'Real Time' Surveillance and Breakable Encryption Proposed in U.K. Government Technical Paper

[5105973]

Hi friends. I have to bow out of the discussion due to a family medical emergency that will occupy my full attention for awhile. I am afraid due to the serious nature of the family situation I've lost the thread of the discussion but I remembered I promised to provide a link. Here it is. https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...7b6aeab993f_story.html?utm_term=.1a2972d24d5e. It's a story that hopefully sheds a positive light as to why we have the laws and rules we do that unfortunately do lead to easy abuse by the criminal element.

I am neither liberal nor conservative. I am currently a Democrat but was a Republican. None of the labels mean anything to me. I love my fellow human beings and only strive to vote in ways that balance our freedoms, our humanitarianism, and our security.

The only point really I was trying to make in mentioning the situation in the US regarding illegal immigration is that we can pass all the surveillance laws we want. But in the end they really only make the majority of law abiding citizens feel targeted and oppressed and well...unappreciated.

So much of the data on illegal intentions and potential criminal behavior is actually readily available through very simple channels that already have the data but are unable to communicate it in an efficient fashion to those who could act on it. And that is due to a misguided attempt to shield otherwise lovely people who would get caught up in any harsher methods to crack down on criminal behavior. There are many excellent posts making the point better than I could already in this thread that unfortunately I have had time to only skim.

Regarding pedophilia, that unfortunately is an evil that will find multiple ways to manifest. I don't pretend to have any answers. You all have made an impression on me with your impassioned arguments. Well done.

I must now bid my other forum friends a temporary goodbye.

My U.K. Friends, I wish you freedom and prosperity. I hope my country is a proper friend to yours as you pass through the challenges and difficulties and hopefully some rewards of Brexit.

 

[sudo1996]

Did you both mean '...obscurity'? Though maybe 'absurdity' is just as accurate given this subject matter...!

IDK, I normally say "obscurity" but was just using the same term in response. Same thing kinda. You write ridiculous code and hope nobody figures it out.
[doublepost=1494296345][/doublepost]

Read the book "Three felonies a day" and think about selective enforcement - in short, people on average commit three felonies a day by accident. Even if it is off by a factor of 1000, that is still one a year, enough to lock any undesirable up.

Please post your userids, passwords here.

Three felonies a day is nowhere near correct. If it's off by a factor of 1000, then I don't know why you're even citing it.

 

[0388631]

Writing a white paper is fine. Delivering or housing it in a leakable format is stupid and goes against security 101.

 

[sudo1996]

I'm not a fan of Big Brother™, but I think the outrage is a bit over the edge.
People lived ages without messengers and encryption and anyone could read your old plain paper mail or a telegram at the post office, so what has changed so much in the last 10 years that everyone is so crazy about their basic conversations being encrypted?

What has changed? It's so easy to gather and store copies of digital messages and to run analysis on tons of it at once. Not so for paper mail.

Not saying that I care too much. I'd care more if I lived in the U.K. or France with their lack of any equivalent to our First Amendment rights. Europe is quite disgusting in that respect.

 

[macs4nw]

.....Why do people keep going on about America and its mass hysteria conspiracy theories? It's got nothing to do with the UK and it's security. its two different cultures and mentalities.

The cultures and mentalities may be different, but governmental misdeeds and bureaucratic thirst for control of its citizenry are definitely not limited to the US. You are not suggesting the hands of MI5 and MI6 are squeaky clean and their motives are always noble?

Give a group of people power, and despite initial good intentions, in the absence of ironclad oversight that power will be abused.

 

[ReneR]

This is why when a 'lone operator' apparent attack happens in the UK (like the Whitehall one a month ago), I completely shut off when the news starts reporting politicians saying 'this is an example of why our security services need better access to communications from the bad people'.

Not at the expense of mine and everyone else's right to privacy it doesn't. Who are they trying to kid here. Lone ranger attacks will happen regardless of mass surveillance of the population.

In most terror acts of recent times the terrorist where already known by the police and relevant services and spied additional on. Yet all of them happened anyway. One has to wonder due to incompetence of those services, or intentionally.
[doublepost=1494316680][/doublepost]

What has changed? It's so easy to gather and store copies of digital messages and to run analysis on tons of it at once. Not so for paper mail.

Not saying that I care too much. I'd care more if I lived in the U.K. or France with their lack of any equivalent to our First Amendment rights. Europe is quite disgusting in that respect.

Well, the USA is certainly one of the greatest spy on all data. And after all what should have learned from history, the American people just elected an incompetent copy of Hiller. To be honest as European I find the USA the most digesting for many years already, ... Sad.
[doublepost=1494317882][/doublepost]

1. The American Founders realized that the potential amount of damage/killing a terrorist can do, pales in comparison to the potential amount of damage/killing your own government can do if not restricted.

2. The US government had everything it needed to stop 911. The US government had everything it needed to stop the Underwear Bomber. The US government had everything it needed to stop the Boston Marathon bombing. The government has everything it needs, right now, to combat terrorism and pedophiles effectively. How many "He said publically on Facebook he was going to do it" incidents does it take to convince people that there is just too much noise online for law enforcement to process? Like it or not, technology has leveled the playing field. Taking away rights and freedoms by weakening encryption and constantly watching your citizens is not the answer.

