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> He warns that developers of apps like Signal and WhatsApp could technically fall within the legal definition of "hostile activity" simply because their techno

> He warns that developers of apps like Signal and WhatsApp could technically fall within the legal definition of "hostile activity" simply because their technology "make[s] it more difficult for UK security and intelligence agencies to monitor communications. Sounds like Let's Encrypt would also fall under that. This has got to stop. If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites, not the streets they walk on. I walk on them too. And don't use CP as a catch-all argument to insert backdoors. Their big problem here is that previously, it was hard to find people with the same opinion as you. If you couldn't find someone in the same village who wanted to start a rebellion, it probably wouldn't happen. Today, someone can post a Telegram group message and make thousands of people rally to a town square. I see the dangers, and I see why governments think they are doing this to protect the people. No one wants civil war. That is still not a strong enough reason to call road construction a hostile activity. I'm back in Sweden after 12 years abroad. Time to read up on which parties are sane and which aren't when it comes to technical infrastructure.

mosura 10mo ago
> This has got to stop. If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites, not the streets they walk on. That would be against everything european governments stand for.
- deleted 10mo ago
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- p0pularopinion 10mo ago
  > That would be against everything european governments stand for. I really struggle to understand why the hell this is always only applied to european governments? The idea to take 1984 as a book of requirements seems to extend *far* beyond europe.
  - nisegami 10mo ago
    There's societal memory of monarchies and kings that held a lot of power that still impacts things to this day, sometimes unconsciously and sometimes consciously.
    - psd1 10mo ago
      The NSA is an American body, and Trump is the subject of a personality cult far in excess of any European monarch. Authoritarianism is a personality trait independent of political structures.
  - dathinab 10mo ago
    yes, and here is a fun fact, most of the push for mass surveillance comes from the European Council, the thing is that literally are "just" the locally elected leaders... not some vague far away "the EU (personalized)" thing which also mean you can locally enact pressure on them furthermore the EU supreme court(s) might have more often hindered mass surveillance laws in member states then the council pushing for them... and if we speak as of "now", not just the UK, but also the US and probably many other states have far more mass surveillance then the EU has "in general". so year the whole "EU is at fault of everything" sentiment makes little sense. I guess in some cases it's an excuse for people having given up on politics. But given how often EU decisions are severely presented out of context I guess some degree of anti-EU propaganda is in there, too.
    - josteink 10mo ago
      > mass surveillance comes from the European Council, the thing is that literally are "just" the locally elected leaders... Factually incorrect. The European Parliament is elected. The Council is appointed, so there is no direct democratic incentive for the council to act on and no direct electorate to please. On top of that the actually elected European Parliament can only approve (or turn down) directives authored by the Council. They have no authority to draft policies on their own. To make matters even worse the European Council, which drafts the policies, has no public minutes to inspect. Which obviously makes it ripe for corruption. Which evidently there is a lot of! Looking at the complete picture, the EU looks like a construct designed intentionally to superficially appear democratic while in reality being the opposite. The more you look at how it actually works, the worse it looks. Sadly. Europe deserved something better than this.
      - dathinab 10mo ago
        > Factually incorrect. no please read what I wrote _local elected leaders_ they are the leaders each member state democratically elected in their own way and that makes a lot of sense the EU isn't a country after all so using the already democratically elected leaders makes a lot of sense > They have no authority to draft policies on their own. yes neither did I claim so, the EU is by far not perfect > Which evidently there is a lot of! yes, but that is mainly a reflection of corruption in local Politics
- miroljub 10mo ago
  I don't understand why you got heavily downvoted. Yes, there are governments that are worse than European, but the decline of European government is the fastest. You may be surprised that the UK is the world leader in the number of people arrested because of internet posts. And that Germany, which is still way behind the UK, has more people arrested for the same reason than Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Belarus, Saudi Arabia, and a few others combined. And many people still believe that those countries are beacons of democracy while the others are backward dictatorships.
