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The reporting on this is horrific, including by the businesses involved. Absolutely nothing legally was changed. The government put out a press release saying

The reporting on this is horrific, including by the businesses involved. Absolutely nothing legally was changed. The government put out a press release saying some worthless crap, that's the entire thing that happened. edit: sorry, not a press release, sent a minion to read out a non-binding statement, who then confirmed the the law was not actually changed at all: https://www.reuters.com/technology/uk-minister-says-position-encryption-not-changed-2023-09-07/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/uk-minister-says-position...

hathchip 3y ago
So they are trying to get the law passed, despite the obvious objection that message filtering is impossible, by saying "we know it's impossible but we would like to have the legal right to do it in case it becomes possible in the future"?
- bananapub 3y ago
  >they are trying to get the law passed they did pass the law through the lower house. the upper house can demand amendments and stall things a bit, but it can also just be completely ignored given enough time. > despite the obvious objection that message filtering is impossible it's not impossible, it's just a horrificly bad idea, and why would being impossible affect if it gets passed or not? > by saying "we know it's impossible but we would like to have the legal right to do it in case it becomes possible in the future"? no, they issued a press statement saying they won't implement the thing they passed until it's "practical". lots of governments pass lots of laws and regulations and are untruthful about what they'll do later.
  - cbluth 3y ago
    this narrative sounds like an acceptance of a cat n mouse game that has barely got started
    - bananapub 3y ago
      it's not very secret. a bunch of western governments want to be able to spy on the comms of their citizens and lazy terrorists/pedophiles/whatever with poor opsec. basically everyone including normies moving to well-encrypted chat systems makes this very hard (requires court-ordering/NSL/coercing software companies to 0wn their own customers), so instead they want to standardise making it easy for governments. the UK happens to 1) not have a proper constitution with any encoded human rights and also poor judicial review and 2) an inherently authoritarian currently-ruling party and media ecosystem and culture 3) be a UN SC member, Five Eyes member, G7 member, reasonably big economy etc so it's government is in a good spot to push hard on this and see if it can break the will of tech companies, which would be a great technical and social precedent to help other governments achieve the same goal. Australia is also a battleground for this for similar cultural and political and legal reasons. what is less clear is why Signal is saying this is a victory, unless they really are so cynical that saving face while losing is more important than standing up on this point of principle that their company was supposedly founded on.
      - miohtama 3y ago
        Casual spying on citizens is new to Western governments (unless you count East Germany as Western). However in some countries your phone must have mandatory government spyware on your mobile phone and PC: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Dam_Youth_Escort https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Dam_Youth_Escort
        bananapub 3y ago
        > Casual spying on citizens is new to Western governments (unless you count East Germany as Western). depends on "casual" and "new" I guess? Echelon is a dragnet from the 70s, and at least the US, UK and Australian governments spied lots on anti-war protestors and environmentalists and civil rights campaigners and trade unionists. Some Australians wrote a book called "Our ASIO Files" (ASIO is the Australian internal spy/security agency) based on being surveilled during the 80s. > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Dam_Youth_Escort https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Dam_Youth_Escort did you not read the article you've linked? this was never deplpoyed.
  - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
    >lots of governments pass lots of laws and regulations and are untruthful about what they'll do later. If I was giving them the benefit of the doubt I would say they are trying to avoid losing face.
    - tmpX7dMeXU 3y ago
      That’s not how you save face. Genuinely, if nobody said anything about this anymore, basically everyone would forget about it. The privacy nerds that would remember this 6 months from now would be utterly politically immaterially few
    - Ylpertnodi 3y ago
      >they are trying to avoid losing face. After boris johnson, liz truss, not achieving much after 13 years etc, etc, etc I rather suspect saving face is the least of a Tory worry.
    - bananapub 3y ago
      what on earth does that mean? the bill passed: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137 https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137 the entire thing that happened yesterday is a nobody minister (not the actual person in charge of any of this) said they wouldn't do a thing the law allows them to do. they didn't change the law, or pass a regulation or anything, they just did a speech.
  - Aerroon 3y ago
    I'm slowly becoming of the opinion that legislators should be punished for creating laws that are nakedly illegal (against the constitution/human rights that have been agreed upon). I don't know what can of worms it would open, but it's getting tiring when politicians just ignore the public and push forward with laws that then spend 5 years in court battles to eventually be struck down. But for those 5 years their bullshit law is active. Eg EU data retention act.
    - _puk 3y ago
      In a country that doesn't have a written constitution [0] (per se), and is continually trying to renege on what human rights have been agreed [1], what would there be to punish against? 0: https://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/britains-unwritten-constitution https://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/britains-unwritten-co... 1: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/05/tory-mps-to-push-for-uk-exit-from-european-convention-of-human-rights https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/05/tory-mps-to...
      - bananapub 3y ago
        exactly, there's a lot of very weird "Everywhere Is Like The US, Presumably" commenting in this thread
        AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        Presumably the proposal is for the UK and such places to adopt a written constitution guaranteeing certain rights to the population, and then punish government officials for violating it. The most effective version is probably not the ability to sue for damages, but rather that if the highest court rules a law unconstitutional, anyone who voted in favor of it is ineligible to run for reelection. This would both get the perpetrators out of office and make them much more cautious about violating the rights of the population.
      - Aerroon 3y ago
        This issue doesn't only happen in the UK though. And for now the UK is bound by the ECHR.
  - TrueDuality 3y ago
