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

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.

60 of 360 comments (clear)

  1. no thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is the same lady who thinks that they need to hire the people who "know the right hashcodes to fight terrorists."

    She has no place conjecturing on the usefulness of the free web to a potted plant, let alone to extremists (whose membership increasingly include Western government officials)

    1. Re: no thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seriously. Boo hoo lady, you didn't get to hear the terrorist's message. Thank god for that. Had you heard his message it might corrupt you into accepting his martyrdom. The whole point of terrorism is that they can't go to war or they will lose, so they attack us in hopes that we will make more restrictive laws and this lady is taking the bait.

    2. Re: no thanks by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What we really need is that car rentals be banned outright.

      Never again would anyone be able to rent a car to run people down in the street.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    3. Re: no thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      YES! If more people are dying from stepladders than terrorists, then YES we should focus on stepladders.

      I understand that you are scared shitless of the word "terrorist" and not of "stepladder" but that doesn't make the latter's deaths any less important than the formers.

      Ideally we wouldn't have ANY deaths but let's work our way down the true most wanted list, not up it from the bottom.

    4. Re: no thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They'll also stop terrorizing if you reduce the countries that harbor them to sub-atomic particles.

    5. Re: no thanks by TheConway · · Score: 2

      They'll also stop terrorizing if you reduce the countries that harbor them to sub-atomic particles.

      So in last week's case, we should have nuked London? twat Terrorist != Foreigner

    6. Re: no thanks by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      We have way bigger problems than suicide bombers. If you want to go after suicide killers, ban smoking.

      What? Smokers are suicide killers. They kill themselves and others who happen to stand nearby. Why is one ok and the other one scares you shitless?

      Maybe if we put warning labels on bombs you're less afraid?

      "Detonating this can endanger your life and the life of those around you"

      Feeling better already?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    7. Re: no thanks by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 2, Informative

      Citation Needed.

      I can assure you, that if it was "Right Wing Christians Nationalists" every CNN, NBC and NewYorkTimes piece would announce it, in BIG BOLD HEADLINES!!!!

      Every terrorist attack, you can see the "Lets not jump to conclusions, this could be right wing terror ... and then it turns out to be another Muslim Jihadi nutjob.

      I remember the Pulse Nightclub, initial reports were "RIGHT WING!!!!!" ... and nope.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    8. Re: no thanks by Wootery · · Score: 2

      they attack us in hopes that we will make more restrictive laws

      Well, not exactly. Getting crypto banned isn't the end-game of Islamic terrorism, but yes, it is more about the response than the body-count.

      Schneier wrote an excellent piece on this topic: "What the Terrorists Want".

    9. Re: no thanks by ale2011 · · Score: 2

      Bravo! That's exactly what I would have written. Posted messages don't kill. Cars do. Which might be why many cars already have a back door...

  2. Why the focus on communication tech? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why the focus on the communication technology? Its role in these sorts of incidents seems minor compared to the effect and involvement of vehicular technology. It wasn't chat software causing the physical harm; it was vehicles.

    1. Re: Why the focus on communication tech? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      +1 car and truck manufacturers need to put protections in place so that extremists cant use their vehicles.

      Why should we have to go to the airport to be strip searched and scanned for weapons and explosives ? Our cars can be doing that to us every time we get in !! Problem solved

      Also it would be useful if manufacturers put in a backdoor so that after all extremists are neutralized we can go after the politically inconvenient

      J/k the only thing needing a backdoor is govt , so we can sneak in some rational thinking

    2. Re:Why the focus on communication tech? by mrbester · · Score: 2

      I'll bet he didn't prepay the Congestion Charge when he decided to drive into central London, leaving his family on the hook for it. That's just rude. Pollution has a cost, you know.

      --
      "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
    3. Re:Why the focus on communication tech? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why the focus on the communication technology?

      Because it is so easy to abuse without getting caught. Remember that most governments that hold elections consider their own population as the biggest threat to the current regime. This Amber Rudd person is just parroting what that creepy James Comey guy says, claiming that tapping all communications will end terrorism. It won't. According to the article the message was sent "just minutes" before the attack. That means that even if there was magical instant interception, the attack would have already been half over before any installed system could notify law enforcement. I'm sure the 999 call would still have come in first.

