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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.
we are likely to end up in an ethically worse position than we were before.
Actually, no. In order to do the more involved things, "physical observation, bugging rooms, and breaking into phones or computers", they have to get a warrant. This ups the ante and they must present a convincing argument to the judge for the need to surveil the people in question. This increases oversight, expense, and the human resources required. That means less shotgun approach and more focused surveillance only where needed.
With digital communication they felt entitled to capture any information they wanted, since there wasn't an obvious physical intrusion. Obviously they could not handle this in a responsible manner, and thus our free society is making the necessary adjustments. So that's just too bad for the spies. Sorry.
Better known as 318230.
It is not those being spied upon, it is those doing the spying. And they will do all these things anyways, regardless of whether people use encryption. In addition, industrial espionage is obviously a large part of the game. The NSA has been propping up some sectors of the US industry for decades.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
If they don't identify themselves as officers and you shoot them in your home it's not going to be a problem. Something like this happened recently in Texas and the homeowner walked.
Maybe Texas?
Last week a guy in Oklahoma shot a sheriff 4 times in (3 in the chest) when his house was raided (because police thought a bomb threat had been called in from his house). Fortunately for the Sheriff he was wearing a bullet proof vest and survived. The shooter was not charged, but you have to wonder what would have happened if the Sheriff had died.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
It's not a "constitutional republic," EVERY government has a "constitution," written or otherwise.
The United States is a "Presidential Republic." I believe the CIA World Factbook's literal description is "Presidential Republic (with democratic tradition)."
Governments are distinguished by wether or not the separate the Head of State from the office of Head of Government- presidencies do not, parliamentary states generally do. And then they are distinguished by wether they vest their sovereignty in a monarch or in a people at large (a "republic").
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
The more difficult something is and the smaller scope something covers, the smaller the cost- benefit. Spying on everyone through technological back door - very low cost, questionable benefit. Physically spying on someone you actually suspect of doing something - very high cost, hopefully high reward. This cost is what keeps the government in its place.
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels.
A well trained shooter does two in the chest and one in the head. I know a man that died trying to stop a courthouse shooter by shooting center mass. Unfortunately the shooter was wearing body armor.
..collateral intrusion into privacy â" we are likely to end up in an ethically worse position than we were before
Translation: Give away your privacy to us, now, or we'll TAKE IT FROM YOU.
Memo to 'Intellgence community': GO FUCK YOURSELVES, ASSHOLES.
Enough is enough. This shit has to stop, now. We are free citizens of our respective countries (..well, OK, some are more free than others, some aren't very free at all. One problem at a time); we are not inmates in a prison, which is exactly how they want to treat everyone: Monitored and guarded 24/7/365, and all communications monitored and inspected. FUCK THAT SHIT!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
This is excellent. Tapping all the world's communications is cheap and easy (especially when any person or company can be strong-armed), bugging individuals is expensive and difficult. They'll have to restrict this activity to those who they strongly suspect, rather than spying on the communications of all known sentient beings in the universe and then seeing what sticks. Less widespread privacy invasion, more effective surveillance instead of growing the haystack. Sounds like a win/win to me.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Who still believes these lies?
It's not about getting to the 'bad' guys, hasn't been for a long time.
It's about power for the government.
Terrorists/pedophiles are not stupid, they write their own encryption software and are not going to get caught allowing secret services to prevent them by their activities on social media.
Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
A Government that is not ethical, that is also Democratic, is exactly what the people vote for. You get what you deserve. Bush was bad, Obama was worse, as it was with Clinton, Bush 41, Reagan, Carter ....
If you look you see a pattern going back to Kennedy who was probably shot for going off the reservation (IMHO)
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
you forgot Boener and McConnel and their buddies the Kock bothers. but carry on.
Academically, governments are categorized by their instiutions, not by whether or not they are living up to some abstract ideal of how they "should" operate.
Maybe Democratic Republics are the exception, not the rule, and maybe the US is a sham republic and Baathist Iraq is the real one. This is the problem with your approach. If you just go by the numbers, almost all presidential republics are undemocratic, and fall to coups.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Are you sure that's how it was intended? The EC has state-apportioned representatives because the constituents of the Continental Congress and later the Convention were colonies, later called states. Neither the US constitution, nor does any commentary I'm aware of, state that electors are pledged to represent the interests of their state.
Of course, at every crucial point in history prior to the 1860s, somebody suggests reducing the power of states in favor of either democratic populism (Jackson) of federal power (Hamilton, Washington...), and the argument against goes something like, "You're just trying to abolish slavery!" American federalism was invented as a pretext to sustain slavery in the colonies where it was economically entrenched.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I'm sure there are plenty of smugglers and dealers dumb enough to send plain-text SMS detailing their crimes. If SMS were 'opaque', that would surely deprive GCHQ of, as it were, 'low-hanging fruit'.
Should 'most' smugglers and dealers, I'm assuming of drugs, be criminals in the first place?
If they're trafficking persons, well, people are harder to hide.
Everything I've read says that the intelligence agencies are so deluged in data right now that they can't find anything in the mess much of the time. If they stopped trying to spy on 'everybody' maybe they'd have the resources to actually properly review the data that DOES matter.
I don't read AC A human right