6 ms·

King Charles III signs off on Online Safety Act with unenforceable spying clause

93 points by LinuxBender 3y ago

sgjohnson 3y ago
The title should probably be changed to “UK enacts Online Safety Act…” or something for the benefit of those who don't know that this is exactly what's expected of the monarch. “King Charles III signs off” is a perfectly ordinary part of the legislative process. Royal Assent has been granted 100% of the time in probably the last 1000 years. I’m not going to search when was the last time royal assent was not granted, but I’m somewhat certain it was before 1600s. Edit: looked it up after all. Royal Assent was last withheld in 1708.
- acheron 3y ago
  Was going to say, I thought I remembered it was Queen Anne. (Not British but it’s just one of those trivia things I learned somewhere.)
- midasuni 3y ago
  It’s the register, an outlet that makes the daily star look like a bastion of journalism. What do you expect.
  - DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
    El Reg is irreverent and intentionally apes British tabloids, sure - but their journalism is fine. MediaBiasFactCheck rates them as "High" on their factuality scale: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-register-uk/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-register-uk/ (though MediaBasFactCheck's statement that "we rate The Register Least Biased based on minimal editorializing" seems to be based on their lack of a political bias, but El Reg is certainly biased towards iconoclasm, but that's the way I like 'em)
    - ghaff 3y ago
      And this has sort of been a historical thing with, actually, some of the better UK tech trade press. It's often deliberately provocative and snarky, but that doesn't make it wrong, and indeed may be insightful in the way that more staid publications aren't. Add to that the fact that headlines often tease and provoke on their own (as they did before there were clicks much of the time).
    - tentacleuno 3y ago
      > but El Reg is certainly biased towards iconoclasm That seems like a strange perspective. Isn't the whole point of a news source not to be editorially biased? They give you the facts, and you use those facts to draw your own conclusion(s).
      - bananapub 3y ago
        > That seems like a strange perspective. Isn't the whole point of a news source not to be editorially biased? They give you the facts, and you use those facts to draw your own conclusion(s). er...what? what news source do you feel does this?
        defrost 3y ago
        Various subscription industry intelligence news feeds that hold to unbiased standards. Eg: Minerals and Resources sector feeds that endeavour to convey all the relevant factoids in the industry domain - "On <this date> <that company> stated <something>". That's a verifiable fact stated baldly - it's readily provable whether or not a listed company released a statement .. and there is nothing there about whether what the company claimed in their statement was "true". Later that same feed might release a third party independant technical report that may or may not support the claim made. Two weeks later the feed might report that an employee at the third party company was arrested for fraud.
        DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
        > factoids That word does not mean what you think it means. The "-oid" suffix denotes a thing that seems like X, but is not X (e.g. "asteroid" -> "seems like a star, but is not a star (it's a space-rock) - or "cuboid": "seems like a cube, but is not a cube".
  - sgjohnson 3y ago
    There is nothing wrong at all with that headline for British audience, because virtually nobody in the UK is going to interpet it as “King Charles endorses [...]”. International audience might interpret it exactly like that.
    - midasuni 3y ago
      As someone who is British I would disagree. Their content may be fine, but the headline nonsense turned me off the register nearly 20 years ago
  - dawidpotocki 3y ago
    Personally, my experience with The Register has been nothing but positive. When all the websites were reporting on my "discovery" of a security issue, The Register has been the first (by over a week) and one of the few to ask me by email about the details and the only to publish article with correct information. I know they weren't rushing to publish it as they were far from the first. Also they have been fast to respond back. Some other website that I will not name have made a lot of mistakes in their reporting and when asked for fixing, the reporter replied 3 days later and complained that my article has been too complicated! I also have a small suspision that they copy-pasted it from some much smaller website without mentioning it, as that website published earlier than them and had the same exact mistakes, which were very hard to make, unless you decided to skip random paragraphs and stop in the middle. All the other websites have copied from that one without ever checking the authoritative source that was my article and I know this because I explicitly had put a warning to clarify the misinformation :). Some other big website emailed me after all the other ones have published and I answered their questions and I even told them to not put X as a title as that's not what the issue is about as I saw others doing that. Guess what? They did that exact title :).
- progne 3y ago
  If he can withhold assent then he is somewhat responsible for the result. What would happen if he tried?
  - quink 3y ago
    End of the monarchy. No fanfare, no big drama, just OK, bye, we’ve got an election for president to organise. Especially after Brexit the British people have learned the lesson of fucking around for years when it comes to any change, this will happen with lightning speed and determination.
