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Crime statistics are difficult. England & Wales (because policing is a devolved matter in the UK) have very robust crime recording rules. Consequently, the det

Crime statistics are difficult. England & Wales (because policing is a devolved matter in the UK) have very robust crime recording rules. Consequently, the detection rates are low because you record and close crimes where there is literally no prospect of a conviction. You compare this to, say, Japan, where an investigation only starts if it’s likely that the crime will be solved, and you have an explanation for why detections seem comparatively poor. There is also the fact that, despite TVs assertion to the contrary, that solving crime is not easy and it is also true that being able to operate a fully encrypted communication system makes it harder as you rely on mistakes. As we saw with Encro, criminal groups with Signal and modern iPhones can communicate with gay abandon if they maintain decent opsec.

WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
> that solving crime is not easy True. In a healthy society, policing is hard. > and it is also true that being able to operate a fully encrypted communication system makes it harder as you rely on mistakes. Yes. You are describing actual police work; it is how things have always been. Because this was true before robust encryption, we know encryption doesn't change the equation and can be safely omitted from your assertion. > As we saw with Encro, criminal groups with Signal and modern iPhones can communicate with gay abandon if they maintain decent opsec. Governments have never had realtime access to our communications. Humans' communications have been private for as long as there has been language. Privacy is good for us and is better than all other alternatives. Robust encryption is how we maintain that natural, neutral, healthy default. Otherwise, we're talking about gifting new, unprecedented surveillance powers to officials, politicians and their powerful allies. Massive power. Over us. At which point we are less safe.
- wagwang 1y ago
  OK but given that only a tiny fraction of crime is solved, then why does the UK have huge prohibitions from carrying things to defend yourself, like even pepper spray?
  - dan-robertson 1y ago
    You aren’t allowed to attack someone for trying to steal from you so I don’t see how this is relevant to a thread about theft.
    - GJim 1y ago
      > You aren’t allowed to attack someone for trying to steal from you Please don't spout Daily Mail rubbish. Not only is this a demonstrably false comment, it is an idiotic one.
      - southernplaces7 1y ago
        You're the one whose being dishonest here, at least partly. From what I've read of self-defense laws in the UK, you can use "reasonable" force to defend yourself against attack (try measuring that precisely in the heat of a moment where you don't know your attacker's aims) but yes, you can actually be prosecuted for using force against someone trying to steal from you. Even something as shitty as a google search will show that your claim is demonstratable untrue.
- multjoy 1y ago
  > Yes. You are describing actual police work; it is how things have always been. No, it hasn’t. Criminals haven’t always had access to literally uncrackable encryption, both messaging and voice, in a manner that is impossible to attribute to an individual handset or terminal. Regardless of whether you’re for or against it, you have to admit that this is a boon for criminals as much as it is for everyone else. Encro failed because the Dutch got all up in their servers (and the owners, who I suspect are now dead as a result, pretended it hadn’t happened) - e2e encryption bypasses that vulnerability.
  - WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
    >> Yes. You are describing actual police work; it is how things have always been. > No, it hasn’t. Criminals haven’t always had access to literally uncrackable encryption, As a preamble, police already have a vast array of new avenues of surveilling citizens. They have this now and it gives them massively more access to our private data/comms, than ever before. There is little that LEO/Govs/Corps don't have access to already. Police have never had at-will access to any personal data and communications they desired. Until very recently: To find info they wanted, police performed police work and commonly found some degree of what they were looking for. But often it was nothing. Under this, society thrived. What police have right now is massively more than that. In the few spaces where some content might be denied them, they still have the associated metadata which is valuable on it's own (often more so than the contents). Historically, you and I have always had options and methods of keeping our personal info and our private comms out of the reach of police, govs and other powerful actors. It was good for us and promoted a healthy society. We have lost most of that. However, using robust encryption we can keep a minuscule portion of our total comms and data out of their trivial reach. What little it is - it is still good for us. Historical privacy was what we had. Under that condition, societies were healthy and thriving. Persistent, pervasive surveillance is what we're moving (rapidly) toward. It promotes other types of societies.
    - multjoy 1y ago
      >Police have never had at-will access to any personal data and communications they desired. Wiretaps, postal interference. None of it was routine, but the tactic for dealing with serious criminality was still there. >Historically, you and I have always had options and methods of keeping our personal info and our private comms out of the reach of police, govs and other powerful actors. It was good for us and promoted a healthy society. No you haven't. It is only until very recently that iPhones (less so android devices) have been basically uncrackable (notwithstanding NSA/GCHQ level tactics that aren't going to be used for criminal investigations) and, coupled with end to end encryption, you have a communications system for which their is no practical method of compromise. It is very good for the citizen, but you cannot argue for it without also acknowledging that it is incredibly advantageous for the criminal. It is without precedent in human history. I'm not saying that the police should be able to backdoor everything useful, because that's nonsense. What I'm pointing out is that once you realise that your suspects understand how to use signal and how to use a VPN and how to maintain some sort of operational discipline (and this isn't a high threshold), then your crimes become incredibly hard to solve even with a perfectly executed investigation and this is reflected in the clear-up rate.
tsukikage 1y ago
How does insurance for stolen property work in Japan? Do the insurers not require evidence that the theft has been reported to the police, as they do here? Or do those reports not form part of the Japanese crime statistics, and if so, what would those look like if they did? Or is something else going on?
ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
I simply don't believe this. Any one crime is hard to solve but the same criminals are doing most of the crime, so if policing were effective you'd still see closure rates. >if they maintain decent opsec. don't believe this either. no one has ever maintained decent opsec.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  Nobody you've read about has ever maintained decent opsec. There's tons of people who started as petty criminals who made it to mid ranks, got old and got out before they got killed or got caught.
  - ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
    >Nobody you've read about has ever maintained decent opsec Very good point. I do think the number rounds to zero, but yes there is a data bias here.