  - mosura 10mo ago
    Indeed: https://metro.co.uk/2025/12/17/man-jailed-burning-migrant-hotels-posts-x-reported-brother-in-law-25565440/ https://metro.co.uk/2025/12/17/man-jailed-burning-migrant-ho... “An X user who posted two anti-immigration tweets been handed a 18-month jail sentence.” Edit to point out 1. That is a quote and 2. The UK considers this Ok though https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjeykklwn7vo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjeykklwn7vo
    - _bohm 10mo ago
      Not that I believe people should be jailed for speech, but merely referring to what he said as “anti-immigration” is very much burying the lede
      - creata 10mo ago
        For people too lazy to click, the second post was: > I think it’s time for the British to gang together, hit the streets and start the slaughter. > Violence and murder is the only way now. Start off burning every migrant hotel then head off to MPs’ houses and Parliament, we need to take over by FORCE. I'm not sure what the punishment for such a clear but ineffective incitement to violence should be, but it shouldn't be nothing.
        MangoToupe 10mo ago
        This is an convictable crime in the US. Inciting violence is emphatically not protected speech.
- findyoucef 10mo ago
  They're supposedly against genocide but that hasn't stopped them from shamelessly supporting one.
  - hirako2000 10mo ago
    And messages like these should be monitored. Who knows, we may need to lock all your bank accounts for "suspicious activity".
- immibis 10mo ago
  Is that why they rejected Chat Control 1.0?
- dathinab 10mo ago
  this is simply not true it was the EU which had stopped many similar unhinged attempts from the UK when the UK was still a member similar it had been the EU which had shut down various other surveillance nonsense of the EU you are basically pretending the EU is a person with one uniform opinion and goals but it's like the opposite of it, like in a lot of way it's a union of states, each having a vastly different goals and culture and non of them having a "single uniform opinion" either but (in most cases) a more complex political field then the US (on a federal level) Furthermore the most influential organ of the EU when it comes to making changes is literally a composition of the elected leaders of the member states. So for most big controversial decisions the driving and directing force isn't "the EU" but but the various elected leaders of the member states. For EU citizens blaming "the EU" instead of blaming your own elected leaders is common, but pretty counter productive, as it's basically pretending you have no power to change things. Furthermore in the EU you have an additional parliament which (in general) needs to ratify laws and two high courts which can (and in context of mass surveillance repeatedly have) shut down misguided "laws", including in many cases local attempts at mass surveillance laws. So while some parts of the EU have consistently pushed for mass surveillance in recent years other parts also have consistently moved against it. In general while the EU needs a lot more transparency and some more democratic processes in some aspects a lot (not all) of the "stories told to make the EU look dump/bad" have a lot of important context stripped from that (like e.g. that a lot of the current push for surveillance comes from the locally elected leaders not the EU parliament or some other abstract "the EU" thing, it's your own countries leader/lead party(1) which does or at least tolerates that shit).
  - blitzar 10mo ago
    > blaming "the EU" instead of blaming your own elected leaders The elected leaders like to blame the EU (or for those without an EU - any external body or even the mythical deep state) for everything adverse. The reality is these "failures" they blame on someone else are generally in alignment with their own policies goals and objectives.
Bender 10mo ago
Governments always focus on the tools and not the people. Troubleshooting and resolving the root cause requires work. They do not get paid to work or care meaning they could sit on their hands and still get paid.
- tejohnso 10mo ago
  > they could sit on their hands and still get paid Could? I know of government employees who literally cannot do their job, yet somehow they've been employed for over twenty years. When I say they can't do their job, I mean they have to ask coworkers how to do something that is and always has been a job requirement, and they have to "ask for help" every time. People are actually enabling massive amounts of waste and inefficiency. Then there are those who don't even have work to do, and will take offense if you ask them to justify their continued employment. As though they are owed a position in the organization tomorrow just because they have a position in the company today.
  - freedomben 10mo ago
    Indeed. I work with governments all over the United States from federal, to states to counties, and even to larger cities. This is a consistent pattern I see as well. We have senior IT people who don't even know basics about firewall configuration. In one place, I waited 2 weeks for the IT person to figure out how to even get into the firewall configuration. Then they proceeded to completely screw it up in obvious ways, and then once we got the firewall completely configured, we could not get the app to work. It took another 2 weeks, and burned 40 hours of engineer time on our side, before somebody on their end realized that they had modified the wrong firewall! I wish I could say that was an unusual experience. In another jurisdiction it took two months and we finally got to the point where even providing specific coaching telling them that it wasn't working because they opened the TCP port numbers we said instead of UDP, even though UDP was heavily emphasized. The stonewalling and constant battling ended up delaying our launch to the point where the decision makers decided to just can it instead of fight with their own IT organization. Now that said, I have worked with some truly incredible and brilliant people on the government side. There definitely are some fantastic people that work for the government. Unfortunately they seem to be in a minority.
gbil 10mo ago
Curtains should also fall under the same category because they do make it more difficult for UK security and intelligence agencies to monitor suspect activities. Then of course you also have walls... The argument is so fundamentally stupid that they should be embarrassed just putting it down in writing!
