14 ms·

We will not ‘walk out’ of UK, nor comply with any request to bypass encryption

347 points by ghostDancer 4y ago

bsaul 4y ago
judging with what happened with covid lockdowns i don't think the west is afraid anymore to apply authoritarian measures as long as it's correctly advertised in their mind as "for the people's own good". (just like what every dictator ever said all the time as justification)
- hgomersall 4y ago
  I understand where you're coming from, but is there a pandemic risk that would make lockdowns acceptable? Let's say we had a pandemic with COVID level transmission, a nice long incubation period and 80% death rates, would it then be ok to restrict social interactions? Or do you think it's never justified?
  - bsaul 4y ago
    i believe the first lockdown was justified, until we understood what that thing was. That is, 2 months in march/april 2020 in europe. All the rest was pure nonsense, and in large parts due to governments getting their inspiration from china.
    - miroljub 4y ago
      Glad to read a balanced opinion on the internets :) Unfortunately, the loudest are people arguing for the extremes, both "lock down everything or we'll all die" or "you should not enforce any measure under any circumstance" camps.
  - oceanplexian 4y ago
    I think this is a pretty tired debate but people who say “is there any extreme hypothetical situation where you’d be willing to give your rights away” are disconnected from the meaning of the word “rights”.
    - hgomersall 4y ago
      So what are your rights? There are loads of things you're not allowed to do. Should you be allowed to do those things?
pattyj 4y ago
Living in and operating out of Germany must make this stance easier for Tutao GmbH. What options are available to organisations in the UK?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jjgreen 4y ago
  Defy the law and do the time. Or give up.
- johnbaker92 4y ago
  [dead]
- dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
  None unless you want to: 1. Get sued 2. Get a court order to backdoor your encryption 3. Get your doors bashed in by police for non compliance, everything seized, and a criminal case coming your way It's not like one company can fight its own government.
  - eptcyka 4y ago
    You get sued - so what? The most they can risk is the ability to have a UK based payment processor bail on them - they can still have customers in the UK, but they'd have to pay via a VPN.
    - Shish2k 4y ago
      > You get sued - so what? Would I be right in assuming that you’ve never been on the receiving end of a government-scale lawsuit?
      - eptcyka 4y ago
        The UK can only ask Germany to 'do something about it'. Courts apply to entities over which they have jurisdiction. UK isn't even in the EU anymore, they have no power over a German mail company.
thr0wnawaytod4y 4y ago
Very clickbaity but leads to some good links
Maxburn 4y ago
I like the attitude and parallels to similar actors; "he must block access to Tutanota - just like Russia and Iran are already doing." But I'm thinking Signal was more along the lines "we don't want to invite litigation". Both send the same message.
- miroljub 4y ago
  If Signal were a truly open distributed system, instead of relying on a centralized almost closed source server, it would not be possible for any government to block it. And the only thing worse than being blocked, is their "leaving" the country, basically denying the encrypted messaging to the people who need it the most. I wish that matrix got the attention it deserves, but right now, we are still stuck with this "better than nothing" solution called Signal.
  - doublebind 4y ago
    While I agree that an open and distributed messaging system (such as Waku[1]) can improve things, it’s not enough. Apple Store and Google Play Store are the true gatekeepers. And governments can request Apple or Google to remove an app from the Store at their will (this has happened before). An app out of these stores has zero possibilities of survival. Average users don’t use (nor want to use) VPNs or hacks to use their phones. [1] https://waku.org/ https://waku.org/
    - Maxburn 4y ago
      Two late thoughts; apple just enabled notifications for web apps in safari. So in theory you could have a messaging app not in the store. Maybe. Not sure what the state of this is in android. Hopefully soon we will have sideloading on ios too.
TamDenholm 4y ago
> If the UK government really wants to follow through with their plans, they need to set up a Great Firewall - just like China - to block their citizens from accessing encrypted services like Tutanota. We (the UK) already have a great firewall. Try to access thepiratebay.org or other pirate sites, or other sites that the UK gov deems inappropriate (CP obviously), etc. Its just a case of encroaching that same system just a little further, step by step. People only tend to fight back when large sweeping one-off changes come in. If you consistently and repeatedly wear the other side down, you eventually get your way. How many times did the house of commons vote on brexit? How many times did the US congress vote on Kevin McCarthy becoming speaker? Yeah, as long as you just keep on and on about it, you get your way.
- dom96 4y ago
  > Try to access thepiratebay.org or other pirate sites Both my home ISP (hyperoptic) and mobile network (Vodafone) allow me to access it.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  A weak DNS block is not a "great firewall" Not sure about SNI sniffing as other commenter mentioned and IP block block (erm) I guess it depends on ISP and it's not so clear cut (everybody does it, especially if there's too much abuse from a certain block)
