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London Terrorist Used WhatsApp, UK Calls For Backdoors (yahoo.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the encryption-in-England dept.

Wednesday 52-year-old Khalid Masood "drove a rented SUV into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before smashing it into Parliament's gates and rushing onto the grounds, where he fatally stabbed a policeman and was shot by other officers," writes the Associated Press. An anonymous reader quotes their new report: Westminster Bridge attacker Khalid Masood sent a WhatsApp message that cannot be accessed because it was encrypted by the popular messaging service, a top British security official said Sunday. British press reports suggest Masood used the messaging service owned by Facebook just minutes before the Wednesday rampage that left three pedestrians and one police officer dead and dozens more wounded.... Home Secretary Amber Rudd used appearances on BBC and Sky News to urge WhatsApp and other encrypted services to make their platforms accessible to intelligence services and police trying to carrying out lawful eavesdropping. "We need to make sure that organizations like WhatsApp -- and there are plenty of others like that -- don't provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other," she said...

Rudd also urged technology companies to do a better job at preventing the publication of material that promotes extremism. She plans to meet with firms Thursday about setting up an industry board that would take steps to make the web less useful to extremists.

4 of 360 comments (clear)

  1. Amber Rudd is dim by Harold+Halloway · · Score: 5, Interesting

    She's simply the latest of a long line of British ministers who don't really understand the first thing about the Internet and its associated technologies.

    Hilariously, in the same interview she claimed that Google was at fault because it was far to easy to find ‘stabbing instructions’ online.

  2. I'm puzzled. by maroberts · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When I use WhatsApp through my phone, it shows the history of my conversations. Presumably the police have recovered Masoods phone, can use one of the numerous ways to get into it, and can thus see what messages he sent over WhatsApp and to whom.

    In short, why the hell can't Plod read Masoods last words over WhatsApp? Also if they knew he used WhatsApp, that shows they have either broken into his phone already or picked up some data from his ISP already.

    Further, the latest UK Investigatory Powers Act regarding security only wanted metadata, not content, and a great deal of effort was spent convincing the general public that this was all that is needed.

    So my question is, is my view of the situation wrong or is Amber Rudd technologically clueless?

    --

    Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
    Karma: Chameleon

  3. Re:Good laws should be technology neutral by davecb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Postal chess was forbidden in the US during WWII, putatively becaue it might be a secret code...

    --
    davecb@spamcop.net
  4. Re:No need for backdoors by ckatko · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ::cough:: I'll just leave this here... ::cough::

    1,400 raped children in the UK by Muslim pedo ring while the UK police looked the other way to "not seem racist." (That's not even exaggerating.)

    http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-eng...

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

    I guess ignorance really is bliss.