    They said nothing about it being practical. Specifically from the Reuters article: > Junior minister Stephen Parkinson appeared to concede ground to the tech companies' arguments on Wednesday, saying in parliament's upper chamber that the Ofcom communications regulator would only require them to scan content where "technically feasible". What this means is any chat system that isn't using end-to-end encryption is subject to these laws. Anything using end-to-end encryption is considered unfeasible to scan.
    - bananapub 3y ago
      > What this means is any chat system that isn't using end-to-end encryption is subject to these laws. Anything using end-to-end encryption is considered unfeasible to scan. Why are you asserting this is true? Adding a backdoor to an e2e system is technically feasible, what makes you imagine that is excluded?
      - TrueDuality 3y ago
        That is what the press release was specifically about. Additionally, I strongly disagree with your assertion. Adding any kind of scanning system like that is technically infeasible unless you sacrifice some measure of security. The government and many nation states have been trying to argue against encryption of various levels (even less than end-to-end encryption) and the ultimate outcome is it being rejected because all of those measures _meaningfully weaken the security of the system_.
        bananapub 3y ago
        > he ultimate outcome is it being rejected because all of those measures _meaningfully weaken the security of the system_. this is beyond naive. the reason these measures have been rejected is due to public outcry and bad press for the governments trying it. the US banned exporting functional encryption for a long time, Australia passed it's you-must-assist-security-services bill, every country has LI systems embedded in etc etc. the LI systems hugely reduce security, up to and including mass infiltration by the US of an ally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wiretapping_case_2004–05 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wiretapping_case_2004–05 if you think "that'll make things less secure" is actually going to stop these constant attempts to eliminate private communications, you're going to be hugely disappointed by the next ten years.
- pg_1234 3y ago
  Fortunately: With the way the law is going the UK could demand that Tech providers provide backdoors into end-to-end encryption. The providers can refuse. The UK can then demand that such apps are not available in the UK. HOWEVER ... the providers can build WASM equivalents that run in the phones browser. These can be available elsewhere in the world, and there is no way to stop UK residents from installing them. If there is no other way to have end-to-end encrypted messaging, some provider WILL offer this ... and they'll make it pretty slick. You can try prosecute each user (not much chance of success). Legislation that fights well implemented secrecy will always eventually loose, as the government becomes just one more hostile actor, which the tech is already set up to protect against. If the government pushes too hard, all that happens is that encrypted messaging moves out of app stores into the open internet ... and then, not only can they not see the content, they can barely see who is using it.
  - bananapub 3y ago
    > Legislation that fights well implemented secrecy will always eventually loose, as the government becomes just one more hostile actor, which the tech is already set up to protect against. this is a very bad take, especially as governments across the world are all trying to do this exact same thing. the US ban on encryption exports stopped secure encryption being exported for a long time. china's security services have enormous ability to spy on their citizens. Prism/Echelon/etc all existed and worked well. LI is a thing everywhere. this last five-ten years where ~all citizens of rich countries had secure communications is a rare and unusual time, and people are trying quite hard to end it.
  - kwhitefoot 3y ago
    > You can try prosecute each user (not much chance of success). Why would it not be successful?
  - cryptonym 3y ago
    See how China build its own internet and will individually go after people trying to use a VPN.
justin66 3y ago
No human being whatsoever should be surprised when Reuters offers better reporting than The Register.
- Canada 3y ago
  > She said further work to develop the technology was needed, but added that government-funded research had shown it was possible. Wow, she just lies so easily.
  - bananapub 3y ago
    what's the lie? deploying this mass surveillance system is definitely possible.
    - Canada 3y ago
      That government funded research shows safe backdoor can be implemented. There is no question that mass surveillance is possible. It's the government claiming that what it wants tech companies to implement is not mass surveillance.
      - bananapub 3y ago
        > That government funded research shows safe backdoor can be implemented. where did she claim that? the article just says: > "If there was a situation where the mitigations that the social media providers are taking are not enough, and if after further work with the regulator they still can't demonstrate that they can meet the requirements within the bill, then the conversation about technology around encryption takes place," she said. > She said further work to develop the technology was needed, but added that government-funded research had shown it was possible. and what does "safe" even mean?
- pydry 3y ago
  What is wrong with it? The article actually states everything the OP did here. I'm not sure what is missed. From what Ive heard on the grapevine PR flacks hate the Register. That kind of says it all. They dont just republish press releases like Reuters or write neoliberal op eds like the Economist.
curiousllama 3y ago
And yet a few layers deeper, a lot has changed. The bill is dead, and anyone who wants to revive it knows they need significant political capital to do so. Politics ain't tech - a non-binding agreement that signals "we're not going to do this, at least for the next 3-5 years" is a win in politics.
- bananapub 3y ago
  > And yet a few layers deeper, a lot has changed. The bill is dead, and anyone who wants to revive it knows they need significant political capital to do so. > Politics ain't tech - a non-binding agreement that signals "we're not going to do this, at least for the next 3-5 years" is a win in politics. What on earth are you talking about? The bill was passed by the Commons and then will be passed by the Lords and then will become law. https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137 https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137
  - EGreg 3y ago
    Exactly. What are they talking about? Not only will it become law but in 3-5 years they will continue to tighten the screws.
- varispeed 3y ago
  This should be classed as an attempt at violating human rights and possibly other violations. After all this worthless bill cost millions to develop and if people knew it is not workable, then they de facto defrauded the tax payer.
  - bananapub 3y ago
    this is a very silly take, especially in the case of the UK. what little actual legal concept of human rights the UK has is also something the current lunatics in government are trying to eliminate also, though.

