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UK Prime Minister Says Gov't Should Be Capable of Reading Any Communications
Dr_Barnowl writes: The BBC reports that UK Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed to introduce a "comprehensive piece of legislation" aimed at there being no "means of communication ... we cannot read," in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. While he didn't mention encryption specifically, the only logical means by which this could occur would be by the introduction of compulsory key escrow, and the banning of forms of encryption which do not use it. While the UK already essentially has a legal means to demand your encryption keys (and imprison you indefinitely if you don't comply), this would fall short if you have a credible reason for not having the key any more (such as using an OTR plugin for your chosen chat program).
The U.S. tried a similar tack with Clipper in the 90s. As we all know, terrorists with any technical chops are unlikely to be affected, given the vast amount of freely available, military-grade crypto now available, and the use of boring old cold war tradecraft. Ironically, France used to ban the use of strong cryptography but has largely liberalized its regime since 2011.
The U.S. tried a similar tack with Clipper in the 90s. As we all know, terrorists with any technical chops are unlikely to be affected, given the vast amount of freely available, military-grade crypto now available, and the use of boring old cold war tradecraft. Ironically, France used to ban the use of strong cryptography but has largely liberalized its regime since 2011.
Let's see you decrypt the following:
Do kindly fuck off at your earliest convenience. Not a terrorist but like Charlie Hedbo, refuse to live on my knees.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
If we could hook Orwell's corpse up to a turbine, we'd have the energy problem solved.
I ran away from China some decades ago because the Communist government of China was more or less acting like a terroristic entity
I ran away from China and ended up in the West, and I thought I am safe ... apparently, I was wrong!
Now the Western nations are trying to become more China than China !
Oooooh, my !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Sure, you should be capable of reading anything, provided you've got the encryption key, provided you've got a warrant to request it, provided that the warrant is based on certifiable facts and a meaningful threat/need.
Otherwise, fuck off.
I imagine that the Prime Minister thinks that he can force Google and other emails providers to hand over emails to GCHQ and, crucially, the Prime Minister cannot comprehend the idea that people can set up their own email server.
The same argument goes for other protocols.
Probably, no one, other than politicians and Dail Mail readers, takes this seriously. It will be forgotten about after the next election.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Funny how these guys and gals make such strong claims, but never want to be the victims of their own policies. Don't worry, we have the same exact rules in the US where politicians are immune to laws, and rich people of course. The only people subject to laws are the "common" people, or in the words of Henry Kissinger and his ilk "the useless eaters". Yeah yeah, some of their "business" communications may be classified but their emails to gramma should be fully available for public consumption.
Petitions should go up immediately: Politicians are the "trial" batch for seeing how this works and the public requires full access to their personal communications. Beta group, or what ever you want to call them. A 2 year moratorium should be placed on any other changes pending the usefulness and feedback from that group. Further, anyone with a net worth of more than 50 million should be in the same pilot group, or perhaps make them group C phased in 1 year after the politicians are snooped upon.
Lets also not forget that the recent terrorists in France _were_ snooped upon and used zero encryption on their mail. They were just missed in all the noise, probably because of the massive haystacks of data people "claim" they need to find something. Bigger haystacks don't make needles easier to find, quite the opposite. Many of our security experts on both sides of the pond have said that same thing.. repeatedly.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
FUCK YOU! You big-brother assmunch!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
We should start by banning use of https
Let's hope he means "the authorities" and not "the government" since the government consists of MPs and if they have to be able to read it they will probably need to outlaw words with more than 3 syllables and writing something in a language other than English will count as use of advanced encryption.
In other news, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed to put the genie back in the bottle. On the way to do that, he's going to shut the barn door and go looking for his horse.
it's not the terrorists attacking a magazine's office that affects your free speech...
it's the government's RESPONSE to said attack on a free speech medium, that will have a much larger impact in limiting your free speech.
The irony is rich, yet the statist types will NEVER understand this.
The terrorists have no problem with breaking the law to kill and murder people on kamikaze missions... but I'm sure they're nice reasonable people who will stop using encryption if we make it illegal.
My encryption key is the full text of a copyrighted book that was never licensed to me nor anyone in my country.
