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I think this same logic that is purportedly the reasoning behind this bill would also require us to constantly record all of our vocal communications, as that w

by tetrep 10y ago

I think this same logic that is purportedly the reasoning behind this bill would also require us to constantly record all of our vocal communications, as that would be the only way we could ensure that criminals could not have communications that aren't accessible to law enforcement. This, of course, would require microphones on all citizens as well as many more in the surrounding environment, to ensure communications of unwilling citizens can be monitored as well. And, of course, we'd need video as well to get those pesky sign language users[0]. These sort of bills always make me wonder if we'll ever see a moral stance taken by tech companies. There's a few skirmishes that happen every now and then but there doesn't seem to be any general consensus on what companies will tolerate in both themselves and their business partners. I'd love to see a "Fair Trade"-esque branding used as an indication that the product and its supply chain don't include actors who support government surveillance. [0]: OT, but it makes me realize you can literally make illegal gestures due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United...

geggam 10y ago
Most citizens carry said microphones complete with GPS and other tracking abilities... already
- LinuxBender 10y ago
  I agree with you. Every time I bring that up, I get down-voted due to the cognitive dissonance that folks have with their fondle-slabs. Now people are being conditioned to think it's normal for their microphone to always be on.
  - shostack 10y ago
    Are there any good low-tech ways to disable them similar to tape over the camera? Not sure if tape alone would be sufficient to block audio.
    - hx87 10y ago
      A white noise generator placed over the microphone, perhaps?
      - nitrogen 10y ago
        White noise can be filtered out if it's not louder than the source sound within the frequency bands of interest over the time interval that matters for interpreting speech. So make sure it's loud, and maybe contour the noise to match the frequency distribution of speech, and maybe make it unpredictably variable over time.
        DashRattlesnake 10y ago
        But wouldn't it only have to be loud at the microphone? So a quiet but very close white noise source (e.g. something taped directly over the microphone) could mask a louder but more distant source?
        filoeleven 10y ago
        One neat idea from Neal Stephenson's Anathem (with likely analogues elsewhere) is essentially a chatterbox that records people speaking in a conversation, chops up the audio into syllables, and plays those back at random to foil eavesdroppers. This might work better than white noise, assuming you trust the computer that's doing the scrambling!
    - dyladan 10y ago
      Most cell phones have pretty low-quality microphones. My guess is that a basic white-noise generator in an inaudible frequency would render the microphone pretty much useless. That being said, there is the problem of then having to maintain the white noise generator.
    - loueed 10y ago
      Stick a neodymium magnet next to it, joking please don't do that
    - tombrossman 10y ago
  - pmarreck 10y ago
    > fondle-slabs you mean zombie phones? ;) Seriously, what you're talking about is one of the reasons I've wanted to get a Blackphone... but I think I saw a blip on my radar that it may be compromised
    - voltagex_ 10y ago
      Your choices now seem to be a pair-locked and hardened iOS device, or a recent Android running CopperheadOS. http://readwrite.com/2015/03/05/blackphone-2-privacy-mwc-spin-hacks/ http://readwrite.com/2015/03/05/blackphone-2-privacy-mwc-spi... has some more details on what happened to the Blackphone.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    To be fair, calling them "fondle-slabs" can't be helping your argument.
    - LinuxBender 10y ago
      I got that from The Register and I agree with their assessment. I can't walk 50 feet without seeing someone with their face buried in their phone, even while they are walking around town, oblivious to the world around them. It actually reminds of an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation where the ship was commandeered after the crew were "drugged" by a hypnotic game. I believe the episode was "The Game".
  - blackrose 10y ago
    > fondle-slabs It's hilarious because it's true.
twilightfog 10y ago
Subject to strong controls and safeguards to address the increasing technical sophistication of those who would seek to do us harm. Ofcourse we all know the strong controls and safeguards there will be: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/06/letters-lack-scrutiny-privacy-mi5-data-collection https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/06/letters-lack...
blowski 10y ago
I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here, because complaining about intrusions on our privacy and how ineffective they are, has become de rigeur on HN and Reddit without much dissent. There clearly is a security problem in Europe at the moment, and I'm assuming that the attacks are not being organised by the security services. So will this bill reduce, increase or have no effect on the attacks? If not, then what would reduce the attacks and why are the authorities not doing it already? If it will reduce the attacks, how much does it have to reduce them before we accept the intrusion on privacy as a necessary evil?
- lostlogin 10y ago
  Is there a security problem now or has their always been one and we just hear about it now? Secondly, in some (many?) of the recent cases, the perpetrators were "known" to police and intelligence services. How does having more info help of they don't act on what's already held?
- hobs 10y ago
  Likely no impact, because no facility on earth has the capacity to filter and find information on this scale, especially when simple techniques are employed to hide the meaning of communication. The methods needed to reduce attacks (geopolitical unrest resolved) is probably not within the capacity of the police forces we have, and even pretty good safety is so expensive no one is willing to pay for it (even if we did all agree to register every action we took with the government.) There is no government action which can promise results when it comes to motivated attacks, so when you hear "oh if we allow this police action then terrorist attacks will stop." you are hearing purposeful naivete at the best, and power grabs at the worst.
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    Agreed. It takes 10 minutes to find a hardware store shopping list and bomb recipe. Even then, a lot of ingredients can be purchased over time without raising any flags. Buy bleach at one store and ammonia at another, say you're cleaning if anybody asks, then find a public place to mix the two. Once someone decides to kill a lot of people, it's already too late. There is no, repeat, no way to prevent every mass murder. A determined killer will always find a way. Nobody wants to soberly admit that the only way to prevent terrorist attacks are to keep people from wanting to do so in the first place, which is a long and imperfect process with absolutely no guarantee of success. A lot of America's mass shooters are simply deranged and hungry for national infamy.
eternalban 10y ago
> wonder if we'll ever see a moral stance taken by tech companies Established ones. There remains the fact that nascent tech companies need to get funded. By VCs. For example, and only as an example, YCombinator could make a stand here. Have they?
pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
talking to each other doesn't use a public service such as the internet, which is regulated by governing bodies that have been granted authority to make laws regarding that service. you're an idiot.
WireWrap 10y ago
I think they'd have to monitor and restrict thoughts or at least be able to extract memories. The frightening thing is: if there ever comes a time when such technology is available, they will try to use it.
geff82 10y ago
Tetrep, your comparison with vocal speech absolutely nails it. Just because the medium has changed, there is no justification for total surveillance. Few 50+ years old mainstream politicians see it that way.
regularfry 10y ago
These sort of bills always make me wonder if we'll ever see a moral stance taken by tech companies. obligatory: http://aaisp.co.uk/kb-broadband-realinternet.html http://aaisp.co.uk/kb-broadband-realinternet.html. One of the reasons I'm a customer.
granfalloon 10y ago
Why do you say it's analogous to "requiring us to constantly record all of our vocal communications"? Don't they just want to make it possible for police to record electronic communications, the same way police can already record vocal communications with a warrant and sufficient resources?