hathchip 3y ago

So they are trying to get the law passed, despite the obvious objection that message filtering is impossible, by saying "we know it's impossible but we would like to have the legal right to do it in case it becomes possible in the future"?

bananapub 3y ago
>they are trying to get the law passed they did pass the law through the lower house. the upper house can demand amendments and stall things a bit, but it can also just be completely ignored given enough time. > despite the obvious objection that message filtering is impossible it's not impossible, it's just a horrificly bad idea, and why would being impossible affect if it gets passed or not? > by saying "we know it's impossible but we would like to have the legal right to do it in case it becomes possible in the future"? no, they issued a press statement saying they won't implement the thing they passed until it's "practical". lots of governments pass lots of laws and regulations and are untruthful about what they'll do later.
- cbluth 3y ago
  this narrative sounds like an acceptance of a cat n mouse game that has barely got started
  - bananapub 3y ago
    it's not very secret. a bunch of western governments want to be able to spy on the comms of their citizens and lazy terrorists/pedophiles/whatever with poor opsec. basically everyone including normies moving to well-encrypted chat systems makes this very hard (requires court-ordering/NSL/coercing software companies to 0wn their own customers), so instead they want to standardise making it easy for governments. the UK happens to 1) not have a proper constitution with any encoded human rights and also poor judicial review and 2) an inherently authoritarian currently-ruling party and media ecosystem and culture 3) be a UN SC member, Five Eyes member, G7 member, reasonably big economy etc so it's government is in a good spot to push hard on this and see if it can break the will of tech companies, which would be a great technical and social precedent to help other governments achieve the same goal. Australia is also a battleground for this for similar cultural and political and legal reasons. what is less clear is why Signal is saying this is a victory, unless they really are so cynical that saving face while losing is more important than standing up on this point of principle that their company was supposedly founded on.
    - miohtama 3y ago
      Casual spying on citizens is new to Western governments (unless you count East Germany as Western). However in some countries your phone must have mandatory government spyware on your mobile phone and PC: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Dam_Youth_Escort https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Dam_Youth_Escort
      - bananapub 3y ago
        > Casual spying on citizens is new to Western governments (unless you count East Germany as Western). depends on "casual" and "new" I guess? Echelon is a dragnet from the 70s, and at least the US, UK and Australian governments spied lots on anti-war protestors and environmentalists and civil rights campaigners and trade unionists. Some Australians wrote a book called "Our ASIO Files" (ASIO is the Australian internal spy/security agency) based on being surveilled during the 80s. > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Dam_Youth_Escort https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Dam_Youth_Escort did you not read the article you've linked? this was never deplpoyed.
- tonyedgecombe 3y ago
  >lots of governments pass lots of laws and regulations and are untruthful about what they'll do later. If I was giving them the benefit of the doubt I would say they are trying to avoid losing face.
  - tmpX7dMeXU 3y ago
    That’s not how you save face. Genuinely, if nobody said anything about this anymore, basically everyone would forget about it. The privacy nerds that would remember this 6 months from now would be utterly politically immaterially few
  - Ylpertnodi 3y ago
    >they are trying to avoid losing face. After boris johnson, liz truss, not achieving much after 13 years etc, etc, etc I rather suspect saving face is the least of a Tory worry.
  - bananapub 3y ago
    what on earth does that mean? the bill passed: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137 https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137 the entire thing that happened yesterday is a nobody minister (not the actual person in charge of any of this) said they wouldn't do a thing the law allows them to do. they didn't change the law, or pass a regulation or anything, they just did a speech.
- Aerroon 3y ago
  I'm slowly becoming of the opinion that legislators should be punished for creating laws that are nakedly illegal (against the constitution/human rights that have been agreed upon). I don't know what can of worms it would open, but it's getting tiring when politicians just ignore the public and push forward with laws that then spend 5 years in court battles to eventually be struck down. But for those 5 years their bullshit law is active. Eg EU data retention act.
  - _puk 3y ago
    In a country that doesn't have a written constitution [0] (per se), and is continually trying to renege on what human rights have been agreed [1], what would there be to punish against? 0: https://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/britains-unwritten-constitution https://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/britains-unwritten-co... 1: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/05/tory-mps-to-push-for-uk-exit-from-european-convention-of-human-rights https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/05/tory-mps-to...
