No Place to Hide – U.K. campaign against end-to-encryption encryption

https://noplacetohide.org.uk/

by intunderflow • 5 years ago

515 305 5 years ago

noplacetohide.org.uk

rasengan• 5 years ago

Ending encryption to protect children is a fallacy.

Further, I don’t understand how they can actually manage to do this without weakening all encryption on the internet.

Very strange moves that aren’t well thought out at all with a single focus to reduce the power of the people.

drcongo4• 5 years ago

"Very strange moves that aren’t well thought out at all with a single focus to reduce the power of the people" is a pretty good summary of everything the tory party does.

Veen8• 5 years ago

This is likely to be a better conversation if it doesn't degenerate into "Tories are evil". The Joint Committee on the Online Safety Bill, which highlighted the potential danger of E2E encryption, includes MPs and Peers from Labour and the LibDems too, all of whom supported it. It's not a party political issue and has broad cross-party support (probably because most MPs don't really understand it).

stusherwin• 5 years ago

In the footer: "This campaign is funded by the UK government"

dsign2• 5 years ago

It's pretty clear they think child safety is more important than E2E:

We are not opposed to end-to-end encryption, as long as it is implemented in a way that does not put children at risk.

The rest is fluff.

coldcode• 5 years ago

Won't someone please think of the children syndrome.

The real answer is we want to read all of your internet interactions any time we want; the children thing is just a way to convince people that letting the government (and everyone else) to spy on you is ok.

grishka2• 5 years ago

Russian laws that granted the government the ability to block websites were also initially aimed at protecting children from drugs and suicide. Though somehow, they didn't have any provisions to allow adults access this "forbidden information".

After the technical capability was in place, they've expanded the possible grounds to block websites on multiple times. It now includes piracy, refusal of cooperation with FSB, being a public VPN, being related to Navalny, etc.

schleck8• 5 years ago

Fair enough. I support E2E encryption but I think people should be allowed to rally for the opposite

pfortuny2• 5 years ago

Yes but as the matter is still just political in the UK, there is no reason for the government to pay for a side and not others,

IshKebab2• 5 years ago

Do you think the government should fund campaigns against it?

croes3• 5 years ago

Even worse, they think without E2E children would be any safer.

tgsovlerkhgsel2• 5 years ago

I think it's also important to quote their demand that providers should "not implement end-to-end encryption until they have the technology in place to ensure children will not be put at greater risk as a result", which sounds very much like "not implement e2ee" because it's always possible to argue for some extra risk.

User-initiated reporting features where the server can only read messages that the user reported would be the obvious solution (and should be uncontroversial), but they're not asking for that.

(To avoid concerns with false reports, the sender could include a random value in the message to prevent brute-force attacks on short messages, and send an unencrypted hash of the message including metadata together with that random value. The official client would only show messages where this hash matches, so a sender cannot just omit it. When a message is reported, the full message including the random value is sent to the server, the server can then verify that this message hash was actually sent through this service by that sender, and report the sender to the police if the content is report-worthy.)

stephen_g4• 5 years ago

This shows that the articles by those who uncovered the plans were right [e.g. 1] - even though this is a political campaign paid for by the UK public (via the Government), and developed and coordinated by the Government, they have big logos of community groups and charities at the bottom and minimises the Government's involvement -

"According to the [M&C Saatchi] presentation, the push will appear to be the result of grassroots action and children’s charities, while downplaying any government role."

The whole thing is just a pile of emotional manipulation, while compeletly ignoring the far, far greater number of legitimate uses of end to end encryption, and the actual dangers to everyday people of personal information being stolen, accessed, leaked, etc. if it's banned! Extremely dirty tactics.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29955893

mojzu• 5 years ago

The only actual number on the site also doesn't seem to be sourced properly, it just sends you to the NCMEC data page, or are they just assuming that they'll lose all of Facebook's submissions if they turn on E2E?

tomxor2• 5 years ago

dangers to everyday people of personal information being stolen, accessed, leaked, etc

This campaign is ripe for hijacking and inverting like the "you wouldn't steal a car" campaign.

"NO WHERE TO HIDE: (from criminals)... thought you were safe when writing innocuous private messages on Facebook? think again, criminals intercept the plaintext to commit identity fraud in your name. Thought you only had to worry about corporate surveillance of your location data? think again, now criminals can easily track you to break into your house while you are out. Thought your job was secure? think again, now criminals can build a comprehensive profile of your social and work activities to easily and effectively social engineer their way into your organisation, risking your livelihood."

[edit]

The other approach is to apply the same thinking to something non technical to more tangibly demonstrate how this is a bad idea. e.g:

"NO WAY TO RUN: we are banning wheels, because they help paedophiles make for a quick getaway after abducting their target. In future we plan on banning legs too."

dijit2• 5 years ago

The more fun thing to do is to manipulate messages in transport.

There was a really fun game where you could join public wifi and change every image request response to be images of cats instead. (by changing the requesting URL and/or response).

This idea was borne from the 'upside-down-ternet' which people ran on their Guest Networks. (https://www.ex-parrot.com/pete/upside-down-ternet.html)

Would be fun to have a word replace running for "Thank You" to "Fuck You", it's not at all impossible to do.

IshKebab2• 5 years ago

The idea that criminals will break into Facebook's servers and steal your messages is was less likely than the government using Facebook messages to catch child abusers, and that's already a little dubious.

A better counter-argument is foreign governments (China, Russia, etc.) requiring data to be held on their soil and then using it to hunt and impression political enemies.

zimbatm• 5 years ago

NO WHERE TO HIDE: Bathrooms are used for illegal activities. Let's put cameras in each of them.

r_hoods_ghost• 5 years ago

NO WHERE TO HIDE: From the press... thought you were safe organising that lock down busting party at no. 10 over WhatsApp? Think again, journalists can intercept the plain text of your messages where you laugh at the deaths of proles and ask your old school mate Rupert to bring 10 bottles of bolly.

Not sure if they've thought this through.

Symbiote• 5 years ago

The Open Rights Group is a step ahead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVVhFrBsQXk

lorepieri• 5 years ago

You Wouldn't Download a Car https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb7N-JtQWGI

belter• 5 years ago

The only thing you need to know is at the bottom of the page:

"The campaign is funded by the UK Government and..."

rob_c• 5 years ago

Given our (UK) present govts history and tragging on anti BLM/eco pretesting things onto a needed bill in the commons I'm not surprised they're taking this route. It might even appear on the BBC before the year is out of it would save Boris' skin...

miohtama• 5 years ago

Here is the Twitter account of M&C Saatchi Group if you want to leave public feedback:

https://twitter.com/mcsaatchigroup

Their slogan is to deliver Meaningful Change.

tgsovlerkhgsel2• 5 years ago

big logos of community groups and charities at the bottom

Are those actually legit charities? I've never heard of them before, and at least the rightmost one ("SafeToNet - incorporating NetNanny") sounds like it's just a lobby group of some internet filter company, or an Internet filtering company itself.

If those are legit charities: Remember the names and make it known among friends what those charities are supporting.

https://www.mariecollinsfoundation.org.uk/ proudly sports the logos of Microsoft, Google and Facebook at the bottom of the page. Maybe those companies should be made aware of what they're indirectly supporting with their logo.

dbbk• 5 years ago

Barnardo's is quite well known.

andrepd• 5 years ago

The part that interests me the most is when they say "we're not opposed to E2E encryption on principle, as long as we can still safeguard child protection", but then fail to actually specify how this should be done, except by opposing E2E encryption on principle. I'd love to know if there's a solution!

raxxorrax4• 5 years ago

E2E is something that does protect children too for that matter, so the case cannot be made. Of course children might access inappropriate content, but that is an issue of parenting and you cannot make the internet safe for children without getting active and curate what they access.

aunty_helen3• 5 years ago

Ever wondered what modern day propaganda would look like?

This is the kind of stuff that will be in the history books in 2 decades time.

RansomStark• 5 years ago

This is the kind of stuff that will be in the history books in 2 decades time.

Do you think so? I don't, history is written by the winners, and all western governments play the propaganda game.

Doesn't matter if it's the democrats or republicans, labour or Tories. No politician is going to call this out, the behavioural psychologists are in on it, and so are the media companies.

Unless there is some major disruption in the next 2 decades, think revolution, invasion. You won't see a thing in the history books.

Maybe we need to get ahead of the game. I propose we add a new http error code: 452: this history does not exist

denton-scratch8• 5 years ago

I propose we add a new http error code: 452: this history does not exist

It's 451.

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7725

denton-scratch8• 5 years ago

I actually thought it was really bad propaganda, and quite transparent. The arguments are incoherent, and they don't have any proposal.

They say "we aren't against e2e, we just want big tech to deploy it in a way that is safe". Well, either you have e2e or you don't; it's not surprising they have no proposal.

dogleash• 5 years ago

I actually thought it was really bad propaganda, and quite transparent. The arguments are incoherent, and they don't have any proposal.

There's a saying that you only notice propaganda that doesn't work on you. That's not quite true, but roughly speaking, that's why you think this is so dumb. I could list off around a dozen other incoherent positions with no underlying policy proposals, if it wasn't for the fact they're actually quite popular right now and I know well enough to bite my tongue.

deadbunny3• 5 years ago

99% of the population don't understand that distinction. Which is exactly why they're running this campaign. It'll connect e2ee with criminals in the populations minds.

gpmcadam• 5 years ago

the irony of the active SSL certificate on this page.

tweetle_beetle• 5 years ago

Even better, the certificate has no Owner information supplied. The YouTube video is unlisted. The YouTube channel supplies no About information. It's fine for them to be anonymous and load a bunch of tracking resources over https.