  - CommanderData 4y ago
    Incorrect not just a DNS block. IP based aswell.
    - happymellon 4y ago
      Only Virgin appear to IP block. Zen doesn't block it at all.
- lapser 4y ago
  > Try to access thepiratebay.org or other pirate sites, or other sites that the UK gov deems inappropriate (CP obviously), etc. I don't know about the "other sites", but tpb isn't part of any "Great Firewall". It's just ISPs have been required to update their DNS servers to _not_ resolve the DNS record. Even then, there are still quite a few ISPs that have not implemented it. It's why changing your DNS servers to something like Google or Cloudflare means you can easily access tpb. So blocked websites in the UK are nowhere near on the same level as the Great Firewall. My guess is those other sites are a bit more sophisticated, or if not, ISPs are willing to comply easier.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
My guess is the more bravado a company shows, the more they are in bed with the security apparatus and have back doors. No CEO wants jail or crippling fines. The honest ones will leave. The dishonest ones will talk a big game and try to attract more users while secretly backdooring. The security services will complain for effect but actually won’t really punish the company since the more people they can drive to the company, the better for them.
- 867-5309 4y ago
  not possible with open source
  - patates 4y ago
    How do you make sure that the source you see is the one that's deployed?
    - 867-5309 4y ago
      depends on the party deploying it
    - cesarb 4y ago
      > How do you make sure that the source you see is the one that's deployed? With reproducible builds. Signal has done reproducible builds since 2016 (https://signal.org/blog/reproducible-android/ https://signal.org/blog/reproducible-android/), all you need to do is to get the APK from your device and compare it (see https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/tree/main/reproducible-builds https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/tree/main/reprod... for a detailed step-by-step).
      - patates 4y ago
        The problem is, I have to trust my capability (and the others who actually read the source) to understand that the client doesn't trust the server, as long as I don't deploy the server too myself. Not to mention having to do the same for each update. In a nutshell, at some point, you practically have to trust someone.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
samjmck 4y ago
Weird attempt at bashing Signal.
izacus 4y ago
I mean... Apple will remove them from AppStore and that will be that. It's not like they have a choice of actually bypassing Apples store control.
- aimkey 4y ago
  Their app is a thin wrapper to their mobile site. With Safari push notifications, they don’t need the App Store. I would guess the App Store isn’t a path of discoverability for them anyways. People find them very intentionally on the web.
- mbel 4y ago
  It’s an email service, the app isn’t really needed.
  - miroljub 4y ago
    The app is needed, since there are no third-party clients that can connect to Tutanota. They use their own secure protocol, and don't support any of SMTP, IMAP, JMAP, POP3 or similar. You are only left with web access, which is not really practical.
    - mbel 4y ago
      I see, thanks for clarification! I glanced though their website and expected a standard set of features including IMAP.
    - phpisthebest 4y ago
      >>You are only left with web access, which is not really practical. That is the saddest thing to come from Apples insatiable greed... The original iPhone was not going to have apps at all, it was all going to be web pages. There is nothing stopping the browser from being the only app a device needs, nothing other than greed and authoritarian control that is...
      - andsoitis 4y ago
comice 4y ago
Refusing to comply and threatening to walk are just two different approaches to protesting this and it's not clear to me which is the most effective. But I think I trust Signal to know the better approach (whichever they ultimately take - they actually said they'd walk "if the alternative meant undermining our privacy commitments". I don't think it is practical to just refuse to comply with a government like this - especially if you need to charge money (which Tutanota do) and especially if you're nearby, legally speaking (Are Tutanota in Germany?). And given that Signal has "walked" from other authoritarian regimes but people in those countries still have ways to use Signal, I'm still betting on Signal.
- londons_explore 4y ago
  I think the best strategy is to 'walk' from the country by writing in your T&C's that you don't offer service to the country, shutting down any local office and not doing marketing in the country, but not put any technical restrictions in place.
  - MiddleEndian 4y ago
    Do they even need the T&C to say that? What if their T&C just say something like: "It's illegal to use in the UK, but we don't care if you do it anyway because we have no offices there. Use at your own risk."
- sgjohnson 4y ago
  I also prefer Signal's approach. By walking you remove the possible liability for non-compliance. You can't be non-compliant if you have no presence in a certain country, and internet doesn't really give a shit about lines on a map. By non-complying, legally, you're in the wrong. While such an activism is admirable, I'm going to bet that the UK government is going to throw the book at them if they cause too much hassle.