      The modern world is a dangerous place, bad guys cannot be caught by sitting in a cubical listening in on Aunt Martha's sewing circle, it requires [gasp] actual police work. That means doing research, going out and talking to people, collecting evidence, etc. Not wringing your hands and whining on the telly that you need more power and less responsibility. Otherwise you end up with another 911, where the US government knew in advance that a terrorist attack was going to happen (and allowed it to) so they could use it as an excuse to demand more power and clamp down on civil rights.

    4. Re:Why the focus on communication tech? by WheezyJoe · · Score: 2

      I would like to see one shred of evidence that having so-called backdoors would have prevented the London tragedy.

      Maybe if some wacko Eagle Eye supercomputer were monitoring and evaluating all communications at all times in real-time, maybe something could be sniffed out, and on that day we shall all bow down to our robot overlords. Until then, you're talking about creating a mile-high haystack of data, and hiring humans to eaves-drop and search through it day and night for a needle. I mean, politicians really need to think before they speak. Already, London has more cameras than nearly anywhere else on Earth. The problem? If you're intent is to prevent crime, you need eyes watching all those cameras all the time. And there's nothing more boring than looking at security cameras all day.

      For catching and prosecuting a guy who's committed a crime, maybe. Go back through the tape, catch him in the act, conviction, sentencing. Done. But for preventing the crime in the first place, particularly where the perp is not planning on walking out alive, backdoors and security cameras don't justify the legions of personnel it takes to watch and listen to everything just in case someone might pick up the perp maybe saying they're gonna do something. And who's to say it's real, or just some dumbass talking shit after drinking too much? An overworked, underpaid government-contracted data grunt, that's who... he's the reason the storm-troopers in riot gear tore your house down, zip-tied your family and shot your goldfish, only to find your 10-year-old pulling pranks on his iPad.

      --
      Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
    5. Re:Why the focus on communication tech? by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 2

      ... he's the reason the storm-troopers in riot gear tore your house down, zip-tied your family and shot your goldfish, only to find your 10-year-old pulling pranks on his iPad.

      Won't someone think of the goldfish?

    6. Re:Why the focus on communication tech? by WheezyJoe · · Score: 2

      Aren't we attempting to nearly be there with locations like NSA's Utah Data Center, Fort Meade, and similar places? And isn't data already being collected at a faster rate than we have resources to process it in real time?

      Almost certainly... because collection is the easy, achievable part of mass surveillance. Politically, you just win because your obstacles are only (1) funding and (2) privacy advocates, which you label as non-patriotic USA-hating ACLU nuts so that you win politically whether or not you lose to them in court. The funding just goes to buying the latest and greatest, and you can toot your success with metrics like terrabytes captured-per-second, and all the spooks love you and support you and protect you and arrange for free steak dinners while you enemies experience freak accidents. Everybody's fat and happy.

      Doing something with all that data, OTOH, is subjective, and a politician can defer the question by saying that it's secret. Most likely, the secret is there's nothing today that can chew through all that data and produce useful results, and certainly not in real-time, all of which is top top secret because if the enemy knows that we're essentially asleep at the switch we will naturally have more terrorism, so keep your mouth shut. The politician can still justify massive budgets for NSA technology, growth and research, which makes contractors and vendors rich and happy. But since data collection is easy while automated analysis is hard, most of the money will simply go into expanding collection because it produces quick, measurable results you can take credit for in an election year. Maybe there's some budget for some kind of sci-fi AI research, but a workable result on the order of Eagle Eye or WOPR is probably like nuclear fusion: always ten or twenty years away.

      I'll gamble that the first true thinking Neuromancer-like AI for sniffing and data-crunching the Internet will not be developed by a gov't agency, for precisely the reason above. It will be developed by Google, Amazon, or the like because they have a much more immediate, direct and continuous incentive to turn the money they spend on collecting and storing data into a profit. And if you're a super-star researcher, the pay and bennies are far better.