Naming the campaign a title shared by Greenwald's Snowden book is an amazing touch. The same hashtag was even used extensively to discuss/promote the book. Would almost be funny if it wasn't so depressing.

stayfrosty420• 5 years ago

I hope that is the developer of this site having a sense of humour.

drcongo4• 5 years ago

The irony of this being served over TLS appears lost on them.

bjt2n3904• 5 years ago

Yeah, that's just the thing though. They aren't against E2E encryption, actually! They're very much for it.

Just so long as they get to use it, and you don't.

prohobo2• 5 years ago

Everyone is rightly criticizing the clear manipulation here.

That said, "60-90% of abuse takes place within the home or family circle," - a quote from Mick Moran, co-ordinator of the crimes against children unit at Interpol.

That leaves up to 40% happening online and elsewhere. Is it actually possible to prevent this online without compromising privacy? I think that's a legitimate problem to try to work on.

croes3• 5 years ago

That leaves up to 40% happening online and elsewhere

Mainly elsewhere and mainly IRL not online.

prohobo2• 5 years ago

Sure, I'm just saying: it's still a legitimate problem and shouldn't be ignored.

throwawayffffas4• 5 years ago

Is it actually possible to prevent this online without compromising privacy?

It's trivial, take kids out of social media.

vorticalbox• 5 years ago

I don't see this said enough and I cannot state enough.

You should stop your children from having unrestricted access to the internet.

I personalty don't see it as anyone else's job to protect my children but me and their mother.

dragonwriter• 5 years ago

That leaves up to 40% happening online and elsewhere

“Online” isn't just a place abuse happens in a way that is exclusive with abuse being “at home or in the family circle”, it's a place preparation for abuse happens and products of abuse are distributed. A lot of the online abuse material is from abuse that happens at home or in the family circle.

api2• 5 years ago

The remaining up to 40% is also mostly IRL: school, church, camp, neighbors' houses, and so on.

Going after online sex abuse while 90%+ of it happens IRL is like trying to solve climate change by targeting marginal uses of fossil fuel like motorboats while ignoring coal fired power... which... is something we also do.

You target the biggest things first. That's how you solve problems. For child abuse that means targeting home and institutional IRL abuse.

Veen8• 5 years ago

We want social media companies to confirm they will not implement end-to-end encryption until they have the technology in place to ensure children will not be put at greater risk as a result.

This seems disengenuous. Is there any way to implement E2E encryption that wouldn't "put children at greater risk" if we accept that framing?

I understand why the Government and child welfare organizations don't like the idea of E2E. It would, in fact, make it more difficult to identify child abuse on social media, all else being equal. But the attempt to balance privacy with child welfare doesn't have to mean abandoning privacy altogether.

An alternative would be to require social media companies to allow parents to monitor their children's social media activity. Or to have "child-friendly" accounts without E2E. It doesn't seem necessary to impose a blanket ban on E2E, which would almost certainly be abused.

stephen_g4• 5 years ago

Exactly. “Can we have homes that don’t have cameras in every room streaming to law enforcement, without ensuring children will not be put at greater risk?”

Miner49er• 5 years ago

Is there any way to implement E2E encryption that wouldn't "put children at greater risk" if we accept that framing?

Yeah, that's what Apple's CSAM detection system is basically. They scan the content before encrypting.

Veen8• 5 years ago

True, but that wasn't exactly welcomed either.

xboxnolifes• 5 years ago

Arguably, that's not E2E encrypted, since there is a potential vulnerability placed between the user and the start of the encryption.

aunty_helen3• 5 years ago

You’re letting them control the narrative.

If child’s messages don’t have encryption, the first thing a predator does is move them to an encrypted messaging platform.

This is about the massive open door that is messenger and the full sweep the five eyes get from this.

Veen8• 5 years ago

I was more or less of your view until my 11-year-old niece was groomed and ended up sending naked pictures of herself to a 25-year-old man. Now, that incident was discovered because my niece's friend told her parents, but I do wonder whether, that aside, her parents would have found out at all. I am not in favour of banning E2E, but I do think it's foolhardy to deprive parents and law enforcement of any means to monitor children's social media activity.

RHSeeger2• 5 years ago

Is there any way to implement E2E encryption that wouldn't "put children at greater risk" if we accept that framing?

Given that a lack of E2E encryption means that it is impossible for children to have private conversations with each other, it also means that predators have an easier time watching those conversations and using them to do harm. As such, the mere act of enabling E2E encryption reduces the risk to children.

simion3142• 5 years ago

an alternative would be to require social media companies to allow parents to monitor their children's social media activity. Or to have "child-friendly" accounts without E2E. It doesn't seem necessary to impose a blanket ban on E2E, which would almost certainly be abused.

Exactly , make this giant companies have 2 apps Facebook Messager and FB messanger for Kids iMessage and iMessage for Kids then is you responsability as a parent to setup your child device to enter the correc tbirth date of the user, then the App Store could only allow the "kids" version of the application.

But now what? you have shit AI flagging pictures and badly paid people around the world attempting to classify is the picture is "bad" ?

The problem seems to me to have a much more effective solution, hire some real cops or social workers to answer reports from children and parents, when some creep asks for such material you could easily report them, then FB,Apple or whoever will have to help the authorities and stop this illegal activity. Make an educational compaign to educate the children and parents and let them know where to report the issue, explain also the punishment and make some public examples.

James-Livesey• 5 years ago

... is you responsability as a parent to setup your child device to enter the correc tbirth date of the user, then the App Store could only allow the "kids" version of the application.

The problem is is that there is still a large portion of parents who will give their children devices despite being less educated on the dangers of online safety regarding children.

I think that tech companies should ask parents whether they are buying a device for a child at the point of sale (since children are unlikely to purchase a device for themselves; instead they wish for a device for birthday/Christmas), and at that point, those companies should in some way inform those parents about the dangers of online use. Better yet (though could further complicate the process of distributing devices) is to give the option for parents to set up parental controls while they are in the process of purchasing a device.

Implementing parental controls (which tech companies have largely done) that allows for parents to monitor their childrens' devices seems to be the only viable way to allow for both CSAM mitigation and end-to-end encryption to coexist, in my opinion.

unwind• 5 years ago

Meta: there's a funny typo in the title, it should be "end-to-end encryption". Now it's quite confusing, since "end to encryption" means something else.

jonplackett2• 5 years ago

A very literal example of "Won't somebody think of the children!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children

The use of the phrase "Think of the children" in debate a type of logical fallacy and an appeal to emotion.

A debater may use the phrase to emotionally sway members of the audience and avoid logical discussion. EG "I know this national missile defense plan has its detractors, but won't someone please think of the children?"

Also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jFqhjaGh30

foldr3• 5 years ago

There’s no logical fallacy here, just a factual disagreement over the extent to which E2E encryption actually puts children at risk. Supposing that it does, that would be reasonable grounds for opposing it (so long as countervailing considerations were also take into account).

This particular Simpsons joke is pretty tired at this point, and it's often just used to short circuit any discussion of potential harms to children.

I am not in favor of banning E2EE, by the way. It’s just that the claim that E2EE puts children at risk should be met with a carefully considered factual response that respects the intelligence of people who are genuinely concerned about child sex abuse, rather than this reflexive ironic cry of “think of the children!”.

krageon• 5 years ago

should be met with a carefully considered factual response

Engaging with baseless propaganda preying on the unthinking parts of everyone by "carefully considered factual response" means you lose. Every single time. For this reason it is a naive strategy.

sbuk• 5 years ago

The issue is that it looks as though the very real issue of children being exploited is being used by the UK government to undermine E2EE. This is frankly vile, but given the vileness of this government, not at all surprising. Of course, the Murdock media will label anyone challenging this stance as an apologist.

stephen_g4• 5 years ago

I would say that the implication that enabling more surveillance == safety is a fallacy. It’s assumed by the people pushing these kind of things, but is not necessarily true.

zelphirkalt• 5 years ago

I am not in favor of banning E2E, by the way. It’s just that the claim that E2E puts children at risk should be met with a carefully considered factual response that respects the intelligence of people who are genuinely concerned about child sex abuse, rather than this reflexive ironic cry of “think of the children!”.

Yes, we should all argue properly ... If only politicians were educated enough about the things they try to push or prevent, they could actually do that. Anyway, even if we discussed this properly, it would only answer half the question. The other half is: "Are children safer without that E2E encryption?" Most likely not, as they themselves send each other pictures and stuff, which can then be intercepted by some people. Everything they communicate using their spy phones, ah sorry, I meant "smart phones" of course, at their young age of -- well, what age? maybe 6 or 7? Or even younger? -- will be potentially up for grabs.

And then that is only the question about children. That is one tiny speck of the whole picture, which is not discussed.

So yes, we should argue this properly, but also we should then open up the whole debate about society as a whole. There is a huge debate to be had there, before anyone should even consider making any decisions.

deadbunny3• 5 years ago

Surely it would be quite easy for them to provide statistics of how many cases of $crimes were solved/stopped because of unencrypted messaging.

My impression seems to be that it's almost always reported long after the fact or some vigilante posing as a child.

Neither of which would be prevented by e2ee.

tzs• 5 years ago

That's only half of it.

Someone will propose addressing an actual real thing that actually is a serious threat to children and someone else will mockingly and with a Calculon level of overacting say "Won't someone think of the children!", using it as a kind of ad hominem.

jonplackett2• 5 years ago

OK. Let’s try a proper logical response.

Right now is there child exploitation? Yes. Even though FB haven’t yet enabled E2E encryption. So what good will banning it do? There will always be ways to encrypt communication for criminals. And there will also always be ways to remain very anonymous online. The internet is just not set up to prevent it.

Further, banning all encryption is just a non starter.

Further still, having strong encryption except where law enforcement would like it to be breakable is also impossible. It’s just technically not doable. Whenever people say ‘but give us a way’ the answer is. There is no way. It can’t be done. It’s either encrypted or not. They’re the only options.

