7 ms·

I'd be extremely wary of such reports coming from the government. I don't know about other sources but that article provides absolutely no additional informatio

I'd be extremely wary of such reports coming from the government. I don't know about other sources but that article provides absolutely no additional information beyond the claim. And I imagine this kind of information is nearly impossible to verify, which they may be betting on. In short, given the current state of media and government, it wouldn't surprise me if this were just propaganda.

gambiting 8y ago
We are now finding out that during the cold war, the government has released several reports of "arresting communist spies" when in fact, no one was ever found or arrested - it was just a propaganda piece. I would not be surprised if we were seeing the same thing now to support the "war on terror" narrative.
vahji 8y ago
If they talk evil about something I don't like, that's cool and genuine. If they talk good things about something I don't like, now let me be a cynic here
mike_hearn 8y ago
Maybe but not necessarily. The flip side of your view is that there are absolutely cases that are real, which don't even make it to the press at all. I was an expert witness for a terrorism case in the UK - the guy was convicted - and nothing about it ever surfaced in the media. The reality is that there are a stream of people in the UK who try to carry out terrorist attacks, and who are stopped by the police. Attempting to argue against a bad policy by claiming terrorists are establishment propaganda is likely to be a bad strategy as a result. A much better approach is to ask how many of these terrorists are really using sophisticated cryptography, and how many successful attacks would have been stopped if not for encryption? And there we find the answer is "not many" and "essentially none". There is a great article on that very topic, written by a British journalist who also has acted as an expert witness in many terrorism trials: http://privacy-pc.com/articles/how-terrorists-encrypt-threatscape-overview.html http://privacy-pc.com/articles/how-terrorists-encrypt-threat... It looks at many cases of busted terrorist attacks over many years, and examines the involvement of cryptography. The conclusion is that the intersection of terrorists and sophisticated users of encryption is the empty set. The closest you get is a groupie who worked on things like propaganda and funding, but who wasn't involved in any attacks themselves. Now that article was written quite a few years ago and I suspect the new attitude of companies like Facebook towards encryption has changed the game somewhat, WhatsApp end to end encryption (assuming it's really on for everyone) makes it much easier to protect conversations than before so, it would stand to reason that cryptography does foil terrorism investigations more often than it used to. However, we don't know that, and the IC was yelling about the danger of cryptography for decades already - certainly in the time frame that Duncan Campbell's analysis was written in. In conclusion, I'd focus more on whether real terrorist plots are happening successfully because GCHQ couldn't hack things fast enough, than on whether terrorists exist at all.
- 1337biz 8y ago
  > I was an expert witness for a terrorism case in the UK - the guy was convicted - and nothing about it ever surfaced in the media. Can you give us a rough idea why that trial was keept a secret from the public?
  - foldr 8y ago
    I don't believe there have ever been fully secret trials in the UK. In camera sessions with secret evidence have been held in a handful of terror cases. The more likely explanation is just that nothing was being kept secret, and the trial wasn't deemed newsworthy.
    - mike_hearn 8y ago
      That's right. I don't think there was any gag orders or anything. The trial wasn't secret. I certainly didn't have to sign anything committing me to secrecy, which is why I'm willing to mention it now. My contact at the police just asked me not to blog about the details, as a friendly courtesy. It just didn't make it to the press. My guess is that court case -> media transmission is not 100% reliable as we might imagine. The police wanted it kept quiet for the usual reasons. There's some amount of luck involved in foiling any crime, especially before it happens, and when the details of a trial are broadcast it necessarily implies teaching future criminals how their predecessors were caught. The police don't like that, it just makes their jobs harder.
    - pjc50 8y ago
      Well, there were the "Diplock courts". But yes: it does seem that the newspapers have no interest in reporting actual convicted terrorists. Which is very strange given how they sensationalise the threat of terrorism.
      - zentiggr 8y ago
        Not at all strange - convicted terrorists convince people that the threat is being met. The threat of unknown terrorists keeps everyone anxious and biases towards granting more police powers in order to curb those unmet threats. PsychOps 101.
Shivetya 8y ago
sometimes I wonder about people, all quite willing to trust government if they will pick up the tab but never willing to trust them with it inconveniences them. the little microcosm that is HN is just fun to watch with stories replete with people demanding intervention standing side by side with stories claiming over reach. I am not sure you can have your cake and eat it to.