- debugnik 10mo ago
  Don't worry, WiFi sensing will eventually remove our walls and curtains for free in that respect.
  - everdrive 10mo ago
    And if this were weaponized in a big way, you'd still have people leaving their wifi enabled, but complaining "why can we regulate this problem away!"
  - dylan604 10mo ago
    We'd probably see new regulations mandating WiFi 7, and making anything older illegal
  - kevin_thibedeau 10mo ago
    Aluminum siding will make a comeback.
    - iamacyborg 10mo ago
      Unlikely after Grenfell.
- gnfargbl 10mo ago
  Both you and the poster above you may be misunderstanding the point that Jonathan Hall KC appears to be making. If you take a look at what he actually writes [1], then it is pretty clear that he is presenting these hypothetical cases as examples of obvious over-reach. This is a warning from the independent reviewer that the law is too potentially broad, not an argument to retain these powers. [1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69411a3eadb5707d9f33d7e8/E03512978_-_Un-Act_The_National_Security_Act_in_2024_Accessible.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69411a3eadb57..., pages 112 and 113
andy_ppp 10mo ago
This is about the astonishing lack of ability in the political class in the UK. The security services are honestly wagging the dog and they think they can force some kind of key escrow eventually, but instead they’ll just destroy software development in the UK and possibly financial services. It’s the same with the multi billion ID cards and digital ID which is almost impossible for a government as incompetent as this one to implement.
- trollbridge 10mo ago
  And whatever is foisted on the public will be so insecure you’ll have to deal with your identity constantly being stolen, and it being your problem to fix it.
  - rightbyte 10mo ago
    Your identity can't be stolen. That is something banks have made up to pretend the they aren't at fault.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
mihaaly 10mo ago
I wonder if architects should be prosecuted first making non-transparent building structures making the observation of people very very hard for those puny security and intelligence agencies! Architects, you bastards! You aid and abet criminals! Don't get me started on locksmiths, oh the horror!
poly2it 10mo ago
> Time to read up on which parties are sane and which aren't when it comes to technical infrastructure. Check out the Pirate party's stance on integrity and internet: https://piratpartiet.se/sakpolitik/integritetspolitik/ https://piratpartiet.se/sakpolitik/integritetspolitik/ https://piratpartiet.se/sakpolitik/natpolitik/ https://piratpartiet.se/sakpolitik/natpolitik/
chii 10mo ago
> I see why governments think they are doing this to protect the people. they're not doing this to protect people, they're doing this to ensure there cannot be rebellion against unpopular policies. Organization is harder if all communications is monitored. But this is how gov't get to be kept in check - the risk of "rebellion". If this risk is removed, you get authoritarian states - see north korea.
- 9dev 10mo ago
  I know its satisfying to think of the government as some singular nefarious entity, but the reality is far worse: There is no one in charge. It’s chaos all the way down.
  - taylorius 10mo ago
    No need for a formal command structure when everyone's interests point in the same direction. Self organisation will occur readily enough.
  - cjbgkagh 10mo ago
    There are a few people in charge, they just don’t advertise the fact. Similar how the ‘Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence’. These both appear correct to the vast majority of people because of the Pareto distribution of outcomes, the vast majority of people experience the incompetence / no-one in charge and don’t experience the relatively tiny number of events when the competent malevolent people in charge do make their decisions. Consider if you were hosting the Jekyll Island meeting, how many people of what caliber would you invite to be there? And that’s just one of the meetings we know about. Another good one is the involvement of Bohemian Grove in selecting Ronald Regan to run for president. Their motto, "Weaving spiders come not here", like many institutions, describes the opposite of what actually happens there.