    - bananapub 3y ago
      exactly, there's a lot of very weird "Everywhere Is Like The US, Presumably" commenting in this thread
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        Presumably the proposal is for the UK and such places to adopt a written constitution guaranteeing certain rights to the population, and then punish government officials for violating it. The most effective version is probably not the ability to sue for damages, but rather that if the highest court rules a law unconstitutional, anyone who voted in favor of it is ineligible to run for reelection. This would both get the perpetrators out of office and make them much more cautious about violating the rights of the population.
    - Aerroon 3y ago
      This issue doesn't only happen in the UK though. And for now the UK is bound by the ECHR.
- TrueDuality 3y ago
  They said nothing about it being practical. Specifically from the Reuters article: > Junior minister Stephen Parkinson appeared to concede ground to the tech companies' arguments on Wednesday, saying in parliament's upper chamber that the Ofcom communications regulator would only require them to scan content where "technically feasible". What this means is any chat system that isn't using end-to-end encryption is subject to these laws. Anything using end-to-end encryption is considered unfeasible to scan.
  - bananapub 3y ago
    > What this means is any chat system that isn't using end-to-end encryption is subject to these laws. Anything using end-to-end encryption is considered unfeasible to scan. Why are you asserting this is true? Adding a backdoor to an e2e system is technically feasible, what makes you imagine that is excluded?
    - TrueDuality 3y ago
      That is what the press release was specifically about. Additionally, I strongly disagree with your assertion. Adding any kind of scanning system like that is technically infeasible unless you sacrifice some measure of security. The government and many nation states have been trying to argue against encryption of various levels (even less than end-to-end encryption) and the ultimate outcome is it being rejected because all of those measures _meaningfully weaken the security of the system_.
      - bananapub 3y ago
        > he ultimate outcome is it being rejected because all of those measures _meaningfully weaken the security of the system_. this is beyond naive. the reason these measures have been rejected is due to public outcry and bad press for the governments trying it. the US banned exporting functional encryption for a long time, Australia passed it's you-must-assist-security-services bill, every country has LI systems embedded in etc etc. the LI systems hugely reduce security, up to and including mass infiltration by the US of an ally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wiretapping_case_2004–05 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wiretapping_case_2004–05 if you think "that'll make things less secure" is actually going to stop these constant attempts to eliminate private communications, you're going to be hugely disappointed by the next ten years.
pg_1234 3y ago
Fortunately: With the way the law is going the UK could demand that Tech providers provide backdoors into end-to-end encryption. The providers can refuse. The UK can then demand that such apps are not available in the UK. HOWEVER ... the providers can build WASM equivalents that run in the phones browser. These can be available elsewhere in the world, and there is no way to stop UK residents from installing them. If there is no other way to have end-to-end encrypted messaging, some provider WILL offer this ... and they'll make it pretty slick. You can try prosecute each user (not much chance of success). Legislation that fights well implemented secrecy will always eventually loose, as the government becomes just one more hostile actor, which the tech is already set up to protect against. If the government pushes too hard, all that happens is that encrypted messaging moves out of app stores into the open internet ... and then, not only can they not see the content, they can barely see who is using it.
- bananapub 3y ago
  > Legislation that fights well implemented secrecy will always eventually loose, as the government becomes just one more hostile actor, which the tech is already set up to protect against. this is a very bad take, especially as governments across the world are all trying to do this exact same thing. the US ban on encryption exports stopped secure encryption being exported for a long time. china's security services have enormous ability to spy on their citizens. Prism/Echelon/etc all existed and worked well. LI is a thing everywhere. this last five-ten years where ~all citizens of rich countries had secure communications is a rare and unusual time, and people are trying quite hard to end it.
- kwhitefoot 3y ago
  > You can try prosecute each user (not much chance of success). Why would it not be successful?
- cryptonym 3y ago
  See how China build its own internet and will individually go after people trying to use a VPN.

