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Web Inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee Slams UK and US Net Plans (bbc.com)

The web's creator has attacked any UK plans to weaken encryption and promised to battle any moves by the Trump administration to weaken net neutrality. From a report on BBC: Sir Tim Berners-Lee was speaking to the BBC following the news that he has been given the Turing Award. It is sometimes known as the Nobel Prize of computing. Sir Tim said moves to undermine encryption would be a "bad idea" and represent a massive security breach. Home Secretary Amber Rudd has said there should be no safe space for terrorists to be able to communicate online. But Sir Tim said giving the authorities a key to unlock coded messages would have serious consequences. "Now I know that if you're trying to catch terrorists it's really tempting to demand to be able to break all that encryption but if you break that encryption then guess what -- so could other people and guess what -- they may end up getting better at it than you are," he said. Sir Tim also criticised moves by legislators on both sides of the Atlantic, which he sees as an assault on the privacy of web users. He attacked the UK's recent Investigatory Powers Act, which he had criticised when it went through Parliament: "The idea that all ISPs should be required to spy on citizens and hold the data for six months is appalling." In the United States he is concerned that the principle of net neutrality, which treats all internet traffic equally, could be watered down by the Trump administration and the Federal Communications Commission. "If the FCC does move to reduce net neutrality I will fight it as hard as I can," he vowed.

48 comments

  1. Pot meet Kettle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    He wants his DRM system, US wants corps to profit and UK wants to spy.

    Film @ 11, I guess.

    1. Re:Pot meet Kettle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes because giving companies the option to use DRM on their content is totally the same as the loss of all security and privacy.

    2. Re:Pot meet Kettle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He isn't giving companies the option to use DRM. They already had that option and were using it.

      What he's doing, is advocating in favor of DRM. The specs were neutral with respect to DRM, now the specs will go to go to extra trouble to accommodate this useless thing, telling people how to do it.

  2. Tim Berners-Lee's motto by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do as I say, not as I do.

    1. Re:Tim Berners-Lee's motto by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He pretty much burned most (or all) of his credibility by endorsing the DRM system. I doubt he's truly aware of that, though.

  3. Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He probably thinks undermining crypto is a bad idea because it'll break DRM.

    1. Re: Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sign of insanity.

  4. Sure, put backdoors in encryption, but... by jarrowwx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    first you have to use that encryption in all your government "classified" communications, and all your banking transactions for one year. Then, at the end of the year, if you still want all encryption to have back doors, we'll consider it. But don't be surprised if the government no longer has any secrets, or indeed, any money left.

    1. Re:Sure, put backdoors in encryption, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      first you have to use that encryption in all your government "classified" communications, and all your banking transactions for one year.

      "We", the government, don't "have to" do anything! We do what we want because you all are distracted by identity/group-politics surrounding a bunch of 'wedge issues', just as we planned. We'll simply carve out exceptions for the military and our cronies just like with ACA and suffer little backlash as always because you're all more concerned with BLM protests, gay British conservatives speaking on US campuses, and PP videos.

    2. Re:Sure, put backdoors in encryption, but... by x_t0ken_407 · · Score: 1

      This needs to be modded up dammit...

  5. Back to the 90s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Does anyone get deja vu that this is a repeat of the whole 'clipper chip' justification without the hardware...

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip for the uninitiated.

    1. Re:Back to the 90s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah. The idea will keep getting pushed until opponents are too fatigued to fight the battle yet again.

      That, and a sustained technical assault such as NSA trying to subvert encryption algorithms in standards bodies.

      It's been open warfare on the concept of privacy, and the good guys are not winning.

    2. Re: Back to the 90s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The short sightedness is the cats out of the bag already - in 1990 crypto was a specialist business, with hardware acceleration (like clipper) a useful tool. Now I can knock up a secure messaging platform using OSS components in a few days hosted somewhere... If backdoors are mandated in common platforms, the terrorists will just move elsewhere. Do the governments expect to ban libretto (or openssl) from providing certain algos?!?!

