Developers of apps that use end-to-end encryption to protect private communications could be considered hostile actors in the UK.
Pervasive surveillance is a hostile act. Abetting genocide and other crimes against humanity is a hostile act. Serving the rich at the expense of the poor is a hostile act.
Remember how, before the internet, intelligence agencies by default didn’t know what anyone was saying to anyone else face to face or by mail, and had to actually work to find out? The country didn’t fall apart. Why is the standard now that everything must be handed to them on a plate? Did they just get lazy?
I think its a mixture of lazy and inexperience.
I believe if someone in a position of authority who understands how vital E2EE is in order for the internet to work, this suggestion wouldn’t even be on the table.
its a case of just kicking destroying E2EE down the road for another generation to deal with, I believe. not sure what the solution is, either
That they can is what has changed. They didn’t have sufficient information to put pressure.
They still had microphones and inquiry drugs, including those causing memory loss. So they knew plenty of what people were saying to each other.
Anyway. Everything has changed a lot, not just technology, and one can’t really make a chain of causation to all this. There are plenty of feedback loops.
The rules now are “we are stronger, so we are forbidding everything we don’t want”. Losing leverage does that.
Until you learn of some way to hit them back, such questions are no good, because not answering them doesn’t cost anything.
They cut costs by firing the people doing the legwork and passed the savings along to billionaires who promised sustainable models. Now they can’t hire people to do real legwork anymore because, “no one wants to work anymore for their grandparents’ wage in an economy and society designed to turn people into voluntary slaves and the only way to escape is to become homeless and go off the grid, but the laws are being molded to prevent anyone from escaping the system.”
I’m pretty sure that’s how the old adage goes.
You’ll love this!
I deployed an open-source chat system at work, just for convenience. Boss was concerned that it didn’t do any logging and we couldn’t tell who said what.
“You don’t have any records of what we say verbally. What’s the difference?”
“…Oh. Well, you’re right.”
He was coming from a legit concern. We didn’t point fingers when someone screwed up, zero blame, but we needed to know exactly what happened so we could fix it.
I’m not disagreeing with you but what would happen back then is that they simply wouldn’t stop the crime.
At some point we need to decide if giving up all semblance of personal privacy is worth stopping some of that. I vote no enthusiastically. We just have to accept that some of that crime won’t be stopped and law enforcement will have to work harder.
I would give up privacy only under one condition: everyone gives up all privacy. No exceptions.
If our countries could stop doing things that give people a reason to commit terroristic acts, Maybe that would solve some of it and we could be more secure in our papers and possessions without unlawful interference and undue search and seizures but that’s apparently none of my business
The elite know what’s coming. There isn’t enough to keep economic growth going and sacrifices will have to be made, and that’s not going to be the top. That means something is needed to detect and remove “problems” before they get big.
If you don’t want your citizens to be hostile, don’t make yourself an enemy.
I’m baffled that all this tracking nonsense is pushed through by a government that is supposed to be left of the tories. I guess that goes to show you that “center” parties can be just as evil as conservatives.
They aren’t left. Starmer and chums undermined the left-wing leader of Labour. They’re the pro-business wing of the party. New Labour folks were always dreadful for this sort of thing. Many authoritarian changes are coming from the centre, in UK, France, Denmark etc.
It all feels co-ordinated as states and their representatives squeeze down on working people.
You are exactly where the US was thirty or so years ago. Get ready for the hard push right to try to “attract the moderate Tories”.
I know they aren’t left, that’s why I wrote “left of the tories”. They are centrist and how Starmer ever managed to become prime minister is beyond me. That guy as a suit through and through.
What the heck is happening with Europe in general? I thought they were better in terms of maintaining individual privacy, damm.
That’s europe, this is just UK. Brexit didn’t work out in a lot of ways they planned
I’d argue it worked exactly as intended.
There needs to be a watchdog for the watchdog, because this is totally unacceptable for a official to be this out of the loop on the technology they are watching over.
If they are a professional they should have some clue as to what is going on, but instead they’re listening to their fascist pals.
Gosh, and these powers could be handed to Farage.
They could be complicit in what comes next.
Off topic but does the UK still have the death penalty for treason? Just wondering.
Wow, the UK sounds like an awful place.
I thought we were unique in this but frankly everywhere in the “western” world is talking about the same things. EU has chat control, Australia has similar efforts, USA aren’t pushing for privacy at all so it’s not a uniquely British problem.
It first starts with the “children” or the “bad actors/terrorists” and ends with a straight up fascist police state.
Agreed, but Australia and the UK are way ahead of the rest.
Hey, did you use a secure encrypted connection to make that treasonous remark? I’ve got 999 on speed dial, I’m on to you, you encryption terrorist!
Ah its not so bad if you get so drunk your critical thinking skills go out the window.
These guys are so fucking stupid. Security and privacy goes both ways. Either for people to use or not. If you don’t want encryption, fine, your online banking doesn’t work anymore
Welcome to New East Germany.
What the fuck happened to the UK? Is Trump president there too?
Meta happened. UK, US, all over the world there is a correlation between the adoption of Meta’s products and the corrosion of basic human rights.
The right wing fascism wave is a world trend my guy. This is just the start.
Let’s be hostile together then
Said proudly by the hostile actors.
While casually performing hostile activity
Folks, “1984” was supposed to be a warning. Not an instruction manual, with check off items.
We even had a huge reminder with V for Vendetta, but maybe that was too subtle.
