of them having this conversation and saying “What do you mean there is no press here? What are they then?”

ben_w7• 5 years ago

Sadly, this isn’t the first case of the U.K. government going for something this super creepy. I’ve personally seen London’s “Secure Beneath the Watchful Eyes” posters, which are felt like a parody by its own opponents to discredit it: https://mindhacks.com/2007/01/09/secure-beneath-the-watchful...

unethical_ban• 5 years ago

"In a Godless society, Government creates the panopticon."

Or something. It sounds profound.

pjc502• 5 years ago

I remember discovering that the Scotland Office has a (crap) Buzzfeed posting account for the Indyref: https://www.buzzfeed.com/youdecide2014

RansomStark2• 5 years ago

This is normal for the UK.

It was the current government, well it's previous coalition instantiation that created the nudge unit[0]. A group of behavioural psychologists that use mind tricks to convince people to do as they are told, whether that is to drink less, or stop smoking or to follow COVID rules. A group that has since been spun off as a business to sell coercion as a service, to any two bit dictator, or free democracy that needs it.

This is the same government that deployed it's army information warriors against its own people during COVID [1]. The unit is known as 77 brigade and explains its mission as "modern warfare using non-lethal engagement and legitimate non-military levers as a means to adapt behaviours of the opposing forces and adversaries" [2].

The UK has never had more than a thin veneer of freedom, it's always been an aristocracy lording it over the rest of us. They should just do away with the pretence.

[0] https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/nudge-u...

[1] https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/77-brigade-is-countering-cov...

[2] https://www.army.mod.uk/who-we-are/formations-divisions-brig...

hkt2• 5 years ago

Or do away with the aristocracy. Now seems like a good time.

We have the same unaddressed issues as America does on race, but also with class. Social mobility was just a way of introducing crippling brain drain into working class communities - something which led to them being effectively criminalised as an underclass through ASBOs and the like.

(For the alternative to social mobility, the old line: "rise with your class, not above it")

dTal3• 5 years ago

This is the same government that deployed it's army information warriors against its own people during COVID [1].

Your [1] link asserts, right at the very top, "It is important to note that this isn’t being directed at British citizens or at UK organisations, the effort is being directed at sources outside of the country."

samwillis3• 5 years ago

I find it amusing that WhatsApp and its e2ee is used as a common target for regulation by the government when their own ministers are using it to organise all sorts of shenanigans; illegal parties during lockdown, “anonymous” briefing of journalists, leaking compromising information about their peers. Not to mention that it always seems like the government is run via WhatsApp (probably need the e2ee for that!).

Ultimately this is about perceived control, the paraphrased saying goes “if you outlaw encryption only outlaws will have encryption”. Legislation won’t reduce the use of encryption by criminals and terrorists, it will however allow the government and law enforcement to say “you have encrypted chat software, that’s illegal, therefore you must be doing something illegal”. However, that wont necessarily translate to prosecution, it’s only the perception that matters.

Pandora’s box may have been opened but governments will always find a way to “control” their citizens, usually through fear.

ben_w7• 5 years ago

Legislation won’t reduce the use of encryption by criminals and terrorists

Hmm, I used to think this, but now? Now I think most people are bad at tech and security. No reason to expect the average criminal would be better.

Of course, trivial for us to make it, or hide it in something that looks unrelated. And I expect serious organised crime to be able to afford a developer with no morals.

But normal crime? It probably will make a difference.

samwillis3• 5 years ago

You are quite right, normal and “pretty” criminals will just use whatever and not care about encryption. Not only because they won’t necessarily be educated about it, but it will have no impact on their ability to operate.

The police and intelligences agencies aren’t intercepting the communications of normal and petty criminals. It’s organised crime and terrorism that matters, they will obviously continue to use it anyway.

Lambdanaut• 5 years ago

Even the customers on the darkweb have to encrypt all of their orders with PGP or they won't be accepted. Encryption is definitely used by smaller-time black market operations.

pjc502• 5 years ago

There have been a few interesting cases of "custom" encrypted solutions being sold to crime groups then compromised by law enforcement.