- pjc50 4y ago
  Frankly given how unworkable it is and how difficult it's going to be to be subject to extra-territorial jurisdiction over this, the easiest strategy is to ignore it. Lots of companies will, the government will whinge a bit, then forget about it. The UK is not the US in terms of enforcing its laws on noncitizens overseas.
francis-io 4y ago
This was one of the few times I emailed my MP, Peter Gibson. I laid out all the reasons why backdooring encryption was a bad idea. I got a response (on very nice thick, embossed paper and green ink) telling me he agrees with me that protecting children online is important and that's why he supports the bill. He clearly didn't read, understand or care what I said. Something needs to be done. When only the stupid, ignorant or corrupt are the ones willing to go into politics then we are doomed.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  >>When only the stupid, ignorant or corrupt are the ones willing to go into politics then we are doomed. People do not like to be told the truth.. so when all people want to hear is lies and talk of utopia, all you will get is lairs and conmen... We are doomed...
  - 9dev 4y ago
    I don’t buy this narrative. We’re only doomed if you just accept we are. People manage! They have before, they will this time. Discouraging them doesn’t help. If that’s all you’re willing to do, better just don’t.
    - phpisthebest 4y ago
      Ignore history at your own peril We are seeing the decline in real time, the documentary from time travlers in idiocracy clearly outlines our future.
  - Clubber 4y ago
    It certainly feels this way sometimes, but I'm hard headed. I know that's exactly how the powerful want us to feel. They want us to give up so they can continue to drain the lifeblood out of civilization freely and without much criticism. It's been this way for decades because we keep voting the same people in. We have to politically revolt and actively vote out the incumbents every time.
- benjaminsky2 4y ago
TheRealDunkirk 4y ago
I like the part where anyone thinks that western leaders are going to be dissuaded from implementing totalitarian restrictions on civil liberties and freedoms by comparing them to "the bad guys." These people didn't get where they are by listening to popular sentiment or upholding integrity and ethics in modern political liberalism. They got there because they were willing to work with their country's "deep state," and what the deep state wants, the deep state gets.
IanCal 4y ago
> the encrypted email service Tutanota, says: "We will not 'walk out' of UK. Would they in any way be required to? > Email services > 1 A user-to-user service is exempt if emails are the only user-generated content (other than identifying content) enabled by the service.
majortennis 4y ago
Never heard of Tutanota but I respect the stance
FpUser 4y ago
>"just like Russia and Iran are already doing." Nice. I like it. They have forgotten longer list of countries that are doing or going to the same thing though. I guess not to dilute the impact of the statement. I do not condone what UK is going to do of course. Just find the argument fishy.
pastacacioepepe 4y ago
Western "democracies" at work. Constantly criticizing foreign dictatorships only to hypocritically play their same game, just a bit slower.
- miroljub 4y ago
  Why is this downvoted? Isn't the UK government one of the prone to look at everyone else from the high horse and criticize the shit out of any "authoritarian regime" while doing the same thing in some of the areas? Heck, the country where I grow up is classified as a "hybrid regime" by the UK government, and yet, they don't even think about implementing encryption backdoors or censoring and blocking any media.
  - pastacacioepepe 4y ago
    > Heck, the country where I grow up is classified as a "hybrid regime" by the UK government, and yet, they don't even think about implementing encryption backdoors or censoring and blocking any media. It's because the patent of democracy was never granted by the west based on a country actual values, but rather on their subservience to the imperialist system that keeps the west in power. We happily partner with dictators if they play our game and disrupt democracies if they don't.
  - isaacremuant 4y ago
    It's downvoted because the propaganda suggests that "it's different when we do it". It works for everything, for atrocities, wars, privacy invasions, freedom curtailment, human rights abuses, police violence, etc.
    - miroljub 4y ago
      > It's downvoted because the propaganda suggests that "it's different when we do it". Isn't it how it always works? When we[1] do it, it's a "humanitarian intervention" or "special military intervention" or "to protect human rights" or "spread democracy" or "prevent genocide" or "protect the women and children", but when they[2] do it, it's an "aggression", "genocide", "atrocities", "crime against humanity". [1][2] feel free to pick any side here, dosen't matter. We == good, they == evil, for any we and they.
jokethrowaway 4y ago
