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Manchester Attack Could Lead To Internet Crackdown (independent.co.uk)

New submitter boundary writes: The UK government looks to be about to put the most egregious parts of the Investigative Powers Act into force "soon after the election" (which is in a couple of weeks) in the wake of the recent bombing in Manchester. "Technical Capability Orders" require tech companies to break their own security. I wonder who'll comply? The Independent reports: "Government will ask parliament to allow the use of those powers if Theresa May is re-elected, senior ministers told The Sun. 'We will do this as soon as we can after the election, as long as we get back in,' The Sun said it was told by a government minister. 'The level of threat clearly proves there is no more time to waste now. The social media companies have been laughing in our faces for too long.'"

39 of 384 comments (clear)

  1. They've definitely been laughing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But only because so many people are willing to give them all their personal information for free.

    1. Re:They've definitely been laughing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, "in my book" doesn't count as a regular rule of grammar or communication observed by all humans, you actual lazy and yet somehow pedantic imbecile.

    2. Re:They've definitely been laughing by ewanm89 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, this isn't just that, this is "we want to access all encrypted information". We must have broken encryption because "terrorism". Basically Theresa May has fascist tendencies she wants to enforce. Unfortunately the other political parties are such a mess at the moment that well... yeah, the whole thing is not good.

    3. Re:They've definitely been laughing by jenningsthecat · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Basically Theresa May has fascist tendencies she wants to enforce.

      Yup, time to Godwin this discussion and start calling the British PM "Theresa Maydolf".

      The thing that gets me is how few people among the 'general public' understand that every single time a country enacts measures like this, it's an unqualified win for the terrorists. But you can be sure that the leaders of those countries are aware of that fact, and welcome terrorist attacks as excuse and justification for fulfilling their darkest fantasies of domination and subjugation.

      The other thing that many people don't stop to think about is that if their governments hadn't insisted on on interfering with other countries' governments and ways of life, we wouldn't have nearly so big a problem with terrorism.

      --
      'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    4. Re:They've definitely been laughing by sound+vision · · Score: 3, Insightful

      20 people die listening to Ariana Grande and it's a national tragedy.
      A couple of days later, 100 civilians die from a bombing in Iraq and nobody bats an eye.

  2. In other news... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...Mainstream media are reporting today that the government was given credible warnings about the suspected bomber as many as five times over the past few years, from a variety of sources and via exactly the sorts of channels you're supposed to use if you're worried that someone might do something like this. None of these source appear to have relied on high-tech surveillance and intercepted communications. They were reportedly based on in-person observations, which tragically doesn't seem to have set off the right alarm bells soon enough.

    --
    If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    1. Re: In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      He and a bunch of others. Are you saying the police should go round up all the other foreigners on their watch list?

    2. Re: In other news... by brantondaveperson · · Score: 5, Insightful

      especially if they look like criminals

      That's cool that you know what criminals look like, we could just pay you to go through photographs, and we'll just arrest or deport the ones with the bad faces.

    3. Re: In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You saying they shouldn't? The watch list is there for a reason. It's about time they start using it.

      I for one, cannot figure why anyone would allow foreigners with even the smallest criminal records, especially if they look like criminals, to stay in their countries at all.

      The foreigner who blew himself up at the concert was BORN in the UK. He was as British as Theresa May or Tony Blair.
      Amazing isn't it ? At what point is a foreigner not a foreigner anymore ? Careful with your answer otherwise we could classify all people living in the US (minus the native americans) as foreigners. Do we kick them out and give back the US to the native people we stole the lands from ?

    4. Re:In other news... by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      None of these source appear to have relied on high-tech surveillance and intercepted communications

      We know that. And we know also that most people, maybe 95%, don't have the necessary scientific background to comprehend that fact, and presented with the horror of these attacks, will comply without blinking to more Internet censoring.

