The UK Is Trying to Stop Facebook's End-to-End Encryption
The UK is planning a new attack on end-to-end encryption, with the Home Office set to spearhead efforts designed to discourage Facebook from further rolling out the technology to its messaging apps.
Home Secretary Priti Patel is planning to deliver a keynote speech at a child protection charity's event focused on exposing the perceived ills of end-to-end encryption and asking for stricter regulation of the technology. At the same time a new report will say that technology companies need to do more to protect children online.
[...] The Home Office's move comes as Facebook plans to roll out end-to-end encryption across all its messaging platforms—including Messenger and Instagram—which has sparked a fierce debate in the UK and elsewhere over the supposed risks the technology poses to children.
[...] An early draft of the report, seen by WIRED, says that increased usage of end-to-end encryption would protect adults' privacy at the expense of children's safety, and that any strategy adopted by technology companies to mitigate the effect of end-to-end encryption will "almost certainly be less effective than the current ability to scan for harmful content."
The report also suggests that the government devise regulation "expressly targeting encryption", in order to prevent technology companies from "engineer[ing] away" their ability to police illegal communications.[...]
[...] Since Facebook's announcement on the extension of end-to-end encryption in 2019, Patel has grown increasingly impatient and vocal about the dangers of the technology—publicly calling on Facebook to "halt plans for end-to-end encryption", and bringing up the subject in meetings with her US counterparts and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance of English-speaking countries.
[...] Jim Killock, executive director at digital rights organization Open Rights Group, says he is "worried that the Home Office will be considering using a secret order (TCN) to force Facebook to limit or circumvent their encryption."
"Facebook would be gagged from saying anything," Killock adds. Although the action would be targeted to Facebook only, he thinks that such a move would set a precedent.
[...] Company executives have previously admitted that the increased rollout of end-to-end encryption will reduce the amount of child abuse reports it makes to industry monitoring groups.
"Its full rollout on our messaging services is a long-term project and we are building strong safety measures into our plans," the spokesperson added.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday April 06 2021, @05:39AM (12 children)
I want to see how these silly rules work on open source messaging.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Funny) by Mojibake Tengu on Tuesday April 06 2021, @05:59AM
Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @06:00AM (9 children)
That's easy. Simple possession becomes a crime and anyone working on it is a 'terrorist'. The only surprising part is that the US isn't doing it first.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday April 06 2021, @06:39AM (4 children)
They can't do this because business relies on end-to-end encryption. E.g. for transport of financial information.
FriendFace will ignore them, because it hits their bottom line. If everyone starts using Signal (or whatever) they turn to dust. They can't afford for that to happen, so they keep the encryption.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @07:27AM (1 child)
The British government can and will sling your arse in gaol if you refuse to provide passwords and decryption keys. Look up the RIPA act.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday April 06 2021, @09:38AM
I didn't know that. Thanks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @01:17PM
Well, have I got a solution for you!... it's called "suspected money laundring" if you don't expose your financial data! (joking aside, governments are already moving into this with the KYC laws)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday April 06 2021, @07:27PM
They will have to get a permit
Ultimately, there will be deep packet inspection searching for unauthorized protocols on the network. The best solution then is to find a way to blend in with the noise
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday April 06 2021, @12:17PM (2 children)
Not really. Britain was founded on "See this sword that I just killed a bunch of your friends and neighbors with? Good, now on your knees." while one of our founders liked to say "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
There's still enough of that sentiment lingering in both nations to make at least some bit of difference.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @03:38PM (1 child)
More recently a US President tried to shut down a video service because its users hurt his feelz, that same president also wanted to take guns away and worry about due process later. I dunno where you're getting 'lingering founding fathers' from but it's not reality.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @06:38PM
The myth of the nation...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday April 07 2021, @09:57AM
Yup, I know, it's so stupid it's true!
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @12:28PM
Rock-solid cable modem internet connection for years...
Test DoT & Wireguard on gateway dev box (lower spec than current gateway machine - half the memory and cores, and slower CPU) , no issues...
Switch on DoT, fire up wireguard for remote phone/laptop access on real gateway...
Rock-solid connection starts 'acting up'...
