4 ms·

Fundamentally, encryption is just math, and math is still mostly legal in the UK. There seems to be an obvious workaround here: - It's not illegal to supply so

by bloppe 3y ago

Fundamentally, encryption is just math, and math is still mostly legal in the UK. There seems to be an obvious workaround here: - It's not illegal to supply someone with an E2E encryption tool like OpenPGP. - It's not illegal to provide a messaging service. - The OSB seems to make it illegal to provide both of these things in a single package. So there is now a bit of friction involved for anyone who wants E2E communication in the UK, but there doesn't have to be that much friction. You just need separate legal entities to provide you with the 2 tools involved (the encryption tool and the messaging service), and you need to keep track of your own private keys. Sure, the vast majority of people will not bother with this, but it's really not enough friction to stop even the casually motivated; i.e. anybody involved in anything even remotely illegal. I'd applaud the implementation of a maximally convenient system like this, just to lay bare the idiocy of this law.

kwhitefoot 3y ago
It's not yet illegal to supply someone with an E2E encryption tool like OpenPGP. People are concentrating on the technicalities of implementation and completely missing the point that a substantial fraction of the UK population appears to think that pervasive surveillance is the solution to crime of all kinds. That it might or might not be feasible while still allowing people to have secure communications is not really relevant because there are enough people who would be quite happy for their communications to be less secure just so long as one more paedophile or protester can be brought to justice.
PhilipRoman 3y ago
This only works if the judge actually cares about what is written in the law. Might work in the USA but hardly anywhere else.
gwnywg 3y ago
Maybe I'm wrong but who can stop you or me from deploying VPN and providing secure comms channel to our families? surely, any user who encrypts their comms is suspicious to govt, but there needs to be something more than suspicion for govt to step in and tell me I can't encrypt my traffic?
matheusmoreira 3y ago
They'll just make your resistance to monitoring a crime unto itself. Used PGP? They'll make it so the judge is allowed to just assume your guilt and sentence you as if concrete proof had been presented. You'll have to decrypt to prove your innocence. Hiding something with cryptography? You're obviously a mass murdering child molesting money laundering drug trafficking terrorist and it's off to the gulag with you unless you show us the decrypted bits and it turns out there's nothing of interest in there.

by bloppe 3y ago

kwhitefoot 3y ago

It's not yet illegal to supply someone with an E2E encryption tool like OpenPGP. People are concentrating on the technicalities of implementation and completely missing the point that a substantial fraction of the UK population appears to think that pervasive surveillance is the solution to crime of all kinds. That it might or might not be feasible while still allowing people to have secure communications is not really relevant because there are enough people who would be quite happy for their communications to be less secure just so long as one more paedophile or protester can be brought to justice.

PhilipRoman 3y ago

This only works if the judge actually cares about what is written in the law. Might work in the USA but hardly anywhere else.

gwnywg 3y ago

Maybe I'm wrong but who can stop you or me from deploying VPN and providing secure comms channel to our families? surely, any user who encrypts their comms is suspicious to govt, but there needs to be something more than suspicion for govt to step in and tell me I can't encrypt my traffic?

matheusmoreira 3y ago

They'll just make your resistance to monitoring a crime unto itself. Used PGP? They'll make it so the judge is allowed to just assume your guilt and sentence you as if concrete proof had been presented. You'll have to decrypt to prove your innocence. Hiding something with cryptography? You're obviously a mass murdering child molesting money laundering drug trafficking terrorist and it's off to the gulag with you unless you show us the decrypted bits and it turns out there's nothing of interest in there.