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Well, what we do know is that according to the UK as well as US governments, they have succeeded in stopping multiple attacks. So they "seem" capable of doing their jobs just fine WITHOUT the need for this intrusion on us. Also, any attacks that have been successful, certainly would have been anyway even if they had this capability.

I believe you may have misunderstood my post, we are in agreement that these agencies do not need extended spying powers via legislation.
 
The conundrum is did these services stop something that we will never hear-off or did these services stop something that we did hear-off. What complicated matters are were any of the perceived incidents white flag scenarios to push an agencies agenda for further control to spy on its citizens.

Factual terror attacks can come from within or outside and from citizens or visitors, we cannot label one group or the other.

Here is a simple white flag scenario, through back channels one of these agencies wants more control over spying, so they hire an immigrant that is possibly struggling day-to-day, to carry out a planned attack. The situation is either that attach has been intercepted or not, if intercepted and caught (agency knows it’s going down similar to an exercise) arrests the “terrorists”, media chimes in and announced along with the government what a great job was done. The show goes on to warrant the extended reaching powers for these agencies, while in the background when the story is forgotten and another one picked up, the hired immigrant it let loose someplace else or a change in identity.

Does this sound like fiction, possibly. However life imitates art and vice versa. What initiative came first we may never know.

Well it’s fact the British services stop inside at you’ll never get to hear about, and it’s a fact the UK has harboured terrorists. So you can take what you want from it. Their is a reason they are called secret services..
 
The UFO campuses….. they're breeding! Multiplying! :p
GCHQ was there first so following the MacRumours mantra, Apple didn't innovate with its campus it copied GCHQ. That's of course only if you are a GCHQ fan... Alas GCHQ probably has more information on the users of Apple products than Apple themselves. So if you visit the UK, or live here and have never seen a picture of GCHQ headquarters, don't pop in and ask them to look at your iPhone :D
 
What will happen is this law will pass, and Apple has to comply, and encryption becomes completely useless long before quantum computer can break it entirely. Of course, government will then ban encryption and limit it to government agencies only.

If they ban encryption, I will be forced to go back to using Pig Latin.
 
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It’s an impossibility to enforce this as online open source tools would just spring up allowing people to perform encryption before sending with an app that will also perform encryption, only those that are not criminals and have nothing to hide will just use what app is on the phone, criminals will use other encryption tools before sending and with these tools open source they would be no way to get the encryption key used so at then their so thick no wonder the criminals are one step ahead
 
What's your solution to law enforcement in a world with end to end encryption? I'm interested in what your alternatives are.

. . . . . .

I'm a huge proponent of personal privacy but these are decisions governments have to make. Reverting to privacy above all else is not a tenable course of action for societies. Privacy is important (see the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution) but so is societal and personal security. Sometimes there are clashes between the two.

1) Have the police get out of the office and actually do some foot work and go back to human interaction. Bombs cannot be placed without people moving around with bombs. Make schools secure, they are our children, we secure sporting events, why not schools. There are lots of things the police can do. Look at the difference at how airlines handle terrorism between the U.S. and Israel.

2) "privacy is not a tenable course of action", sure it is. There is no one that can, at least here in the U.S., listen to bedroom conversations. By your argument, we should have monitors in every bedroom since that would help police catch wrong doers.

The problems are multifold. Todays law abiders are tomorrows criminals without changing behavior. That is the way governments work.

There will always be a way to hide activity. There will never be enough surveillance.

The only people that suffer in a highly surveilled society are the law abiding citizens.

Surveillance brings discrimination. Surveillance is used to discriminate against political parties. Surveillance is used discriminate against the politically incorrect. Surveillance is used to discriminate against free speech. Surveillance is used to discriminate against freedom of thought. Etc.
 
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Terrorist here, terrorist there, terrorists are everywhere if you believe those who would like to get rid of our privacy. In all honesty, this is the only play they have since we wouldn’t tolerate them if they told the truth. They gather information for the sake of information.

As long as Brits are part of EU they can’t have law like that but as we know, soon they’ll be out of EU so their government can spy their citizens as much as they like.
 