by tetrep 10y ago

geggam 10y ago

Most citizens carry said microphones complete with GPS and other tracking abilities... already

LinuxBender 10y ago
I agree with you. Every time I bring that up, I get down-voted due to the cognitive dissonance that folks have with their fondle-slabs. Now people are being conditioned to think it's normal for their microphone to always be on.
- shostack 10y ago
  Are there any good low-tech ways to disable them similar to tape over the camera? Not sure if tape alone would be sufficient to block audio.
  - hx87 10y ago
    A white noise generator placed over the microphone, perhaps?
    - nitrogen 10y ago
      White noise can be filtered out if it's not louder than the source sound within the frequency bands of interest over the time interval that matters for interpreting speech. So make sure it's loud, and maybe contour the noise to match the frequency distribution of speech, and maybe make it unpredictably variable over time.
      - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
        But wouldn't it only have to be loud at the microphone? So a quiet but very close white noise source (e.g. something taped directly over the microphone) could mask a louder but more distant source?
      - filoeleven 10y ago
        One neat idea from Neal Stephenson's Anathem (with likely analogues elsewhere) is essentially a chatterbox that records people speaking in a conversation, chops up the audio into syllables, and plays those back at random to foil eavesdroppers. This might work better than white noise, assuming you trust the computer that's doing the scrambling!
  - dyladan 10y ago
    Most cell phones have pretty low-quality microphones. My guess is that a basic white-noise generator in an inaudible frequency would render the microphone pretty much useless. That being said, there is the problem of then having to maintain the white noise generator.
  - loueed 10y ago
    Stick a neodymium magnet next to it, joking please don't do that
  - tombrossman 10y ago
- pmarreck 10y ago
  > fondle-slabs you mean zombie phones? ;) Seriously, what you're talking about is one of the reasons I've wanted to get a Blackphone... but I think I saw a blip on my radar that it may be compromised
  - voltagex_ 10y ago
    Your choices now seem to be a pair-locked and hardened iOS device, or a recent Android running CopperheadOS. http://readwrite.com/2015/03/05/blackphone-2-privacy-mwc-spin-hacks/ http://readwrite.com/2015/03/05/blackphone-2-privacy-mwc-spi... has some more details on what happened to the Blackphone.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- StavrosK 10y ago
  To be fair, calling them "fondle-slabs" can't be helping your argument.
  - LinuxBender 10y ago
    I got that from The Register and I agree with their assessment. I can't walk 50 feet without seeing someone with their face buried in their phone, even while they are walking around town, oblivious to the world around them. It actually reminds of an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation where the ship was commandeered after the crew were "drugged" by a hypnotic game. I believe the episode was "The Game".
- blackrose 10y ago
  > fondle-slabs It's hilarious because it's true.