So instead of any sensible, workable plan some technically illiterate politicians have deliberately chosen the most controversial topic they can think of - child abuse - something that has been happening since forever without any E2E encryption (did those catholic priests need E2E encryption?) and blamed it on E2E encryption in the hope that emotion will override people’s logic and give them the power to read whatever online communications they like, presumable with some form of weakened / backdoored encryption that will, inevitably, be used for nefarious purposes either by our own government (see Snowden) or criminals / foreign governments who figure out how to exploit it

This is an emotion over logic argument and therefore surely a perfect example of ‘won’t anyone think of the children.

intunderflow• 5 years ago

Someone has sniped http://noplacetohide.uk and put a post in support of E2E encryption on it

jkepler2• 5 years ago

Brilliant !

FledNanders• 5 years ago

Wonderful initiative! Thank you, Mr. Muffett!

nickelcitymario• 5 years ago

They're framing it as a choice between child safety and encryption. I think everyone on HN knows how utterly stupid that is, so I won't belabour the point.

However, what offends me, and I don't see mentioned enough, is that the UK government is exploiting the real suffering of children to destroy something that protects us all, children and adults alike. They do not speak for those children or their families. They're exploiting them and their trauma for political gain.

If I was in the U.K., this would be enough to forever turn me off the ruling Conservative party. It's disgusting. They have no morals. It's not just that they're lying -- every political side lies all the time, sometimes out of necessity. It's that they're re-victimizing the very kids they claim to be protecting. And they appear to be proud enough of that fact to promote it in this way.

I will never vote for a politician or party that's OK with that, no matter what their other policies may be.

HL33tibCe73• 5 years ago

Yes, although keep in mind that these efforts have strong cross-party support. This isn't only an issue with the Conservative party.

throwaway984393• 5 years ago

Both major political parties in U.S. did the same thing with SESTA/FOSTA. Every smart politician will exploit anyone they can to get what they want (in that case, scoring cheap political points with their base) as long as their base do not complain loudly.

UK peeps: complain loudly!

toyg2• 5 years ago

This is the worst generation of Tory politicians in living memory, although sadly the authoritarian streak is not absent from the Labour party either.

Aromasin• 5 years ago

I've been working within the Liberal Democrats to try and push policies that are pro-privacy for the past few years, revoking some of the acts put in by the current Conservative government and pushing new ones to protect against future government breaches like this. Unfortunately, it simply doesn't stick when polled to the general public. The average person simply doesn't care it seems, no matter how you frame it, and as such it's almost impossible to break ground into updates to the party manifesto. I tried the same thing within Labour a few years before and the same barriers existed, with the added fact that many of the MPs seemed to be cut from the same cloth as the Tories, and that they were incredibly resistant to change outside of their traditional focuses (NHS, Unions, Immigration, Education, blah, blah).

To be frank, it seems like most politicians would rather be at war with the technologically apt than to work with them. All we can hope is that technologies adapt at a faster rate than authoritarian governments can, and the witty can outwit the witless.

pydry2• 5 years ago

There's a much narrower range of debate these days. Labour's response to the "concentration camp ships" plan was that it was an inefficient use of funds.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/03/uk-ministers-w...

dfxm12• 5 years ago

They're framing it as a choice between child safety and encryption

Politicians can always rely on any part of the holy trinity of terrorism, piracy or child to either justify or manipulate their constituency to support a measure that infringes on their security/privacy. The media plays along too easily.

Interestingly, conservatives in the US made anti end to end encryption legislation part of the EARN IT act, which also claims to deal with child abuse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EARN_IT_Act_of_2020#Legislatio...

ben_w• 5 years ago

Do politicians actually care about piracy?

I get how IP holders care about piracy, but I don’t think it resonates enough with the general public for it to really matter to politicians… Unless the politicians are literally just being paid by IP holders to care about it, which could be a thing.

marto1• 5 years ago

holy trinity of terrorism, piracy or child

you forgot to add the mandatory element of ignorance on a particular subject matter to make the mix truly explosive, but fair point.

mgdlbp• 5 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...

lbriner2• 5 years ago

It's disgusting. They have no morals.

You've gone pretty extreme there. There is a much more plausible explanation, which is that they genuinely believe that more people would be saved if the security services could access messaging apps and they don't think the level of potential abuse is worth worrying about.

Don't get me wrong, I think they have made bad decisions etc. but in this case, I think it is simply naive "if you haven't done anything wrong..."

throwaway894345• 5 years ago

You've gone pretty extreme there. There is a much more plausible explanation, which is that they genuinely believe that more people would be saved if the security services could access messaging apps and they don't think the level of potential abuse is worth worrying about.

I think both can be true: the government believes it can increase security in general by expanding the state's surveillance powers--the state always wants to trade privacy for security. However, they're not framing it as a general "give us more surveillance powers and we'll increase security"; they're framing it narrowly as about protecting children ("give us more surveillance powers and we promise we'll only use them to protect sexually exploited children") which is exploiting victimized children in my book.

outime• 5 years ago

I don't believe the UK government for this matter is naive. They know very well what and why they are doing this and it's the same strategy used in different parts of the world. It's not new and there's no need to come up with anything new because it works so well and you can justify trading privacy (or even more important things) for security this way no matter how little sense this makes.

I do think that it's naive to think that one of the most important countries in the world with a rather effective intelligence service and a lot of smart people everywhere in the state is naive. I really don't think the UK government believes that if they remove encryption from popular chat apps the tiny percentage of population that might use it for evil purposes will be caught instead of, you know, moving to a different mechanism.

onion2k• 5 years ago

There is a much more plausible explanation, which is that they genuinely believe that more people would be saved if the security services could access messaging apps and they don't think the level of potential abuse is worth worrying about.

There's an even more plausible explanation, which is that both are true. They're aware that stopping encryption might save a few children, but they're also aware that it enables the mechanisms of the surveillance state that give them extraordinary power over the public. They want to stop child sex trafficking and they want to abuse people's privacy.

HeckFeck• 5 years ago

I regularly support Big Brother Watch, an anti-surveillance and pro-privacy campaign group in the UK. They send every MP lengthly reports that detail the follies and costs associated with these measures.

I've also heard Conservative MPs say that "lockdown measures were against our freedom-loving sensitivities" or something similar, so they at least acknowledge the value of freedom to the population.

Our ruling class cannot plead ignorance as an excuse.

denton-scratch8• 5 years ago

The UK government is currently facing demands from within his own party that the Prime Minister resign. There is talk of a campaign of policy proposals ("Red Meat") aimed at Conservative backbenchers, to distract attention from the hypocrisy and lies of the Prime Minister.

I think the more-plausible thing is that this part of that Red Meat programme, which is going to consist of a train of announcements designed to appeal to rightwing Conservatives, none of which will have anything at all to do with the Prime Minister.

This Red Meat programme will also distract the opposition away from the Prime Minister's moral emptiness and deceitfulness; the government hopes that by making sufficiently-nasty policy proposals, they can force the opposition to devote their time and attention away from the weaknesses of the Prime Minister and his coterie, and towards opposing these proposals. It's very cynical.

Forecast: I have a long record of wrong political prophesies! But I think Boris will have gone within a week. I have no idea who they will replace him with; none of his colleagues has electoral appeal, as far as I can see, and they're facing a General Election in two years. I wouldn't offer odds on the outcome of that election, either; the leader of the opposition isn't particularly appealing, is not loved by his party, and seems to have no policies.

ljm2• 5 years ago

If I was in the U.K., this would be enough to forever turn me off the ruling Conservative party. It's disgusting.

Unfortunately this isn't unique to the Tories. Politicians across the whole political spectrum have fought to introduce increasingly authoritarian controls over the internet and technology over the past 30 years.

UK culture as a whole is more authoritarian than you'd expect. Labour would gladly implement their own version of the same if they had the opportunity. To that point, any UK millennial will likely not be able to remember a time where there wasn't some hand wringing campaign about online privacy or porn.

andysomniac• 5 years ago

The problem is that Blairite/Starmer Labour are just Tories wearing a red rosette, they do not differ on policy in any meaningful manner.

chriswarbo2• 5 years ago

The Liberal Democrats are anti-authoritarian, but our first-past-the-post elections don't give them a proportional number of seats :(

For example, they blocked the "snoopers charter" (digital economy bill) when they were in coalition; although the Conservatives, predictably, passed it after they won the following election on their own.

fuzzer37• 5 years ago

this would be enough to forever turn me off the ruling Conservative party

Welcome to every conservative party in every country. They're all terrible humans

bodge50002• 5 years ago

They're framing it as a choice between child safety and encryption

Its worse than that by the looks. They're trying to convince people you can still have end to end encryption whilst having a man in the middle scan it to make sure its all A-Okay. Again, I think everyone knows how stupid this is.

I seem to remember Theresa May talking about this a few years ago and the idea was quickly shot down, and here I was hoping that was the end of it.

kurthr2• 5 years ago

It's classic, fighting the last war, for the "security" agencies. They think that by surveilling their own people they can protect the politicians. What they have in fact done is collected huge dossiers on their public (and gov employees), which can be compromised and used by foreign powers for targeted misinformation, agitprop, and blackmail. They are the weakest link.

Since the rise of PGP and fall of key-escrow it has become more and more clear that spreading free (ussurveilled) communication between individuals and businesses was necessary to the operation of capitalist democracies. However, they can't give up their dreams of controlling their own populations so they will cede them to competing totalitarian states, which already know how to control their populations and can well afford to breach such "security".

marcosdumay2• 5 years ago

They think that by surveilling their own people they can protect the politicians.

That idea is so outrageously stupid that no, I don't believe they think that.

