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>All that being said, how do we the tech community solve Theresa May's problem? Her philosophy is "if we knew more, we could have prevented this." Is that the r

>All that being said, how do we the tech community solve Theresa May's problem? Her philosophy is "if we knew more, we could have prevented this." Is that the right philosophy? Is there some other mechanism to authorize "legitimate" access to encrypted data? there's absolutely nothing substantiating her claim. terrorists seem to have done just fine in the absence of encryption -- the bataclan attackers coordinated with ordinary sms. governments still make this push _all the time_, witness the doj going after apple after san bernardino. the UK is literally the most surveilled society in the history of the world in terms of communications of its inhabitants intercepted by its own government, comparable perhaps only to the stasi. this is mode of action is not working. two attacks in two weeks, and their answer is "the same but more"?

cJ0th 9y ago
> there's absolutely nothing substantiating her claim. yes, and this is very weird. She must have a chain of reasoning going on in her head before opening her mouth, right? We always only get the conclusion, that is: "we need more access". Any normal person looking for a solution to a problem would generate loads of ideas and then, when pitching an idea, present the pros/cons of their various ideas to finally argue why they have chosen solution x. We don't see any of that wrt to this topic.
- sametmax 9y ago
  The chain of reasoning is: - I want more power/money/whatever - suerveillance can give it to me - I just need to pass the bill once to get it to work for years in my favor - they have to reject it at every attempt I try to pass it - therefor I should try to pass it everytime the news let me do a bold claim - nobody is going to do shit against it anyway
- discombobulate 9y ago
  > She must have a chain of reasoning going on in her head before opening her mouth, right? Control thoughts -> No bad thoughts
  - cJ0th 9y ago
    But that's not reasoning. That's jumping to conclusions.
    - discombobulate 9y ago
      Quite!
- threeseed 9y ago
  > We don't see any of that wrt to this topic. There are countless studies that get conducted every year by universities, think tanks, NGOs and journalist style organisations on this topic. And these are tabled in parliament, reviewed by ministers and debated in intelligence committees and within cabinet. In Australia for example we have Senate Estimate Hearings which are freely available online for you to watch. To think that governments are not exploring every avenue in order to protect their citizens is a bit ridiculous.
  - cJ0th 9y ago
    > There are countless studies that get conducted every year by universities, think tanks, NGOs and journalist style organisations on this topic. Could you name me one credible source that advocates the banning of encryption? At Harvard, for instance, they concluded that banning encryption is futile. [0] [0] https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/worldwide-survey-of-encryption-products/ https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/worldwide-survey-of-encrypti...
dTal 9y ago
no terrorist attacks: "it's working! we can't tell you details but we caught ALL the terrorists, and there were lots! But they're crafty, you know - expand the surveillance so we can keep up!" terrorist attacks: "we told you so! expand the surveillance!"
askvictor 9y ago
> the UK is literally the most surveilled society in the history of the world in terms of communications of its inhabitants intercepted by its own government China?
- johncolanduoni 9y ago
  Also even if that's technically true due to digital surveillance, I'm still pretty sure virtually everyone would choose it over the DDR. But why not go with hyperbole! It's not like it feeds into a narrative that everyone who takes this stuff seriously is paranoid...
artursapek 9y ago
> terrorists seem to have done just fine in the absence of encryption -- the bataclan attackers coordinated with ordinary sms Even if the UK somehow managed to illegalize use of AES and other "professional" encryption algos, it would still be trivial to communicate using simple innocuous sounding code words over plain SMS. There's practically no way to detect it. The entire effort is futile from the very beginning.
- petre 9y ago
  Same for steganography. You can embed messages in pictures of lolcatz.
  - pvdebbe 9y ago
    Next step, mandatory JPEG (re)compression (q=50) for all social media pictures.
    - silvestrov 9y ago
      That isn't even nearly enough. Text messages take very little space and can easily be embedded in very low quality images. You can't allow images, sound, or video at all if you want to prohibit steganography.
      - type0 9y ago
        So will you be able to prove that you are not using steganography when the authorities accuse you of using it?
        artursapek 9y ago
        I mean, will they be able to prove that you are? That's usually how it works.
        snakeanus 9y ago
tscs37 9y ago
It seems people like to believe that the terrorist would simply obey the law and not use encryption. In reality, if a terrorist used encryption, they most likely would use a non-backdoored encryption no matter if it's legal.

