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Omand Warns of "Ethically Worse" Spying If Unbreakable Encryption Is Allowed
Press2ToContinue writes In their attempts to kill off strong encryption once and for all, top officials of the intelligence services are coming out with increasingly hyperbolic statements about why this should be done. Now, a former head of GCHQ, Sir David Omand has said: "One of the results of Snowden is that companies are now heavily encrypting [communications] end to end. Intelligence agencies are not going to give up trying to get the bad guys. They will have to get closer to the bad guys. I predict we will see more close access work."
According to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which reported his words from a talk he gave earlier this week, by this he meant things like physical observation, bugging rooms, and breaking into phones or computers.
"You can say that will be more targeted but in terms of intrusion into personal privacy — collateral intrusion into privacy — we are likely to end up in an ethically worse position than we were before."
That's remarkable for its implied threat: if you don't let us ban or backdoor strong encryption, we're going to start breaking into your homes.
shame if something was to happen to it.
We're self entitled assholes, with nor regard for the law, and if we don't get back doors to encryption, we're going to become even more ethically challenged, self entitled assholes with nor regard for the law.
I sincerely hope one or more of their people get shot breaking into some place and not identifying themselves as agents.
Fuck, but governments are willing to slide into fascism and tyranny.
I you can't operate in the law, you should be subject to it ... and tried for criminal activities.
Papers please, comrade. You have nothing to frar if you have nothing to hide.
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I'd rather see bugging of rooms and physical observation of actual suspects rather than weakening the security and rights for absolutely everyone.
Besides, it's not like organised criminals will stop using encryption just because it's illegal. (I almost can't believe we're talking about effective encryption being illegal)
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Gaining covert physical access to a targets home/phone/computer is going to cost a lot more than just typing some commands into a terminal window. That would mean that ubiquitous surveillance goes out the window, and thus less collateral surveillance.
In addition it would also mean that covert physical seals could be better used to detect if your privacy has been invaded (Has the dust bunny on the back of my computer moved?), which is actually a step forward compared with electronic invasions.
I can't see anything wrong with all that (unless of course you take Omand's point of view that you have to watch all of your populace all of the time)
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Targeted surveillance is exactly what *should* be used, because it can self-regulate. There is a cost associated with each target, so there must also be a benefit otherwise it won't be done. So widespread strong crypto sounds perfect: it takes surveillance/intelligence ops back to the physical world where you pay per target and not per system of mass surveillance. And think of all the emissions saved at the datacenters!
Making it worst for 1 or 2 persons or even a hundred (realistically, how many people can you break into home and put a bug) will make it better for the privacy of a few dozen million. Go for it do your worst. Bug the shit out of those few houses. Physically. Like you used to. And like you probably already do as anyway computer communication is only 1 form. Woopy-doo.
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open the door not only for government snoops it will also allow criminals to steal identities, steal passwords, steal credit card numbers, and anything else of value, this idea that the government needs to spy on everything sets a bad precedent and is intruding where privacy is really needed the most
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Well, that's because your sense of ethics is screwed up, not surprising given your line of work. The rest of us actually prefer that it cause you significant trouble to perform espionage and surveillance so that you actually have to target your limited resources to cases that matter, instead of going on fishing expeditions.
And from a purely practical point of view, banning strong encryption isn't going to help anyway because the only criminals and terrorists you are going to catch from relying on mandated weak encryption are fools. If you don't understand that, you are a fool yourself; if you do understand it, you are just a liar.
Only an idiot tries for a headshot. Anyone with a clue knows to aim for center of mass.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Which in many cases are protected by excellent armor. Headshots tend to be more permanent.
As much as I'm deeply displeased that the attitude would be 'give us what we want or we'll take it, Stasi-style'; I'd see a situation where the spooks are forced to resort to physical intrusion as a vast improvement.
Implicit in the GCHQ flack's 'threat' is the idea that totally invisible 'no touch' surveillance is somehow better and nicer. In the sense that it has better PR, and is easier to maintain (and on a massive scale) without public outcry or logistically overwhelming amounts of black-bag work, this is true. In terms of the relationship between the clandestine agencies and even the pretense of democratic government, though, I'd say that it's exactly the opposite.
If team spook has the advantage of technology for scale and efficiency, and is capable of invisibly watching more or less everything without any visible signs of having done so, you have about as imbalanced a situation as one could reasonably imagine. A perfect panopticon; but so subtle that you sound like some sort of schizo nutjob for suggesting that it is happening. If they actually have to break and bug, this will mean more physical intrusion; but it also creates a de-facto limit on how broadly they can pursue fishing expeditions, and how reasonably they can make the assumption that they will never be caught.
If what he says about more encryption is true; bring it on.
Let's think about this for a moment. The chief complaint of the Snowden revelations is that it presents a broad swath domestic surveillance that violates everyone's privacy and 4th amendment rights (presumptively). So when we see statements about how the intelligence agencies will start engaging in more close access operations versus blanket monitoring, why do we presume this is a bad thing? Certainly no one thinks that attacks on Charley Hebdo or Sony, or other similar terrorist attacks is good? Why would we think that "less ethical" methods to employ "close access work" would be a bad thing if we can stop terrorist networks from attacking innocent civilians? Where do we strike that balance?
The Constitution put in barriers to policing. It's a filter, making it cost a bit if you want to go after someone. This doesn't totally eliminate the threat of tyranny, but it slows it down quite a bit.
So, this clown is saying "hey, if you don't let us do this low effort illegal spying, we're gonna do high effort illegal spying". Even if he's right, this is still good news to me. You need to put shoes on the ground to go after folks. I can't do a blanket surveillance on everyone, no more LOVEINT illegal spying just because you can. I think this is better than even stronger laws. I can ignore the laws of man, but harder to ignore the laws of economics.