How many more violations of our freedom do we need to fathom before we realise governments are not an efficient way to structure society? Every country is just going to drift towards socialism until it collapses, making sure that the bullies with guns can extract as much value out of the population on the way out. They will take your money and shelter it in some other country poor enough that they still need to offer freedom to attract capital and business. This is not fixable, democracy is a horrible machine that doesn't stop under the disguise of virtue. Your only options is to move to a freer country before it's too late.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  > governments are not an efficient way to structure society What is your proposal? And I don’t mean 20 people living in fishing villages that never fight each other and who don’t have access to all the amazing amenities and technology we have at our disposal.
say_it_as_it_is 4y ago
Does anyone remember LavaBit? The founder of LavaBit refused to comply when the government demanded Snowden emails. It didn't go well for him.
- xtracto 4y ago
  I just read the wiki page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit Chilling. And I found this part extremely sad: >In November 2015, Levison said that work on DIME was still progressing, although slower than he would like.[35] As of July 2016, posts to the Dark Mail Alliance forum suggest that all collaborators have left the project and Ladar has been working on DIME alone. Does it mean young people currently dont care about privacy? If there's one thing I applaud the previous generations and my generation (X) is the activism. People dislike Stallman because of his views, but he has the kind of balls that were needed. Were are the young 20s 30s guys revolting because of this? Were are the new Aaron Schartz, or DeCSS creators, or Napsters of today? Young people need to act and be impulsive.
  - mcsniff 4y ago
    Well perhaps they saw what happened to the likes of Aaron Swartz and decided it wasn't a hill they wanted to *actually* die on. Young people don't need to act, people need to act, and they are. More and more people are simply withdrawing from digital society (and society as a whole) due to overbearing control mechanisms like this. We can see it in the subtexts of almost all current issues impacting society being reported on -- mental health crisis, increases in suicide and drug usage, refusing to work, the breaking down of interpersonal relationships. People are revolting, they're just not doing it in the normal way and I sympathize with them.
  - jacooper 4y ago
    Its sad, but the privacy movement has grown in general, services like ProtonMail or Tutanota wouldn't exist without snowden and people wanting digital privacy. Also this discussion about privacy wouldn't happen if snowden didn't show how important it is, it probably would've been banned right after WhatsApp implemented it. I also think that privacy minded people are a big part of self-hosting enthusiasts.
r3trohack3r 4y ago
I love this approach, reminds me of the approach in Atlas Shrugged: make them show up with guns.
- dennis_jeeves1 4y ago
  When did that happen in AS? Read it decades back...
  - r3trohack3r 4y ago
    Hank realizes that their image is maintained by early compliance, even though every “request” is made under the threat of eventual violence. So he refuses to comply and insists that they show up with guns to take his steel mill. IIRC his approach worked and they yielded until they got dirt on Dagny which they used to blackmail him.
kytazo 4y ago
In tutanota we trust
Yizahi 4y ago
Pfft, when did that stopped autocrats from doing whatever they want? /s Here is what will happen - bill will pass, then no politician will say anything about it, or at minimum won't say the word "ban". But mysteriously Tutanota will see connectivity degradation all across UK as a warning shot. Any inquiries will be met with silence or generic non-answers writing which is a profession of all politicians. Then some kind of whitelisting will start, which will include everyone, except rebels like Tutanota, Proton, Signal and others. E.g. no gov. service will accept their domain as non-compliant. There would be a lot of clever barriers invented for this. And at no point Tutanota would be able to claim they are banned because some traces of access will be left deliberately. Journalists won't pick on this topic and neither would common people. Access will die the "natural" way.
Jiro 4y ago
They're not going to walk out of a jail cell either. When the government bans something, that's not a polite request. It's backed up by men with guns. How they could possibly think they could get away with just not obeying the government is beyond me.
mwagstaff 4y ago
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see where the bill explicitly recommends backdooring encryption? The relevant paragraphs appear to be as follows, but the guidance looks quite vague... 257. The Government needs to provide more clarity on how providers with encrypted services should comply with the safety duties ahead of the Bill being introduced into Parliament. 258. We recommend that end-to-end encryption should be identifed as a specifc risk factor in risk profles and risk assessments. Providers should be required to identify and address risks arising from the encrypted nature of their services under the Safety by Design requirements. Source: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/8206/documents/84092/default/ https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/8206/documents...
cbeach 4y ago
I wonder what connected vehicle manufacturers will do about encryption being compromised in the U.K.? I’m nervous at the prospect of my Tesla communicating in (to all intents and purposes) plaintext with the mothership. The API for that car covers sensitive features that would make the car unsafe if compromised