The thing is, most "normal" crime doesn't rely on comms at all - street and domestic violence, burglary, car theft, etc. Fencing stolen items probably could make use of it. It's only really organized crime. And the UK has an increasing problem with organized crime .. from the top, like the unlawful "fast lane" procurement scheme. And the recent business with MI5 identifying an (extremely overt) Chinese agent.

And a surprising amount of terrorist recruitment gets done in the open. As long as you're not planning specific acts it looks like "free speech".

narrator• 5 years ago

Power deserves scrutiny. Politicians should have less privacy than the average person.

larryflint• 5 years ago

LOL. Your right. If anything politicians should be denied E2EE

adflux• 5 years ago

Scumbag politicians here in the Netherlands are actually using Signal to avoid courts obtain their communications through the Dutch equivalent of the FOIA.

Politics here is starting to look more like mob politics... Our prime minister is actually known to do as little on paper as possible - so when the shit hits the fan, he'll always say "oh I didn't know" or "I didn't remember"...

stjohnswarts7• 5 years ago

The government likes having THEIR communications e2e but we peasants should not also have that freedom. They feel they should be able to monitor and control every aspect of our lives because that is the type of people that politics attract. They look at China's power to monitor communications, block the entire nation's internet, and wall off entire cities not with shock but with envy.

dTal3• 5 years ago

It doesn't really matter if government ministers organise their illegal lockdown parties over end-to-end encryption or not, when the police force were fully aware of it at the time (two officers stationed on either side of the door!) and decline to "investigate".

belter• 5 years ago

Was the same police force who surrounded these dangerous criminals?

"Covid: Women on exercise trip 'surrounded by police'" https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-derbyshire-55560814

tobbob3• 5 years ago

End to end encryption will surely make a government's task of protecting the public much harder. It allows paedos, terrorists and the like to communicate freely, and any efforts to track what they're up to must be an absolute nightmare.

The problem is, getting rid of encryption is replacing a bad situation with a disastrous situation. If you ban locks so the government can obtain access to the house of a terrorist, it means anyone now has access to anyone's house.

If this article is to be believed, it really feels like someone just hasn't thought this through. Surely there's tech people whose job is to explain this to politicians.

CryptoPunk• 5 years ago

Yes, malicious actors can also be found within the government. This is the reason behind placing limits on the power of the state.

wanda3• 5 years ago

protecting the public

Are you serious? This isn't high on their agenda at all.

surely there's tech people whose job is to explain this to politicians

You have a very, very optimistic view of the world. If the government needs to get a consultant, they'll just find one who agrees with them.

tobbob3• 5 years ago

That's nonsense. It's all very well being ultra cynical, makes you feel high and mighty but what you're saying is absurd.

Kim_Bruning• 5 years ago

E2E encryption is a form of security. It also protects the victims of these people; and it protects the police. So the question is not black and white, but more about shifting the balance between different people. And in this case I'm not sure it'd shift it in the right direction.

Drug dealers might be able to intercept police communications and be long gone. Pedophiles might be able to more easily track down their (next) victims. And terrorist groups tend to invest more and more in hacking units, and weakened defenses for police, off duty soldiers, and civilian targets can't possibly be a good idea.

Finally the big one is state level actors using weaknesses in encryption to attack, impersonate, and undermine politicians; spearphish infrastructure and communications personnel, and just cause all-round havoc.

In short, to paraphrase Franklin: Those who give up essential security to purchase a little security, err... end up with no security at all?

stjohnswarts7• 5 years ago

If you want your communications to go to the government, I suggest you make a zip file and send it off to them. Personally I don't think any phone, tech device, or anything else should have spying software on it. It should require a specific warrant for a person, place, and time limit. The government has Far Too Much power already, we don't need to give it any more. Sure it allows criminals to do crime but it also allows the rest of us to carry on our lives without being spied on at every turn.

tobbob3• 5 years ago

Are people only reading the first sentence I wrote? I made the argument in favour of encryption.

eunice• 5 years ago

given how many of this cabinet are close to the likes of jeffrey epstein the 'think of the children' stuff is particularly laughable

3233• 5 years ago

A more effective approach would be to highlight how the far-right uses encrypted chat apps. That would get the majority of the media and blue-checks supporting you.