  - _fizz_buzz_ 3y ago
    End of the British monarchy probably.
    - anticensor 3y ago
      Welcome to the United States of Britain.
  - jeffparsons 3y ago
    The monarchy might not last very long if it were to actually exercise much of its theoretical power. UK folks love their royalty these days as a kind of mascot, but I doubt they'd tolerate an interventionist king.
    - morelisp 3y ago
      I mean, if we lose the law and the king, seems like win/win?
      - blibble 3y ago
        the result would be we'd end up with the law and William as king
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    If he practically can’t and acts only as a PR figleaf as long as he is King, he’s still responsible.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- clnq 3y ago
  It’s The Register, a tech tabloid. You can trust that almost every headline is exaggerated for clicks to the very edge of truthfulness.
- cam_l 3y ago
  Unless it concerns his property. In which case it is questioned before it is even tabled. There is always a loophole.. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/royals-vetted-more-than-1000-laws-via-queens-consent https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/royals-vette...
walterbell 3y ago
The requirements of the UK Act and EU Chat Control draft legislation would be enforceable with client-side scanning on devices which have silicon support for AI inference. At present, this includes Apple iPhones and Apple Silicon Macs that have an underutilized Bionic Engine. Starting in 2023, AMD 7000-series Ryzen laptop CPUs have silicon for AI inference. Starting in 2024, Intel Meteor Lake laptop CPUs will have silicon for AI inference. Starting in 2024, Qualcomm Oryon Arm Windows laptops will compete with Apple Silicon M3 laptops for price/performance, likely including silicon for AI inference. If the requirements of the act become technically enforceable on most new laptops and flagship phones sold in 2024, then enforcement policy will depend on non-technical considerations, including industry and market response to new vs. old hardware. EU has draft legislation to stop the sale of all operating system and hypervisor binaries which are not officially accredited. If there are only a limited number of operating systems available in the market, then client-side scanning can be made a legal requirement for accredited distribution of commercial binaries. Client silicon for AI inference can use WiFi 7 Sensing radar to measure a biometric signature for humans, e.g. breathing rate, typing motion. Will every country allow tech companies to sample human biometric data via RF? Can human identity be cross-referenced with client-side scanning?
kypro 3y ago
I see a lot of people saying offensive things on UK sub-Reddits, often about Muslims, but sometimes about the French too. It's frightening just how much illegal speech is said in plain sight... There was a video I saw circling on Twitter earlier of a hateful guy being critical of Islam and even going so far as to suggest Muhammad was pedophile... Thankfully he was swiftly attacked by those he offended and subsequently arrested for his hatefulness, but just imagine how many hateful things like this are said behind closed doors every day. The amount of offensive things said to English footballers on Twitter during the world cup was horrible for example.
- lannisterstark 3y ago
  > There was a video I saw circling on Twitter earlier of a hateful guy being critical of Islam and even going so far as to suggest Muhammad was pedophile... Thankfully he was swiftly attacked by those he offended and subsequently arrested for his hatefulness, Lol wtf. None of that should be "illegal speech." Criticizing or hating others should never be illegal. Abhorrent and discouraging, yes. Illegal, no. Similarly, calling Muhammad or whatever divine figure a pedophile should be (and is) allowed in nation-states that respect your freedom of expression. Imagine calling for someone's arrest and praising attacks on person who hurt your religious feelings. > but just imagine how many hateful things like this are said behind closed doors every day. Your comment implies that you want to police what others do in their own houses in their private time, on private platforms like Signal. That is absurd. Do you want to attach a bug in people's houses to monitor "Hateful speech/conduct" as well? I am constantly baffled how many authoritarian POVs hackernews tends to attract these days.
- HideousKojima 3y ago
  >There was a video I saw circling on Twitter earlier of a hateful guy being critical of Islam and even going so far as to suggest Muhammad was pedophile... I mean I'm not sure what else you should call people that have sex with nine-year-olds? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisha https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisha
  - pixxel 3y ago
miki123211 3y ago
> Our position remains firm: we will continue to do whatever we can to ensure people in the UK can use Signal. But if the choice came down to being forced to build a backdoor, or leaving, we'd leave." This is an interesting position to take. They built censorship-resistance technology to make Signal work in countries like Iran, Russia or China, but want to leave the UK without even putting up a fight?
- manonthewall 3y ago
  they don't have the resources to fight it. Perhaps the British equivalent of the EFF would be willing to loan them a few lawyers though.
catlover76 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Charles_III_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Charles_III_(film)
switch007 3y ago
All you have to do is wait for the next crisis for a distraction

