This is the best summary I could come up with:
In the latest iteration of the neverending (and always head-scratching) crypto wars, Graeme Biggar, the director general of the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), has called on Instagram-owner Meta to rethink its continued rollout of end-to-end encryption (E2EE) — with web users’ privacy and security pulled into the frame yet again.
Currently, as a result of being able to scan message content where E2EE has not been rolled out, Biggar said platforms are sending tens of millions of child-safety related reports a year to police forces around the world — adding a further claim that “on the back of that information we typically safeguard 1,200 children a month and arrest 800 people”.
Pointing out that Meta-owned WhatsApp has had the gold standard encryption as its default for years (E2EE was fully implemented across the messaging platform by April 2016), Robinson wondered if this wasn’t a case of the crime agency trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted?
But, most likely, it’s some form of client-side scanning technology they’re lobbying for — such as the system Apple had been poised to roll out in 2021, for detecting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on users’ own devices, before a privacy backlash forced it to shelve and later quietly drop the plan.
If technology does exist to allow law enforcement to access E2EE data in the plain without harming users’ privacy, as Biggar appears to be claiming, one very basic question is why can’t police forces explain exactly what they want platforms to implement?
In an emailed statement a company spokesperson repeated its defence of expanding access to E2EE, writing: “The overwhelming majority of Brits already rely on apps that use encryption to keep them safe from hackers, fraudsters, and criminals.
The original article contains 1,972 words, the summary contains 290 words. Saved 85%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
And yet Europe gets held up as this bastion of liberty and personal rights…
Things like the GDPR are lovely and all, but then ask for the ability to have real-time access to private communications, pick a lane folks the rest of the world needs an example to live up to
Unfortunately they are the example, there isn’t anything better.
What needs happen is that they make encryption popular by banning it
The problem with that line of thought though, while people generally expect/wish for private communication, few actually care to understand the mechanics of it. Nor should they have to, that’s what security engineers are for, to do all that archaic setup so people can just use it without having to check certificates and protocols and all that stuff.
I’d say that if we could just have a simple to use, no-click pgp style system things would be good and we no longer have to keep nagging people to set things up the ‘right’ way, but so much of the hassle comes in by people using 100 different communication platforms.
Of course though: https://xkcd.com/927/
I swear, I’m just gonna laugh at these clowns, honestly, and just PGP encrypt my messages that they can intercept in plain text. So fuck them. I don’t actually think they will win, but even if they did, it will only hurt law abiding people and will make no a difference to non-law abiding people.
The doesn’t fix metadata
Still better than nothing
Its not better than better encrypted messaging apps
I am betting you they would try to intercept before you encrypt - like keylogging or something. Those fuckers.
Give it a few years and EU will pass some laws to round up trouble makers like yourself.
Trouble maker?
a person who doesn’t go with the flow
The flow of mass surveillance?
yeah that’s very clearly the direction EU is headed in
And that makes @shortwavesurfer@monero.town a trouble maker
I swear, I’m just gonna laugh at these clowns, honestly, and just PGP encrypt my messages that they can intercept in plain text. So fuck them. I don’t actually think they will win, but even if they did, it will only hurt law abiding people and will make no a difference to non-law abiding people.
Until the yoke of authority becomes so oppressive that everybody breaks the law, you are definitely right. They will target people. But once they get so oppressive that everybody is breaking the law and just ignoring them, then they lose all power. After all, they can’t arrest everybody. Where would they hold them and who would be in charge of them and who would make them their lattes and shit.
I’m sure people were saying the same thing in 1930s Germany.
Mmmm. Good point. Now there’s a frightening thought.
- Hold them?! * chuckles * No, sir, we will not hold you… Certainly not for longer than this crematorium takes to process you. 😵💫
In the EU the law always permits to access the user data and can force the network owner to give this data, if he had accss to these, normally not possible with encrypted datas. But anyway the law only can force the webowner or the ISP to give the user data only with a court order in a crime investigation. Without this, the big middle finger. But I think that it isn’t needed in Fakebook, X, etc, probably for these is enough a phone call (US laws)