347 points by ghostDancer 4y ago

judging with what happened with covid lockdowns i don't think the west is afraid anymore to apply authoritarian measures as long as it's correctly advertised in their mind as "for the people's own good". (just like what every dictator ever said all the time as justification)

hgomersall 4y ago
I understand where you're coming from, but is there a pandemic risk that would make lockdowns acceptable? Let's say we had a pandemic with COVID level transmission, a nice long incubation period and 80% death rates, would it then be ok to restrict social interactions? Or do you think it's never justified?
- bsaul 4y ago
  i believe the first lockdown was justified, until we understood what that thing was. That is, 2 months in march/april 2020 in europe. All the rest was pure nonsense, and in large parts due to governments getting their inspiration from china.
  - miroljub 4y ago
    Glad to read a balanced opinion on the internets :) Unfortunately, the loudest are people arguing for the extremes, both "lock down everything or we'll all die" or "you should not enforce any measure under any circumstance" camps.
- oceanplexian 4y ago
  I think this is a pretty tired debate but people who say “is there any extreme hypothetical situation where you’d be willing to give your rights away” are disconnected from the meaning of the word “rights”.
  - hgomersall 4y ago
    So what are your rights? There are loads of things you're not allowed to do. Should you be allowed to do those things?

pattyj 4y ago

Living in and operating out of Germany must make this stance easier for Tutao GmbH. What options are available to organisations in the UK?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jjgreen 4y ago
Defy the law and do the time. Or give up.
johnbaker92 4y ago
[dead]
dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
None unless you want to: 1. Get sued 2. Get a court order to backdoor your encryption 3. Get your doors bashed in by police for non compliance, everything seized, and a criminal case coming your way It's not like one company can fight its own government.
- eptcyka 4y ago
  You get sued - so what? The most they can risk is the ability to have a UK based payment processor bail on them - they can still have customers in the UK, but they'd have to pay via a VPN.
  - Shish2k 4y ago
    > You get sued - so what? Would I be right in assuming that you’ve never been on the receiving end of a government-scale lawsuit?
    - eptcyka 4y ago
      The UK can only ask Germany to 'do something about it'. Courts apply to entities over which they have jurisdiction. UK isn't even in the EU anymore, they have no power over a German mail company.

thr0wnawaytod4y 4y ago

Very clickbaity but leads to some good links

Maxburn 4y ago

I like the attitude and parallels to similar actors; "he must block access to Tutanota - just like Russia and Iran are already doing." But I'm thinking Signal was more along the lines "we don't want to invite litigation". Both send the same message.

miroljub 4y ago
If Signal were a truly open distributed system, instead of relying on a centralized almost closed source server, it would not be possible for any government to block it. And the only thing worse than being blocked, is their "leaving" the country, basically denying the encrypted messaging to the people who need it the most. I wish that matrix got the attention it deserves, but right now, we are still stuck with this "better than nothing" solution called Signal.
- doublebind 4y ago
  While I agree that an open and distributed messaging system (such as Waku[1]) can improve things, it’s not enough. Apple Store and Google Play Store are the true gatekeepers. And governments can request Apple or Google to remove an app from the Store at their will (this has happened before). An app out of these stores has zero possibilities of survival. Average users don’t use (nor want to use) VPNs or hacks to use their phones. [1] https://waku.org/ https://waku.org/
  - Maxburn 4y ago
    Two late thoughts; apple just enabled notifications for web apps in safari. So in theory you could have a messaging app not in the store. Maybe. Not sure what the state of this is in android. Hopefully soon we will have sideloading on ios too.

TamDenholm 4y ago

> If the UK government really wants to follow through with their plans, they need to set up a Great Firewall - just like China - to block their citizens from accessing encrypted services like Tutanota. We (the UK) already have a great firewall. Try to access thepiratebay.org or other pirate sites, or other sites that the UK gov deems inappropriate (CP obviously), etc. Its just a case of encroaching that same system just a little further, step by step. People only tend to fight back when large sweeping one-off changes come in. If you consistently and repeatedly wear the other side down, you eventually get your way. How many times did the house of commons vote on brexit? How many times did the US congress vote on Kevin McCarthy becoming speaker? Yeah, as long as you just keep on and on about it, you get your way.