If I told you it or wrote it down, it would be public performance or copyright infringement.
Yours,
Trollface Q.C.
This is why it will fail. Not because it would destroy everyone's privacy but because it will destroy the privacy of large, international companies. They will threaten to move out of the UK, the tories will panic and the bill will disappear until the idiot in charge forgets again and attempts to resurrect it for a third time in a couple of years from now (assuming he survives the general election).
If you ban encryption, then only criminals will have encryption.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
And the criminals will have the same access as the governments wreaking havoc among bank transactions and identity thefts as well as trade in company secrets.
It will really be opening Pandora's Box to restrict encryption.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I don't wish any member of the US government to be put to death, what I do wish is for these bastards to be stripped of all their wealth and privileges and forced to live in a roach infested studio apartment in the bad section of town. Then I would force them to work as an assistant night fry cook at Walley's Wonderful World of Burgers in Festering Boil, Oklahoma. These people have forgotten, if they ever knew, what the rest of us put up with in order to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. We need to have these people learn what real work looks like.
Another day closer to redwood heaven
Yes, I agree. My formalised version of this is 'apprenticeships' for anyone that wants to be an elected official or senior paid official, is that they have to 'train' for a a year or two in a project [US], estate [UK] of scheme [Scotland] and live on the basic umemployment amount. Most people at this level are doing their best and are often incredibly brave and motivated, two jobs, long shifts etc.
Also this would mean that people prepared to do this, probably did have serious motivation to improve society rather than just enrich themselves and do nothing. However, I'm sure, after a couple of years they'd probably find a way to pay someone to do this for them.
My 'other' plan is a hole in the school floor that opens when any pupil expresses a desire for/interest in politics. It's probably the most humane way, although a little difficult for the parents. Trouble is. that might dispose of the the Mandelas and Ghandis too.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
All 3 Charlie Hebdo terrorists were known extremists and were under surveillance. The French authorities simply dropped the ball and fucked up - for lack of resources or for negligence.
They could convincingly make a case for vastly increased means of putting known terrorists under 24/7 surveillance, but the Charlie Hebdo attacks are a really poor argument for enhanced decryption powers, because the FUCKING TERRORISTS HAD BEEN CLEARLY IDENTIFIED ALREADY!
Clearly this is yet another exploitation of people's fear-du-jour to bring the world closer to a panopticon society. Me, I'm more scared of the government than muslim terrorists. 1984 anyone?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I get what you're saying but that is not constructive. We need a plausible means to deny the key.
Their attack is ultimately coming through the legal system. So we need to think about what works in a court of law.
If we can find reasonable ways to forget keys then we can reasonably claim to have forgotten them.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Unfortunately this is a recurring theme that GCHQ has tried to push on each of last few governments seemingly in an attempt to legalise what they are already doing.
I'm sad and furious. Those are the goons we are paying to protect our values. Need to puke.
A "conservative" by dictionary definition does not advocate radical changes, such as removal of the right to communicate privately with banks, business associates, relatives, lovers etc.
Keep that in mind next time one of these authoritarians tell you how conservative they are.
I notice UKIP, a competing party to the conservatives, have had their private phone calls leaked.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-30467897
How exactly can it be that old phone calls are recorded then leaked just as a person stands for an elected seat. Let me guess... GCHQ.
Surprise: Freedom-hating authoritarian scumbags make the argument that safety is more important than freedom and privacy, all the while pretending that they value freedom and democratic values. I wish these people would move to North Korea.
" Is Cameron just making noise to win the hearts of those who agree with him?" - yes, there is an election in May this year.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
"seriously...compare France and England...England is practically Saudi Arabia...a really high culture progressive Saudi Arabia." - so you are an avid watcher of Fox News. http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
"I really just don't understand why England doesn't ditch their monarchs completely." - because the monach has no power, they are just window dressing that attract a load of tourists and sycophants
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
UK Prime Minister Says Gov't Should Be Capable of Reading Any Communications
Yes, literacy level in the government is appalling, something really should be done about it,
Some random guys in ski masks shoot up a newspaper office because the newspaper prints something they don't like and all of a sudden most of Europe wants to bring in censorship and restrictions on the freedoms that a democracy is supposed to bring? Isn't that exactly what the terrorists want? Shouldn't we (and by we I mean the democracies of the world and their citizens) be protecting our freedoms in the face of bad people like this?