twilightfog 10y ago

Subject to strong controls and safeguards to address the increasing technical sophistication of those who would seek to do us harm. Ofcourse we all know the strong controls and safeguards there will be: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/06/letters-lack-scrutiny-privacy-mi5-data-collection https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/06/letters-lack...

blowski 10y ago

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here, because complaining about intrusions on our privacy and how ineffective they are, has become de rigeur on HN and Reddit without much dissent. There clearly is a security problem in Europe at the moment, and I'm assuming that the attacks are not being organised by the security services. So will this bill reduce, increase or have no effect on the attacks? If not, then what would reduce the attacks and why are the authorities not doing it already? If it will reduce the attacks, how much does it have to reduce them before we accept the intrusion on privacy as a necessary evil?

lostlogin 10y ago
Is there a security problem now or has their always been one and we just hear about it now? Secondly, in some (many?) of the recent cases, the perpetrators were "known" to police and intelligence services. How does having more info help of they don't act on what's already held?
hobs 10y ago
Likely no impact, because no facility on earth has the capacity to filter and find information on this scale, especially when simple techniques are employed to hide the meaning of communication. The methods needed to reduce attacks (geopolitical unrest resolved) is probably not within the capacity of the police forces we have, and even pretty good safety is so expensive no one is willing to pay for it (even if we did all agree to register every action we took with the government.) There is no government action which can promise results when it comes to motivated attacks, so when you hear "oh if we allow this police action then terrorist attacks will stop." you are hearing purposeful naivete at the best, and power grabs at the worst.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Agreed. It takes 10 minutes to find a hardware store shopping list and bomb recipe. Even then, a lot of ingredients can be purchased over time without raising any flags. Buy bleach at one store and ammonia at another, say you're cleaning if anybody asks, then find a public place to mix the two. Once someone decides to kill a lot of people, it's already too late. There is no, repeat, no way to prevent every mass murder. A determined killer will always find a way. Nobody wants to soberly admit that the only way to prevent terrorist attacks are to keep people from wanting to do so in the first place, which is a long and imperfect process with absolutely no guarantee of success. A lot of America's mass shooters are simply deranged and hungry for national infamy.

eternalban 10y ago

> wonder if we'll ever see a moral stance taken by tech companies Established ones. There remains the fact that nascent tech companies need to get funded. By VCs. For example, and only as an example, YCombinator could make a stand here. Have they?

pg_is_a_butt 10y ago

talking to each other doesn't use a public service such as the internet, which is regulated by governing bodies that have been granted authority to make laws regarding that service. you're an idiot.

WireWrap 10y ago

I think they'd have to monitor and restrict thoughts or at least be able to extract memories. The frightening thing is: if there ever comes a time when such technology is available, they will try to use it.

geff82 10y ago

Tetrep, your comparison with vocal speech absolutely nails it. Just because the medium has changed, there is no justification for total surveillance. Few 50+ years old mainstream politicians see it that way.

regularfry 10y ago

These sort of bills always make me wonder if we'll ever see a moral stance taken by tech companies. obligatory: http://aaisp.co.uk/kb-broadband-realinternet.html http://aaisp.co.uk/kb-broadband-realinternet.html. One of the reasons I'm a customer.

granfalloon 10y ago

Why do you say it's analogous to "requiring us to constantly record all of our vocal communications"? Don't they just want to make it possible for police to record electronic communications, the same way police can already record vocal communications with a warrant and sufficient resources?