dom96 4y ago
> Try to access thepiratebay.org or other pirate sites Both my home ISP (hyperoptic) and mobile network (Vodafone) allow me to access it.
raverbashing 4y ago
A weak DNS block is not a "great firewall" Not sure about SNI sniffing as other commenter mentioned and IP block block (erm) I guess it depends on ISP and it's not so clear cut (everybody does it, especially if there's too much abuse from a certain block)
- CommanderData 4y ago
  Incorrect not just a DNS block. IP based aswell.
  - happymellon 4y ago
    Only Virgin appear to IP block. Zen doesn't block it at all.
lapser 4y ago
> Try to access thepiratebay.org or other pirate sites, or other sites that the UK gov deems inappropriate (CP obviously), etc. I don't know about the "other sites", but tpb isn't part of any "Great Firewall". It's just ISPs have been required to update their DNS servers to _not_ resolve the DNS record. Even then, there are still quite a few ISPs that have not implemented it. It's why changing your DNS servers to something like Google or Cloudflare means you can easily access tpb. So blocked websites in the UK are nowhere near on the same level as the Great Firewall. My guess is those other sites are a bit more sophisticated, or if not, ISPs are willing to comply easier.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago

My guess is the more bravado a company shows, the more they are in bed with the security apparatus and have back doors. No CEO wants jail or crippling fines. The honest ones will leave. The dishonest ones will talk a big game and try to attract more users while secretly backdooring. The security services will complain for effect but actually won’t really punish the company since the more people they can drive to the company, the better for them.

867-5309 4y ago
not possible with open source
- patates 4y ago
  How do you make sure that the source you see is the one that's deployed?
  - 867-5309 4y ago
    depends on the party deploying it
  - cesarb 4y ago
    > How do you make sure that the source you see is the one that's deployed? With reproducible builds. Signal has done reproducible builds since 2016 (https://signal.org/blog/reproducible-android/ https://signal.org/blog/reproducible-android/), all you need to do is to get the APK from your device and compare it (see https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/tree/main/reproducible-builds https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/tree/main/reprod... for a detailed step-by-step).
    - patates 4y ago
      The problem is, I have to trust my capability (and the others who actually read the source) to understand that the client doesn't trust the server, as long as I don't deploy the server too myself. Not to mention having to do the same for each update. In a nutshell, at some point, you practically have to trust someone.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

samjmck 4y ago

Weird attempt at bashing Signal.

izacus 4y ago

I mean... Apple will remove them from AppStore and that will be that. It's not like they have a choice of actually bypassing Apples store control.

aimkey 4y ago
Their app is a thin wrapper to their mobile site. With Safari push notifications, they don’t need the App Store. I would guess the App Store isn’t a path of discoverability for them anyways. People find them very intentionally on the web.
mbel 4y ago
It’s an email service, the app isn’t really needed.
- miroljub 4y ago
  The app is needed, since there are no third-party clients that can connect to Tutanota. They use their own secure protocol, and don't support any of SMTP, IMAP, JMAP, POP3 or similar. You are only left with web access, which is not really practical.
  - mbel 4y ago
    I see, thanks for clarification! I glanced though their website and expected a standard set of features including IMAP.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    >>You are only left with web access, which is not really practical. That is the saddest thing to come from Apples insatiable greed... The original iPhone was not going to have apps at all, it was all going to be web pages. There is nothing stopping the browser from being the only app a device needs, nothing other than greed and authoritarian control that is...
    - andsoitis 4y ago

comice 4y ago

Refusing to comply and threatening to walk are just two different approaches to protesting this and it's not clear to me which is the most effective. But I think I trust Signal to know the better approach (whichever they ultimately take - they actually said they'd walk "if the alternative meant undermining our privacy commitments". I don't think it is practical to just refuse to comply with a government like this - especially if you need to charge money (which Tutanota do) and especially if you're nearby, legally speaking (Are Tutanota in Germany?). And given that Signal has "walked" from other authoritarian regimes but people in those countries still have ways to use Signal, I'm still betting on Signal.

londons_explore 4y ago
I think the best strategy is to 'walk' from the country by writing in your T&C's that you don't offer service to the country, shutting down any local office and not doing marketing in the country, but not put any technical restrictions in place.
- MiddleEndian 4y ago
  Do they even need the T&C to say that? What if their T&C just say something like: "It's illegal to use in the UK, but we don't care if you do it anyway because we have no offices there. Use at your own risk."
sgjohnson 4y ago
I also prefer Signal's approach. By walking you remove the possible liability for non-compliance. You can't be non-compliant if you have no presence in a certain country, and internet doesn't really give a shit about lines on a map. By non-complying, legally, you're in the wrong. While such an activism is admirable, I'm going to bet that the UK government is going to throw the book at them if they cause too much hassle.
pjc50 4y ago
Frankly given how unworkable it is and how difficult it's going to be to be subject to extra-territorial jurisdiction over this, the easiest strategy is to ignore it. Lots of companies will, the government will whinge a bit, then forget about it. The UK is not the US in terms of enforcing its laws on noncitizens overseas.