    - 9dev 10mo ago
      No, that's what I was getting at. Thinking "they" are in charge is actually very widespread, with varying opinions on who "they" actually are—whether it's billionaires for you, the Rothschild's for others, or Reptilians for some. How great it would be to have a select few evil masterminds, a clear enemy to roil against! That isn't reality, though. Would the super-secret council of puppet masters have allowed Trump to become president of the USA (again) and ruin the economy? You'll have an answer to that, obviously. It matters little. Reality is far more complex, shadow masters prefer stability over chaos, and the world is generally full of competing and opposing interests. A few rich men might hold a lot of power in their hands, I give you that; but unless you limit "the world" to mean an arbitrary smaller region of earth, nobody is in charge of it all.
simianparrot 10mo ago
They can’t even prosecute grooming gangs, the pretence it’s about “the children” rings completely hollow. The UK is a failing nation run by pedophile apologist imbeciles. This is just desperate flailing to hold onto power by any means.
- joe463369 10mo ago
  The UK can and does prosecute grooming gangs.
  - christkv 10mo ago
    Yeah after hiding it for decades and then trying to bury it in inquiries after public outrage.
    - joe463369 10mo ago
      How on earth is holding an inquiry burying it? It's the opposite.
  - simianparrot 10mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooming_gangs_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooming_gangs_scandal "Can"? Sure. "Does"? Now that's debatable. Still waiting for the latest scandal to wrap up. Any day now. Surely it was the last. Surely the limp response hasn't led to more. _Surely_ arresting people for talking about it on social media hasn't led to more of it going on.
weinzierl 10mo ago
I agree with your point and this is just a minor thing but it annoys me whenever it comes up: Telegram is a terrible example. It is one of the few messengers that do not support end-to-end enrypted group chats. It is also heavily moderated. Your group will not be closed immediately but before anyone could pick up their pitchfork and certainly before it reaches a critical mass.
t0bia_s 10mo ago
So you still believe that system which gives people less freedom with every new regulation would solve anything by contributing to it? Shouldn't we abandon the idea of giving our repsonsibility and power to uknown electorate?
dylan604 10mo ago
> Today, someone can post a Telegram group message and make thousands of people rally to a town square The "fun" part of this is that the person writing the message on these apps might not even be a local person involved, but some person far away in another country just trying to stir up some shit.
JoshTriplett 10mo ago
> Today, someone can post a Telegram group message and make thousands of people rally to a town square. I see the dangers, and I see why governments think they are doing this to protect the people. Don't play into their propaganda. Governments don't like it because they're protecting themselves and their power; making it harder for people to find each other and organize and rally is one of many ways governments do that. (There's a reason authoritarian governments regularly shut down cell networks.) https://bsky.app/profile/tupped.bsky.social/post/3lwgcmswmy222 https://bsky.app/profile/tupped.bsky.social/post/3lwgcmswmy2... > The U.K. Online Safety Act was (avowedly, as revealed in a recent High Court case) “not primarily aimed at protecting children” but at regulating “services that have a significant influence over public discourse.”
- rvnx 10mo ago
  You don't even have to go that far, in Europe, to use a large social network (50M users), and the definition is very broad (WhatsApp is a social network, Telegram, Signal, TEMU, Aliexpress, etc), all users will have to provide their ID to that they are not a minor, otherwise the website can be blocked or fined. This is to protect minors of course. Did you think about the children ? Telegram, whether it's true or not, claims they are not a large platform (so if this is a lie, it may really pay off). https://sumsub.com/blog/age-verification-on-social-media/ https://sumsub.com/blog/age-verification-on-social-media/ "WhatsApp is now a Very Large platform in the EU, and will face tougher regulation" https://www.theverge.com/news/614445/whatsapp-channels-very-large-platform-vlop-digital-services-act-eu https://www.theverge.com/news/614445/whatsapp-channels-very-...
kelnos 10mo ago
> I see the dangers, and I see why governments think they are doing this to protect the people. That's what they say, but that's a smokescreen. They do it because they believe it helps them consolidate and keep power.
pzo 10mo ago
> If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites, I don't think their real intention is to stop criminals, it's just the smoke screen similar to ChatControl and other similar legislations prohibiting privacy elsewhere.
wartywhoa23 10mo ago
> Today, someone can post a Telegram group message and make thousands of people rally to a town square. I see the dangers, and I see why governments think they are doing this to protect the people. No one wants civil war. The solution for government is simple: stop being scumbags whose only purpose is making people's lives more and more miserable by optimizing for total control and corporate profits.
eYrKEC2 10mo ago
> Today, someone can post a Telegram group message and make thousands of people rally to a town square. I see the dangers, and I see why governments think they are doing this to protect the people. Yes. Previously this capability was reserved for the CIA.
