It makes a lot of sense. Whoever wants to continue developing "these apps" will do it privately, and sell the service to those who want to keep doing things in hiding. Well done, watchdog!
So again, it just harms the general public, while making it harder to catch criminals.
Developers of apps that use end-to-end encryption to protect private communications could be considered hostile actors in the UK. <-- HTTPS does this. What about secure sites like baking sites that encrypt end-to-end? Old farts making laws about things they know nothing about.
"Developers of apps that use end-to-end encryption to protect private communications could be considered hostile actors in the UK." <-- What about HTTPS, the thing that secures most websites especially banking sites. Old farts making laws about things they know nothing about! FFS
> He warns that developers of apps like Signal and WhatsApp could technically fall within the legal definition of "hostile activity" simply because their technology "make[s] it more difficult for UK security and intelligence agencies to monitor communications.
Sounds like Let's Encrypt would also fall under that.
This has got to stop. If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites, not the streets they walk on. I walk on them too. And don't use CP as a catch-all argument to insert backdoors.
Their big problem here is that previously, it was hard to find people with the same opinion as you. If you couldn't find someone in the same village who wanted to start a rebellion, it probably wouldn't happen. Today, someone can post a Telegram group message and make thousands of people rally to a town square. I see the dangers, and I see why governments think they are doing this to protect the people. No one wants civil war. That is still not a strong enough reason to call road construction a hostile activity.
I'm back in Sweden after 12 years abroad. Time to read up on which parties are sane and which aren't when it comes to technical infrastructure.
> If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites,
And what do you do when the criminals can successfully prevent focus? Whether by encryption or by locked doors keeping cops out or by letting it be known that grasses get concrete shoes?
You and I and everyone on this site knows why encryption is important. We all know that the internet fundamentally can't work without it; not only but also online banking and online shopping. We here know it keeps all of society safe from hackers and blackmailers. It's common knowledge amongst us that it keeps critical infrastructure secure.
I think there's a genuine disconnect in the halls of government from all that: They're used to a world with humans that are flawed and who make mistakes, but those mistakes are at a personal scale. To err is human, to really foul up, as the saying goes, requires a computer, and I don't think popular culture has internalised what that means, despite the existence of all the websites with near-instant content lookup — look at how hacking is seen in pop culture, how it's akin to lock picking rather than programming: the perception is of one person's skill against a puzzle box, the reality is automation where once the puzzle is solved, the lock picked, every safe in the world opens in the blink of an eye.
Laws and press opinions about the need for government backdoors treat it like allowing police to break into houses: "got a warrant, then it's fine"; they don't realise it's more like "fake uniforms, ID badges, and warrants are available on most streets".
That doesn't make the problem category this is supposed to solve go away. There's a few reasons why I'd like to maximally liberalise the laws, one of them is so that criminal prosecution can be more tightly focussed on what matters. Other reasons include "people should be aware of all the laws that affect them, and it's not OK when the system is so complicated you have to be a lawyer to even get that far".
This is a terrible headline, despite being the original.
The "watchdog" is a KC (senior barrister) officially appointed to review the legislation. He's warning that this could be considered hostile activity under the act, which would be a bad thing. In other words, he's criticising the act for being overly broad, a view that most on HN agree with, and his criticisms of it presumably carry some weight, given his official role.
As usual, this has provoked a load of ill-informed knee-jerk rants about the UK government from people who didn't read past the headline. This act is an absolute stinker, but let's maybe criticise what's actually happening rather than some imagined cartoon variant of it.
I think there is a point to this. I’m not saying I’m a fan. But the reality is that it is too simple to communicate secretly, and the government has an interest in protecting its citizens. This is true in many aspects. (Health, technology, electronics, traffic)
Btw. The https communication comparison does not hold, there is always a third party that can read what you say. E2E chats are effectively communication where evidence is instantly destroyed.
Want to have a private communication, I think offline is the right approach.
I agree that it sucks, but it’s probably not about you. It’s about nefarious people that use this as an uber advantage.
AI can make you a basic signal for whatever group you want with zero oversight now anyway. The days of trying to proxy anti-encryption laws so you can spy on your people are numbered.
"Claims" in the title is misleading. He (It/They, I guess it is an organism, not a single person) is _warning_ about that, same as this page always does. So, it is not an infamous claim, it is a warning to all affected parties (i.e. also the government).
You, UK regulators and law enforcement, shall learn first how to do your frickin job!
Intruding everyone's privacy is not that!
Should everyone hand in their full recording of private conversations and full track of movements per month so you can filter out those breaking the law and claim you did your job?! NO!
Or better yet, should everyone spend two weeks in a high-security jail every three years, just so you can claim that, statistically speaking, crimes were punished? So your life can be easy, you can kick back, and collect paychecks? You'd like that, wouldn't you?! Maybe farmers can ask people making food for themselves but still collecting money for it, shouldn't they?
If you must intrude the privacy of all people then you are just a buch of incompetent idiots without a clue how to chase the actual criminals instead of harassing honest people! Exposing everyone to bad actors. Which is a crime on its own, by the way!
If you are unable to do without privacy violations for everyone then get a job you are able to carry out!
Walls, locks, gates, and all such are made for a purpose: to protect people. Don't break them!
The authorities here (UK resident) are already pushing hard for as much authoritarianism as they can get. They are also increasing prison capacity and the two tier system is a genuine thing with public services collapsing.
Police militarization, drones, army unit investigating private civilians, digital powers widening... I am more scared of the government than I am of local paramilitary forces at this point.
It may be enough to swing my vote towards Irish unity given the topic will be forced within my life time.
anybody can buy esim on street(ask llm how to do so) for cash or crypto. anybody can randomly talk on random webrtc domain or use random delta chat email to text.
if somebody really has high income(and high risk) illegal scheme he will not use signal for very bad things.
more, llm can tell exactly do things outlined above.
so chat control is for small(small income) crime and control of ordinary citizens behave well. in this sence it will serve its purpose.
so what is purpose going for signal developers? why not they try to do same with webrtc standard and browsers and llms?
And the government defrauding the English of their own homeland while pumping in misinformation by the petabyte while simultaneously calling everything else misinformation isn't hostile activity?
If a government is legitimately elected, and respects due process, I don't see why people would want to hide from the government.
There are very few situations where a journalist would need to hide himself from a legitimate government who respects due process.
With the Trump administration, in China, Russia, yes of course. Those apps do matter. Conventional apps are probably giving data to abusive governments if their laws require it.
With criminals using those apps to not get caught in those legitimate due process countries, I don't really know if those apps are worth using it they help criminals.
I agree that I don't want to give my data to big companies or for ads.
But I trust a legitimate government and due process.
What is a legitimate government? Just because a group gets most votes doesn't mean it should be able to do what it wants and go back on what it promised.
Starmer's government is the least popular in living memory.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 53.5 ms ] threadmi6govukbfxe5pzxqw3otzd2t4nhi7v6x4dljwba3jmsczozcolx2vqd.onion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYB129pGq0k
It may soon not be safe for authors of any privacy or encryption software to visit it or live in it.
The way to fight this is to make and use so much encryption software that no private communications or storage stay unencrypted or non-private.
So again, it just harms the general public, while making it harder to catch criminals.
If there was ever a signal ( edit: happy accident ) that it should be done, it is that the government agency thinks it is a bad idea.
Sounds like Let's Encrypt would also fall under that.
This has got to stop. If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites, not the streets they walk on. I walk on them too. And don't use CP as a catch-all argument to insert backdoors.
Their big problem here is that previously, it was hard to find people with the same opinion as you. If you couldn't find someone in the same village who wanted to start a rebellion, it probably wouldn't happen. Today, someone can post a Telegram group message and make thousands of people rally to a town square. I see the dangers, and I see why governments think they are doing this to protect the people. No one wants civil war. That is still not a strong enough reason to call road construction a hostile activity.
I'm back in Sweden after 12 years abroad. Time to read up on which parties are sane and which aren't when it comes to technical infrastructure.
And what do you do when the criminals can successfully prevent focus? Whether by encryption or by locked doors keeping cops out or by letting it be known that grasses get concrete shoes?