francis-io 4y ago

This was one of the few times I emailed my MP, Peter Gibson. I laid out all the reasons why backdooring encryption was a bad idea. I got a response (on very nice thick, embossed paper and green ink) telling me he agrees with me that protecting children online is important and that's why he supports the bill. He clearly didn't read, understand or care what I said. Something needs to be done. When only the stupid, ignorant or corrupt are the ones willing to go into politics then we are doomed.

phpisthebest 4y ago
>>When only the stupid, ignorant or corrupt are the ones willing to go into politics then we are doomed. People do not like to be told the truth.. so when all people want to hear is lies and talk of utopia, all you will get is lairs and conmen... We are doomed...
- 9dev 4y ago
  I don’t buy this narrative. We’re only doomed if you just accept we are. People manage! They have before, they will this time. Discouraging them doesn’t help. If that’s all you’re willing to do, better just don’t.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    Ignore history at your own peril We are seeing the decline in real time, the documentary from time travlers in idiocracy clearly outlines our future.
- Clubber 4y ago
  It certainly feels this way sometimes, but I'm hard headed. I know that's exactly how the powerful want us to feel. They want us to give up so they can continue to drain the lifeblood out of civilization freely and without much criticism. It's been this way for decades because we keep voting the same people in. We have to politically revolt and actively vote out the incumbents every time.
benjaminsky2 4y ago

TheRealDunkirk 4y ago

I like the part where anyone thinks that western leaders are going to be dissuaded from implementing totalitarian restrictions on civil liberties and freedoms by comparing them to "the bad guys." These people didn't get where they are by listening to popular sentiment or upholding integrity and ethics in modern political liberalism. They got there because they were willing to work with their country's "deep state," and what the deep state wants, the deep state gets.

IanCal 4y ago

> the encrypted email service Tutanota, says: "We will not 'walk out' of UK. Would they in any way be required to? > Email services > 1 A user-to-user service is exempt if emails are the only user-generated content (other than identifying content) enabled by the service.

majortennis 4y ago

Never heard of Tutanota but I respect the stance

FpUser 4y ago

>"just like Russia and Iran are already doing." Nice. I like it. They have forgotten longer list of countries that are doing or going to the same thing though. I guess not to dilute the impact of the statement. I do not condone what UK is going to do of course. Just find the argument fishy.

pastacacioepepe 4y ago

Western "democracies" at work. Constantly criticizing foreign dictatorships only to hypocritically play their same game, just a bit slower.

miroljub 4y ago
Why is this downvoted? Isn't the UK government one of the prone to look at everyone else from the high horse and criticize the shit out of any "authoritarian regime" while doing the same thing in some of the areas? Heck, the country where I grow up is classified as a "hybrid regime" by the UK government, and yet, they don't even think about implementing encryption backdoors or censoring and blocking any media.
- pastacacioepepe 4y ago
  > Heck, the country where I grow up is classified as a "hybrid regime" by the UK government, and yet, they don't even think about implementing encryption backdoors or censoring and blocking any media. It's because the patent of democracy was never granted by the west based on a country actual values, but rather on their subservience to the imperialist system that keeps the west in power. We happily partner with dictators if they play our game and disrupt democracies if they don't.
- isaacremuant 4y ago
  It's downvoted because the propaganda suggests that "it's different when we do it". It works for everything, for atrocities, wars, privacy invasions, freedom curtailment, human rights abuses, police violence, etc.
  - miroljub 4y ago
    > It's downvoted because the propaganda suggests that "it's different when we do it". Isn't it how it always works? When we[1] do it, it's a "humanitarian intervention" or "special military intervention" or "to protect human rights" or "spread democracy" or "prevent genocide" or "protect the women and children", but when they[2] do it, it's an "aggression", "genocide", "atrocities", "crime against humanity". [1][2] feel free to pick any side here, dosen't matter. We == good, they == evil, for any we and they.