ben_w 10mo ago
> If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites, And what do you do when the criminals can successfully prevent focus? Whether by encryption or by locked doors keeping cops out or by letting it be known that grasses get concrete shoes? You and I and everyone on this site knows why encryption is important. We all know that the internet fundamentally can't work without it; not only but also online banking and online shopping. We here know it keeps all of society safe from hackers and blackmailers. It's common knowledge amongst us that it keeps critical infrastructure secure. I think there's a genuine disconnect in the halls of government from all that: They're used to a world with humans that are flawed and who make mistakes, but those mistakes are at a personal scale. To err is human, to really foul up, as the saying goes, requires a computer, and I don't think popular culture has internalised what that means, despite the existence of all the websites with near-instant content lookup — look at how hacking is seen in pop culture, how it's akin to lock picking rather than programming: the perception is of one person's skill against a puzzle box, the reality is automation where once the puzzle is solved, the lock picked, every safe in the world opens in the blink of an eye. Laws and press opinions about the need for government backdoors treat it like allowing police to break into houses: "got a warrant, then it's fine"; they don't realise it's more like "fake uniforms, ID badges, and warrants are available on most streets". That doesn't make the problem category this is supposed to solve go away. There's a few reasons why I'd like to maximally liberalise the laws, one of them is so that criminal prosecution can be more tightly focussed on what matters. Other reasons include "people should be aware of all the laws that affect them, and it's not OK when the system is so complicated you have to be a lawyer to even get that far".

mosura 10mo ago

> This has got to stop. If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites, not the streets they walk on. That would be against everything european governments stand for.

deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
p0pularopinion 10mo ago
> That would be against everything european governments stand for. I really struggle to understand why the hell this is always only applied to european governments? The idea to take 1984 as a book of requirements seems to extend *far* beyond europe.
- nisegami 10mo ago
  There's societal memory of monarchies and kings that held a lot of power that still impacts things to this day, sometimes unconsciously and sometimes consciously.
  - psd1 10mo ago
    The NSA is an American body, and Trump is the subject of a personality cult far in excess of any European monarch. Authoritarianism is a personality trait independent of political structures.
- dathinab 10mo ago
  yes, and here is a fun fact, most of the push for mass surveillance comes from the European Council, the thing is that literally are "just" the locally elected leaders... not some vague far away "the EU (personalized)" thing which also mean you can locally enact pressure on them furthermore the EU supreme court(s) might have more often hindered mass surveillance laws in member states then the council pushing for them... and if we speak as of "now", not just the UK, but also the US and probably many other states have far more mass surveillance then the EU has "in general". so year the whole "EU is at fault of everything" sentiment makes little sense. I guess in some cases it's an excuse for people having given up on politics. But given how often EU decisions are severely presented out of context I guess some degree of anti-EU propaganda is in there, too.
  - josteink 10mo ago
    > mass surveillance comes from the European Council, the thing is that literally are "just" the locally elected leaders... Factually incorrect. The European Parliament is elected. The Council is appointed, so there is no direct democratic incentive for the council to act on and no direct electorate to please. On top of that the actually elected European Parliament can only approve (or turn down) directives authored by the Council. They have no authority to draft policies on their own. To make matters even worse the European Council, which drafts the policies, has no public minutes to inspect. Which obviously makes it ripe for corruption. Which evidently there is a lot of! Looking at the complete picture, the EU looks like a construct designed intentionally to superficially appear democratic while in reality being the opposite. The more you look at how it actually works, the worse it looks. Sadly. Europe deserved something better than this.
    - dathinab 10mo ago
      > Factually incorrect. no please read what I wrote _local elected leaders_ they are the leaders each member state democratically elected in their own way and that makes a lot of sense the EU isn't a country after all so using the already democratically elected leaders makes a lot of sense > They have no authority to draft policies on their own. yes neither did I claim so, the EU is by far not perfect > Which evidently there is a lot of! yes, but that is mainly a reflection of corruption in local Politics
miroljub 10mo ago
I don't understand why you got heavily downvoted. Yes, there are governments that are worse than European, but the decline of European government is the fastest. You may be surprised that the UK is the world leader in the number of people arrested because of internet posts. And that Germany, which is still way behind the UK, has more people arrested for the same reason than Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Belarus, Saudi Arabia, and a few others combined. And many people still believe that those countries are beacons of democracy while the others are backward dictatorships.