93 points by LinuxBender 3y ago

The title should probably be changed to “UK enacts Online Safety Act…” or something for the benefit of those who don't know that this is exactly what's expected of the monarch. “King Charles III signs off” is a perfectly ordinary part of the legislative process. Royal Assent has been granted 100% of the time in probably the last 1000 years. I’m not going to search when was the last time royal assent was not granted, but I’m somewhat certain it was before 1600s. Edit: looked it up after all. Royal Assent was last withheld in 1708.

acheron 3y ago
Was going to say, I thought I remembered it was Queen Anne. (Not British but it’s just one of those trivia things I learned somewhere.)
midasuni 3y ago
It’s the register, an outlet that makes the daily star look like a bastion of journalism. What do you expect.
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
  El Reg is irreverent and intentionally apes British tabloids, sure - but their journalism is fine. MediaBiasFactCheck rates them as "High" on their factuality scale: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-register-uk/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-register-uk/ (though MediaBasFactCheck's statement that "we rate The Register Least Biased based on minimal editorializing" seems to be based on their lack of a political bias, but El Reg is certainly biased towards iconoclasm, but that's the way I like 'em)
  - ghaff 3y ago
    And this has sort of been a historical thing with, actually, some of the better UK tech trade press. It's often deliberately provocative and snarky, but that doesn't make it wrong, and indeed may be insightful in the way that more staid publications aren't. Add to that the fact that headlines often tease and provoke on their own (as they did before there were clicks much of the time).
  - tentacleuno 3y ago
    > but El Reg is certainly biased towards iconoclasm That seems like a strange perspective. Isn't the whole point of a news source not to be editorially biased? They give you the facts, and you use those facts to draw your own conclusion(s).
    - bananapub 3y ago
      > That seems like a strange perspective. Isn't the whole point of a news source not to be editorially biased? They give you the facts, and you use those facts to draw your own conclusion(s). er...what? what news source do you feel does this?
      - defrost 3y ago
        Various subscription industry intelligence news feeds that hold to unbiased standards. Eg: Minerals and Resources sector feeds that endeavour to convey all the relevant factoids in the industry domain - "On <this date> <that company> stated <something>". That's a verifiable fact stated baldly - it's readily provable whether or not a listed company released a statement .. and there is nothing there about whether what the company claimed in their statement was "true". Later that same feed might release a third party independant technical report that may or may not support the claim made. Two weeks later the feed might report that an employee at the third party company was arrested for fraud.
        DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
        > factoids That word does not mean what you think it means. The "-oid" suffix denotes a thing that seems like X, but is not X (e.g. "asteroid" -> "seems like a star, but is not a star (it's a space-rock) - or "cuboid": "seems like a cube, but is not a cube".
- sgjohnson 3y ago
  There is nothing wrong at all with that headline for British audience, because virtually nobody in the UK is going to interpet it as “King Charles endorses [...]”. International audience might interpret it exactly like that.
  - midasuni 3y ago
    As someone who is British I would disagree. Their content may be fine, but the headline nonsense turned me off the register nearly 20 years ago
- dawidpotocki 3y ago
  Personally, my experience with The Register has been nothing but positive. When all the websites were reporting on my "discovery" of a security issue, The Register has been the first (by over a week) and one of the few to ask me by email about the details and the only to publish article with correct information. I know they weren't rushing to publish it as they were far from the first. Also they have been fast to respond back. Some other website that I will not name have made a lot of mistakes in their reporting and when asked for fixing, the reporter replied 3 days later and complained that my article has been too complicated! I also have a small suspision that they copy-pasted it from some much smaller website without mentioning it, as that website published earlier than them and had the same exact mistakes, which were very hard to make, unless you decided to skip random paragraphs and stop in the middle. All the other websites have copied from that one without ever checking the authoritative source that was my article and I know this because I explicitly had put a warning to clarify the misinformation :). Some other big website emailed me after all the other ones have published and I answered their questions and I even told them to not put X as a title as that's not what the issue is about as I saw others doing that. Guess what? They did that exact title :).
progne 3y ago
If he can withhold assent then he is somewhat responsible for the result. What would happen if he tried?
- quink 3y ago
  End of the monarchy. No fanfare, no big drama, just OK, bye, we’ve got an election for president to organise. Especially after Brexit the British people have learned the lesson of fucking around for years when it comes to any change, this will happen with lightning speed and determination.
- _fizz_buzz_ 3y ago
  End of the British monarchy probably.
  - anticensor 3y ago
    Welcome to the United States of Britain.
- jeffparsons 3y ago
  The monarchy might not last very long if it were to actually exercise much of its theoretical power. UK folks love their royalty these days as a kind of mascot, but I doubt they'd tolerate an interventionist king.
  - morelisp 3y ago
    I mean, if we lose the law and the king, seems like win/win?
    - blibble 3y ago
      the result would be we'd end up with the law and William as king
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  If he practically can’t and acts only as a PR figleaf as long as he is King, he’s still responsible.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
clnq 3y ago
It’s The Register, a tech tabloid. You can trust that almost every headline is exaggerated for clicks to the very edge of truthfulness.
cam_l 3y ago
Unless it concerns his property. In which case it is questioned before it is even tabled. There is always a loophole.. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/royals-vetted-more-than-1000-laws-via-queens-consent https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/royals-vette...