3. The UK government couldn't even keep their technical paper safe from the media, yet they want us to believe they can keep the backdoors to weakened encryption safe?

Yep, I agree with all your points. The only things this surveillance may help making sure all normal citizens pay there taxes.

For more security in cities I suggest tearing down all the mass surveillance and use the money for normal police officers who can keep an eye on what is going on in that moment on the street, subways, and such. In contrast to a CCTV they can also actually do something when a robbery or whatever is going not, … A CCTV will not stop them, and will only show black masks if not switched off anyway.

 

[jeremiah256]

In most terror acts of recent times the terrorist where already known by the police and relevant services and spied additional on. Yet all of them happened anyway. One has to wonder due to incompetence of those services, or intentionally.
[doublepost=1494316680][/doublepost]

Well, the USA is certainly one of the greatest spy on all data. And after all what should have learned from history, the American people just elected an incompetent copy of Hiller. To be honest as European I find the USA the most digesting for many years already, ... Sad.
[doublepost=1494317882][/doublepost]

Yep, I agree with all your points. The only things this surveillance may help making sure all normal citizens pay there taxes.

For more security in cities I suggest tearing down all the mass surveillance and use the money for normal police officers who can keep an eye on what is going on in that moment on the street, subways, and such. In contrast to a CCTV they can also actually do something when a robbery or whatever is going not, … A CCTV will not stop them, and will only show black masks if not switched off anyway.

I'm currently living in Japan. I love that they have Koban stations everywhere. Unfortunately, in the US, the relationship between many communities and the police is not healthy. It'll be a generation of work to mend those wounds.

 

[ReneR]

I'm currently living in Japan. I love that they have Koban stations everywhere. Unfortunately, in the US, the relationship between many communities and the police is not healthy. It'll be a generation of work to mend those wounds.

In Berlin (Germany) subways stations usually have a small glas house for an old fashioned station chief or so. They are all abandon and falling apart. But instead we invest into spying on all normal citizens because "reasons". Really sad.

Some years ago at new years eve idiots were throwing explosives at each other. Totally unsafe. Nobody was there to say a word and stop them. Not to mention the every day subway crime, thieves and whatever, … :-/

Also, imagine all the jobs CCTVs take away, ..;-)

 

[apolloa]

Do you realise I live in London ??

And I'm sorry, people in the U.K. Trust thier government ? Yeah...Brexit was one hell of a confidence vote.... I assume you are a leave voter.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with US, so why do you keep bringing US into it? Bozo is the foreign secretary and you talk about trust....it's embarrassing....

What does Brexit have to do with it? It was a vote in no confidence of the EU not the British government.. And how he hell would I know where you live? Why should I know?

Your post makes no sense.
[doublepost=1494331154][/doublepost]

So you chose to entirely ignore the fact that the "security services that protect people" dismissed the limits defined by the constitution, circumvented it and went way beyond the legal authority that was there to check them ? That they ignored the very definition of democracy they are supposed to protect ? Do you really cannot understand how dangerous this is ?

I'm asking again, do you recognize this pattern across the history ? The very same poor excuses regarding 'people protection' where adopted by every dictatorship and every fascist regime across the world. I'm also sure that in every case, there were a few people thinking that this was for their own good.

Who are you talking about? America or the UK because I don't recognise anything you say as being British.

 

[antonis]

What does Brexit have to do with it? It was a vote in no confidence of the EU not the British government.. And how he hell would I know where you live? Why should I know?

Your post makes no sense.
[doublepost=1494331154][/doublepost]

Who are you talking about? America or the UK because I don't recognise anything you say as being British.

Fair question, I was talking about US. However, what really impressed me from the Snowden case was that UK equivalent agency had proceeded on even more hard-core practices than their American colleagues. After all, these 2 agencies where cooperating officially in this.

 

[DoctorTech]

Soooo the UK must be exactly like the US then.... how can you even compare the two? People in the UK trust their government and don't mind the cameras a bit more then in the US where you believe they are out to get you..
[doublepost=1494264500][/doublepost]

Soooo when the keys to the government mandated back door get hacked by bad actors, people in the UK will still be completely safe because they trust their government. Good to know. By the way, I strongly doubt that all people in the UK "trust their government and don't mind the cameras a bit...". Those who distrust their government in the UK may be a smaller percentage of the population than we have over her but I know they exist because I know a few of them.

Yes, there are people in the US who are distrustful of our government for a variety of reasons (the "gun walking" operation known as "Fast & Furious" in which our government forced gun shops in Arizona to knowingly sell firearms to drug dealers who were taking them back to Mexico and the IRS targeting of political opponents are just two well known examples). In both cases, when the high ranking political appointees were caught, they repeated pled the 5th Amendment during congressional hearings. Lois Lerner (responsible for the IRS scandal) even had government owned hard drives destroyed to hide evidence of her actions. That doesn't inspire a lot of faith in political leaders.

As for some Americans believing that in some cases "they are out to you", I would encourage you to read up on the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service military style raid on the Gibson Guitar factory in Nashville and Memphis TN. Or, if you want more examples I would encourage you to read "Three Felonies a Day" by Alan Dershowitz