    3. Re: Back to the 90s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't need no stenkin Clipper Ship.
      All built into mobo now.
      Don't you get 'intel inside'? /s

  6. MY GOD! by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1

    My God! They don't have 10,000 gigabit fibre to every homeless tent!

    Welcome to the real world.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  7. Eventually we all become irrelevant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Ah yes, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the new champion of DRM is telling us what is best for ourselves.

    It's time that he fades gracefully from public before he embarrasses his legacy further.

    1. Re:Eventually we all become irrelevant by 0123456 · · Score: 1

      It's hard to do DRM with easily-breakable encryption.

  8. Get out of Jail free card by sit1963nz · · Score: 2

    So, we have a back door. It is easily proven that without backdoors various groups have been able to hack into the NSA, CIA, US Navy, etc etc etc. WITH a backdoor it will be even easier.

    So with a back door, I assume it will be up to the government to PROVE that any files, encrypted or otherwise, were not put there by some 3rd party, that the back door has not been used.

    Seems like a get out of jail free card with the use of a good lawyer.

    Oh, and please give over the source code so my defence team can see how the backdoor works so we can check if it has been used.

    Backdoor = lots of people getting off because the LEOs don't want to spill the beans about the back door, seems self defeating to me.

    1. Re:Get out of Jail free card by Orgasmatron · · Score: 1

      I hate to have to say this, but "The courts will save us!" is the fool's cry. It rarely works out.

      --
      See that "Preview" button?
    2. Re:Get out of Jail free card by sit1963nz · · Score: 2

      And yet people have been getting away scot free because the LEO were unwilling to show how they caught the person.

      The secret became more valuable than the prosecution.

    3. Re:Get out of Jail free card by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seems like a get out of jail free card with the use of a good lawyer.

      Go ahead... try that argument out in court.

      Good luck. Let us know how it works out.

    4. Re: Get out of Jail free card by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only if you are rich enough to afford a lawyer. Otherwise, you are screwed.
      See how fascism works? At some point, there will be only a few rich people left, and the poor are all dead, and the rich will be wondering why they have no food.

      The love of money is the root of all evil, but it is also the root of insanity.

      The only way to win, is to not play.

    5. Re:Get out of Jail free card by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The mythical "back doors" must be using some kind of magical technologies because nobody has ever found a purpose built "backdoor" in any major system. Surely some of the super hackers trolling the binary code would have made finding these "backdoors" a priority instead of wasting the effort creating their own.

      1. The government is already fighting a losing battle trying to protect their own systems.
      2. The national covert intelligence agencies can't keep a secret to save themselves.
      3. There is not any existing encryption methodology applicable and practical to use on internet traffic that cannot be broken by any covert intelligence agency in the world.
      4. The national intelligence agencies effectiveness is limited. To be successful they require a specific target. Mass surveillance has already been ruled too expensive while providing little help. Even one of the Snowden documents spelled this out but was some how overlooked because that particular piece of information did not support the political narrative being forwarded by those releasing cherry picked data.
      5. It's not the government people should be worried about when it comes to privacy violations. Corporations and high tech criminals are the ones who need a slap up side their heads. They don't collect your information to determine if you are a security risk they take everything they can for the sole purpose of making money. While the government is spending billions on their cyber warfare efforts the corporations and criminals are making billions of dollars.

    6. Re:Get out of Jail free card by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > And yet people have been getting away scot free because the LEO were unwilling to show how they caught the person.

      That's a thing of the past. Read about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  9. looking up hypenosys on alphabet.com by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    not even a real word? cease fire stand down.. there's moms & babys in every town,, sing along .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IfmiKnZi3E that's the spirit

  10. A simple question... by McPierce · · Score: 1

    What's to stop the bad guys from just using another encryption scheme without backdoors built into it?

    --
    Darryl L. Pierce "What do you care what people think, Mr. Feynman?"
    1. Re: A simple question... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you mean like how CIA does it,
      or are you referring to something else?

