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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday June 06 2017, @06:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the birthing-big-brother dept.

Some things in life are very predictable... the Earth continues to orbit around the Sun and Theresa May is trying to crack down on the Internet and ban/break encryption:

In the wake of Saturday's terrorist attack in London, the Prime Minister Theresa May has again called for new laws to regulate the internet, demanding that internet companies do more to stamp out spaces where terrorists can communicate freely. "We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed," she said. "Yet that is precisely what the internet and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide."

Her comments echo those made in March by the home secretary, Amber Rudd. Speaking after the previous terrorist attack in London, Rudd said that end-to-end encryption in apps like WhatsApp is "completely unacceptable" and that there should be "no hiding place for terrorists".

[...] "Theresa May's response is predictable but disappointing," says Paul Bernal at the University of East Anglia, UK. "If you stop 'safe places' for terrorists, you stop safe places for everyone, and we rely on those safe places for a great deal of our lives."

Last month New Scientist called for a greater understanding of technology among politicians. Until that happens, having a reasonable conversation about how best to tackle extremism online will remain out of reach.

End-to-end encryption is completely unacceptable? Now that's what I call an endorsement.

[more...]

Prime Minister's statement. Also at CNN, Foreign Policy, Ars Technica, The Register, and BBC (emphasis mine):

Home Secretary Amber Rudd said on Sunday that tech firms needed to take down extremist content and limit the amount of end-to-end encryption that terrorists can use.

[...] The way that supporters of jihadist groups use social media has changed "despite what the prime minister says", according to Dr Shiraz Maher of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at King's College London. They have "moved to more clandestine methods", with encrypted messaging app Telegram the primary platform, Dr Maher told the BBC. Professor Peter Neumann, another director at the ICSR, wrote on Twitter: "Blaming social media platforms is politically convenient but intellectually lazy."

Now Ms May says that she won't rule out simply "taking down" the "rogue internet companies" like China has.

"I think what we need to do is see how we can regulate," she told the Evening Standard, in response to a question on restrictions on the internet.

The prime minister was then asked if she would rule out "Chinese-style cyber-blocking action".

She only said that she would "work with the companies" and gave no explicit commitment that she wouldn't introduce censorship and restriction regimes like the ones that operate in China.

Source: The Independent

Other Sources: MIT Technology Review

Previously: EU Rules Against UK "Snooper's Charter" Data Retention
Theresa May's Internet Spy Powers Bill 'Confusing', Say MPs
UK Home Secretary Stumbles While Trying to Justify Blanket Cyber-Snooping
UK Wants to Ban Unbreakable Encryption, Log which Websites You Visit
Data Retention in Australia: Still a Shambles Ahead of October Rollout
UK Sheinwald Report Urges Treaty Forcing US Web Firms' Cooperation in Data Sharing
UK Home Secretary: Project to End Mobile "Not-Spots" Could Aid Terrorists
Open Rights Group To Take Government To Court Over DRIP
House of Commons Approves UK Emergency Data Retention Law
UK.gov Wants to Legislate on Comms Data Before Next Election


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @10:18PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @10:18PM (#521620)

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    > And of course, days later after that announcement you have attacks in London and on innocentz at pop starlet concerts.

    Innocentz? Just how innocent are these people, from bombers' point of view?

    We are dealing with asymmetric warfare here. On one hand, we have a broad coalition of some of the most advanced states, including USA and UK, bombing several middle-east countries pretty much daily. Not even mentioning the river of arms flowing from the allies and into SA, who use it to bomb Yemen. Not mentioning the frying of the planet. So you got the strongest teaming up against the weakest, and stomping them into the ground, without even a pretense of declaring a war. Drone bombings kill civilians almost by design, and every single such bombing is an act of terror directed against the peaceful population in the hope of forcing them to abandon the hope of self-governance. Large-scale actions against IS-held cities are true acts of war, and it's hard to see what else can be done there, but the drone situation is really clear-cut, making USA (and also its dog-like partner UK) THE principle #1 terror force on the planet, committing more atrocities around the world than all the other terrorists combined, and against the weakest, most vulnerable people, too. This is asymmetric warfare at its finest, and now UK is dealing with a response.

    I do not encourage anything like bombing a British concert, but I can not condemn it, either. Many (likely, most) people present there, far from being innocent, are directly responsible for the actions of the UK government, because it's the government they elected. This is even more true in USA, where on both sides of the isle the agenda is ruled by bloodthirsty hawks. The societies, USA and UK, are some of the most free and most informed in the world. Say what you want about limitations on the political speech, but other countries have it even worse. If there is a populace that elects officials based on free exchange of information and opinions, USA & UK is as good of an example as any. The public keeps voting these murderers into office with full awareness of what the murderers are going to do.

    The fact on the ground is, UK is at war with a bunch of peoples in the Islamic world, and Islamic terrorists in UK are responding to that unjustified aggression with what is essentially a military action. They are blowing up people responsible for the setting fire to the middle east, and a few truly innocent people (like Corbin voters, who dare to vote for politicians with PEACE on the agenda) get blown up along the way, just like with drones. Of course, if they could, these terrorists would start with May, or drop a tactical nuke on a weapons factory in UK, but remember the asymmetry imposed on them? They are simply going with the most effective military option they can afford. It has a terrorist component, but it also has a straightforward component of going after the very people wielding the power, and responsible for mis-using that power, which is THE PUBLIC in a functioning democratic society.