walterbell 3y ago

The requirements of the UK Act and EU Chat Control draft legislation would be enforceable with client-side scanning on devices which have silicon support for AI inference. At present, this includes Apple iPhones and Apple Silicon Macs that have an underutilized Bionic Engine. Starting in 2023, AMD 7000-series Ryzen laptop CPUs have silicon for AI inference. Starting in 2024, Intel Meteor Lake laptop CPUs will have silicon for AI inference. Starting in 2024, Qualcomm Oryon Arm Windows laptops will compete with Apple Silicon M3 laptops for price/performance, likely including silicon for AI inference. If the requirements of the act become technically enforceable on most new laptops and flagship phones sold in 2024, then enforcement policy will depend on non-technical considerations, including industry and market response to new vs. old hardware. EU has draft legislation to stop the sale of all operating system and hypervisor binaries which are not officially accredited. If there are only a limited number of operating systems available in the market, then client-side scanning can be made a legal requirement for accredited distribution of commercial binaries. Client silicon for AI inference can use WiFi 7 Sensing radar to measure a biometric signature for humans, e.g. breathing rate, typing motion. Will every country allow tech companies to sample human biometric data via RF? Can human identity be cross-referenced with client-side scanning?

kypro 3y ago

I see a lot of people saying offensive things on UK sub-Reddits, often about Muslims, but sometimes about the French too. It's frightening just how much illegal speech is said in plain sight... There was a video I saw circling on Twitter earlier of a hateful guy being critical of Islam and even going so far as to suggest Muhammad was pedophile... Thankfully he was swiftly attacked by those he offended and subsequently arrested for his hatefulness, but just imagine how many hateful things like this are said behind closed doors every day. The amount of offensive things said to English footballers on Twitter during the world cup was horrible for example.

lannisterstark 3y ago
> There was a video I saw circling on Twitter earlier of a hateful guy being critical of Islam and even going so far as to suggest Muhammad was pedophile... Thankfully he was swiftly attacked by those he offended and subsequently arrested for his hatefulness, Lol wtf. None of that should be "illegal speech." Criticizing or hating others should never be illegal. Abhorrent and discouraging, yes. Illegal, no. Similarly, calling Muhammad or whatever divine figure a pedophile should be (and is) allowed in nation-states that respect your freedom of expression. Imagine calling for someone's arrest and praising attacks on person who hurt your religious feelings. > but just imagine how many hateful things like this are said behind closed doors every day. Your comment implies that you want to police what others do in their own houses in their private time, on private platforms like Signal. That is absurd. Do you want to attach a bug in people's houses to monitor "Hateful speech/conduct" as well? I am constantly baffled how many authoritarian POVs hackernews tends to attract these days.
HideousKojima 3y ago
>There was a video I saw circling on Twitter earlier of a hateful guy being critical of Islam and even going so far as to suggest Muhammad was pedophile... I mean I'm not sure what else you should call people that have sex with nine-year-olds? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisha https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisha
- pixxel 3y ago

miki123211 3y ago

> Our position remains firm: we will continue to do whatever we can to ensure people in the UK can use Signal. But if the choice came down to being forced to build a backdoor, or leaving, we'd leave." This is an interesting position to take. They built censorship-resistance technology to make Signal work in countries like Iran, Russia or China, but want to leave the UK without even putting up a fight?

manonthewall 3y ago
they don't have the resources to fight it. Perhaps the British equivalent of the EFF would be willing to loan them a few lawyers though.

catlover76 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Charles_III_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Charles_III_(film)

switch007 3y ago

All you have to do is wait for the next crisis for a distraction