justin66 3y ago

No human being whatsoever should be surprised when Reuters offers better reporting than The Register.

Canada 3y ago
> She said further work to develop the technology was needed, but added that government-funded research had shown it was possible. Wow, she just lies so easily.
- bananapub 3y ago
  what's the lie? deploying this mass surveillance system is definitely possible.
  - Canada 3y ago
    That government funded research shows safe backdoor can be implemented. There is no question that mass surveillance is possible. It's the government claiming that what it wants tech companies to implement is not mass surveillance.
    - bananapub 3y ago
      > That government funded research shows safe backdoor can be implemented. where did she claim that? the article just says: > "If there was a situation where the mitigations that the social media providers are taking are not enough, and if after further work with the regulator they still can't demonstrate that they can meet the requirements within the bill, then the conversation about technology around encryption takes place," she said. > She said further work to develop the technology was needed, but added that government-funded research had shown it was possible. and what does "safe" even mean?
pydry 3y ago
What is wrong with it? The article actually states everything the OP did here. I'm not sure what is missed. From what Ive heard on the grapevine PR flacks hate the Register. That kind of says it all. They dont just republish press releases like Reuters or write neoliberal op eds like the Economist.

curiousllama 3y ago

And yet a few layers deeper, a lot has changed. The bill is dead, and anyone who wants to revive it knows they need significant political capital to do so. Politics ain't tech - a non-binding agreement that signals "we're not going to do this, at least for the next 3-5 years" is a win in politics.

bananapub 3y ago
> And yet a few layers deeper, a lot has changed. The bill is dead, and anyone who wants to revive it knows they need significant political capital to do so. > Politics ain't tech - a non-binding agreement that signals "we're not going to do this, at least for the next 3-5 years" is a win in politics. What on earth are you talking about? The bill was passed by the Commons and then will be passed by the Lords and then will become law. https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137 https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137
- EGreg 3y ago
  Exactly. What are they talking about? Not only will it become law but in 3-5 years they will continue to tighten the screws.
varispeed 3y ago
This should be classed as an attempt at violating human rights and possibly other violations. After all this worthless bill cost millions to develop and if people knew it is not workable, then they de facto defrauded the tax payer.
- bananapub 3y ago
  this is a very silly take, especially in the case of the UK. what little actual legal concept of human rights the UK has is also something the current lunatics in government are trying to eliminate also, though.