Every one of those intelligence agencies are perfectly aware they are collecting dossiers on their public (with emphasis to gov employees) that can be used to compromise the administration and coerce people into doing illegal or immoral acts. You just got the wrong adversary in mind.

kmlx2• 5 years ago

They're framing it as a choice between child safety and encryption.

doesn't seem so:

End-to-end encryption is valuable technology designed to keep our data and conversations safe. We are not opposed to end-to-encryption in principle and fully support the importance of strong user privacy. Instead, our campaign is calling for social media companies to work with us to find a solution that protects privacy, without putting children at even greater risk.

they apparently claim to be looking for a third way.

nybble414• 5 years ago

There is no "third way". End-to-end encryption means no one other than the sender and the intended receiver(s) can access the decrypted messages; full stop. That includes the social media companies and the government. This obviously also precludes hacks like subverting the client software on either side to report back on the content of the messages (i.e. Apple's implementation)—if the user can't trust their client not to deliberately leak details about the message then they don't have E2EE, since someone else's agent has been placed in the communication path.

Hakashiro• 5 years ago

Why do you think Brexit was what it was?

UK wants to dominate and enslave its population for the political gain of the ruling class.

It is clear as day to me.

agilob• 5 years ago

The website does NOT even offer HTTP, it has 301 redirect to ENCRYPTED HTTPS. Do not click it, it's obviously a scam from hypocrites!

NazakiAid• 5 years ago

Well guess I won't be supporting Barnardos again. Disappointed to see them supporting this cause.

intricatedetail• 5 years ago

This smells of Nudge all over it. Government is using psyops against public interest for quite some time now.

barrkel• 5 years ago

ISTM that ending E2E encryption can only be the starting point. As long as kids are getting internet connected cameras - which is pretty much all kids these days - and using them to talk to people online, there will be people trying to convince them to broadcast activities which should stay private. How does ending E2E encryption fix that, without additionally implementing total surveillance? How does it work across borders?

webdelv2• 5 years ago

"We want social media companies to confirm they will not implement end-to-end encryption until they have the technology in place to ensure children will not be put at greater risk as a result."

Most of these companies already know the users birthday, if this is only about child abuse then instead of adding backdoors for everyone, why not just disable end to end encryption conversations for users under 16?

jMyles2• 5 years ago

why not just disable end to end encryption conversations for users under 16

That is the cohort that _most_ needs end-to-end encryption.

https://blog.nucypher.com/todays-kids-need-end-to-end-encryp...

brippalcharrid• 5 years ago

Doesn't that open up a whole new can of worms, though, because it would require the operator of every service to check the age (and by extension, identity) of every user of their service, so as not to inadvertently E2EE the communications of a child? Passing off this verification to a Trusted Third Party (wink wink) is just as bad (probably worse), because you would be make it even easier for the government to tie it into a̶ ̶s̶o̶c̶i̶a̶l̶ ̶c̶r̶e̶d̶i̶t̶ ̶s̶y̶s̶t̶e̶m̶ whatever they have planned for the next stage.

webdelv2• 5 years ago

If a child wants to be "protected" online then it would be up to them to enter their actual age. But you are right, the government will take any excuse to get users verifying their age.

denton-scratch8• 5 years ago

They already reject users who say they are under 13. How well has that been working out?

easrng4• 5 years ago

Almost everyone <18 lies about their age on the internet. I have clicked through uncountably many age gates.

hd43• 5 years ago

This is all part of Operation Save Big Dog aka saving Boris Johnson's ass from being forced out as PM. Yesterday it was the TV licence fee ending. Tomorrow it will be some other populist nonsense.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson...

truculent3• 5 years ago

It is opportunistic timing, but the Home Office have been pushing for this for years.

hd43• 5 years ago

They were also talking about ending the TV licence for years. The timing couldn't be more obvious.

pydry2• 5 years ago

The license fee thing may have been less of a populist thing and more of an A) shot across the bows at the BBC for its coverage of partygate. B) a sop to murdoch who has been wanting to kill the BBC/license fee since forever.

denton-scratch8• 5 years ago

The licence fee thing has been in development for years. It was brought forward to distract attention away from the PM's blatant lying. I imagine they'll have a new policy announcement each day for the next week - anything to keep discussion of ministerial hypocrisy out of the morning news shows.

HL33tibCe73• 5 years ago

I'm sure our politicians have been discussing this on their E2E encrypted Whatsapp group chats

boppo1• 5 years ago

The only thing I see ending this push is a "fappening" style leak involving CEOs, celebrities, and government figures. Not necessarily just intimate sexual content, but as much 'personal' information as possible.

I really think we're heading straight into the panopticon. We'll probably happily vote for it, to "protect" ourselves. I'll buy some more PLTR and the bags under my eyes will grow darker.

Mystlix2• 5 years ago

If you don't want your children to be molested via the internet don't give your children access to the internet, end of story. You'd never let your 10yo child hang out at the skater park because the moment you are not there present someone might abduct him, but letting your child create accounts on every social media imaginable and giving him unfiltered access to the network is somehow acceptable and the rest of the world should suffer because of it? Children don't need to own smartphones, computers or internet access, just like they don't need to listen to death metal or watch gore movies. Those things will come with time and maturity and your lack of parenting is never going to excuse the government snooping on everything I do

jkepler2• 5 years ago

Teach them to read real books, on paper, by real authors. Given them lots of unstructured time in nature with other children, with a watchful parent nearby (this requires investment of a parents' time, but I can't think of a better investment).

Mystlix2• 5 years ago

Sorry, mine wasn't a plain boomer rant, there are plenty of "real" books I would never let my child read. Most classics are very mature and talk very vividly about violence, death, sex and atrocities. Children should be exposed to nuanced stuff that isn't dumbed down, it's just that these nuanced things should be in the realm of a child, leaving the more mature stuff to older people. A book talking about the friendship between two children in a complex way is cool and good, a book talking about the friendship between two drug addicts might be more suitable to someone who knows a bit more about life.

HL33tibCe73• 5 years ago

I agree with this, but this is something that needs to be done on the societal level. Doing this individually will be nearly impossible without impacting the social life of the child involved, which no parent wants to do.

I think the vast majority of people agree that unrestricted screens and online communication are bad for kids, so I think this idea could get pretty widespread support. It shouldn't be the norm that a 10yo has an iPhone.

It's like giving them a Land Rover instead of a Hot Wheels. But of course, the Hot Wheels of phones doesn't exist right now. Maybe it should. A smartphone dedicated for children, which can only install a small number of safe apps?

blackhaz• 5 years ago

I understand the criticisms. But hear me out as a parent:

1) There is no way to monitor/prevent abuse for kid to get exposed to extreme (literally, potentially mentally damaging) pornography and perversion that percolates into the mainstream life via innocent channels - manga, anime, Reddit, and so on. When I grew up the content of that sort was significantly more limited, i.e. occasional porn GIFs, most fine erotic material, but nothing of the extreme sort you could easily stumble upon by just being online today, etc).

2) Qustodio can partially filter out some content as it's installed on the PC and the smartphone, but due to the all-pervading encryption it has no visibility into Discord and other social networks.

3) Disastrous breaches in IT school policies. School has given mandatory Chromebooks to all kids which they use probably half of the time in the class and for homework, and there is no way to bind the school account to Google Family Links - this is forbidden by the school admin. There is some filtering on the school Wi-Fi which school kids circumvent by joining their phone's shared Wi-Fi. Complained, received boilerplate "we are doing our best" reply. This is an independent school in London.

4) The only option I have is to begin breaking SSL in the middle via, say, FortiGate and hope it will catch some of the sites. This would also be applicable only to home Wi-Fi, rather ineffective.

As a parent, the only solution I have is to prohibit access to screen, i.e. take all devices away, completely. Which I have failed, as there are very little communal spaces for the kids to hang out and interact where I live, and those who do hang out tend to be vaping, drinking alcohol, etc. All the kids are online in the evenings - chatting, sharing memes, laughing together, or they have pre-arranged playdates.

So, my choice here is to completely take away all devices and, hence, completely remove the social component. Or just pray he won't get abused online. I, honestly, don't know what to do. I have been living with computers since 80s, started out with ZX Spectrum and PC/XT, and I am horrified by what allowing the kid to roam Internet without filters may lead to now.

throwawayffffas4• 5 years ago

I think that you are looking for a technological solution to a non technological problem, even if there was no encryption at all there is no way to 100% inspect all of your kids communications. The same way there is no way to follow them and watch them 100% of the time in the real world. The only thing you can do is educate your kid about these issues and trust them.

pasloc2• 5 years ago

Your problem is not that the kids can't be protected with encryption, but rather that you want way too much control over these kids' lives. I know you think you are protecting them, but it is much better for a child's development to simply be told and explained how the world works. Also porn. Anyone who believes that they can hide everything from a child until they are of age and that they will always act in a wise manner after they are of age is naive.

npteljes4• 5 years ago

Childen watching gore on liveleak, girls looking at anorexia inspiration and boys getting into extremist ideals are not really good for their development, and these resources don't "simply tell" how the world works. In fact, it's the opposite: they construct a desirable narrative that supplants interacting with the real world, they enclose someone instead of opening them up. It's a parent's job to ward off bad influence from their children, whom are not equipped with dealing with such stimuli. Maybe not even the parent is equipped. It's not a matter of hiding and controlling children, it's about not letting other abusive people raise your children instead of you.

npteljes4• 5 years ago

I'm afraid banning encryption doesn't alleviate this very real issue. In the current ecosystem, nothing is stopping people to install whatever they want on their phones / computers (well, Apple does stop them, but aside from that), and so, it's just an install away that the child rejoins the encrypted network where everything is possible.

technothrasher• 5 years ago

When I grew up the content of that sort was significantly more limited, i.e. occasional porn GIFs, most fine erotic material, but nothing of the extreme sort you could easily stumble upon by just being online today

You must have lived a sheltered life as a child. As soon an VHS tapes came around in the late 70's and my family got a player, I was exposed to all kinds of crap- rape porn, bestiality, snuff films, white power propaganda, etc. You name it, and we'd trade the tapes as kids. Sure it's a lot more convenient now, but it was all around back then.