    There was a funny topic here recently, along the lines of what UK could do to reduce the incidence of terrorism, with people interrupting each other discussing police presence, intelligence, encryption, and gun control (?!). How fucking dumb are these people? What do these things have to do with preventing a hundred or so deaths per year caused by actions which are almost completely unpredictable? Terrorists spit on police, because police is not everywhere. They spit on intelligence & encryption, since they hatch their plans in virtual isolation, and can do so without the net, if need be. One unbugged room in London is all it takes. The stupidest topic here is gun control: not only a uniformly armed crowd of slightly drunk sobs would make most sane people shit their pants, what good will it do against a suicidal maniac with a runaway lorry or a chest bomb?

    Why not stop bombing the middle east? Why not vote for peace? Why not unite and stand firm against the #1 rogue state in the world? The bombings will stop instantly. And while at it, why not redistribute income in a way that's not atrociously unfair, so that poor and disenfranchised Englishmen and Frenchmen have something better to do than blow up concerts?

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday June 07 2017, @01:43AM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday June 07 2017, @01:43AM (#521693) Journal

    Many (likely, most) people present there, far from being innocent, are directly responsible for the actions of the UK government, because it's the government they elected.

    I think the median age of an Ariana Grande concert goer is close to the voting age, if not lower. So the attendees are literally not responsible for electing the eeeevul government. I guess the teenagers could rise up and take over [wikipedia.org].

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    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:06AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:06AM (#521771)

      he did it outside the gate, where parents were picking up kids, and out of 23 people dead on the scene, only 10 were under 20 years old.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:20AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:20AM (#521716)

    And when these poor people get to the top of the power pyramid. They will stop initiating wars and frying the planet? ;-)
    I don't think so. Instead they will add a abusive state of affairs for everyone with theological oppression and dog-eat-dog. I think that just suck and has no benefit.

  • (Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:58AM

    by edIII (791) on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:58AM (#521730)

    How quaint. Somebody thinks voting for politicians actually changes anything. FUCK YOU. I'm not responsible in any way, shape, or form for the drone attacks. Zero responsibility.

    Voting never does jack diddly shit, and if you need members of the public to blame, then blame the 1%. They're far more responsible for who gets elected, and what gets done by a politician after election, who gets thrown under the bus for token justice when needed, what economies get gamed, etc. Greece has a legitimate cause to invade the U.S when Goldman Sachs acts like the biggest terrorists on Earth and tanks the Greece economy, deliberately, for profit. I won't mind you killing the top members of the 1%, as they are responsible for terrorizing more people in the U.S and on Earth, than your terrorist buddies.

    We're not responsible, but hey, continue to be dumb fucking shitheads and bomb us instead of using all that terror money just to pay a few contracts to get high level people killed. You think we would really object to you taking out the heads of the U.S military-industrial complex? Think again. Those parasites take around half of all the taxes we pay. Kill them, and we might be able to fund education, single payer health care, advanced infrastructure, etc.

    Nah, bomb some people at a concert. That's real fucking effective in bringing peace to your people.

    9/11 sucked, but at least it targeted Wall Street. That did more to change politics than anything else, and it certainly was not in your favor. Stop attacking innocent people with practically zero influence in their governments. If you honestly think it is war, and that you are ethically justified in a response, you don't go after non-combatants. Go after military targets.

    Yet, even in the Middle East, you go after non-combatants. Convenient that you left out that Boko Haram, where there isn't a huge Western influence to kill and oppress people there daily, attacks their own people. The threat comes from the inside quite a bit in the Muslim world.

    Ohhh, and then perhaps we could talk about the ongoing terrorism, for hundreds of years, between Shites and Sunnis. But don't let facts get in the way of your arguments attempting to legitimize terrorists.

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    Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:09PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:09PM (#522067)

    Some days ago I made a comment on SN which is similar to yours, about the nature of wars and what are legitimate targets in wars. I pointed out, like you do, that there is no distinction between so called legitimate and not legitimate targets in a war. Not legitimate targets of the victor will be declared "collateral damage", while not legitimate targets of the victus will be declared "war crime victims", but they both were "useful kills" in a war, because the intended purpose of their killing was to chill the will of another side to fight or to support the fighting, and although the sides in symmetric wars will usually not readily admit that, killing civilians or threatening to kill them is the essence and main leverage of war activities, which is obvious to anyone reading history.

    However, you are making a step further and conjecturing that unilateral end of hostilities on one, stronger side, would automatically bring peace and end terrorism.
    I am sorry to tell you that (IMHO), you are wrong.
    You can't know that, and from what I gathered about the terrorists and their motives from publicly available information, they are not attacking the world just as a measure of retaliation.
    Their motive is proactive and ambitious, not reactive. We could discuss about the causes which lead to them making their case for war, but it has become irrelevant now, unless we want to learn about not making such mistakes in the future.

    The conclusion I am drawing here is that we must understand that we are in a war and that we all are targets of the war, weather we are willing to admit it or not.
    It is not much different situation (except in scale) then, e.g. WW II. It means we can't live like there is nothing going on, we must change, adjust, analyze and devise proper strategy on the large society level, as well as useful measures on all levels down to the individual level. Perhaps the menace of terrorism will finally force us to abandon our habit of crashing together, and embrace the future where information travel and bodies stay secure unless really necessary.