Why right-wing extremists’ favorite new platform is so dangerous. Telegram’s lax content moderation and encrypted chats make it a convenient tool for extremists.

https://www.vox.com/recode/22238755/telegram-messaging-socia...

In collaboration with anti-fascist research group the White Rose Society, the Guardian has tracked McLean’s activity through the rabbit warren of largely unregulated Telegram groups and found that he describes a vastly different version of his intentions.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/26/where...

Far-right groups move online conversations from social media to chat apps — and out of view of law enforcement

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/14/telegram-war...

White supremacists openly organize racist violence on Telegram, report finds

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/26/tech/white-supremacists-t...

Are Private Messaging Apps the Next Misinformation Hot Spot? Telegram and Signal, the encrypted services that keep conversations confidential, are increasingly popular. Our tech columnists discuss whether this could get ugly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/technology/personaltech/t...

A report this week found that the messaging app had emerged as a central hub for several conspiracy movements espousing antisemitic tropes and memes, including QAnon, as well as others on the extreme right promoting violence.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/15/parler-...

decremental• 5 years ago

Clearly extremist rhetoric. It needs to be called out before we all drown in it. Luckily and thankfully the community is identifying it as such.

wanda3• 5 years ago

Don't forget to promote chopping off everyone's hands.

I hear some ultra-right-wing people might be typing their nonsense with their hands. So we should make sure no one has hands, that'll get em.

~ Also, this list of US news vendors' articles against e2ee is kinda evidence that it's not just the UK going on a campaign.

ufmace• 5 years ago

I think the parent was commenting not on the ability of disfavored groups to use encrypted chat to organize, but on how readily the current social elite can be scared into banning anything by telling them that such disfavored groups are using it.

FabHK3• 5 years ago

Telegram is not e2ee, by default, IIRC. You have to manually switch to an encrypted chat. Are those group chats typically e2ee?

detaro• 5 years ago

Telegram doesn't support e2ee for group chats.

mbroncano• 5 years ago

Does anybody know how (or even if) these kind of campaigns are run in the US?

petre2• 5 years ago

No, in the US the government just classified encryption as weapons unsuitable for export. A more clean approach, rather than think of the children shenigans, all while certain members of the royal family have ties with a convicted child trafficker and his wife.

yjftsjthsd-h• 5 years ago

in the US the government just classified encryption as weapons unsuitable for export.

... You realize that that hasn't been the case for ~20 years, right?

alkonaut2• 5 years ago

The US let authorities invent and market an encrypted communication tool, tricking criminals into using it (and surely some non criminals). In many ways I much prefer that, to the UK thing…

steelstraw• 5 years ago

Which ones are compromised? Or conversely, which ones are not compromised? Signal?

basisword• 5 years ago

This is just exasperating. Pro privacy? You’re responsible for child abuse. Every time you think the current British government can’t sink any lower…

hn_version_0023• 5 years ago

Seems to me its the people in the government who are widely responsible for child abuse.

Just ask Prince Andrew.

rosndo• 5 years ago

What does Prince Andrew have to do with the government?

mattlondon2• 5 years ago

The royal family has no involvement with the UK government.

The queen is officially head of state, but in reality does what she is told by the current party in power (queen's speech is written for her for example).

zxcvbn4038• 5 years ago

That’s the same gimmick the US government uses, associating encryption with the boogeyman of the day, usually terrorism, child abuse, or Nazis. However it might also include migrants, drug dealers, unwed teenage mothers, welfare recipients, a laundry list of non-caucasians, and the Irish (I like to add that one in just to highlight the absurdity but the US really toned down the anti-Irish stuff in the 40s).

tjpnz2• 5 years ago

Any insights as to why the big players are implementing E2E while ignoring P2P? Is this a control issue or purely related to technical challenges?