I've taken the approach that I'd never be able to stop my curious child from seeing nasty stuff online, no matter how hard I try. The best thing I can do is educate and provide context. I explained pretty early on to my son that he has to be careful what he looks for online, because he'll find it. Now at 15 years old, he tells me, "you wouldn't believe the shit out there, it's disgusting." Exactly.

doublerabbit3• 5 years ago

You must have lived a sheltered life as a child. As soon an VHS tapes came around in the late 70's and my family got a player, I was exposed to all kinds of crap- rape porn, bestiality, snuff films, white power propaganda, etc. You name it, and we'd trade the tapes as kids. Sure it's a lot more convenient now, but it was all around back then.

It was, but wasn't. I never saw porn on VHS, nor did I have a sheltered life. It wasn't until I was 15, last year of secondary school was when I saw porn round a pals house.

My parent's were not the parents who were in to such content so there was never any of that in possession. True, it has always existed but regardless it can be damaging to a child.

doublerabbit3• 5 years ago

I am horrified by what allowing the kid to roam Internet without filters may lead to now.

I worry too, my nephew is only three and is happily running around playing with dinosaurs.

With social media the way it is, young teens selling themselves on OnlyFans, different types of pornography/hentai imagery traded on Discord. It's all horrifying.

doublerabbit3• 5 years ago

Downvoted why? That teenagers are not selling themselves on OnlyFans? No one should be selling "pics" of themselves for cash.

Hentai isn't traded on Discord? look around, because it's all there. Join a NSFW "lewd" discord and see for yourself.

Discord welcomes 13-year olds to join the platform. That someone that young can see that content is horrific.

patrakov• 5 years ago

Well, the keyword here is "responsible parenting". The child has to understand that the restrictions come from you, and not from the computer. This means watching the screen together, and not relying on a fallible automated system.

Breaking SSL is not the answer for one more reason: with more and more web apps (cannot say "websites") relying on JavaScript-only content delivery, long polling, websockets, server-sent events, and who knows what else, there are less and less standards. Earlier, such nanny software worked because everything was text and HTML, and it is known how to stop bad things in these content types. Nowadays, we can't just block replies, because we have to substitute some dummy JSON (or whatever) instead, so that the app doesn't crash or hang - and such dummy replacement of the blocked content is application-specific.

Also, think about today's children, they are tomorrow's politicians: now you deploy an automated system that breaks the internet for them, tomorrow they will deploy an automated system that will deny access for you to anything published by the opposition.

literallycancer2• 5 years ago

Ah the horror. Ever tried actually talking to the kid? You guys didn't run around the neighborhood doing random shit when you were young? Were your parents horrified by what allowing you to roam without supervision may lead to?

If watching some weirdo porn was enough to mentally damage people, the world would look quite different.

aethertron4• 5 years ago

The problem with porn doesn't really come from accidental exposure to particularly 'extreme' material, I think. That might just be a start. The core problem is, for young people (adolescents) and adults alike, the deliberate search for porn (with hormone-fueled determination, it'll get around technical hurdles) as part of an addictive pattern of behaviour. To counter that, there's no substitute for voluntarily and consciously avoiding it. This may be helped by education: knowing why it's bad, and also knowing why it seems appealing, i.e. sex education and basic addiction psychology, as well as knowledge of the other porn-associated problems as informed by one's broader moral framework. Good luck.

morbia• 5 years ago

The thing is there are counter examples where, in my opinion on moral grounds, a child is entitled to privacy. Some examples on off the top of my head:-

* An LGBT child using LGBT safe spaces online. Being outed before a child has come to terms with their feelings themselves can be horrendous for their mental wellbeing, even in an understanding household. In less LGBT friendly households it could be extremely dangerous.

* An abuser is part of their family and trying to communicate that to teachers, authorities or whoever else.

Of course you are right to be concerned for your child, and age/maturity is really critical in this discussion. A 4 year old clearly shouldn't have unfettered access to the internet. Should a 15 year old who has shown they can be trusted be forced to have their parent view everything they do? I'm not sure.

giantrobot2• 5 years ago

but nothing of the extreme sort you could easily stumble upon by just being online today, etc).

As an adult I don't "stumble" onto the type of content you're talking about and I browse the web a lot. So if children are "stumbling" onto this content, maybe just maybe, they don't need unfettered Internet access and their own private devices.

denton-scratch8• 5 years ago

nothing of the extreme sort you could easily stumble upon

From your post, I divine that you don't really like porn much. I actually seek it out; but I've never "stumbled upon" anything more extreme than a model who looks as if she's 17. You don't find kiddieporn by stumbling around pornhub.

easrng4• 5 years ago

Blocking content is not the way. I ran into Encyclopedia Dramatica and similar when I was like 12, and I wish that didn't happen, but there are no technical filters that would've stopped it. In my experience, kids will find a way around anything you could do, and they will want to fight what they perceive as unjust restrictions. Talk to them and communicate, you can't solve this with a technical solution.

Also, Discord is not end-to-end encrypted. (Messages are sent and scrollback is loaded over HTTPS, realtime messages are received over an HTTPS WebSocket. (They are compressed, but not encrypted any more than normal HTTPS.))

School devices are generally monitored/filtered way too much already. Fortunately until highschool I'd always been able to bypass blocking by changing my DNS or using HTTPS. My highschool has Fortinet though which seems to do SNI filtering so whenever I need to visit blocked things I have to use Tor. (There's probably a more efficient way but Tor works fine.)

claudiawerner• 5 years ago

pornography and perversion that percolates into the mainstream life via innocent channels - manga, anime, Reddit, and so on

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but it's interesting how manga/anime is invoked in these discussions, often unintentionally or even unknowingly recalling the image of 'weird Japan', a supposed hotbed of child abuse and perversion, where no material, much less anime and manga are safe for Western eyes, supposedly more moral and discerning.

I recently read a paper about this kind of discourse, in which the authors pointed out, quite rightly in my judgement, that the popularity of such readings in the mainstream Western press projects a certain idea of fiction and its relationship with reality which is not shared by many in Japan, and certainly not by the consumers of this 'pornography and perversion' according to ethnographic research on their opinions and perceptions.

Second is the idea of 'stumbling' upon porn. Some people even class Neon Genesis Evangelion as 'perversion' in its own right, and recently in the US, portrayals of adolescent sexuality in stories and books, which some lawmakers are trying to remove from libraries. I'm of the opinion that the sparation isn't nearly that easy. Teenagers writing Harry Potter slash fanfiction is a far cry away from Blender animated monster porn, and a fannish teenager or younger will have a greater interest in the former.

Consider just how well moderated most Internet communities are. The chance of seeing porn (as opposed to the anime equivalent of a very softcore porn gif) on r/all, or even r/anime is slim. A child is much more likely to 'stumble' accross it if a friend they know in real life sent it to them through Discord. The only other place I can really think of a child 'stumbling' in a zone meant for children would be Twitter, but then we're talking about Twitter, not 'reddit', 'anime', or 'manga'. In other words, I'm saying that just because the material exists, it doesn't mean it's innocently 'stumbled' upon by a wide-eyed child. Children get curious, especially when you tell them not to do something, or society provides that narrative.

jMyles2• 5 years ago

Protecting kids by eliminating or breaking end-to-end encryption is a contradiction in terms.

End-to-end encryption is crucial to protect today's kids.

https://blog.nucypher.com/todays-kids-need-end-to-end-encryp...

londons_explore• 5 years ago

Watched the video. I actually think it's a decent ad for their cause. It's technically accurate, and doesn't make unfounded claims.

Now, the e2e encryption crowd needs to make a similar ad explaining why encryption is important.

And the public can make their minds up when they vote.

jkbbwr• 5 years ago

The only problem is the public is fucking stupid.

MadeThisToReply• 5 years ago

https://xkcd.com/1386/

raxxorrax4• 5 years ago

They did not make a good case. "No place to hide" is vindictive emotional manipulation at best and their fantasies about online interactions are a bit weird. Maybe they should be watched and their exchanges put under scrutiny? Institutions for children are often the source of their abuse.

throwawayffffas4• 5 years ago

Do you guys think this is security apparatus backed, or politically backed?

I mean do you think that this is the government being "convinced" by law enforcement and the rest of the security apparatus in order to maintain the state of easy interception, and mass intelligence gathering?

Or do you think this is purely politicians thinking about how to keep their analytics algorithms and propaganda machines fed with data collected from social media on private chats?

throwawayffffas4• 5 years ago

I think it's both but I wonder what everyone else is thinking.

denton-scratch8• 5 years ago

I think it's neither; this is just pure politics - it's meant to distract the attention of authoritarian backbench conservative MPs away from the manifest deficiencies of their leader.

kiryin• 5 years ago

You'd think the "think of the children" gag has already more than served it's purpose in this world, but then stuff like this pops up...

AshleysBrain• 5 years ago

There doesn't appear to be any clear proposals put forward. The goals under "Our campaign" are vague and high-level. How exactly can E2E encryption be done without putting children at risk, as they put it? This page at least appears to be silent on the matter. So it's hard not to come away thinking that this is just a "think of the children" attack on E2E encryption as a whole.

azalemeth• 5 years ago

I feel a bit odd posting this. My HN news identity is tied to that of mine in real life – something that I am proud of, but something I might change shortly. Apologies in advance for the very long sentences.

In many ways, my childhood was horrific. Bullied from a young age for being very different to my peers, I had my bones broken by older children aged 8, 9, and 13; scratches and bite marks from the age of about 5. Older children did "things" to me that definitely count as sexual assault with adult eyes; I'd rather not get into all of it as I was never groomed, but I was certainly abused. One memory I have is of sitting on the sofa with my arm in plaster, freshly broken, and playing the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on my N64. A teacher visited, out of the blue, and asked my mum not to sue the school I was at. Several of the teachers I had as a teenager are now convicted paedophiles -- convicted because they had sex with students (of my gender). I remember one talking about getting large erections in class.