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"Ian Levy, the technical director of Britain's National Cyber Security Centre, and Crispin Robinson, GCHQ's head of cryptanalysis, published details of the proposal in November 2018. In the essay, Levy and Robinson claimed the system would enable law enforcement to access the content of encrypted messages without breaking the encryption."

access the content of encrypted messages without breaking the encryption kinda defeats the purpose of encryption you turds! I get wanting to defend national security but once you open this can o worms it's all downhill from there. Might as well ban encryption altogether.
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Let's say, for example only, that London was being run by elected religious fanatics. You really want the religious fanatics to be able to read every single message you exchange with anybody even close family and see every place you visit?

You really want criminals, which we now know can get access to everything the government has access to, to read every single message you exchange with anybody even close family and see every place you visit?

People need to wake up and see surveillance as the single greatest danger modern society faces.

Agreed! I equate it to the gun issue in the US. Like it or not people in the US have known it as their right for so long they don't take it for granted, not so much for what the law does as for what it represents. Freedom of speech is the same thing. It isn't even what I say or who I say it to but it's what it represents. Take away things like privacy and you've essentially taken away freedom of speech. People need to treat these threats to free expression like they do the gun issue. It really is an all or nothing issue because if we don't have it all we will end up with nothing.
 
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Like others have said, you can use a VPN or if it is text, encrypt it yourself with a really strong key and then let the software re-encrypt your message and who would be able to read it?
 
Well, what we do know is that according to the UK as well as US governments, they have succeeded in stopping multiple attacks. So they "seem" capable of doing their jobs just fine WITHOUT the need for this intrusion on us. Also, any attacks that have been successful, certainly would have been anyway even if they had this capability.

It’s naive of you to believe what governments tell you. We do not “know”.
 
Hmm on the one hand I think our UK services are pretty damn good and have stopped a lot of attacks, which we will never know about, but on the other I’m not sure about every single message being sent to them..
I don’t think the EU will like it either which I presume we are still required to adhere to?

Hmm very split in this one. But considering the terrorists we have harboured and grown in the UK under our very noses maybe it would be for the best?

It's all "sh!ts & giggles until somebody giggles and sh!ts" - meaning it's fine while there's a reasonable government in power, but who knows what the future might bring...? I mean, just look at Hungary, Poland, the USA, and so on...
 
It's all "sh!ts & giggles until somebody giggles and sh!ts" - meaning it's fine while there's a reasonable government in power, but who knows what the future might bring...? I mean, just look at Hungary, Poland, the USA, and so on...

The UK, China, Russia, and the US want surveillance states in as many countries as possible so they can topple and control the lesser countries. The big 4 or 5 know they can break into anything right now.

In order to make surveillance the standard around the world, they need to make surveillance fashionable and appear to be what modern government is about. You know in order to save the children. Of course every two bit dictator the world over agrees with them. Wonder why?
 
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This is a better approach than forcing a backdoor. It's not the right solution yet but with tweaks (e.g., no changes to encryption, only done after a warrant) it could work. This is essentially wiretapping.
No it’s not better. The better approach is to make no changes at all.
 
There seems to be a lot of cooperation required for this to occur - I fail to see what's preventing anybody with a developer account from circulating a private app with their own encryption libraries and taking cooperative parties out of the circuit..
 
Insert a new public key? Sounds like a sanctioned man in the middle attack. They will have to do it for each layer of encryption. Does the UK have enough electricity to run this?

I presume cell phones that do not comply will not be able to connect to cellular data services? What about WiFi?
 
No it’s not better. The better approach is to make no changes at all.
By countering my statement ("No it's not better") you're saying the opposite of what you mean to say. In effect you're saying a backdoor is better than this proposal. I know that's not what you mean but that's what your first sentence implies relative to my quote.

In any case, I didn't say it was better than no changes or was anywhere close to the best solution. I said this proposal (though severely flawed) was better than forcing a backdoor. That's not particularly controversial and is only untrue if you really like encryption backdoors.
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2) "privacy is not a tenable course of action", sure it is. There is no one that can, at least here in the U.S., listen to bedroom conversations. By your argument, we should have monitors in every bedroom since that would help police catch wrong doers.