<tinfoil-hat time>
Funny that... cf. https://archive.is/BeedK [archive.is]
</tinfoik-hat time>
Guess which benighted part of the planet I'm in?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @06:47AM
Yes? Anyone who does, is presumably a criminal. Facebook is like that. Guilty, until, well, until not on facebook! Here! "Look how I jacked this jewerly store, and no one saw me, but I video recorded the whole thing!" I remember when criminals were not so stupid. Of course, less of them were Republicans, back then.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @07:40AM (1 child)
Decreased usage of end-to-end encryption would protect children’s privacy at the expense of adult's safety.
Is that the position you expect to get re-elected on?
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Tuesday April 06 2021, @12:54PM
Voter ID, out of control gerrymandering, increased control of the media, and likely much more to come, probably means they expected to get re-elected on whatever position they feel like.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by sjames on Tuesday April 06 2021, @09:11AM (2 children)
Parents can read their kids encrypted messages because the parents bought the phone and can easily enough take physical possession of it.
Without encryption, random perverts can read children's messages to their friends and learn what they need to target a victim.
What the UK government is really worried about is not being able to read messages between Scottish people talking about splitting off and re-joining the EU. Or perhaps scofflaws trying to acquire a wheel of unpasteurized cheese.
(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Tuesday April 06 2021, @12:10PM
Big Brother (GCHQ) doesn't want you to have any privacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCHQ [wikipedia.org]
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @12:44PM
Funny you should say that...
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=42851&commentsort=0&mode=threadtos&threshold=-1&highlightthresh=-1&page=1&cid=1133834#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
Though you can stuff the '...and re-joining the EU' part where the sun don't shine...
Besides, the SNP are in cosy with MI5 and GCHQ of late, it's the readers of a number of 'dissident' independence (but not SNP) supporting blogs they're after...the SNP are all about corruption, genderwoo & crypto-fascism these days rather than the 'I' word..
(Score: 3, Touché) by Nuke on Tuesday April 06 2021, @11:53AM (2 children)
Oh, I get it. Anyone who does not use Facebook must be guilty anyway so they already have that covered. Therefore this law only needs to be applied to Facebook.
(Score: 2, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday April 06 2021, @12:18PM
Sounds good to me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Tuesday April 06 2021, @02:54PM
They don't actually say they're *only* going after Facebook.
"We're planning to change the rules, and it so happens that Facebook is an example of a company that will be violating them."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Touché) by VLM on Tuesday April 06 2021, @12:19PM (6 children)
I thought the leadership over there was themselves the predatory pedos. Kinda like how we have "sniffy" as our prez here. So it seems inconsistent to have one part of the government protecting kids from the other parts of the government.
My guess is using double-plus goodspeak that "protecting" children might mean protecting them from Christianity or western cultural values or anything to the right of Marx. Whereas in the old days protecting would have meant keeping them away from pedos.
Considering that corps and gov have root on all the hardware, I'm not sure what the worry is anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @12:39PM (1 child)
You actually think differnt parts of the government work together... how quaint.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @12:58PM
Ah, a civil servant, I presume?
I once worked at a place where the aims of one government contract were diametrically the opposite to those of a second one, the civil servants administering both were in the same physical office...it never pays to let the pinkie and the index finger of one hand know what either is up to, let alone allowing communication betwixt the old left&right hands..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @03:44PM
We should keep them locked up in Miss Universe changing rooms, that'll keep 'em safe from grabbing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @04:35PM
Clueless you are, defending pedos you did. Hell you shall find.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @08:36PM
"Think of the children!"
"You pervert!"
^ This is the correct response to this rhetoric...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 07 2021, @06:02AM
MI5 knowingly covered up the activity including interfering with local police investigations in order to protect their blackmail so that they could push for funding expansions between at least the 1980s and 2000s. This behavior, if it stopped, only stopped after the last member of parliament documented in the activities was dead, and there was then a major records purge... 30 years in 1 year and since that time they've claimed nothing of the sort ever happened.
This is ammo box time for the british, whether that ammo is bullets or knives or IRA trained anti-paedoists. It's time to put a stop to it the way that justice is done when justice is committed to injustice.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @06:58PM
The government is importing musrats and niggers, allowing them to rape/kill/traffic white/uk children and teens all while telling white uk citizens they have to stay home and not gather or even whine on social media. The question is when are brits going to deprogram themselves and learn about the enemy who controls the crown and the rest of the government? Take over and deport all the non whites! All white countries need to wake the fuck up, and kill the race traitors within.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/JY6exTqkTQd1/ [bitchute.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 07 2021, @05:30AM
If they stop the encryption and lack of it results in embarrassing consumer data leaks, the UK gov't will have egg all over their faces.