When I went to Oxford, to read physics, after years of being beaten, bullied, spat at, stamped on, urinated upon; after having to battle my school to pay for someone to invigilate my entrance exam paper (they refused -- I did it in the head of the sixth form's office); after being threatened with expulsion for cracking their WEP key to read wikipedia in class; after having faeces thrown at me, a firework placed in my locker, stolen property put in my coat pocket to frame me, and other boys putting what would now be considered "extreme pornography" in the UK in my coat pocket, or changing my unlocked computer's desktop picture to horse porn; or being shown videos of pigs being decapitated with a chainsaw because I was vegetarian -- after all that, when finally, I was welcomed into a place where learning was encouraged, and the others were like me, I frankly thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I've hung onto it, tooth and nail, trying to do good in the world (and let others like me have their chance).

I therefore feel that I'm uniquely qualified to comment this government's attempt at disrupting E2E encryption. I understand the maths (but I am not a cryptographer) and I very much feel like I would be in the target demographic.

Banning or breaking end to end encryption won't help.

Targetted abuse is, I believe on the part of the abuser(s), entirely psychological, and that process leads to physical violence. The medium is a lesser concern. I had seven shades of shit beaten out of me in the era before 2004 -- at AIM and Jabber's height -- and snooping my messages would not have helped.

People who are sexually attracted to children are very rare, and the allegations take a long time to come out because your state of mind only really develops fully about the whole process years later. The medium of communication matters -- and having some sort of post facto evidence chain is undoubtedly helpful -- but breaking disappearing messages is not what this PR campaign is about. It's about increasing the ability of the security services to snoop.

The proposals are something I vehemently disagree with – there is a very large difference between a complaint being raised, that complaint being investigated, and as part of that evidence gathered (and message databases recovered); and proactive, untargetted investigation of crime. The UK's town of "Scunthorpe" famously fails most "bad language" filters and it blights the lives of its residents. Having the police investigate children proactively without talking to them is...immoral. I very much believe that, complete with the five-years-non-negotiable key disclosure law in the UK, encryption moves the burden of duty appropriately onto the police: they can investigate matters when a complaint is raised, but not before.

Any further goes too far towards the surveillance (Stazi-style) police state, in my opinion, with children being investigated by the empowered, frightening apparatus of the state because they said something naughty. We already know what happens to children who look like they might happen to be carrying drugs on their way to school, when the police have the powers to stop and search. It hasn't ended well, either for the police (wherein trust is rapidly falling), or for the children in question. Let's not make the same mistake again with what is, fundamentally, maths.

raxxorrax4• 5 years ago

Thank you for sharing. Since most abuse happens from people you know or are in your vicinity, I believe the focus on online content is misplaced. Providing information and a way to call for help is much more productive way. Having channels to share information confidentially does benefit people greatly to even share their predicaments. It helps them to maybe gain the confidence to seek help. Removing that confidentiality is counter productive.

Giving government the ability to snoop on people to maybe find something objectionable would in my opinion severely inhibit people opening up about abuse. Even if you believed government to be your perfect friend. For many it isn't just a question of security, it is also a question of shame and guilt. Ubiquitous surveillance would be damaging to the low trust of people that were abused.

KaiserPro• 5 years ago

Its odd that they are framing it as social media companies are now "starting to roll out e2ee"

All the main messaging platforms have some sort of e2ee, apart from gchat and FB messenger (that I know of, I'm not considering snap/insta/twitter/tiktok DMs)

Given that Facebook are going to outspend the government significantly to prove that they are encrypting and making your messages private, its going to be an interesting fight.

lnxg33k1• 5 years ago

But to be honest all these attacks on the e2e encryption in order to prevent child abuse or security are a bit busting balls, like there has been for years pedo content in light on youtube, and no police saw that, other than VIPs and princes going to islands to see kids, I think this has nothing to do with kids and security, it's just another way to shrink individual liberties

totetsu• 5 years ago

No place to hide is such a terrifyingly direct phrase given the real effects/intentions of this

spamizbad2• 5 years ago

An ironic initiative from the UK, considering the conduct of Prince Andrew, the BBC covering for Jimmy Savile for decades, and of course the British tabloid press defense of convicted sex abuser Ghislaine Maxwell.

Would eliminating E2E encryption helped Savile's, Maxwell's, or Prince Andrew's victims? Nope.

bidirectional2• 5 years ago

the British tabloid press defense of convicted sex abuser Ghislaine Maxwell.

I haven't seen a single article that could reasonably be called a defense of Maxwell.

spamizbad2• 5 years ago

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-gh...

It’s hard not to feel a batsqueak of pity for Ghislaine Maxwell — 500 days and counting in solitary confinement. I intersected briefly with her at Oxford. As a fresher I wandered into Balliol JCR one day in search of its subsidised breakfast granola-and-Nescafé offering and found a shiny glamazon with naughty eyes holding court astride a table, a high-heeled boot resting on my brother Boris’s thigh. She gave me a pitying glance but I did manage to snag an invite to her party in Headington Hill Hall — even though I wasn't in the same college as her and Boris. I have a memory of her father, Bob, coming out in a towelling robe and telling us all to go home. I’m sure fairweather friends would not reveal they went to a Ghislaine Maxwell party: as Barbara Amiel’s brilliant memoir Friends and Enemies proves, you only know who your real chums are when you’re in the gutter.

kypro• 5 years ago

We are not opposed to end-to-encryption in principle and fully support the importance of strong user privacy.

So they're not opposed to an end-to-encryption in principle? I'm sure that was an honest mistake.

fnord77• 5 years ago

seems the UK wants to become (another) cautionary tale.

bradvl• 5 years ago

They're lobbying against encryption, but using HTTPS?

motohagiography2• 5 years ago

We should be a bit less naive about what this play really is. There is a talking point I've observed in some of my more progressive circles that "nerds aren't the good guys anymore," as managerialists see principled people who demand facts, evidence, logic, and reason as an obstacle to their maintaining control of "The Narrative," which is whatever absurdity authorities and their toadies use to demonstrate their alignment.

This campaign has nothing to do with protecting children - especially given the UK establishment's veritable tradition of both organizing and covering up industrial scale sexual abuse - and it is nothing more than hate speech designed to cast aspersions upon and isolate technologists as part of a broader political effort.

The Rolling Stone article from earler this week said, "The Home Office has hired the M&C Saatchi advertising agency — a spin-off of Saatchi and Saatchi, which made the “Labour Isn’t Working” election posters, among the most famous in UK political history — to plan the campaign, using public funds."

I would encourage HN readers to recognize this campaign is only nominally about encryption, and mainly it is about politically attacking the credibility and reputations of civilian technologists, and by conflating your expertise with abusers this M&C Saatchi agency has produced literal hate propaganda against you. (just following orders, surely!) I'd recommend people to not underestimate what this is.

boffinAudio3• 5 years ago

it is about politically attacking the credibility and reputations of civilian technologist

No question about it, this is accurate - especially given the way the UK has treated those who have a legitimate reason to use encryption for political reasons.

This is cynical authoritarianism being used to confer a totality over protective technology.

bogle3• 5 years ago

This is from a government that has consistently waged war on expert opinion, "I think the people in this country have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong." - Gove

This is, quite frankly, from a government that has waged a war on truth.

SavantIdiot• 5 years ago

"nerds aren't the good guys anymore,"

Why would anyone assume this was ever true?

api2• 5 years ago

I've seen this "nerds are the bad guys" pro legacy media narrative too, and in the same places. In the US it's usually built around January 6th and Trumpism and the role of social media in that.

I'm alarmed by the rise of right-wing populist totalitarianism too, but I also feel like we need to remind people to keep their eye on the other players. I heard a funny saying once: the march of tyranny goes "left, right, left, right..." You don't need to posit a conspiracy to explain that pattern, just reaction and opportunism.

I'm hearing rumblings in the USA about a "domestic war on terror" which is every bit as scary as another borderline coup attempt if not more. We'll see that get pushed hard if there is an Oklahoma City scale attack that comes out of the fringe of the militia, right-populist, or Qanon-type circles. That push will include our own version of this UK campaign but framed around surveilling domestic extremism.

I don't think the cryptography wars are over. I think we'll see renewed pushes for more spying and crypto restrictions as we (perhaps) enter a period of increasing domestic and global political instability. I also expect to see pushes to lock down all devices to only run approved code, an open and general war on universal computation, or a push to require all devices to have remote backdoors.

Edit:

Anyone who entertains these arguments needs to remember that "their side" may not necessarily be the ones wielding them. Always picture any increased invasive powers or reduced individual liberties in the hands of your worst political opponents. Political winds can shift quickly, especially in these times.

motohagiography2• 5 years ago

The irony is most domestic extremism and violence (right and left) is unofficially tolerated because it's useful to be able to direct it at your opponents and just not enforce laws against it, so in many cases it's completely manufactured. I stopped being outraged years ago because that's how they know it's working.

The domestic extremism thing in north america is going to use the same absurdist playbook, which is filling the message with inconsistency and nonsense so that people are so disgusted by it we treat it as too stupid to do anything about - and that in effect neutralizes us so we do nothing, and that is the sufficient condition for evil to prevail.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist so much as a conspiracy arbitrageur, and as long as we think the cadre of people behind these authoritarian plays are stupid and incompetent, the longer we will do nothing to stop them, and the more extreme it will ultimately need to be to dislodge them. There was a time when I would leave these things unsaid, but I think it's important to recognize the time where that was strategic has passed.

If you are among those who can see what's going on, now is the time to articulate it, imo.