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    5. Re:In other news... by golodh · · Score: 5, Informative
      Yes, here's the link:

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

      It appears the authorities were warned on five (!) separate occasions about this boy being mentally unstable and embracing terrorism by people who knew him personally. They ignored it.

      To be honest, they might have thought the suspect was just a buffoon. You can't go round arresting every loony you find. But what you can do is pay such people a visit (you can even use social workers for that if the police has a capacity problem) and/or interview them at the police station, have a mental assessment done, and see who they're connected with.

      Well, now is the time to improve procedures instead of outlawing encryption and introducing Internet censorship..

    6. Re:In other news... by madenglishbloke · · Score: 4, Informative

      The apparent lack of security is a red herring - the attack took place in a publicly-accessible area, BEFORE any security checks to get in to the arena. Indeed, most of the security is aimed at finding drinks and snacks (protecting the venues revenue), cameras (protecting the artists IP), and knives/handguns, in that order, and they use profiling techniques for all these. The thing is, even the most high-tech security checks are prone to failure - just look at the number of times investigators in the US have smuggled illicit objects through TSA scanners and onto aircraft.

    7. Re:In other news... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They get ten thousand similar reports a week. They can't possibly follow up on all of them.

      But they can possibly follow up on all filter hits from UK's teeny-tiny Internet traffic, right? ;)

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    8. Re:In other news... by Xest · · Score: 4, Insightful

      His Dad was also a Libyan militant, in Libya, who he had just visited, days before the bombing.

      This guy is a poster child for the type of person that should be picked up trivially if MI5 was even half way competent. There's literally no reason if MI5 were doing this job that this guy should've slipped through the net - just about every indicator for potential terrorist was ticked, and they failed to follow it up.

      I agree with you - on it's own, you can't just pick people up based on reports. But I don't imagine there's too many people flying back from ISIS hotbeds with family that are linked to militant groups, and who have been reported for saying "suicide bombings are okay" repeatedly over a number of years, including by others in his extended family and local Imams.

      I simply cannot comprehend what MI5 are doing to have managed to have missed this one. I've often written before that all the terrorists that slip through the net in the West whether it's in the US, France, or the UK all seem to be known to the security services, but this particular case shows an astoundingly exceptional level of incompetence compared to even those.

      How can they ask for more access to data when they can't even work with intel handed to them on a plate?

    9. Re: In other news... by BlueStrat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This particular attacker was born in the UK, in Manchester, and therefore not a foreigner.

      Legally, yes.

      Culturally, morally, and ideologically?

      He might as well have had blue skin and spoke Betelgeusean.

      That's the problem with the ME refugees; They come to Western nations but never leave their original country. They just bring a piece of it with them, and soon, as their numbers swell, all those little pieces join together and marginalize the native culture until it looks and feels much like where they fled from, including bombings, beheadings, rapes, pedophilia, murder, and the rest of the ME cultural armageddon.

      TPTB want a major global shift in power and economics. Major changes can be made during major crisis.

      Western leaders know full well that bringing in masses of poorly-vetted Muslim refugees is dangerous and will lead to conflict. That's the goal. Just look at TFA. Crisis => invasions of privacy. They set up the conditions for the crisis and step in to "save the day" with new losses to individual liberty and privacy.

      If this were in a medical context, we'd be discussing Munchausen syndrome by proxy with Western citizens the victims and their governments their abusers.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    10. Re:In other news... by purple_cobra · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you are a UK resident, do not vote Conservative. There are soldiers on UK streets instead of police because we don't have enough police to do the job! The government that slashed police numbers, meaning they were and are effectively crippled? That would be the Conservatives and their Home Secretary at the time, Mrs Theresa May. There is blood on May's hands for this event yet the tabloid press will not report it. She was an incompetent Home Secretary and is an incompetent Prime Minister, but her tabloid lapdogs continue to point everywhere but to the person with whom the blame should rest.

      Vote these Tory idiots out before Daesh turn the country into a smoking ruin.