I dont support terrorists but I also dont support most of the actions that have been taken by governments in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany and elsewhere in the name of the so-called "war on terror" (there are some measures like strengthening and securing cockpit doors that do make sense though)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_reactions_to_the_Charlie_Hebdo_shooting
Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons, "[...] we stand squarely for free speech and democracy. [...]"
This is the same country that:
* Arrests people for saying "offensive" things on Facebook/Twitter
* Prosecutes people for having "offensive" Japanese manga featuring lolicon, yet defends cartoon images of the Prophet Muhammed which some members of the Islamic community finds "offensive."
* Sends GCHQ thugs around to a newspaper to smash their hard drives and other perphierals into a gazillion pieces
* Has secret trials
* Forces people to disclose their passwords for encryption volumes or other things such as websites and jails those who fail to do so
Need I go on?
It's called Deniable encryption and it's difficult to do correctly
Moderated Usenet
You think is things go good and they good think but big words not think so good in House.
The fact that these scum choose to use the Charlie Hebdo attack to justify it particularly stinks. I'm sure the Charlie Hebdo victims weren't doing the cartoons in order to get the government to outlaw free speech, but that's the impact such action would have.
Encryption insures you can speak freely without the chilling effect of knowing your government may be listening. To ban it is clearly to eliminate freedom of speech.
Just as Satan is God's Most Valuable Employee (doing exactly what he needs done), Terrorists are the same for Dictators (and those that dream of being a Dictator): a perfect - some might say purpose-built* - excuse to destroy what they fear the most: the freedom of true privacy.
* - As some one pointed out on Twitter: ask yourself why Al-Queda has never even once tried to attack Israel.
It's easy to set up secure communications within a small, trusted group. So this won't affect any real terrorists that are organized enough to be a real threat. They just install PGP (for example), just as anyone else can. And since the security is end-to-end, it's secure no matter what mail system it passes through. And no matter what laws anyone passes, math still works, so end-to-end encryption is secure from anyone attacking the security. And it's open source, so they can't sneak in corruptions to subvert security. Math doesn't care about politics - if the attackers are your government, or foreign attackers, it's all the same math that protects your communications.
What it will do, though, is let them collect tons of data from from people who aren't serious terrorists. Think of the fun the can have with that!
The real answer to terrorism isn't increased surveillance, or the "magic pixie dust" of data mining, it's real police work. That's what's stopped ever terrorist attack (that's been stopped) so far. If they cared about security, instead of surveillance or big equipment contracts, they'd focus on the stuff that works. Hire lots of smart people, train them and equip them, and pay them well, to do the hard work. The rest, attempting to outlaw encryption, scanning people's shoes, etc., is all a stupid waste of time and money, degrading our society's freedom (i.e. doing what the terrorists want) while achieving nothing of value.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
I don't wish any member of the US government to be put to death, what I do wish is for these bastards to be stripped of all their wealth and privileges and forced to live in a roach infested studio apartment in the bad section of town. Then I would force them to work as an assistant night fry cook at Walley's Wonderful World of Burgers in Festering Boil, Oklahoma. These people have forgotten, if they ever knew, what the rest of us put up with in order to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. We need to have these people learn what real work looks like.
So, uh, Mike Rowe for President, then? Sounds good, the few political statements he's made have been bipartisan and very well thought out.
That is fine. This is not about catching criminals anyways, it is about identifying dissenters and other "undesirables".
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
How many allies died after Enigma was broken? Just because every threat isn't countered, doesn't mean they didn't know it was coming.
There's a huge difference between wartime-code breaking of enemy military communications, and the bulk collection/monitoring/analysis of all domestic civilian communications in peacetime in direct violation of the rights and protections guaranteed in the US Constitution. Especially when that collection is sold to the public as being created precisely to stop such terror attacks.
Sorry, that doesn't wash.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Heh, too much work. All the terrorists should simply be required by law to set a 'terrorist' bit in their network protocols.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.