      --
      Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
  3. 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.

    1. Re:Amber Rudd is dim by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The shear stupidity is mind-boggling. In the very same sentence she acknowledges that there are many other similar apps. Surely she must be aware that they are not all under UK jurisdiction...

      This sounds very much like she has been briefed by security services looking for more powers and/or to create the impression that people who use encryption are up to no good. Seeing an opportunity to look tough and be seen to be doing something she repeats the words without understanding what they mean, or how stupid she looks.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:Amber Rudd is dim by davecb · · Score: 2

      Something must be done: this is something, so ...

      --
      davecb@spamcop.net
    3. Re:Amber Rudd is dim by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 5, Informative

      The shear stupidity is mind-boggling

      I believe you meant "sheer stupidity"

      "Shear stupidity" would be running with scissors.

    4. Re:Amber Rudd is dim by sjames · · Score: 2

      Given the comment about "stabbing instructions"...

  4. Scapegoating by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Right now its looking pretty bad for the intellectual elite over there.
    - He was screened by police several times
    - Made an extremist while in her magisty's pleasure

    And now the police are saying "If we read *that message* of him saying 'god be with me', *then* they would know what he was upto and what he was doing".

    Looks more like they're trying to find a scape goat.

  5. Brilliant! by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because it's SO difficult for someone to write a new app with no backdoors. Britain can't stop this; they can pass all the laws they want. But terrorists really don't care what the law says by definition. Plus it is a proven fact that British police can't stay within the lines when it comes to information like this.

    1. Re:Brilliant! by sumdumass · · Score: 2

      This guy was already being investigated. So when they find they cannot get into an app or whatever presumably by sniffing packets from his IP address, they simply arrest him before he kills people.

  6. Re:Good laws should be technology neutral by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Ms Rudd already covered that:

    Referring to Whatsapp's system of end-to-end encryption, she said: "It is completely unacceptable. There should be no place for terrorists to hide.

    "We need to make sure that organisations like Whatsapp - and there are plenty of others like that - don't provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other.

    "It used to be that people would steam open envelopes or listen in on phones when they wanted to find out what people were doing - legally, through warrantry - but in this situation we need to make sure that our intelligence services have the ability to get into situations like encrypted Whatsapp."

    Her point, rightly or wrongly, is that even with "legal means" and proper warrants and the like there is still no way to access WhatsApp messages, whereas phone and snail mail records were accessible in the past.

  7. Re:No need for backdoors by x0ra · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sure, a religion which promote to stone raped women and gays to death.

  8. Move to Paradise by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 2

    Move to that Utopian paradise where the citizens' never have to fret about terrorist attacks.

    North Korea.

  9. Re:No need for backdoors by cyber-vandal · · Score: 2, Informative

    No raped women or gay men have been stoned to death in this country in the 100 odd years since the first mosque was built. If Muslims are planning to impose Sharia Law on us Brits, they're taking a very long time about it.

  10. Re:Since when by kenai_alpenglow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I believe Khalid was a British citizen. That's why he's allowed "in the UK". The bigger question is why aren't the British (and the Americans for that matter) insisting that new citizens (including their children) become CITIZENS of that country in heart and soul, not just a piece of paper with allegiance back to terrorist orgs/states, islamic or otherwise. But if we attempt to even say that, the snowflakes start yelling RAYCYST!!@#!

  11. 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

    1. Re:I'm puzzled. by AHuxley · · Score: 2

      Consider past collection efforts in Ireland. The UK security services sorted every call and voice print in Ireland. Every call between Ireland and the USA, every call for support and funds flowing from the USA to Ireland. The UK followed Irish funding and support globally. Shipments, cash, human rights groups, front companies, faith groups, political support, lawyers, anything and anyone that supported Irish issues. Once found the UK acted globally to stop all such support for Irish issues.
      Action to stop the support and worked deep within communities in Ireland.
      Information flow was kept tight within the GCHQ, UK mil, RUC Special Branch. Other police and CID officers did not really have a full understanding of collection. The UK press did not know, wider UK police did not know. UK police could not pass stories to the UK press. The UK courts and lawyers did not get told.
      The UK security service could then focus on interesting people in their own communities. In the UK, USA, Ireland and globally. The funding, political support, networks, every group in the UK.