WarOnPrivacy 1y ago

> that solving crime is not easy True. In a healthy society, policing is hard. > and it is also true that being able to operate a fully encrypted communication system makes it harder as you rely on mistakes. Yes. You are describing actual police work; it is how things have always been. Because this was true before robust encryption, we know encryption doesn't change the equation and can be safely omitted from your assertion. > As we saw with Encro, criminal groups with Signal and modern iPhones can communicate with gay abandon if they maintain decent opsec. Governments have never had realtime access to our communications. Humans' communications have been private for as long as there has been language. Privacy is good for us and is better than all other alternatives. Robust encryption is how we maintain that natural, neutral, healthy default. Otherwise, we're talking about gifting new, unprecedented surveillance powers to officials, politicians and their powerful allies. Massive power. Over us. At which point we are less safe.

wagwang 1y ago
OK but given that only a tiny fraction of crime is solved, then why does the UK have huge prohibitions from carrying things to defend yourself, like even pepper spray?
- dan-robertson 1y ago
  You aren’t allowed to attack someone for trying to steal from you so I don’t see how this is relevant to a thread about theft.
  - GJim 1y ago
    > You aren’t allowed to attack someone for trying to steal from you Please don't spout Daily Mail rubbish. Not only is this a demonstrably false comment, it is an idiotic one.
    - southernplaces7 1y ago
      You're the one whose being dishonest here, at least partly. From what I've read of self-defense laws in the UK, you can use "reasonable" force to defend yourself against attack (try measuring that precisely in the heat of a moment where you don't know your attacker's aims) but yes, you can actually be prosecuted for using force against someone trying to steal from you. Even something as shitty as a google search will show that your claim is demonstratable untrue.
multjoy 1y ago
> Yes. You are describing actual police work; it is how things have always been. No, it hasn’t. Criminals haven’t always had access to literally uncrackable encryption, both messaging and voice, in a manner that is impossible to attribute to an individual handset or terminal. Regardless of whether you’re for or against it, you have to admit that this is a boon for criminals as much as it is for everyone else. Encro failed because the Dutch got all up in their servers (and the owners, who I suspect are now dead as a result, pretended it hadn’t happened) - e2e encryption bypasses that vulnerability.
- WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
  >> Yes. You are describing actual police work; it is how things have always been. > No, it hasn’t. Criminals haven’t always had access to literally uncrackable encryption, As a preamble, police already have a vast array of new avenues of surveilling citizens. They have this now and it gives them massively more access to our private data/comms, than ever before. There is little that LEO/Govs/Corps don't have access to already. Police have never had at-will access to any personal data and communications they desired. Until very recently: To find info they wanted, police performed police work and commonly found some degree of what they were looking for. But often it was nothing. Under this, society thrived. What police have right now is massively more than that. In the few spaces where some content might be denied them, they still have the associated metadata which is valuable on it's own (often more so than the contents). Historically, you and I have always had options and methods of keeping our personal info and our private comms out of the reach of police, govs and other powerful actors. It was good for us and promoted a healthy society. We have lost most of that. However, using robust encryption we can keep a minuscule portion of our total comms and data out of their trivial reach. What little it is - it is still good for us. Historical privacy was what we had. Under that condition, societies were healthy and thriving. Persistent, pervasive surveillance is what we're moving (rapidly) toward. It promotes other types of societies.
  - multjoy 1y ago
    >Police have never had at-will access to any personal data and communications they desired. Wiretaps, postal interference. None of it was routine, but the tactic for dealing with serious criminality was still there. >Historically, you and I have always had options and methods of keeping our personal info and our private comms out of the reach of police, govs and other powerful actors. It was good for us and promoted a healthy society. No you haven't. It is only until very recently that iPhones (less so android devices) have been basically uncrackable (notwithstanding NSA/GCHQ level tactics that aren't going to be used for criminal investigations) and, coupled with end to end encryption, you have a communications system for which their is no practical method of compromise. It is very good for the citizen, but you cannot argue for it without also acknowledging that it is incredibly advantageous for the criminal. It is without precedent in human history. I'm not saying that the police should be able to backdoor everything useful, because that's nonsense. What I'm pointing out is that once you realise that your suspects understand how to use signal and how to use a VPN and how to maintain some sort of operational discipline (and this isn't a high threshold), then your crimes become incredibly hard to solve even with a perfectly executed investigation and this is reflected in the clear-up rate.

tsukikage 1y ago

How does insurance for stolen property work in Japan? Do the insurers not require evidence that the theft has been reported to the police, as they do here? Or do those reports not form part of the Japanese crime statistics, and if so, what would those look like if they did? Or is something else going on?

ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago

I simply don't believe this. Any one crime is hard to solve but the same criminals are doing most of the crime, so if policing were effective you'd still see closure rates. >if they maintain decent opsec. don't believe this either. no one has ever maintained decent opsec.

potato3732842 1y ago
Nobody you've read about has ever maintained decent opsec. There's tons of people who started as petty criminals who made it to mid ranks, got old and got out before they got killed or got caught.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
  >Nobody you've read about has ever maintained decent opsec Very good point. I do think the number rounds to zero, but yes there is a data bias here.