    11. Re: In other news... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And why would the country of his ancestors let him back in? Should the UK allow all Americans residence automatically if any of their ancestors came from here? If not, then why should Syria?

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    12. Re: In other news... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      He might as well have had blue skin and spoke Betelgeusean.

      After the attack, Mail Online journalist Katie Hopkins went as far as to call for a new holocaust to eradicate Muslims in a tweet. The point is, even for someone who I'm sure you would regard as culturally British, extremism exists.

      Posts like yours, where you argue that even the children of immigrants aren't British, and are in fact so different from us that they are completely alien, just encourage extremist views like that. And from there, all it needs are some mental health issues and careful grooming to turn that person into a weapon.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    13. Re: In other news... by BlueStrat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Posts like yours, where you argue that even the children of immigrants aren't British, and are in fact so different from us that they are completely alien, just encourage extremist views like that.

      Reality is often extreme and quite rude, as are many people and their beliefs such as radical Islamists. To refuse to acknowledge reality because it may at times seem 'extreme' to delicate sensibilities is irrational.

      Britain is once again being invaded, and British leadership cheer for the invaders.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    14. Re:In other news... by Kiuas · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Islam is as much a political idea as a religious one, if not more so. Their stated goal is and have always been conquest. The average Yusef-schmoe may not know this, or admit to this, but their so called "scholars" and IS knows this.

      Islamists should be extended the same courtesy as non-islamic religions get in saudi arabia.

      All islamists are muslims, not all muslims are islamists.

      There once was a time when christianity was a political idea as much as a religious one (and in some places it still is). In fact, pick ANY organized religion and I can offer you numerous examples of said religion being used as an extension of politics to support violence, subjugation of non-believers and military expansion. It just so happens that when the starting point of a belief is '$OUR_GROUP has access to Ultimate Truth(tm) about the universe and who do not agree with us are wrong by definition' that can be easily used to instigate tribal conflicts.

      I fully agree that islamist groups ought to be tolerated no more than any other groups seeking to overthrow freedom of religion and other core values of civilized societies, but you cannot get from that to 'therefore all muslims are evil' any more than I can get from the fact that there are christian dominionists in the US who'd like to establish a 'christian nation' to saying all the lutherans here in Finland must also be raging theocrats that need to be opposed.

      --
      "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
    15. Re: In other news... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      To refuse to acknowledge reality because it may at times seem 'extreme' to delicate sensibilities is irrational.

      Refusing to accept demonstrably untrue claims is rational. Clearly, the vast majority of children of immigrants are well integrated.

      As I demonstrated, white "native" British people seem to be just as prone to thinking that mass murder can be acceptable. In fact, the main cultural difference is that jihadis are willing to commit suicide, where as European terrorists prefer to survive the attack.

      Need I remind you of that Breivik guy? Killed far more children and young people, and in a far more cold and calculated way since he was able to witness the suffering he was inflicting and sustained his attack for an extended period of time. This kind of mental illness and descent into hatred is not unique to Muslims of refugees or the children of immigrants from particular countries.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. The Internet isn't the only way to communicate by Streetlight · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the Internet and the World Wide Web become too dangerous for terrorists to communicate they'll find other ways to communicate their nefarious plans which may be more immune to cracking. This could include face to face meetings in secure venues such as caves or messenger transmissions. It may be that the best way to learn of such plans is the old fashion method of inserting moles into such organizations. They must be really good or they'll end up as recent moles have in China.

    --
    In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
    1. Re:The Internet isn't the only way to communicate by AHuxley · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The UK faced that with the Irish question before the wide use of the Internet. The UK solved that by collecting all phone calls into and out of Ireland, the UK.
      The very smart thing the UK did was never to mention collection to lawyers, the media, human rights groups or its own police.
      Very interesting people in Ireland and the US, UK kept on talking, funding, making calls, arranging meetings, moving hardware thinking phone calls and voice prints could only be used in the Soviet Union for a select few Soviet mil sites and officials.