      Re "that shows they have either broken into his phone already or picked up some data from his ISP already."
      The change in the UK was a political change from the traditional UK methods that worked to a more US method of profits for outside contractors.
      All the contractors wanted was more UK over time and to sell the UK more secret super computers. Rent more software and provide support. Every issue can be found and corrected just by finding a voice print, tracking a phone, getting plain text from any consumer device.
      What the UK did with that nation wide collection was not considered as the budget could only cover mass collection.
      The UK could not fund two methods so all the new funding went to collection.
      Even an East Germany knew it had to sort the information gathered. Collection is useless without funding for sorting.
      What worked so well in Ireland was that the UK knew every interesting person by voice print, by name, by photo and was in their community watching 24/7.
      Just collecting on every person in the UK is only the first step.
      The UK has to now rediscover the skills of sorting and 24/7 tracking of every interesting person in the UK and globally.
      More Local Intelligence Committee work than contractor computer work.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  12. Re:Good laws should be technology neutral by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Rudd also urged technology companies to do a better job at preventing the publication of material that promotes extremism.

    So apparently the problem is too much free speech and too much privacy.

    To get our intellectual freedom back, we're going to need a movement as powerful as the civil rights movement. Saying this stupid shit should be as taboo as saying a racial slur! This "Amber Rudd" needs to be made an example of. Really rake her over the coals. "You're advocating what?" "Why do you hate freedom?" Never let her live it down, same as if she'd said something stupid about a minority group. This shit needs to become the new hate speech.

    It's not okay that she thinks like that and is as important as she is. We need to give her shit.

  13. Re:governments by Teun · · Score: 3, Informative

    .... urge governments to do a better job at preventing the immigration of populations that promotes extremism.

    So what does immigration have to do with this particular British born animal?

    --
    "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
  14. Re:No need for backdoors by x0ra · · Score: 2

    Quran (7:80-84) - "...For ye practice your lusts on men in preference to women: ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds.... And we rained down on them a shower (of brimstone)" -

  15. 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
  16. Re:Good laws should be technology neutral by EvilSS · · Score: 4, Informative

    What laws would they change if it was revealed 'the terrists' were communicating via snail mail.

    Would they require logs of your snail mail metadata, ban envelopes ?

    Well in the US the USPS actually does log all mail meta-data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_Isolation_Control_and_Tracking

    --
    I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
  17. Re:Since when by hawguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I believe Khalid was a British citizen. That's why he's allowed "in the UK". The bigger question is why aren't the British (and the Americans for that matter) insisting that new citizens (including their children) become CITIZENS of that country in heart and soul, not just a piece of paper with allegiance back to terrorist orgs/states, islamic or otherwise. But if we attempt to even say that, the snowflakes start yelling RAYCYST!!@#!

    How would you do that? Is there some scanner that can look into one's heart and soul?

  18. Pure BS from the security services again. by whoever57 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He had been investigated years ago, but cleared by the security services.

    So:
    1. Either they want to monitor everybody's communications, or
    2. They are lying about the effect of having access to WhatsApp messages, or
    3. This is just another excuse to monitor everyone's communications.

    I believe that western civilization is in the process (if it hasn't already happened) of being taken over by the security apparatus, under the pretext of "protecting" us (in the same was as "devout muslims" "protect" their women by making them wear veils.

    It's all about control under the guise of "protection". As I type that, I realize that it sounds just like the mafia.

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  19. Re: No need for backdoors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24 Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrahâ"from the Lord out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the citiesâ"and also the vegetation in the land. 26 But Lotâ(TM)s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt." - Genesis 19:23-26

    "He has revealed to you the Book with truth, verifying that which is before it, and He revealed the Torch and the Gospels aforetime, a guidance for the people, and He sent the Furqan." - Quran 3:3

    Same story. The Quran was sent to confirm what was sent before.

