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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
(Score: 5, Informative) by edIII on Wednesday June 07 2017, @01:38AM
I'm honestly surprised that most people still believe it is impossible. I calculated once the drive space needed to store all telephone communication data in the U.S, getting my data from the U.S census as to the number of people. Google has more drive space than that now. It only took about a couple hundred million dollars to buy the drives, and I estimated the data center cost between 1-2 billion total. Bottom line, it could be done for the price of a stealth bomber for certain.
That's before speech to text and the accompanying reduction in storage size. Once that happens it makes it trivial to build a larger data center and start working with data day by day, week by week, and then with years worth of data. As technology scales it becomes more possible, not less. Our communications and information production isn't scaling nearly as fast as our capabilities.
People still believe that they cannot do anything with that much data. Again, wholly incorrect. Topological data analysis has evolved quite significantly. Forgetting that for a moment, a husband and wife team already gave the Justice Department software and algorithms to sift through telephone metadata and infer groups and relationships. It worked well. That was like 10-15 years ago. TDA can predict you at your girlfriend's home next week eating her pussy, while you were supposed to be at work.
The more information the better for TDA, no matter how stupid or silly, or worthless it seems. TDA can cut through the noise, the perceived randomness of it all, and give uncanny predictions. AFAIK, the field is already being used commercially by big players to predict consumer tastes, preferences, sexual orientations, political affiliations, etc. The Republican party used the tech in the election, but the biggest use of it was the custom AI controller for the Hillary campaign. Which I know doesn't help my case, cuz it didn't predict the outcome very well ;)
Combine communications metadata, social networking information, GPS location information culled from many sources, government records, medical records, CCTV coverage, satellites, and even the gossip of the old lady on the corner, and you have the The Eye of Horus. It's not mystical, but technological, and truthfully, it's already here.
Heck, FFS, we're modeling entire universes right now to figure out the Big Bang. We most certainly do have the hardware, software, and infrastructure to pull it off. We invented this Internet thingy to connect us all and make it that much easier!
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.