MattPalmer10866• 5 years ago

They say up to 14 million reports of suspected child sex abuse could be lost each year. I couldn't easily verify that number from the linked NCMEC web site (seems high from the reports I read), but let's assume it's accurate.

However... What can even be done with 14,000,000 annual reports of suspected child sex abuse?

I'm just intrigued to know how that volume of data supports actual investigations, and to what extent it has helped bring perpetrators to justice or helped children suffering abuse.

15characterslon• 5 years ago

According to statista, the UK has about 14 million residents younger than 20 years, so they're just counting everyone as a potential victim.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/281208/population-of-the...

MattPalmer10866• 5 years ago

But NCMEC is a US organisation, not a UK one.

Edit: I assume they use that since they are focused on social media companies, which are almost entirely US based.

chillingeffect• 5 years ago

They don't say how many of those were found by people snooping comms and how many were logged by users. E.g. if someone sees someone talking creepy on a forum like Reddit, that still gets reported. If a neighbor does something creepy that still gets reported. Those millions over reports don't go away. This is classic fear-mongering from governments not skilled enough to protect their citizens without violating their rights.

MattPalmer10866• 5 years ago

Yes, it's the classic "up to some max figure" weasel words. Could also be zero!

kingosticks• 5 years ago

let's assume it's accurate.

This article tries to understand where that number comes from (and fails to do so): https://alecmuffett.com/article/15902

alecmuffett• 5 years ago

Confusingly, perhaps intentionally so, it's a global number, not a UK one.

Details here. https://alecmuffett.com/article/15902

Disclosure: I wrote the blogpost.

MattPalmer10866• 5 years ago

Great analysis, thanks for posting it.

I only got as far as realising the stats were from the US and were probably global.

MattPalmer10866• 5 years ago

I'm sure they liked a large headline figure. They should have disclosed that the figures were global at the very least.

MattPalmer10866• 5 years ago

Also, interesting that the majority of them are duplicates.

easrng4• 5 years ago

Besides, report features could include the keys for the reported message.

nurumaik• 5 years ago

The domain name speaks about their end goal much clearer than the title

Terry_Roll• 5 years ago

I'm not getting into the rights or wrongs of child abuse because there are many legal forms of child abuse which religions and govts have normalised over the centuries as acceptable behaviour, but considering it is currently portrayed as the worst act someone can do, this is a campaign that has high knee jerking manipulation potential against the uneducated.

Why doesn't the Govt produce an app, which lets people voluntarily offer up information to authorities that can run on all their devices?

This way a subsection of the population will be automatically sidelined and the authorities can concentrate on the data from those not using their app. But this only targets devices, it doesnt target offline situations like people meeting in a pub arranging things, where the consumption of alcohol provides an automatic defence to the prosecution!

regularjack• 5 years ago

The title is inaccurate, the site explicitly says:

We are not opposed to end-to-end encryption.

I'm not commenting on the merits of this campaign, simply on the fact that the title is inaccurate.

emptysongglass• 5 years ago

I don't believe it's inaccurate. That sentence is put out there early but the rest of the paragraphs go on to beg businesses not to turn it on. It plays as a way to get ahead of the argument but ends up countering itself at every turn.

jeroenhd• 5 years ago

They say:

We are not opposed to end-to-end encryption, as long as it is implemented in a way that does not put children at risk. We are in favour of both strong privacy and children’s safety and urge social media companies to protect both.

Which basically means "we are not opposed to end-to-end encryption as long as the encryption is not end-to-end".

bo1024• 5 years ago

The site also says right above that

We want social media companies to confirm they will not implement end-to-end encryption

(our two quotes both omit similar amounts of context.)

bArray• 5 years ago

But some are planning to introduce end-to-end-encryption, which scrambles messages so that only the sender and receiver can see what is being shared.

One could also argue this could further _protect_ children. Now, criminal material cannot be viewed by an unintended third party. For example, it is well known that an iCloud hack leaked the photos of many celebrity women and was dubbed "the fappening", only possible because they were stored in a viewable format without e2e.

We should be maximizing the control an individual has over their own data, not minimizing control. Anything the police can easily access is also something tonnes of other people can easily access. Given how common data breaches are, we should simply not trust that the transit/storage process is secure at all.

cakoose• 5 years ago

For example, it is well known that an iCloud hack leaked the photos of many celebrity women and was dubbed "the fappening", only possible because they were stored in a viewable format without e2e.

I thought the 2014 iCloud hack was because attackers tricked users into revealing their passwords, not because Apple's iCloud service itself was compromised. If that's true, e2e would not have made a difference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_leak

(Of course it's definitely possible for a service itself to be hacked wholesale, in which case e2e would help.)

philistine• 5 years ago

It was the lack of two-factor that was the vector of attack for the hack. It's why so many iCloud features these days are not available at all if your Apple ID doesn't have two-factor enabled; Apple justifiably got shamed into improving security.

jowsie• 5 years ago

Here's one of the ads for this campaign.

https://youtu.be/1wKSDv77FBs

idontwantthis• 5 years ago

The thing I never understand is that anyone can make an e2e chat app in an hour. It can exchange files in an afternoon.

It’s like banning hand signals. How do you ban a way of communicating that anyone can do for free?

gampleman• 5 years ago

You don't. You just give yourself the ability to send eye-watering fines to any of these apps.

If the fine is £100,000,000, but you have only an estimated 0.01% of being prosecuted for it, would you write such an app in an hour? Or would you think twice about it?

denton-scratch8• 5 years ago

It doesn't matter how big the penalties are, if your chance of getting caught is approximately zero. They keep jacking up the penalties for using a mobile phone behind the wheel, but everyone is still doing it. Big penalties without enforcement is just political theatre.

FerretFred• 5 years ago

Interestingly, that site has been blocked by my employer's Corporate Overlord Content Filter. Had to use another computer to view the content, and now I can see why.

Dave3of5• 5 years ago

So the reality of this is that this is the UK government not being able to spy on platforms like whatsapp. Remove the E2E encryption and five eyes gets it's eyes on whatever you're saying.

It's really scummy to use children as a weapon here e.g. Encryption allows child abuse.

balabaster2• 5 years ago

Having children allows child abuse - do we ban people from having children? Of course we don't...

da39a3ee3• 5 years ago

Why the focus on child sex abuse? End-to-end encryption makes it easier to have all sorts of conversations privately, criminal or not.

balabaster2• 5 years ago

What if we look at ideas such as encryption requiring licensing such that there are valid use cases for it and invalid use cases for it. Things that automatically qualify as valid use cases would be things like login systems, payment systems, communication between certain parties deemed essentially private - for example client attorney communications, patient and medical team communications, reporters, whistleblowers, and other similarly essential services that require protection. I'm sure there are many valid use cases.

Invalid use cases would be things like social media platforms where children are able to communicate with unknown parties.

Could something like that work? How could a system like that be protected from abuse? Obviously pedophillic doctors and reporters would have an immediate loophole that would need to be considered...

There has to be a way where we can have legitimately end to end encrypted systems while preventing illegitimate ones. There's a massive grey area in between "ban encryption" and "let pedophiles do what they want without any oversight." There must be a solution that falls somewhere in the middle of those two things.

lbriner2• 5 years ago

There is a massive issue here of which this is merely a symptom. The amount of harmful content available today is orders of magnitude more than it was 30 years ago.

Sure, there has always been porn and abuse etc. but the scale that is permitted now due to the internet is massive. There are questions around how to reduce demand for content that feeds illegal activity including child abuse but also drugs, terrorist materials, human trafficking from certain porn etc.

It isn't just how do we protect children but how do we protect society from becoming so numb to this that it just continues? How do we teach children that some snuff movies are real? That you cannot unsee an execution? That most porn content is either fake or coerced? How can you teach people that just because someone is called Doctor, doesn't mean their anti-vax conspiracy is true. Sure, you cannot stop them seeing it but we definitely have to think of some way of deciding what is and isn't acceptable and having much better cross-border enforcement for people who peddle this stuff.

I think removing E2E encryption is a piss poor tool unless you fix the bigger problem.

dsign2• 5 years ago

You are making a really good point. I do like E2E and privacy, but for the broader aim of getting people to generally distrust the Internet, any step that makes its use a hazard is good, simply put. The Internet has incredible value, I can't say that there will come a time when we will give up on messaging and e-commerce because everything else we do there is so fraught with danger.

But sometimes the future is unpredictable. What if ten years from now armies of hackers operate AIs that pollute absolutely everything with false information, impossible to distinguish from true facts? Those information wars are being waged now, only by humans, and yet, often with great effect. Imagine a time when a small agency can deploy an AI that creates hundreds of thousands of fake profiles looking like actual people, each posting slightly biased opinions on a slew of topics. At that point, the biggest social good may be to outright ban a big chunk of the Internet. And yes, it would be a sad day.

gtsop2• 5 years ago

When technologically impared people make decisions.

Here is a possible solution to your problem: Release an open source library that locally has a trained model to detect child abuse texting. Allow messaging platforms to integrate this library on the user end (you know, after the second "end" in the end-2-end). Implement parental control tools that enable this library to look st messages and report when something is fishy.

Op-in, privacy respecting, user controlled.

nybble414• 5 years ago

(you know, after the second "end" in the end-2-end)

The "end" in E2EE is the end user, or software acting on that user's behalf as their agent—not software acting for some third party such as the service provider against the end user's will.

Integrating digital spies into peoples' devices is not the answer.

gtsop2• 5 years ago

Integrating digital spies into peoples' devices is not the answer.

I am not sure you read my comment but anyway.

herio• 5 years ago

From this day on, letters are banned. All posted material must be on post cards so that any and all can inspect them in case you are being naughty.