  20. Turn it around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Say I'm living in a repressive society. I NEED to destroy or kill government officials to live free.

    If I am unable to communicate, then I am left nude with no recourse alone and helpless.

    If I can communicate, I can form a revolution, I can change society for the better and improve all of our lives.

    We cannot destroy our freedom of expression

    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"

    The terrorist killed 3 people. There are billions of us, and our voices should not be silenced because of madmen and the power hungry elite, both sides of the same extremist coin. The politician calling for the silencing of everyone is no different than the madman trying to silence those against his ideals, she just does it in a smoother way. It is no less destructive and limiting.

    We must bear with reality, bear with our pain, bear with our human reactions. We must not pervert what it is to be ourselves to make others feel safe, or else there will be nothing left which we can point to and say "THIS IS US, imperfectly beautiful".
    ----
    Once upon a time, a woman was picking up firewood. She came upon a poisonous snake frozen in the snow. She took the snake home and nursed it back to health. One day the snake bit her on the cheek. As she lay dying, she asked the snake, "Why have you done this to me?" And the snake answered, "Look, bitch, you knew I was a snake."

  21. Not About Decryption by sdinfoserv · · Score: 2

    Think this through - the terrorist sent a message "as he was driving". Being able to access the message after the fact does NOT stop the terrorism. The next step, and the ONLY way this will work is constant - real time - monitoring of all communication systems for all platforms everywhere. When a potential "hit" it comes across, the GPS in the device is located and tracked. Again, it may not have been soon enough, but demanding a back by law enforcement demonstrates the desire for a complete dystopian world.
    Of course then terrorists just switch to encrypted radios. Which will imply it will be illegal for non-military to own such devices.
    Is this the world we want?

  22. Re:Since when by johanw · · Score: 2

    The heretics were much worse. Fortunately we were able to kick the most extreme elements of those out of the country to the western colonies, who are now called the USA.

  23. Surveillance doesn't prevent terrorism by MrKaos · · Score: 2

    It is now common knowledge that all western governments have so many way to monitor people that it is offensive for them to suggest they need more powers to have more surveillance. That western powers spread their nets so far across our "democracy" and not in a focused manner means they are obviously ineffective in filling their mandate of protecting the people from terrorist threats. And because they are so ineffectual against terrorism they use that as justification to spread their net even wider.

    So let us all not pretend that the state has any concern for stopping terrorism because terrorism has no impact on the state, it only impact the populous. If terrorism occurs then that just adds another reason for clamping down on the populous even more. We are being treated with the contempt we deserve for not steadfastly protecting democracy.

    For decades Islamic human rights violations went ignored by western powers so any pandering to stopping extremism should be viewed as the bullshit it is. Islamic extremism is a good reason for the state to become even more overt in its quest to police the state because power begets power. And that's good for business because they are who pay for the politicians to operate the inverted totalitarian state we live in.

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    1. Re:Surveillance doesn't prevent terrorism by Deep+Esophagus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Especially in this case. From the summary:

      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..

      Even if he had sent in plaintext "GONNA DRIVE THROUGH A CROWD OF PEOPLE AND KILL AS MANY AS I CAN!!!" minutes before doing so, how could they have stopped him? Hell, he could have called police and told them explicitly where he was and what he was doing, maybe even sent a live video feed from his phone while he was doing it.

      Security theatre.

  24. Private speech should be considered a human right by complete+loony · · Score: 3, Funny

    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" ... privately.

    --
    09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
  25. Re:Since when by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    In his case he was born in the UK 52 years ago. He had a very British sounding name - Adrian Russell Elms. That suggests his family has been in the UK for even longer. He probably would have originally seemed British in 'Heart and Soul'. Seems he had a history of crime though, and had spent time in prison. From the sounds of it his conversion change of name and radicalisation happened during the time he spent in prison. So he was brainwashed and recruited, rather than being born that way.

  26. Re: No need for backdoors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The lesson learnt from the IRA was quite clear. Violence begats only more violence. It is only the call to cooperate to end that violence that is the solution. There is a type of person, aggressive and slow witted, that will commit atrocities in the name of. The name doesn't matter, it could be a religion, or a warped philosophy, or a country. When you speak out in aggression, your blind hatred plain to see, it is obvious that you are part of the problem, not the solution.

