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It's pretty clear they think child safety is more important than E2E: > We are not opposed to end-to-end encryption, as long as it is implemented in a way that

by dsign 5y ago

It's pretty clear they think child safety is more important than E2E: > We are not opposed to end-to-end encryption, as long as it is implemented in a way that does not put children at risk. The rest is fluff.

coldcode 5y ago
Won't someone please think of the children syndrome. The real answer is we want to read all of your internet interactions any time we want; the children thing is just a way to convince people that letting the government (and everyone else) to spy on you is ok.
- stevespang 5y ago
- grishka 5y ago
  Russian laws that granted the government the ability to block websites were also initially aimed at protecting children from drugs and suicide. Though somehow, they didn't have any provisions to allow adults access this "forbidden information". After the technical capability was in place, they've expanded the possible grounds to block websites on multiple times. It now includes piracy, refusal of cooperation with FSB, being a public VPN, being related to Navalny, etc.
  - DoItToMe81 5y ago
    In Australia, we had a plan for a massive web filter in the late 2000s. Their databases were broken into and the blacklist leaked, and inbetween the genuinely illegal sites were sites that had been deemed to be politically immoral, like supporting decriminalization of drugs or spreading information on abortion. There were many things that were perfectly legal but had personally offended the people presiding over the filter, including random Wikipedia pages and certain personal websites, including a dentist's site. This filter, of course, was sold to people with the idea of protecting children against predators. Anything not directly relating to children that is sold to you with "B-BUT THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" is done with the intent to manipulate you and provide you with the false dichotomy of "unconditional acceptance, or child abuse", which is nonsense and should be viewed with extreme suspicion.
    - grishka 5y ago
      Oh, it was viewed with extreme suspicion and opposed by many, especially those working in IT. Just don't forget that Russia is a dictatorship with a dysfunctional parliament (Единая Россия, Putin's party, has more than 50% of seats) and so doesn't care much about people's opinion. I don't know much about Australian government, but it's probably more democratic than that.
schleck8 5y ago
Fair enough. I support E2E encryption but I think people should be allowed to rally for the opposite
- pfortuny 5y ago
  Yes but as the matter is still just political in the UK, there is no reason for the government to pay for a side and not others,
- IshKebab 5y ago
  Do you think the government should fund campaigns against it?
croes 5y ago
Even worse, they think without E2E children would be any safer.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
I think it's also important to quote their demand that providers should "not implement end-to-end encryption until they have the technology in place to ensure children will not be put at greater risk as a result", which sounds very much like "not implement e2ee" because it's always possible to argue for some extra risk. User-initiated reporting features where the server can only read messages that the user reported would be the obvious solution (and should be uncontroversial), but they're not asking for that. (To avoid concerns with false reports, the sender could include a random value in the message to prevent brute-force attacks on short messages, and send an unencrypted hash of the message including metadata together with that random value. The official client would only show messages where this hash matches, so a sender cannot just omit it. When a message is reported, the full message including the random value is sent to the server, the server can then verify that this message hash was actually sent through this service by that sender, and report the sender to the police if the content is report-worthy.)

by dsign 5y ago

coldcode 5y ago

Won't someone please think of the children syndrome. The real answer is we want to read all of your internet interactions any time we want; the children thing is just a way to convince people that letting the government (and everyone else) to spy on you is ok.

stevespang 5y ago
grishka 5y ago
Russian laws that granted the government the ability to block websites were also initially aimed at protecting children from drugs and suicide. Though somehow, they didn't have any provisions to allow adults access this "forbidden information". After the technical capability was in place, they've expanded the possible grounds to block websites on multiple times. It now includes piracy, refusal of cooperation with FSB, being a public VPN, being related to Navalny, etc.
- DoItToMe81 5y ago
  In Australia, we had a plan for a massive web filter in the late 2000s. Their databases were broken into and the blacklist leaked, and inbetween the genuinely illegal sites were sites that had been deemed to be politically immoral, like supporting decriminalization of drugs or spreading information on abortion. There were many things that were perfectly legal but had personally offended the people presiding over the filter, including random Wikipedia pages and certain personal websites, including a dentist's site. This filter, of course, was sold to people with the idea of protecting children against predators. Anything not directly relating to children that is sold to you with "B-BUT THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" is done with the intent to manipulate you and provide you with the false dichotomy of "unconditional acceptance, or child abuse", which is nonsense and should be viewed with extreme suspicion.
  - grishka 5y ago
    Oh, it was viewed with extreme suspicion and opposed by many, especially those working in IT. Just don't forget that Russia is a dictatorship with a dysfunctional parliament (Единая Россия, Putin's party, has more than 50% of seats) and so doesn't care much about people's opinion. I don't know much about Australian government, but it's probably more democratic than that.

schleck8 5y ago

Fair enough. I support E2E encryption but I think people should be allowed to rally for the opposite

pfortuny 5y ago
Yes but as the matter is still just political in the UK, there is no reason for the government to pay for a side and not others,
IshKebab 5y ago
Do you think the government should fund campaigns against it?

croes 5y ago

Even worse, they think without E2E children would be any safer.

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago

I think it's also important to quote their demand that providers should "not implement end-to-end encryption until they have the technology in place to ensure children will not be put at greater risk as a result", which sounds very much like "not implement e2ee" because it's always possible to argue for some extra risk. User-initiated reporting features where the server can only read messages that the user reported would be the obvious solution (and should be uncontroversial), but they're not asking for that. (To avoid concerns with false reports, the sender could include a random value in the message to prevent brute-force attacks on short messages, and send an unencrypted hash of the message including metadata together with that random value. The official client would only show messages where this hash matches, so a sender cannot just omit it. When a message is reported, the full message including the random value is sent to the server, the server can then verify that this message hash was actually sent through this service by that sender, and report the sender to the police if the content is report-worthy.)