      The very interesting people in the UK do not need the internet. They can use their holidays to move information in person.
      The UK solved the "This could include face to face" meeting issue down to two people meeting in isolated areas.
      Get the voice prints, the faces and follow a person all over Ireland, the UK with vans, trucks, cars, helicopters, early satalite tracking. Find out who they meet, record the talk or exchange and then offer both sides a "deal" to work for the UK intelligence services.
      The deal on offer was usually accepted.
      As people who got turned early on moved up to more trusted Irish networks, more interesting people got exposed and got offered the same deal.
      The UK police, media, lawyers, human rights groups never really worked that aspect out.
      The other aspect was support from the USA. The US was not interested in UK/Irish issues so the UK had to act in the USA without US knowledge.
      The same methods got used in the US and support and funding from the US to Ireland was tracked and later "found" with a good cover story.
      Face to face meeting provide not much of the expected cover if one or both people are known or the meeting place is been watched

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    2. Re:The Internet isn't the only way to communicate by dbIII · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The other aspect was support from the USA. The US was not interested in UK/Irish issues

      They were interested but on the wrong side. Senator Peter King was very active and vocal in his support for the IRA and lobbied for US law enforcement to deny assistance to the UK. I've got no idea why he wasn't voted out after 9/11 or thrown out of the Republican Party entirely due to his history of supporting terrorists.

    3. Re:The Internet isn't the only way to communicate by sg_oneill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The IRA where never beaten by counterterrorism forces. They where beaten by the peace process. Thats a historical fact. All the spies, wiretapes and surveilance from the full might of the british establishment could never crack the IRAs primary command structure, only bust the occasional cell and react to incidents after the fact. What succeeded was creating a political environment where Sinn Fein and the UK govt could negotiate a peace such that Irish patriots didn't need the IRA anymore.

      Thats a very different kettle of fish to the jihadis

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    4. Re:The Internet isn't the only way to communicate by purple_cobra · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The Stormont Agreement was signed 3 years before the September 11th attacks. The IRA had a crystal ball, did they?

  4. Guilty by default? by info6568 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It is an ominous action what was performed when parents were waiting to pickup their children after a concert.

    After declaring something that it is true, let's talk about technology and the justification to violate the privacy human right in the name of security.

    If there is any justification to break all rights trying to catch terrorists, then we must stop using paper because somebody "could" have been designing a terrorist act in a piece of paper. Let's also stop talking, because when we talk could be possible that we let others to receive messages describing how to perform terrorist acts.

    Let's give the authorities the right to use "advanced" interrogation methods, because we could be thinking on performing terrorist acts and, in general, let's become guilty by default in a world were it is enforced to demonstrate that we are not guilty on any possible action that could hurt others.

    The main problem is that the human being it is very capable to bypass the obvious communication methods and the bad people will continue performing bad actions in one or another way, and in the middle all the really innocent people will become guilty by default and the freedom that humanity has been working to acquire during thousands of years and millions of lives will be lost in just some years. And if this happen, the terrorists will win the war.

    1. Re:Guilty by default? by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Informative

      The main problem is people overreact. This isn't a Luftwaffe bombing campaign, there is no existential threat against the British state, so the idea that British authorities should just start torturing people seems like outrageous overreaction.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:Guilty by default? by harlequinn · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, you do have something to fear. The removal of your privacy and the abuse of these powers.

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

      You should probably read it.

  5. Ahh... by EmeraldBot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Multiple warnings over several years, and the UK government never acted on them. So now, rather than admit they were incompetent or not funding their human agents enough, they're going to cut off free speech online? Congratulations Britain, you have the dubious honor of being the second country in the world to fall to terrorism.

    --
    "Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
  6. Re:The Mosque by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to the front page story in today's Telegraph, a mosque banned him and reported him to the authorities because of his extremist views.