cJ0th 9y ago

> there's absolutely nothing substantiating her claim. yes, and this is very weird. She must have a chain of reasoning going on in her head before opening her mouth, right? We always only get the conclusion, that is: "we need more access". Any normal person looking for a solution to a problem would generate loads of ideas and then, when pitching an idea, present the pros/cons of their various ideas to finally argue why they have chosen solution x. We don't see any of that wrt to this topic.

sametmax 9y ago
The chain of reasoning is: - I want more power/money/whatever - suerveillance can give it to me - I just need to pass the bill once to get it to work for years in my favor - they have to reject it at every attempt I try to pass it - therefor I should try to pass it everytime the news let me do a bold claim - nobody is going to do shit against it anyway
discombobulate 9y ago
> She must have a chain of reasoning going on in her head before opening her mouth, right? Control thoughts -> No bad thoughts
- cJ0th 9y ago
  But that's not reasoning. That's jumping to conclusions.
  - discombobulate 9y ago
    Quite!
threeseed 9y ago
> We don't see any of that wrt to this topic. There are countless studies that get conducted every year by universities, think tanks, NGOs and journalist style organisations on this topic. And these are tabled in parliament, reviewed by ministers and debated in intelligence committees and within cabinet. In Australia for example we have Senate Estimate Hearings which are freely available online for you to watch. To think that governments are not exploring every avenue in order to protect their citizens is a bit ridiculous.
- cJ0th 9y ago
  > There are countless studies that get conducted every year by universities, think tanks, NGOs and journalist style organisations on this topic. Could you name me one credible source that advocates the banning of encryption? At Harvard, for instance, they concluded that banning encryption is futile. [0] [0] https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/worldwide-survey-of-encryption-products/ https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/worldwide-survey-of-encrypti...

dTal 9y ago

no terrorist attacks: "it's working! we can't tell you details but we caught ALL the terrorists, and there were lots! But they're crafty, you know - expand the surveillance so we can keep up!" terrorist attacks: "we told you so! expand the surveillance!"

askvictor 9y ago

> the UK is literally the most surveilled society in the history of the world in terms of communications of its inhabitants intercepted by its own government China?

johncolanduoni 9y ago
Also even if that's technically true due to digital surveillance, I'm still pretty sure virtually everyone would choose it over the DDR. But why not go with hyperbole! It's not like it feeds into a narrative that everyone who takes this stuff seriously is paranoid...

artursapek 9y ago

> terrorists seem to have done just fine in the absence of encryption -- the bataclan attackers coordinated with ordinary sms Even if the UK somehow managed to illegalize use of AES and other "professional" encryption algos, it would still be trivial to communicate using simple innocuous sounding code words over plain SMS. There's practically no way to detect it. The entire effort is futile from the very beginning.

petre 9y ago
Same for steganography. You can embed messages in pictures of lolcatz.
- pvdebbe 9y ago
  Next step, mandatory JPEG (re)compression (q=50) for all social media pictures.
  - silvestrov 9y ago
    That isn't even nearly enough. Text messages take very little space and can easily be embedded in very low quality images. You can't allow images, sound, or video at all if you want to prohibit steganography.
    - type0 9y ago
      So will you be able to prove that you are not using steganography when the authorities accuse you of using it?
      - artursapek 9y ago
        I mean, will they be able to prove that you are? That's usually how it works.
        snakeanus 9y ago

tscs37 9y ago

It seems people like to believe that the terrorist would simply obey the law and not use encryption. In reality, if a terrorist used encryption, they most likely would use a non-backdoored encryption no matter if it's legal.