jokethrowaway 4y ago

How many more violations of our freedom do we need to fathom before we realise governments are not an efficient way to structure society? Every country is just going to drift towards socialism until it collapses, making sure that the bullies with guns can extract as much value out of the population on the way out. They will take your money and shelter it in some other country poor enough that they still need to offer freedom to attract capital and business. This is not fixable, democracy is a horrible machine that doesn't stop under the disguise of virtue. Your only options is to move to a freer country before it's too late.

andsoitis 4y ago
> governments are not an efficient way to structure society What is your proposal? And I don’t mean 20 people living in fishing villages that never fight each other and who don’t have access to all the amazing amenities and technology we have at our disposal.

say_it_as_it_is 4y ago

Does anyone remember LavaBit? The founder of LavaBit refused to comply when the government demanded Snowden emails. It didn't go well for him.

xtracto 4y ago
I just read the wiki page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit Chilling. And I found this part extremely sad: >In November 2015, Levison said that work on DIME was still progressing, although slower than he would like.[35] As of July 2016, posts to the Dark Mail Alliance forum suggest that all collaborators have left the project and Ladar has been working on DIME alone. Does it mean young people currently dont care about privacy? If there's one thing I applaud the previous generations and my generation (X) is the activism. People dislike Stallman because of his views, but he has the kind of balls that were needed. Were are the young 20s 30s guys revolting because of this? Were are the new Aaron Schartz, or DeCSS creators, or Napsters of today? Young people need to act and be impulsive.
- mcsniff 4y ago
  Well perhaps they saw what happened to the likes of Aaron Swartz and decided it wasn't a hill they wanted to *actually* die on. Young people don't need to act, people need to act, and they are. More and more people are simply withdrawing from digital society (and society as a whole) due to overbearing control mechanisms like this. We can see it in the subtexts of almost all current issues impacting society being reported on -- mental health crisis, increases in suicide and drug usage, refusing to work, the breaking down of interpersonal relationships. People are revolting, they're just not doing it in the normal way and I sympathize with them.
- jacooper 4y ago
  Its sad, but the privacy movement has grown in general, services like ProtonMail or Tutanota wouldn't exist without snowden and people wanting digital privacy. Also this discussion about privacy wouldn't happen if snowden didn't show how important it is, it probably would've been banned right after WhatsApp implemented it. I also think that privacy minded people are a big part of self-hosting enthusiasts.

r3trohack3r 4y ago

I love this approach, reminds me of the approach in Atlas Shrugged: make them show up with guns.

dennis_jeeves1 4y ago
When did that happen in AS? Read it decades back...
- r3trohack3r 4y ago
  Hank realizes that their image is maintained by early compliance, even though every “request” is made under the threat of eventual violence. So he refuses to comply and insists that they show up with guns to take his steel mill. IIRC his approach worked and they yielded until they got dirt on Dagny which they used to blackmail him.

kytazo 4y ago

In tutanota we trust

Yizahi 4y ago

Pfft, when did that stopped autocrats from doing whatever they want? /s Here is what will happen - bill will pass, then no politician will say anything about it, or at minimum won't say the word "ban". But mysteriously Tutanota will see connectivity degradation all across UK as a warning shot. Any inquiries will be met with silence or generic non-answers writing which is a profession of all politicians. Then some kind of whitelisting will start, which will include everyone, except rebels like Tutanota, Proton, Signal and others. E.g. no gov. service will accept their domain as non-compliant. There would be a lot of clever barriers invented for this. And at no point Tutanota would be able to claim they are banned because some traces of access will be left deliberately. Journalists won't pick on this topic and neither would common people. Access will die the "natural" way.

Jiro 4y ago

They're not going to walk out of a jail cell either. When the government bans something, that's not a polite request. It's backed up by men with guns. How they could possibly think they could get away with just not obeying the government is beyond me.

mwagstaff 4y ago

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see where the bill explicitly recommends backdooring encryption? The relevant paragraphs appear to be as follows, but the guidance looks quite vague... 257. The Government needs to provide more clarity on how providers with encrypted services should comply with the safety duties ahead of the Bill being introduced into Parliament. 258. We recommend that end-to-end encryption should be identifed as a specifc risk factor in risk profles and risk assessments. Providers should be required to identify and address risks arising from the encrypted nature of their services under the Safety by Design requirements. Source: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/8206/documents/84092/default/ https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/8206/documents...

cbeach 4y ago

I wonder what connected vehicle manufacturers will do about encryption being compromised in the U.K.? I’m nervous at the prospect of my Tesla communicating in (to all intents and purposes) plaintext with the mothership. The API for that car covers sensitive features that would make the car unsafe if compromised