    2. Re: A simple question... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I mean that you can't force the Bad Guys (tm) to use encryption with built-in backdoors. They'll be the only ones using something with no such easy access for government to see what they're doing.

      Which leaves the regular Joes exposed and the Bad Guys (tm) where they are now...

    3. Re: A simple question... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kinda like the gun-ban argument... Only the government and criminals gain power if what is proposed comes to pass. And neither are going to be there when the other attacks you

    4. Re: A simple question... by Wootery · · Score: 1

      Ignoring, you know, the entire first-world outside the USA.

    5. Re: A simple question... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, gun ban really stopped Paris didn't it?
      Fucking idiot.

    6. Re: A simple question... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everyone breaks laws, everyone is a criminal. Bad guys are what happens when you watch too much television. Generic pandering, useless rhetoric, a conversation that ultimately has no meaning.

  11. He did not invent the web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What a fucking crock of shit. People need to stop saying this. Maybe if people were not led to believe this guy "invented the web", then maybe he would not feel so entitled to pontificate about its future.

    1. Re: He did not invent the web by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He did invent the web dumbshit. He didn't invent *the Internet*, which is what you were thinking of when you tried to sound snide but instead broadcast your ignorance.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    2. Re:He did not invent the web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What a fucking crock of shit. People need to stop saying this. Maybe if people were not led to believe this guy "invented the web", then maybe he would not feel so entitled to pontificate about its future.

      Slashdot still has it all wrong, Al Gore invented the web.

    3. Re: He did not invent the web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No he did not invent "the web." Yes, he developed a document sharing system at CERN, but there were interlinked document sharing systems widely demonstrated prior to that. Ever heard of Doug Engelbart?

      Dipshit.

    4. Re:He did not invent the web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No no no, Al Gore invented the internet. Tim Berners Lee invented Gopher. Or was it FTP? One of them though. It was a little before after Jon Postel was working on IRC, and Vint Cerf invented Facebook.

    5. Re: He did not invent the web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know for sure that Marissa Mayer invented email.

    6. Re: He did not invent the web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He did invent "the web". No one made the claim that he invented the concept of document sharing.
      Ever hear of HTML?
      Dipshit.

    7. Re: He did not invent the web by Zemran · · Score: 2

      He did invent the web. Do not confuse the web with the computer network that it runs on.

      --
      I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
    8. Re:He did not invent the web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No no no, Al Gore took the initiative in creating the Internet.

  12. Winner of the Turing Award by freeze128 · · Score: 2

    Tim Berners-Lee won the Turing Award. So, does that mean that his responses were indistinguishable from that of a human?

    1. Re: Winner of the Turing Award by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      No, it means he's an homosexual working in IT.

    2. Re: Winner of the Turing Award by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm pretty sure thats called the thuringer award.

  13. Turing Award? Rather Darwin Award! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    After his brilliant intervention in favour of DRM, I think the Darwin Award would be more appropriate: one more little step towards the extinction of the Free Internet.

    1. Re:Turing Award? Rather Darwin Award! by Wootery · · Score: 1

      So many AC comments labouring the point that yes, TBL was in favour of 'EME'. Is it the same AC, I wonder?

  14. Not very well-phrased, TBL by Wootery · · Score: 1

    As I posted here: Seems to me that TBL could have done a much better job phrasing the point that backdoors might be intended only for government use, but bad guys always find a way to use them to break security systems wide open.

    What is the person on the street really going to make of "they may end up getting better at it than you are"?

    He could have pointed to a physical-world analogy: the TSA 'master keys' that can open all sorts of luggage padlocks. For a while, only the government had them. Today, anyone with a 3D printer can make a working copy.

  15. Nice all to authority, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nice all to authority, but... this allows users to CHOOSE a provider with or without selling their statistics. (or add a VPN if there is not enough ISP choice).

    Real problem would be if they would ban encryption or VPNs.