  27. Re: No need for backdoors by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 2

    One does not have to be an Islamophobe to be repulsed by killing, whether done in the name of honour or otherwise.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  28. Re:governments by scamper_22 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you're actually serious about that question... I'll bite.

    I'm a Muslim immigrant to Canada. I'm pretty secular now, but the idea that somehow you immigrate and then in the next generation, you're magically Canadian with Western values is just ignorant.

    The culture matters. The numbers matter. The government policies matter.

    Get enough people of a certain culture in an area and that culture and way of life becomes dominant. I guess if you thin being British/Canadian is just a piece of paper, then maybe this doesn't matter to you.

    I have a lot of family in the UK. It really is a different world. Heck, I don't even go. I have family there 2nd/3rd generation where there is total gender segregation, always talk of Sharia...When new immigrants come, they settle around there to keep the community Islamic.This part is key... as you keep bringing in more people who settle there, it really keep the community a certain way. Once you hit a certain threshold, you're basically created a community that stands on its own with its own ideology.

    This is not unique to Islam, by any stretch of the imagination.

    You can talk to many Muslim immigrant families. Most will tell you the same thing. Well at least in my life, they have. When the community is small, integration is easy. My in-laws for example, came to Canada in the 70s. Hardly modern by any respect. My father-in-law thought nothing of buy someone a bottle of wine as a gift. He wouldn't drink himself. They're not that secular. My wife often complains that her family completely changed as more and more family was brought in. Few used to wear the hijab. Then everyone started and the social moral police started. Dating started to become more of a scandal if people found out a daughter was dating. Aunts who used to date and got married suddenly turned all religious and forbade their daughters from dating. Islamic school suddenly became a thing... People started wearing the niqab and marrying religious people from Asia. Yeah... now I have 2 silly segregated weddings this summer. lol.

    This is the cultural problem. It is then layered with political issues. I don't really hang in dangerous circles, but I've seen what it can do. I know a few girls in the extended family who have actually talked positively of going to the Islamic State as that is real Islam. Yeah... girls born in Canada, but such are their values.

    I don't blame this all on immigration. You can have high rates of immigration with the necessary social support. I can say that even in Canada, this social support is just not there. My high school was heavily
    Indian immigrants. There was virtually no social support. Parents beating kids. Girls disowned for dating. Forced marriages... all happened.

    It's just ridiculously ignorant to think none of this matter and because someone is born in Canada/Britain, nothing else matters.

    Anyways, enough of a rant. You get the point. Immigration matters, community matters, culture matters, government policies matters...

  29. 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.

  30. Re:Robert Plant Chimes In by No+Longer+an+AC · · Score: 3, Informative

    Willie Dixon wrote it and Howlin' Wolf recorded it before either the Doors or Led Zeppelin were bands.

  31. Re:No need for backdoors by thesupraman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Of course the problem there was not lack of always-on monitoring of everyone in the off chance the police nothing something.
    The problem was not encryption of private information.

    The problem was leftist control of a council where them hamstrung themselves so tightly that they were ignoring child rape
    cases in case they offended a minority group, some of whom were actively raping children..
    And yet not one single one of those in positions of power who let this continue to happen are in prison, nor ever likely will be.
    Because, you know, they are 'sorry', for allowing children to keep being violently raped.

    But no, what we need is more cameras, less privacy, more government control - who cares what they DO with it.

  32. Re:governments by OneoFamillion · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Thank you for that very sincere and interesting post. Now there is just one thing I'd like to ask you that I didn't quite get: You mention "social support", what kind of social support do you mean? What kind of social support do you think would enable high immigration and still enable integration? Many Western societies have tried throwing money at the problem, and unfortunately that hasn't worked very well.

  33. Re:governments by bickerdyke · · Score: 2

    You can go into some "white" American suburb with a bunch of Muslim hate preachers and if - if! - you don't get tossed in prison immediately for running your dog-and-pony show, you'll get a conversion rate of less than .1% from normal citizen to terrorist idiot.