gambiting 8y ago

We are now finding out that during the cold war, the government has released several reports of "arresting communist spies" when in fact, no one was ever found or arrested - it was just a propaganda piece. I would not be surprised if we were seeing the same thing now to support the "war on terror" narrative.

vahji 8y ago

If they talk evil about something I don't like, that's cool and genuine. If they talk good things about something I don't like, now let me be a cynic here

mike_hearn 8y ago

Maybe but not necessarily. The flip side of your view is that there are absolutely cases that are real, which don't even make it to the press at all. I was an expert witness for a terrorism case in the UK - the guy was convicted - and nothing about it ever surfaced in the media. The reality is that there are a stream of people in the UK who try to carry out terrorist attacks, and who are stopped by the police. Attempting to argue against a bad policy by claiming terrorists are establishment propaganda is likely to be a bad strategy as a result. A much better approach is to ask how many of these terrorists are really using sophisticated cryptography, and how many successful attacks would have been stopped if not for encryption? And there we find the answer is "not many" and "essentially none". There is a great article on that very topic, written by a British journalist who also has acted as an expert witness in many terrorism trials: http://privacy-pc.com/articles/how-terrorists-encrypt-threatscape-overview.html http://privacy-pc.com/articles/how-terrorists-encrypt-threat... It looks at many cases of busted terrorist attacks over many years, and examines the involvement of cryptography. The conclusion is that the intersection of terrorists and sophisticated users of encryption is the empty set. The closest you get is a groupie who worked on things like propaganda and funding, but who wasn't involved in any attacks themselves. Now that article was written quite a few years ago and I suspect the new attitude of companies like Facebook towards encryption has changed the game somewhat, WhatsApp end to end encryption (assuming it's really on for everyone) makes it much easier to protect conversations than before so, it would stand to reason that cryptography does foil terrorism investigations more often than it used to. However, we don't know that, and the IC was yelling about the danger of cryptography for decades already - certainly in the time frame that Duncan Campbell's analysis was written in. In conclusion, I'd focus more on whether real terrorist plots are happening successfully because GCHQ couldn't hack things fast enough, than on whether terrorists exist at all.

1337biz 8y ago
> I was an expert witness for a terrorism case in the UK - the guy was convicted - and nothing about it ever surfaced in the media. Can you give us a rough idea why that trial was keept a secret from the public?
- foldr 8y ago
  I don't believe there have ever been fully secret trials in the UK. In camera sessions with secret evidence have been held in a handful of terror cases. The more likely explanation is just that nothing was being kept secret, and the trial wasn't deemed newsworthy.
  - mike_hearn 8y ago
    That's right. I don't think there was any gag orders or anything. The trial wasn't secret. I certainly didn't have to sign anything committing me to secrecy, which is why I'm willing to mention it now. My contact at the police just asked me not to blog about the details, as a friendly courtesy. It just didn't make it to the press. My guess is that court case -> media transmission is not 100% reliable as we might imagine. The police wanted it kept quiet for the usual reasons. There's some amount of luck involved in foiling any crime, especially before it happens, and when the details of a trial are broadcast it necessarily implies teaching future criminals how their predecessors were caught. The police don't like that, it just makes their jobs harder.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    Well, there were the "Diplock courts". But yes: it does seem that the newspapers have no interest in reporting actual convicted terrorists. Which is very strange given how they sensationalise the threat of terrorism.
    - zentiggr 8y ago
      Not at all strange - convicted terrorists convince people that the threat is being met. The threat of unknown terrorists keeps everyone anxious and biases towards granting more police powers in order to curb those unmet threats. PsychOps 101.

Shivetya 8y ago

sometimes I wonder about people, all quite willing to trust government if they will pick up the tab but never willing to trust them with it inconveniences them. the little microcosm that is HN is just fun to watch with stories replete with people demanding intervention standing side by side with stories claiming over reach. I am not sure you can have your cake and eat it to.