3233• 5 years ago

One big problem with P2P is that it reveals the IP address of the other party.

tjpnz2• 5 years ago

That's true but aren't the feds already able to request that as metadata?

gruez2• 5 years ago

p2p but route it over tor?

salawat2• 5 years ago

This is true of any network architecture that guarantees delivery of a message between terminii.

The legal conflation you're actually homing in on is we conflate technical terminals with their human users. We've been doing it for years, and it shows no sign of slowing down.

xoa• 5 years ago

Any insights as to why the big players are implementing E2E while ignoring P2P? Is this a control issue or purely related to technical challenges?

Both. Certainly a lot of major players see messaging as an important strategic area, not much needs to be said about that. But remember, for actual secure communications one needs both encryption and authentication, and the latter is a much more challenging problem. Purely as a matter of tech there could be better ways to go about that, but in practice there isn't any great infra for that inter-system, which is both distributed or at least federated and easy/accessible for the overwhelming majority of the population. It's improving in fits and starts but still a mess. A lot of the natural places that might make sense to base authentication off of have insecure foundations with enormous legacy base that'd be hard to change (typical collective action problem), or are very slow moving for other reasons.

Centralized solutions just make authentication much easier, even if at obvious cost and SPOF-risk. Within any given platform the centralized provider can of course guarantee all participants about certain properties of whomever they're dealing with. Governments could perhaps require some sort of industry standardized public-key based interoperability of auth, but even assuming they didn't muck it up goverments themselves (as this article shows) have unfortunate perverse incentives there. Not many have internalized yet that the economic cost of poor authentication and security is very high because it's so distributed. There may be a bit of coming around on that but it's slow. A grim silver lining to all the ransomware attacks for example is that at least they're highly visible and painful, and at last have started to motivate minds a bit. But the addiction of many agencies to old models is strong.

lotsofpulp• 5 years ago

In the US, people have meager upload bandwidth. I assume to deliver a comparable experience as serving from the cloud, P2P would require much more upload bandwidth for individuals.

FabHK3• 5 years ago

If only some large tech company could come up with a way to deal with CSAM while still allowing for e2e... /s

randomhodler84• 5 years ago

This sarcasm is unbecoming. Client side filtering absolutely is not a panacea for “safe” end to end encryption. It is a cop in your pocket. Dystopia. The UK can continue making up its own reality if it wishes, strong encryption is the only way forward.

stjohnswarts7• 5 years ago

Apple's plan was awful. How about there be no scanning at all? If you don't want your stuff scanned then don't put it on icloud or encrypt it before you put it there. I personally don't want scan-all-the-things policing software put on any of my devices. That should require a warrant at the least.

FabHK3• 5 years ago

But you see what happens when there is no scanning at all: politicians hook onto this awful crime to argue against e2ee.

Of course, e2ee everywhere (e2eee? e2e3?) would be all fine and dandy if you didn't have these malicious actors. But we do.

Suppose there are three options:

1. Encryption and no CSAM scanning 2. Encryption and on-device CSAM scanning 3. No encryption

Currently we have 1 (more or less). Legislators are increasingly averse to keeping it that way, and are arguing for 3. Apple proposed 2.

What is the alternative? Is there another option?

tupac_speedrap• 5 years ago

This is bollocks, GCHQ get on fine with metadata and most CSAM is back-doored anyway, it is literally "think of the children" claptrap. It's just another power grab, we already have some of the worst privacy laws in the world in the UK.

mhh__• 5 years ago

We need a new government (then a new political class, but small things first...)

datavirtue• 5 years ago

Hmmm....it's for the children. This sounds like an attempt to keep law abiding people from privacy while guaranteeing that any criminal worth their salt is fully protected by their own encryption. Again, law abiding citizens are left unprotected as the government seeks it's own interest in keeping popular platforms wide open to their unconditional snooping.

