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Tech Companies Face Criminal Charges If They Notify Users of UK Government Spying (techspot.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Last week, Yahoo became the latest company promising to alert users who it suspected were being targeted by state-sponsored attacks (excepting Microsoft, who made a similar announcement just today). Twitter, Facebook and Google had previously assured their users that they would be warned of any potential government spying. The UK, it seems, isn't happy about this. They are pushing through a bill that will punish the leaders of any company that warns its users about British snooping with up to two years in prison. Specifically, UK ministers want to make it a criminal offense for tech firms to warn users of requests for access to their communication data made by security organizations such as MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.
What's the end game with all this? At what point do people decide not to let this crap happen, and what steps do they take to enforce it? I honestly can't imagine a civil rebellion going anyway, even in a country like America where so many people are already armed with guns. Politicians obviously have no interest in backing down. It's like a new cold war.
I have problems with that.
And that is the problem. This will do NOTHING to DETER a terrorist.
If you want that, then you look for specific sites that they are going to right now. Not a year ago.
Looking at records from a year ago will only result in more "why didn't you connect the dots" crap from the idiots demanding more of this.
If the UK government can crack it then so can the Chinese government and the Russian government.
Does the UK government really want the Chinese and Russians spying on the communications of British citizens?
Can the act of failing to communicate be construed as notifying users? For example, consider the case of TrueCrypt where the original developers announced that they would no longer be developing or maintaining TrueCrypt and "helpfully" suggested that users install Microsoft BitLocker instead? Now you're getting into layers of abstraction and how certain groups of people might interpret a communication or a lack of communication. Laws prohibiting communication are rarely effective, except perhaps in the short run and on a temporary basis, so it's hard to see how this law will be any more effective than previous failed attempts.
The summary is confusing two separate situations:
State-sponsored attacks are when a government agency hacks or social engineers or otherwise obtains your data against your will AND against the will of your service provider. That's what Yahoo and Microsoft are talking about. They can safely and legally tell their users about these attempts because, if for no other reason, they can claim they don't know who's responsible for the hack.
Official government requests for users' data, like US National Security Letters, are where the government uses legal compulsion rather than trickery to obtain the data. Obviously governments can and do add legal requirements to not inform affected end users. In Australia the laws even forbid revealing that there has not been a request for users' data; no warrant canaries for us!
Warrant canaries. Governments can make them illegal too. Or, at least, they can in Australia; maybe the US's constitutional protections around freedom of speech could make it harder there, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Yahoo became the latest company promising to alert users who it suspected were being targeted by state-sponsored attacks
Google had previously assured their users that they would be warned of any potential government spying
UK ministers want to make it a criminal offense for tech firms to warn users of requests for access to their communication data
The first two situations involve the government going after the companies' users without notifying the companies
The last situation involves the government issuing a request to the company for information.
Seem like two different things to me.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Who the fuck would want them back?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
China would be so proud!
Yes, please do, we can do without Modelez, Goldman Sachs (et al.), Monsanto, KFC, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Spire Health, Dollar Financial Group (payday loans) and the NFL. Close the door on your way out, thank you.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
Thus, thinking from a logical perspective, it makes sense to assume, by default, that we are being spied upon, that GCHQ, MI5, Mi6, NSA, CIA etc are snooping on all our internet transmissions, that all ISPs and tech companies are in cahoots with the intelligence services, and that the reason there's 'no evidence' is because of explicit legislation banning the dissemination of such evidence. Suddenly paranoia, delusions and conspiracy theories start to become sensible, rational and logical.
John_Chalisque
Uh, for something to be a warrant canary, it has to be generally known that its a warrant canary - thats the entire point of it, it has to be fecking obvious.
Or do you think a company can come up with something hush hush that only certain members of its secret club would know about, except that all its customers are invited to that club and initiated into the secrets? Yeah, lets see how swearing 5 million people to silence about the "not a warrant canary *wink*" turns out...
The text helps. Here is an insightful quote: The four verities of government are these: . Most important ideas are unappealing . Most appealing ideas are unimportant . Not every problem has a good solution . Every solution has side effects Although I'd say those are the four verities of not just government but *any non-trivial centralization*. Certainly applies to any IT department.