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Creating apps like Signal or WhatsApp could be 'hostile activity,' claims UK watchdog (www.techradar.com)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Developers of apps that use end-to-end encryption to protect private communications could be considered hostile actors in the UK.

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[–] 246 points 9 months ago* (15 children)

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?

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  • [–] 51 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (8 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 26 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    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

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  • [–] 25 points 9 months ago

    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.

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  • [–] 17 points 9 months ago

    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.

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  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    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

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    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.

    That might be an illusion. You might be perceiving the world without normalized E2EE as something too horrible to consider. But it would be a stable system, functional for the taste of those people.

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago

    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.

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