Spending tax dollars to eliminate privacy for those paying the taxes. Keep poking the bear.

kerneloftruth• 5 years ago

I'm not surprised that the UK is deploying it's often used Nanny State scare tactics to try and outlaw encryption. Don't take them lightly, though, fight back!

tradesurplus• 5 years ago

This is to prevent MPs and civil servants from evading professional communications logs rules, right? Right?

motohagiography• 5 years ago

The campaign as described sounds like what would be classified as hate speech against any other identifiable group, and yet so long as governments and their appendant "agencies" approve of creating new identifiable groups to target with otherwise proscribed speech, it's somehow acceptable?

This is Hutu vs. Tutsi meets Gobbels level propaganda, and I'm sure it must be very fun to be so righteous, we know how it ends. While mainstream society and discourses are not allowed to reason about the applicability or justness of violence, these official parties appear free to incite and direct it, and notably, to selectively enforce the provisions against it so that it's directed at the right people.

These are dishonest parties working in bad faith using special protection, what are the alternatives? I'm afraid the only thing they will understand is cost.

jevoten7• 5 years ago

The new campaign, however, is entirely focused on the argument that improved encryption would hamper efforts to tackle child exploitation online.

I bet cars and homes without microphones and cameras spying on their residents also hampers their efforts to keep children safe - are those next on the chopping block? They're already spying on near every street corner, after all.

Funny how they never say "Technology has given us all this extra surveillance capability, you can reduce our legal powers somewhat to compensate" - it's always "People have some tiny scrap of privacy left - we must eliminate it, or terrorists and pedophiles win!"

mattlondon2• 5 years ago

They're already spying on near every street corner, after all.

Citation needed.

jevoten7• 5 years ago

One surveillance camera for every 11 people in Britain, says CCTV survey - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10172298/One-surveill...

I'll leave it to you to estimate how many people live per street corner, on average.

frickinLasers2• 5 years ago

https://www.precisesecurity.com/articles/top-10-countries-by...

Holy crap, the US has more cameras per capita than China, according to this. The UK is a somewhat distant third.

Though I think a distinction should be drawn between government-operated and commercial surveillance.

barcoder2• 5 years ago

Just take a walk down any British town street. If you can't physically do it there's always Google Street View

dan-robertson• 5 years ago

I think complaining about ‘think of the children’ arguments is bad because:

1. These arguments appeal to people and making fun of them makes you sound like an ass. If your goal is to just complain to your in-group then I suppose that’s fine, but it won’t convince many people outside.

2. The arguments are true to some extent. CSAM online is a big thing, it’s hard to combat and seems shockingly common. (Though I’ve not worked for a big internet company that is likely to interact with this problem so this is all second hand). We are fortunate to mostly not be exposed to this part of society.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t support e2ee, but it does mean that it’s unfair to dismiss these arguments as a secret ploy to spy on your communications and unrelated to any actual problem.

jevoten7• 5 years ago

The arguments are true to some extent. CSAM online is a big thing

As is sexual abuse inside private homes. Any child-protection argument that applies to spying online, applies ten times over to spying at home. How many children are raped each year, because you're unwilling to let a few cameras into your house? We pinky swear we'll only use the video feeds to investigate "serious" crimes.

pueblito• 5 years ago

In the US, all new cars are required to have anti impaired driving tech installed by 2026, which I’m really certain will involve a camera… all cars come with microphones already built-in. So really they just need to get in your home - that’s what 802.11bf will do.

pixelpoet• 5 years ago

The sheer audacity of claiming this is about protecting children, while politically connected people like Prince Andrew walk free, is just mindblowing. Wow, just wow.