    --
    If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
  7. Re:The Mosque by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Informative

    Um, do you even know the history of Britain. Look up "the Troubles". The IRA were way more sophisticated than any would-be Jihadi. They even managed to blow up Prince Charles' uncle. All ISIS's band of maniacs seem able to do is blow up concert goers and little girls.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  8. Re:Come out ye Black and Tans by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not to marginalize the awfulness of those bombings, but I don't remember a lot of them that specifically targeted young girls. That takes a special kind of evil.

    --
    Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  9. Re:The Mosque by ArylAkamov · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because it isn't the 60s anymore?
    b-b-but they did it too is a pretty piss poor argument. It's completely irrelevant at this point, it doesn't matter who is doing it, it needs to stop.

  10. Some idiots don't believe that "low-tech" works by knorthern+knight · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Cracking down on the internet" will do nothing but inconvenience innocent ordinary citizens.

    The US had a very hard time finding Osama bin Laden after 9/11. He dropped off the net, and no cellphones either. He communicated via trusted couriers.

    Another example is "Millenium Challenge 2002" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... This was a simulated war game with "Blue" force (USA) versus "Red" force (middle eastern, probably Iran).

    > Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted
    > an asymmetric strategy, in particular, using old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic
    > surveillance network. Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line
    > troops and World-War-II-style light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications.

      The initial result was an absolute disaster for "Blue" at the beginning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    >At this point, the exercise was suspended, Blue's ships were "re-floated", and the rules of engagement were changed;

    [...deletia...]

    > After the war game was restarted, its participants were forced to follow a script
    > drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory. Among other rules imposed by this script,
    > Red Force was ordered to turn on their anti-aircraft radar in order for them to be
    > destroyed, and was not allowed to shoot down any of the aircraft bringing Blue
    > Force troops ashore. Van Riper also claimed that exercise officials denied him
    > the opportunity to use his own tactics and ideas against Blue Force, and that they
    > also ordered Red Force not to use certain weapons systems against Blue Force
    > and even ordered the location of Red Force units to be revealed.

    The USA lost to "low tech" in Viet Nam. Afghanistan and Iraq weren't exactly "glorious victories" either. The UK seems to be falling into the same trap. They'll only succeed in shutting down internet connectivity for innocent citizens. Terrorists will continue to use "sneakernet", trusted couriers, etc.

    --

    I'm not repeating myself
    I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
  11. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  12. Clueless politicians strike again. by Going_Digital · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Clearly they learnt nothing from the CIA exploits leak that cased the NHS to go into meltdown when black hats got hold of the code. They just don't have a clue, compelling legitimate companies to provide ways to break into their encryption just means that the terrorists will use other encryption techniques either developed themselves or from a company outside of the UK who doesn't care about UK laws. End result, law abiding citizens loose their privacy, terrorists continue with impunity.

  13. If there is something to learn with Trump.. by Z80a · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is that you never, ever, EVER give the president a power that you will regret later when someone like Trump steps in.

  14. Re:The Mosque by jeremyp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The IRA could easily have done something like 9/11. It's not like it was that hard at the time to take over a plane and fly it into a building. There are two reasons why they didn't which both stem from the fact that their motives were political, not ideological.

    Firstly, they never did suicide attacks. The IRA perceived themselves as soldiers fighting for a cause, not jihadis fighting for God. Consequently, there were no IRA suicide attacks. 9/11 would have been impossible if you had to factor in an escape plan for the perpetrators.

    Secondly, (and admittedly this didn't always apply) they had a concept of enemy combatants and civilians. As a rule their attacks were targeted at the system that prevented a united Ireland (police officers, politicians, soldiers) or causing disruption rather than deaths. If they planted a bomb targeted at civilian areas, they normally sent a warning to the police.

    Also, let's not forget that they several times got close to "centres of power". They successfully murdered a British MP in the House of Commons car park, they slaughtered a troop of mounted ceremonial cavalry in Hyde Park, they murdered a relative of the Queen and they came close to assassinating the prime minister and many important cabinet ministers at a party conference.

    --
    All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe