Creating apps like Signal or WhatsApp could be 'hostile activity,' claims UK watchdog
5mon 1d ago by reddthat.com/u/throws_lemy in technology from www.techradar.com
Developers of apps that use end-to-end encryption to protect private communications could be considered hostile actors in the UK.
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'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.
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.
Growth only matters in capitalism
Ok but that is a separate discussion.
This isn't a new concept by any means. The argument of crime prevention has been used since governments existed to strip rights
Sure, and we've always compromised on the 2 as a society. But we continually trend more and more towards prevention rather than privacy and sovereignty.
They don't even stop significantly more crime now... They simply invent new "crimes" and jerk each other off for keeping the streets safe from that minority eating their lunch or going for a walk.
I would give up privacy only under one condition: everyone gives up all privacy. No exceptions.
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.
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.
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
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.
Lawmakers will make exceptions to allow E2EE for their own communications and those of the very wealthy.
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.
Said proudly by the hostile actors.
Wow, the UK sounds like an awful place.
Ah its not so bad if you get so drunk your critical thinking skills go out the window.
Which you can do starting at like 15! So it all works out.
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.
Agreed, but Australia and the UK are way ahead of the rest.
Honestly everywhere sounds like an awful place at this point. Freedom is a thing of the past. A thing from a time whence literally everything we did wasn't tracked, and in order to exist in society, you're expected to submit to the tracking.
The world is a big place and disconnecting gives you a huge boost in privacy. It's not all black-and-white, but I agree that the surveillance state has become very pervasive.
Yes but you can't always disconnect. For instance, my healthcare provider requires in order to access your account you:
- Get an ID card with Google or Apple Wallet, which I don't have.
- Verify over text message, except they refuse my phone # bc it's VoIP.
I will quite literally die without this so I had to get a new phone and a Google account.
Seems like something that you should sue over, but that's easier said than done for most folks. If you want to try and help maintain your privacy, use a virtual device or a "burner" that's only used to access what's necessary and for nothing else. Keep them off unless you actively need them and deny all unnecessary permissions. It's not perfect but it's less bad than giving them even more information to datamine for profit at your expense.
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!
I even did it over a VPN! I'm shitposting all willy-nilly and not even England can stop me!
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.
What the fuck happened to the UK? Is Trump president there too?
The right wing fascism wave is a world trend my guy. This is just the start.
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.
Could you elaborate? Or maybe this is just a joke idk my brains not braining rn
To be totally clear, the UK has been a fucked up place for centuries, I don't think Meta fundamentally changed the culture.
Having said that, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc are tools that enable political influence over the population at levels that were previously unimaginable. Look into Cambridge Analytica a bit or borrow Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America by Christopher Wylie from your local library for details.
Starting as early as 2012 we have evidence that Facebook was pivotal in stoking racial tensions in Myanmar, leading to a genocide.
There's evidence that Meta was a major factor in Brexit, which more specifically relates to my claim with respect to influence in the UK.
The US election in 2016 was clearly influenced by Meta platforms, including taking Russian money to stoke racial tensions in line with the Russian Manifesto, The Foundations of Geopolitics.
I'm currently reading through Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams, which is a memoir about how these systems were conceptualized and built at Facebook, and so far I'd recommend it.
Obviously Meta isn't the only problem, Tiktok is clearly a problem of similar size and scope, and other social apps have their own challenges (X being owned by the richest man alive and actively influencing the algorithm, for example), but in many ways Meta is the OG, and blazed the trail for others.
People pretend not to know but mass immigration creates…issues, and so the UK became a hotbed of espionage and influence operations. With a certain demographic there’s also a high risk of breeding terrorism and social unrest to say the least, that cannot be defused through typical means at such a high rate of immigration. While these particular measures are draconian, in the end something similar would be done. You see the same trend playing out in other European countries with Chat Control, so to say it is a UK thing is naive. On the other side of the Atlantic, the US probably already can break into these apps because of their technological superiority, and other countries like China straight up demand a back door, so privacy is well and truly dead in modern times.
^ That's racist.
Which is leaping to conclusions. Obviously there are certain correlates with race, but it’s kinda racist to think what I meant by that was race.
The USA and UK are both Five Eyes members and routinely share intelligence. If the USA had compromised secure apps, wouldn't the UK be privy to intelligence gathered via that method?
they want to preserve their sources, so they only reveal information that is possible for other countries to obtain with their lesser capabilities. Five eyes only existed because some laws prevented countries from spying on their own citizens, but times are changing and those laws have been or likely will be neutered.
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.
It's a kingdom. They have a certain old dicksucker as a king. And they, importantly, don't have any historical or current reservations about things you listed, fortified by documents.
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.
The goal is to weaken the West by destabilizing our nations' and organizations they belong to. They payed so much money for it that they bought into peerage.
Then explain Denmark
skankhunt42 has been trolling them hard and they can't let it go
Who is shankhunt42?
Gerald Broflovski
Tbh at this point I have zero faith in any country when they will just flip no one knows.
Boys... When it's considered a hostle act to demand rights, ownership, and privacy... We have a problem.
Well many governments see their citizens as hostile actors, so its not really a change, is it?
And i think committing and/or assisting in genocides is 'hostile activity'. One of us is definitely wrong :)
If you don’t want your citizens to be hostile, don’t make yourself an enemy.
Welcome to New East Germany.
The usual.
You got a license for that comment?
Something like everyone can have a say, or input, we can call it democracy, digital democracy, unencumbered by the current neoliberal or rightist fascists. Maybe something where everyone can vote directly, or delegate, and revoke their delegation, with private voting, but open source. No multi trillion dollar budgets for people to cut back room deals for shit outlays. Where public goods funding is reinvigorated for the good of the people, not the administration.
We can call it democracy... something
Absolutely insanity.
Truly. This global push towards mass surveillance is extremely alarming.
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.
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.
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".
Get ready for something they were doing 20 years ago?
Don’t y’all vote over there? Government isn’t us vs them. Government is us. Period.
We have been voting for greedy shits larping as conservative (Conservatives) and greedy shits larping as liberal (Labour).
and hanging over us are greedy shits who are pretty openly fascist (reform)
Up until basically after the last election this was essentially a two-party state. However much of a shitshow Labour is, the Tories were guaranteed to be much worse.
Also, there was a mind of unspoken assumption that human rights lawyer Keir Starmer would gradually move the party back to the left once in power, instead of spending 99% of his time trying to court the small minority of far-right voters who’d never vote Labour in a million years, which is what has actually happened.
And, unless there’s electoral reform in the next 3 years it looks like the actual far-right party will win the next election, because we’ve still got a system designed for a two-party stare in what is now really a 5-party state, meaning that Reform’s current 30% polling would see them with 100% control of the country, if the voting matched the polls.
PGP has been around since the 90's can you PLEASE shut the fuck up.
Like please.
Gosh, and these powers could be handed to Farage.
They could be complicit in what comes next.
Doesn't even RCS and iMessages use E2EE?
I think most messaging apps these days have it. Allegedly even Discord (calls only, not text chat) has it.
I think part of this is lawmakers not understanding the gravity of what they’re suggesting. Besides, most of these apps have some sort of backdoor built-in so they can decrypt messages if required in legal proceedings. Ripping E2EE out of everything is an insane assertion to make, and would make the Internet an even more dangerous place than it already is.
Most definitely this.
Most lawmakers don't understand even the surface level nuances of messaging and encryption. All they see is a communication solution that can potentially be used by bad faith actors without any possible oversight by the intelligence services.
Does iMessage store the keys locally and encrypt the entire message so only the recipient can decrypt it? Any idea what their handshake looks like—I’m curious if they can still see the messages or not.
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
What the fuck happened to UK, I knew their average population was dumb when brexit happened but they doubled down on it?
People ran so hard from the Tories that they didn't consider Blue Labour would be dreadful also. Right now Labour and Tories are politically in danger and Reform and the Green Party are surging. Folk are fed up of parties not representing them. They just haven't fully cottoned on that that also applies to Reform. Greens are probably the main hope right now. Membership trebled to 180k. Polling close to Labour.
Let's be hostile together then
Stamer is running a social experiment, see how many people worldwide can hate him in the least amount of time possible. Everything he and his goons do is double down constantly on shit nobody wants.
I often wonder whether Starmer has even one sincerely held political beliefs or value. I'd love to put him in a zone of Truth (D&D spell) and just ask him what he actually believes.
It's weird, because it means that I sort of respect the Tories more. They believed many abhorrent things, such as that a cripple like me is at best, an inconvenient drain on the country's resources, and at worst, someone who is making it all up to escape having to work — but at least they sincerely believe that.
And tk think that you've barely scratched the surface of the actual shitshow that fucker is. I'm not British, but have plenty of very good British friends, and in my over half a century of age, I never though 1 fucker could destroy British culture and way of life the way this asshole has singlehandedly done, and somehow figuring out how to make it worse every day. I feel for the British people.
You may think they're idiots who pass Reform's laws for them, but you are wrong! They also pass Conservative laws!
Competition was always a myth anyways.
What's app 😂 how does what's app ever get rolled in with privacy respecting apps
"Today, with the right information, right technology and algorithm, companies can create simulations of individuals, and use the machines to predict future actions such as purchases, locations, changes in career or relationship status.
According to a study published in 2019, there is a possibility of achieving 95% of the potential predictive accuracy for an individual using their social ties. This means that one’s social contacts are sufficient to predict their personal attributes."
Off topic but does the UK still have the death penalty for treason? Just wondering.
I don't know about you guys but this feels like a reverse psychology psyop to increase the usage of these two apps. There are a ton more e2ee chat messengers, but they point to the only two apps using the signal protocol. Maybe they're sitting on some 0-day exploits?
But if you want to believe the surveillance government at face value then go right ahead.
I know this is gonna get downvoted but...
This is all going to lead to needing to use some open blockchain based communication system.
E2E encrypted, routed through a public blockchain they can't block. Use one of Ethereums L2 systems to keep short messages under a penny or two and route all payments through Tornado Cash so they can't be tracked.
All open source, nothing to take down, uncensorable.
It won't be for everyone at first it would he too technical in a lot of cases, but it's going to be the last option at the end of this road.
The future is in making a laptop that doesn't appear to be encrypted. AI-powered steganography will be the only way to communicate reasonably at some point. The only thing that'll give it away is that there are more than the usual number of poorly cropped and unique memes.
I mean ya, that works if they know who you are.
I dont see why it need blockchain unless it's needed to keep a registry. Which for day to day communication I think it's excessive
It's because it can't be taken down. What happens when they arrest everyone working at signal? When they arrest you for hosting a E2E encrypted message relay?
That's where language like this is headed.
Ethereum also recently introduced something called blobs, which is temporary data that lasts around 18 days. So it isn't necessarily stored forever if you wanted a not as permanent message. There are archives that will keep all that as well, but it's not maintained on the regular chain past 18d.
You are about 4 years behind the zeitgeist. Where is the AI?
Sorry my bad. The messages will all be converted into AI slop when you submit them so you aren't actually communicating with someone with your own written words so you have plausible deniability that you didn't actually write any messages using encryption which is now an offense punishable by death.