Freak_NL• 5 years ago

Not sure if he'll walk free (that would be for a judge to judge), but this week was a bit of turning point:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/13/veterans-ask...

ashtonkem5• 5 years ago

Even if he eventually gets in trouble, it’s hard to argue that the British state didn’t pull out the stops to protect their pedophile prince while wringing their hands about child abuse and online encryption. Oh, and Keir Starmer oversaw the prosecutor’s office who decided not to charge Jimmy Savile, who turned out to be a prolific (hundreds of accusers) child rapist.

So as far as child abuse is concerned, the call appears to be coming from inside the house.

boffinAudio• 5 years ago

Prince Andrew is just the tip of the iceberg of the UK's heinous, protected, pedophile classes.

ashtonkem5• 5 years ago

It honestly seems like the MPs involved still suffer the delusion that the U.K. is important enough to strong arm multinational companies into doing their will in order to gain access to the U.K. as a market. Genuinely not sure why they still think that, after their half assed (pun intended) attempt to ban pornography from their internet.

oliv__• 5 years ago

The way the article breaks down exactly how the campaign is set to "persuade" the public feels so dystopian and cynical.

Launching a £500K media campaign (with public funds) under the cover up pretense that "UK’s biggest children’s charity and stakeholders have come together to urge social media companies to put children’s safety first" and then swaying people through "'sofa programmes' such as Loose Women and This Morning for broadcast".

If this isn't manufactured consent, I don't know what is. But seeing what happens behind the curtains really makes you wonder: what other "mainstream opinions" were created this way?

stjohnswarts7• 5 years ago

Governments hate the idea of not being able to open your mail. Politicians want to be able to control every aspect of your life down to picking up some groceries at the grocery or paying your babysitter. I really hope people don't fall for this garbage. Sure there is a price to be paid for privacy but there is a much larger price to pay for not having it.

CommanderData• 5 years ago

Because TLS is already broken with the trusted model. CAs subpoenaed and also hacked a few years ago. PKI is dead.

If you're a threat level is the state then there's very little to hide from them.

jonplackett• 5 years ago

The other day I was telling my mum about how in China they can monitor and delete anything you post online. Even delete an entire type of post made by millions of people based on a keyword etc etc.

Her response, rather than the horror I was trying to i instil, was “I think we ought to have that here!”

So it does worry me that public support could go the wrong way on this if they spend a lot of time on messaging.

I hope that the high level of mistrust of the government - built up especially through covid - will prevail.

barnabee• 5 years ago

Does anyone know who I can donate to to fund a counter-campaign?

ghostwriter• 5 years ago

The Government should instead be running a publicity blitz on how the police and law enforcement agencies ignore victims of grooming gangs and avoid investigations because of political correctness [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7901731/Police-chie...

[2] https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/harrowing-t...

[3] https://mallarduk.com/grooming-gang-survivor-proposes-new-de...

[4] https://archive.is/TVP64

[5] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-598283...

brokenmachine2• 5 years ago

So the UK is getting rid of https now?

prima-facie• 5 years ago

Good thing this government has solved the rampant knife crime in London and the rest of England. Now they can move on to more pedestrian things like banning WhatsApp.

kzzzznot• 5 years ago

“A glass box is installed in a public space,” the presentation notes. “Inside the box, there are two actors; one child and one adult. Both strangers. The child sits playing on their smart phone. At the other end of the box, we see an adult sat on a chair also on their phone, typing away.
“The adult occasionally looks over at the child, knowingly. Intermittently through the day, the ‘privacy glass’ will turn on and the previously transparent glass box will become opaque. Passers by won’t be able to see what’s happening inside. In other words, we create a sense of unease by hiding what the child and adult are doing online when their interaction can’t be seen.”

This is bizarre and confused, sounds like something from Brass Eye/The Day Today.[1] The “privacy glass” doesn’t make you wonder what they’re talking about online, it’s what’s happening in a confined box between a stranger and a child. Before the “privacy” glass is activated, you can’t see what they’re doing on their phones anyway.

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=SRRw1ERj2Gc

UK government plans publicity blitz against encrypted communications

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