Funny how we've gone from court order to intercept somebodies mail to this...

jimbob45• 5 years ago

Do they just not know about deniable encryption? Even something like DNS can be self-hosted to circumvent DNS-over-HTTPS bans.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-the-Record_Messaging

AitchEmArsey• 5 years ago

"Won't somebody please think of the children"

It is horrifying to me that this approach of using pedophelia as a scapegoat to permanently degrade civil liberties goes largely unchallenged in the media.

arpa• 5 years ago

Paging Paedofinder General[0]!

0. https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Paedofinder_General

dbg31415• 5 years ago

Relevant from Australia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW-OMR-iWOE

cannabis_sam• 5 years ago

The UK under its current government is unfortunately a failed state..

fguerraz• 5 years ago

I wonder if we could make it backfire by setting up a similar campaign "No Place to Hide for MPs" for them to stop using WhatsApp and other end-to-end encrypted systems[1]. Demanding total transparency in their communications, in an effort to avoid them dodging their own rules.

If done quickly and sent to the newspapers this could maybe discredit that campaign?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/17/tories-swit...

aftergibson• 5 years ago

Agreed, lead by example to save the children. Right?

19870213• 5 years ago

Especially needed, because "who knows what they will do to harm the children, maybe not this cabinet, but what about the next one?"

dataduck• 5 years ago

Does anyone know of an organised resistance to this?

miracle2k• 5 years ago

The right against e2e encryption will ultimately be lost, IMO.

There is just no concrete, tangible reason why sex predators and terrorists do need to have this protection from law enforcement. Meanwhile, there is no concrete, tangible need for the average citizen to be able to foil lawful access by police (say after a warrant was issued - you do have protections!).

I say concrete and tangible, because while I strongly support e2e, it is impossible to justify on purely objective, let's weigh specific pros and cons grounds. It's essentially an ideological position, where you are willing to accept a lot of concrete downsides for the idea that the right to privacy is a tool in the balance between the individual and the state.

I'd venture to say that very few people here actually deeply believe this though. Rather, it has been adopted as commonly accepted wisdom within our community. Your supposed to support encryption. Within the larger culture wars and the techslash, I have serious doubts as to how many people are willing to defend e2e encryption once the wider public turns against it. This just needs persistence and the right political trigger.

By the way - the argument for cryptocurrency, or for Tor, is exactly the same as the argument for e2e encryption. You are supposed to accept all the bad stuff (crime), not because the average Joe needs the tech, but because it serves as a counterweight against the tyranny of the majority. You don't need to be a libertarian to believe that.

harryvederci• 5 years ago

"OMG, knifes can hurt children, yet evil store owners continue to sell knifes anyway!"

Here's a controversial thought: maybe you should educate your children?

And if that doesn't work, maybe children shouldn't be allowed to be on social media, since (if I recall correctly) it's proven to be bad for them anyway? (By the facebook/instagram leak?)

mitchdoogle• 5 years ago

You can gauge the honesty of any proposed computing law by measuring how soon and how loudly they mention child pornography. And this one has it in huge letters at the top of the page.

aethertron4• 5 years ago

Online-initiated grooming presumably begins outside of e2e'd 1-on-1 communications. Seems social media platforms have a bunch of options to help prevent that, and keeping e2e. (CSAM is a different sort of crime and must have a different solution). Facebook knows the age of its users, right? There's no good reason a regular strange adult's account should be privately communicating with a teenager (aside from special services like a suicide or domestic violence hotline).

Twitter/Reddit? Kids shouldn't be on those. They're full of porn.

bmh1002• 5 years ago

Consider the manager of a fast-food restaurant.

aethertron4• 5 years ago

A boss grooming his underage staff? That would be offline-initiated grooming, so not really the remit of social media companies. Workplace communications should be auditable.

networkid• 5 years ago

Seriously? Maybe they just should not give their children devices?

kmlx2• 5 years ago

End-to-end encryption is valuable technology designed to keep our data and conversations safe. We are not opposed to end-to-encryption in principle and fully support the importance of strong user privacy. Instead, our campaign is calling for social media companies to work with us to find a solution that protects privacy, without putting children at even greater risk.

wouldn't apple's solution from last year be a pretty good solution for the way they're framing this?

nybble414• 5 years ago

Apple's "solution" is not end-to-end encryption. They place their software agent in the communication path (as a man-in-the-middle) to report back on the content of the messages, circumventing the encryption. It's not enough to encrypt only part of the path; E2EE means only the sender and intended recipient(s) have access to the messages. Apple is neither, and yet they give themselves access to the messages; ergo their system is not encrypted from end to end.

gidorah• 5 years ago

I like that there is a share to Whatsapp button there

hkt2• 5 years ago

This actually sounds like a campaign for the client side content detection thing Apple cooked up recently. But still grim.

bacan• 5 years ago

Fine. Lets abolish the govt secrets act & all the secret courts and what not too.

No secrets for us, none for the govt too

blunte• 5 years ago

One solution is for black and gray hats to make a coordinated effort to regularly publish conversations between officials and promoters of these policies.

When their conversations with their mistresses become frequently public, they will change their attitudes.

squarefoot• 5 years ago

Obligatory cartoon:

https://i.redd.it/ifb8agngc7dy.jpg

Anyone willing to make a UK version?

outside1234• 5 years ago

Its always supposedly about the children

lowbloodsugar2• 5 years ago

Is it odd that the website is encrypted? Why would they need that?

DrBazza• 5 years ago

Art student politicians that don’t understand tech, plus Hanlon’s razor, and MI5, MI6 and the Met whispering in the cabinet’s ears and we get this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

lowbloodsugar2• 5 years ago

Who is fighting this and where do I send money?

sixhobbits• 5 years ago

I wonder if they intentionally overlapped with Greenwald's book on Govt surveillance [0]

No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State is a 2014 non-fiction book by American investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald. It was first published on May 13, 2014 through Metropolitan Books and details Greenwald's role in the global surveillance disclosures as revealed by the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden.[2] The documents from the Snowden archive cited in the book are freely available online.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Place_to_Hide_(Greenwald_bo...

Paul_S• 5 years ago

"The campaign is funded by the UK Government"

What is this nonsense? They are a majority government, they can pass any laws they want, why are they wasting my money on this insulting propaganda.

DocTomoe• 5 years ago

The ability to pass any law you want is in itself pretty useless, because if the population thinks you did pass the wrong laws, you lose the power to pass future laws you might want, either due to getting thrown out during the next election, or because of loss of cranium, French Revolution style.

What is important is lying about your true intention convincingly enough.

LinuxBender• 5 years ago

Should something like this come to pass I would expect quite an amusing arms race. One could create add-ons that use code similar to txtmode [1] not my project to encode anything into words from a word list that anyone could create. Encoded in those words could be a compressed and/or encrypted string. There are probably even more clever and efficient ways to do E2EE without it looking like encryption at all.

Would it be worthwhile to have a competition to create something along this line? Something in the same spirit as the js13kGames [2] but in this case who can create the most human looking and most efficient communication that is actually E2EE encrypted messages using customizable word-lists?

[1] https://github.com/c9fe/txtmode.git

[2] https://js13kgames.com/

Maxburn• 5 years ago

Precisely; as soon as E2EE is outlawed it starts to look just like gun laws, only the criminals have it. Worse the software and methods are out there, all that happens next is you are raising the bar on being able to use it as it won't be commonly available.

mrtesthah• 5 years ago

Even better, use GPT-3 to generate grammatically correct text which steganographically encodes an encrypted message.

bee_rider• 5 years ago

Steganography is the broader topic. Recently, I think it has been assumed that anybody basically has a right to talk to anybody else without any real justification, so messages were encrypted instead. But steganography was popular in, for example, ancient times when the local king or church officials might demand to see your letters. If it is due for a comeback that says something pretty sad about our society I think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography

pfortuny2• 5 years ago

@dang:

just realized the title is wrong (end-to-ENCRYPTION encryption).

mnd999• 5 years ago

Wow, a fake grass roots campaign. That’s original.

mimsee• 5 years ago

There's this gem in the source:

console.log("you are being tracked");

grumpymouse2• 5 years ago

I live in the UK here and I have no problem with the police or government being able to read my WhatsApp messages - provided there is sufficient judicial oversight (i.e. they can convince a judge there’s sufficient evidence I’m doing something criminal).

They can already get a warrant to go through my underwear drawer, tap my phone or read my snail mail.

Why would chat messages be different?

drexlspivey• 5 years ago

Do you think that you should have the right to talk to someone in person without the government tapping into that? If so why chat messages should be different?

grumpymouse2• 5 years ago

If the police can prove to a court that there’s evidence somebody’s committing a serious crime I’m fine with them listening to people talk in person.

For example, if it really looked like I were trafficking drugs it would be fine to send somebody to follow me and listen to me talk to people

athrowaway3z• 5 years ago

I have ( a completely unverified ) view of this trash.

Every foundation/organization initially to influence politicians (i.e. what happened here through government funding) wrt end-to-end encryption is at most two bank transactions away from getting funding from either Hollywood or the military.

"Save the children" (c) , because some organization is controlled by a power mad narcissist, for whom privacy is a luxury you shouldn't be able to afford.

onemoresoop• 5 years ago

Im a bit confused what exactly means by banning end to end encryption. What would stop two parties from sending encrypted data across the wire and decrypt it on the other end of it? How would they ban that? If one posts some gobbledygook encrypted text on a forum that only a specific recipient would have the key how would that be stopped?

shaftway• 5 years ago

I think the most telling part is the typo in the first paragraph (and in the HN title): "End-To-Encryption"

callahad• 5 years ago

Worth noting that the majority party in Parliament, the one pushing this nonsense, switched en masse to Signal two years ago: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/17/tories-swit...

adamleo• 5 years ago

Not sure if anybody remembers or knows that months ago in New Zealand, there was a knife attack, and they took knives off shelves, basically tried to ban knives.

This campaign is emphasizing on one aspect of a tech, and trying to manipulate people emotionally.

No Place to Hide – U.K. campaign against end-to-encryption encryption

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