You and I and everyone on this site knows why encryption is important. We all know that the internet fundamentally can't work without it; not only but also online banking and online shopping. We here know it keeps all of society safe from hackers and blackmailers. It's common knowledge amongst us that it keeps critical infrastructure secure.
I think there's a genuine disconnect in the halls of government from all that: They're used to a world with humans that are flawed and who make mistakes, but those mistakes are at a personal scale. To err is human, to really foul up, as the saying goes, requires a computer, and I don't think popular culture has internalised what that means, despite the existence of all the websites with near-instant content lookup — look at how hacking is seen in pop culture, how it's akin to lock picking rather than programming: the perception is of one person's skill against a puzzle box, the reality is automation where once the puzzle is solved, the lock picked, every safe in the world opens in the blink of an eye.
Laws and press opinions about the need for government backdoors treat it like allowing police to break into houses: "got a warrant, then it's fine"; they don't realise it's more like "fake uniforms, ID badges, and warrants are available on most streets".
That doesn't make the problem category this is supposed to solve go away. There's a few reasons why I'd like to maximally liberalise the laws, one of them is so that criminal prosecution can be more tightly focussed on what matters. Other reasons include "people should be aware of all the laws that affect them, and it's not OK when the system is so complicated you have to be a lawyer to even get that far".
The "watchdog" is a KC (senior barrister) officially appointed to review the legislation. He's warning that this could be considered hostile activity under the act, which would be a bad thing. In other words, he's criticising the act for being overly broad, a view that most on HN agree with, and his criticisms of it presumably carry some weight, given his official role.
As usual, this has provoked a load of ill-informed knee-jerk rants about the UK government from people who didn't read past the headline. This act is an absolute stinker, but let's maybe criticise what's actually happening rather than some imagined cartoon variant of it.
Btw. The https communication comparison does not hold, there is always a third party that can read what you say. E2E chats are effectively communication where evidence is instantly destroyed.
Want to have a private communication, I think offline is the right approach.
I agree that it sucks, but it’s probably not about you. It’s about nefarious people that use this as an uber advantage.
Just look at the Tempest for Eliza project. And current snoopers are even more effective than that.
Intruding everyone's privacy is not that!
Should everyone hand in their full recording of private conversations and full track of movements per month so you can filter out those breaking the law and claim you did your job?! NO!
Or better yet, should everyone spend two weeks in a high-security jail every three years, just so you can claim that, statistically speaking, crimes were punished? So your life can be easy, you can kick back, and collect paychecks? You'd like that, wouldn't you?! Maybe farmers can ask people making food for themselves but still collecting money for it, shouldn't they?
If you must intrude the privacy of all people then you are just a buch of incompetent idiots without a clue how to chase the actual criminals instead of harassing honest people! Exposing everyone to bad actors. Which is a crime on its own, by the way!
If you are unable to do without privacy violations for everyone then get a job you are able to carry out!
Walls, locks, gates, and all such are made for a purpose: to protect people. Don't break them!
Police militarization, drones, army unit investigating private civilians, digital powers widening... I am more scared of the government than I am of local paramilitary forces at this point.
It may be enough to swing my vote towards Irish unity given the topic will be forced within my life time.
if somebody really has high income(and high risk) illegal scheme he will not use signal for very bad things.
more, llm can tell exactly do things outlined above.
so chat control is for small(small income) crime and control of ordinary citizens behave well. in this sence it will serve its purpose.
so what is purpose going for signal developers? why not they try to do same with webrtc standard and browsers and llms?
Vote them out at the very least.
The Lib Dems who are mostly interested in pavement politics and have no backbones.
The Greens who back more control taken away from the public? Reform who also seem to want more government powers in certain places?
The Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parties who can never get enough seats to outvote this?
There are very few situations where a journalist would need to hide himself from a legitimate government who respects due process.
With the Trump administration, in China, Russia, yes of course. Those apps do matter. Conventional apps are probably giving data to abusive governments if their laws require it.
With criminals using those apps to not get caught in those legitimate due process countries, I don't really know if those apps are worth using it they help criminals.
I agree that I don't want to give my data to big companies or for ads.
But I trust a legitimate government and due process.
Starmer's government is the least popular in living memory.