    If we have learned anything from marketing: You have to match your message to the target group. Of course taking a muslim hate preacher to a white suburb won't work. It's hard to convince them that they are the scum of the earth.

    If you want to convert people there into terrorists, you need to tell them ACA is bad for them, that lazy immigrants are stealing their jobs, any president could create jobs or any other staple of the white supremacists idiots and they will be willing to bomb blacks/jews/muslims or at least vote Trump.

    Those "white" suburbs have the same vulnerabilities. You just have to trigger them slightly different.

    --
    bickerdyke
  34. Re:governments by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have a similar anecdote which is not related to religion per se, but it covers cultural shifts too. My East-European country prior to end of WWII was mainly agrarian traditional society. After the war, communists came in power and started forced industrialization, stimulating massive migrations of previously rural inhabitants into cities, which grew, where former farmers became blue-collar working class, or students, then new intelligentsia. It was followed with cultural change, acquiring new habits and ways of life, cultural change and adopting new (Western) taste in clothing, music, and social behaviour. However, nearing the end of the 20th century, apparent became an underground trend which gradually became dominant: those new urbanites obviously suffered from some kind of countryside nostalgia and sort of guilt, and they bought into cheap country-flavoured kitsch and whatever was peddled to them as "traditional", including ethnic differentiation and chauvinism against "historical enemy" ethnic groups. It became fashionable to be "old way", to profess religiousness in blatant ways, to idealize not-at-all-rosy past, to reject democratic values for traditional authoritarianism and wish for "restoration" of prior "greatness" which never actually was.

    I'd say that the mechanism behind what you are describing is basically the same: As humans approach the end of their physical existence, most of them start feeling the guilt for straying away from their traditional upbringing. There is ebb and flow in cultural influence. Perhaps they are more willing to change while they are young and need the world, wish to find partners for procreation, various friends to learn from, or co-work with on attaining success in life, but once their thirst for wide social connections wane, their internal wish to satisfy their parents and ancestors pushes them to change their mind back, and then they imprint that on their offspring. Your parents probably got you when they were young and the world was a better place and the things were probably going for the better in your ancestral land, too, with visible benefits from opening up to the world. Alternatively, your parents actually did succeed better then the most, reaped the rewards of cultural change, and I suppose you did well yourself, too.

  35. Re: governments by scamper_22 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hey. I dont know if a sure fire way. But i leave the door open for good government policy to provide social support.

    I could see things like social workers working closely with families. Not to take kids away from parents, but to help people parent. Maybe schools can provide services for things like kids threatened with being disowned or beat...

    Also i think the general social environment should allow for discussion. Probably the one that annoys me most is that white people actively attack their right wing. Its not socially acceptable today to attack islams right wing. And i dont mean terrorism here. Just social things. I dont care about the hijab but i mean is it a thing to be celebrated? No where else do western people support slut shaming and female modesty dreas codes. Just treat immigrants with the same standards u expect of anyone else.

  36. Re:Worse than you think! by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Funny

    SUVs should be banned

    If we arrest everyone driving SUVs, there'll be about 85% fewer twats on the road (gotta arrest BMW drivers too to get to 95%).

    Sorry what was the problem?

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  37. Amber Rudd. Of all the idiots on this planet by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seriously, she's Britain's answer to Sarah Palin. Or rather, an answer to a question nobody asked.

    And while Palin is at least a looker, Rudd also has this "used car" air about her. This woman has so far in her total career never said a single sentence that wasn't a tear-soaked platitude, an "outraged demand" that simply echoed what everyone else has already been saying or simply and plainly stupid. I really have no idea what service she could provide other than being the bad example on how NOT to do something.

    Seriously. When asked at her funeral to say anything good about her, all you can sensibly say is "she died".

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  38. Re:No need for backdoors by VirginMary · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How many rapes by catholic priests and society looked the other way? Not that I am saying that this is any kind of excuse...

    --
    When 1person suffers from a delusion,it is called insanity.When many people suffer from a delusion,it is called religion