Thanks for your reply. I want to point out that you are making an argument I was not making (red herring fallacy). I argued against a case like that. What I called for is if a proposal similar to this one was enacted, I'd only support it if it required justified and warranted listening in (even then I'm not fond of wiretapping but I can see its benefits in rare cases). That's not having "monitors in every bedroom". It's akin to doing that face to face ground work you talked about in point 1 (I support that but it's not possible in a purely digital interaction with only endpoints in real life; it's not even possible with something like bitcoin theft, which can be untraceable in the non-digital world) but then with enough evidence and justification getting a warrant to place a listening device in someone's home. Sure that's an invasion of privacy but this comes back to my point that at some point the safety and needs of society override personal privacy (an example is the little personal privacy prisoners have [this isn't a discussion on the U.S. prison system, which has many and severe faults]). They've had freedom and privacy taken away because of harm caused to others and/or society (again, this isn't a discussion on the justice system). Sure, they've already committed crimes (ostensibly) but that could be one case for tapping in to encrypted conversations - catching those who've already committed crimes.

I'm not saying what I'm writing is the best approach or even a great approach. I'm making a somewhat supportive case to encourage thoughtful discussion. I don't even necessarily support the positions I've taken (this isn't my area of expertise but as a scientist by career I have to look at all sides of issues otherwise I'm not doing my job very well). Confirming biases isn't great science.
 
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Scottish Independence can't come quick enough. Hopefully, as a newly independent nation, we'll get a constitution that prevents extradition of people or data as well.
I'm sick of this BS from the 5 eyes. I grew up listening to how awful life was behind the iron curtain and later meeting people who grew up under its oppression and hearing 1st hand stories.
Today we're faced with our own governments using terrorist attack threats as an excuse to slowly move us to a monitored society just like the ones they used to hold up as the evil of communism.
How many times has there been a terrorist attack and those useless spies have said "oh yeah, we kinda knew about them"?
Crack open encryption and the bad actors move to their own proprietary systems while leaving the public vulnerable to data, identity and financial theft. It solves nothing other than letting a minority in power sleep better at night knowing what we are saying behind their backs.
 
Insert a new public key? Sounds like a sanctioned man in the middle attack. They will have to do it for each layer of encryption. Does the UK have enough electricity to run this?

I presume cell phones that do not comply will not be able to connect to cellular data services? What about WiFi?

IMO, it sounds more like an automated (built-in) BCC: for all sent messages.
 
The NSA, arguably the most sophisticated intelligence agency in the world, can't keep their "cyber arsenal" safe. The city of Baltimore along with numerous small towns and business around the world are now under attack by criminal using "Eternal Blue", a hacking tool developed by, and stolen from, the United States government.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/american-towns-under-cyberattack-from-an-nsa-built-software

So remind me again, who got fired and sent to prison for allowing the NSA's cyber weapons to be used against innocent people? If the NSA can't keep their cyber weapons secure, I have ZERO confidence the Brits or any other intelligence agency in the world could keep the keys to the backdoor of iOS safe. Just say NO.
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The British Government has lost the plot when it comes to data collection.

Under a new program, police are demanding that victims of sexual assault turn over the entirety of the data on their mobile phones, or else they will refuse to prosecute.

Governments can rationalise pretty much anything. It's up to the people to stand up and say: Enough!
Holy ****, that is ridiculous. Well I guess that is one way to reduce the number of reported rapes. Hey look, rapes are down 99% in the UK, the police must be doing a great job of protecting women. I wonder what other crime figures you could manipulate by placing such demands on victims?
 
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Apple just needs to implement end to end encryption using user controlled keys (perhaps in addition to Apple's) to nip these type of idiotic proposals in the bud.
 
Well, what we do know is that according to the UK as well as US governments, they have succeeded in stopping multiple attacks. So they "seem" capable of doing their jobs just fine WITHOUT the need for this intrusion on us. Also, any attacks that have been successful, certainly would have been anyway even if they had this capability.

What are you all doing that could possibly interest any government, unless of course you are up to no good? Wake up world surveillance is here to stay, it has been since the 50s and won’t go away. Stay legal and you don’t have anything to worry about. Participate in illegal activity, then expect a visit from the law. Live your life stop trying to swim against the tide and decide for others what you think should be done.
 
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