- mosura 10mo ago
  Indeed: https://metro.co.uk/2025/12/17/man-jailed-burning-migrant-hotels-posts-x-reported-brother-in-law-25565440/ https://metro.co.uk/2025/12/17/man-jailed-burning-migrant-ho... “An X user who posted two anti-immigration tweets been handed a 18-month jail sentence.” Edit to point out 1. That is a quote and 2. The UK considers this Ok though https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjeykklwn7vo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjeykklwn7vo
  - _bohm 10mo ago
    Not that I believe people should be jailed for speech, but merely referring to what he said as “anti-immigration” is very much burying the lede
    - creata 10mo ago
      For people too lazy to click, the second post was: > I think it’s time for the British to gang together, hit the streets and start the slaughter. > Violence and murder is the only way now. Start off burning every migrant hotel then head off to MPs’ houses and Parliament, we need to take over by FORCE. I'm not sure what the punishment for such a clear but ineffective incitement to violence should be, but it shouldn't be nothing.
      - MangoToupe 10mo ago
        This is an convictable crime in the US. Inciting violence is emphatically not protected speech.
findyoucef 10mo ago
They're supposedly against genocide but that hasn't stopped them from shamelessly supporting one.
- hirako2000 10mo ago
  And messages like these should be monitored. Who knows, we may need to lock all your bank accounts for "suspicious activity".
immibis 10mo ago
Is that why they rejected Chat Control 1.0?
dathinab 10mo ago
this is simply not true it was the EU which had stopped many similar unhinged attempts from the UK when the UK was still a member similar it had been the EU which had shut down various other surveillance nonsense of the EU you are basically pretending the EU is a person with one uniform opinion and goals but it's like the opposite of it, like in a lot of way it's a union of states, each having a vastly different goals and culture and non of them having a "single uniform opinion" either but (in most cases) a more complex political field then the US (on a federal level) Furthermore the most influential organ of the EU when it comes to making changes is literally a composition of the elected leaders of the member states. So for most big controversial decisions the driving and directing force isn't "the EU" but but the various elected leaders of the member states. For EU citizens blaming "the EU" instead of blaming your own elected leaders is common, but pretty counter productive, as it's basically pretending you have no power to change things. Furthermore in the EU you have an additional parliament which (in general) needs to ratify laws and two high courts which can (and in context of mass surveillance repeatedly have) shut down misguided "laws", including in many cases local attempts at mass surveillance laws. So while some parts of the EU have consistently pushed for mass surveillance in recent years other parts also have consistently moved against it. In general while the EU needs a lot more transparency and some more democratic processes in some aspects a lot (not all) of the "stories told to make the EU look dump/bad" have a lot of important context stripped from that (like e.g. that a lot of the current push for surveillance comes from the locally elected leaders not the EU parliament or some other abstract "the EU" thing, it's your own countries leader/lead party(1) which does or at least tolerates that shit).
- blitzar 10mo ago
  > blaming "the EU" instead of blaming your own elected leaders The elected leaders like to blame the EU (or for those without an EU - any external body or even the mythical deep state) for everything adverse. The reality is these "failures" they blame on someone else are generally in alignment with their own policies goals and objectives.

Bender 10mo ago

Governments always focus on the tools and not the people. Troubleshooting and resolving the root cause requires work. They do not get paid to work or care meaning they could sit on their hands and still get paid.

tejohnso 10mo ago
> they could sit on their hands and still get paid Could? I know of government employees who literally cannot do their job, yet somehow they've been employed for over twenty years. When I say they can't do their job, I mean they have to ask coworkers how to do something that is and always has been a job requirement, and they have to "ask for help" every time. People are actually enabling massive amounts of waste and inefficiency. Then there are those who don't even have work to do, and will take offense if you ask them to justify their continued employment. As though they are owed a position in the organization tomorrow just because they have a position in the company today.
- freedomben 10mo ago
  Indeed. I work with governments all over the United States from federal, to states to counties, and even to larger cities. This is a consistent pattern I see as well. We have senior IT people who don't even know basics about firewall configuration. In one place, I waited 2 weeks for the IT person to figure out how to even get into the firewall configuration. Then they proceeded to completely screw it up in obvious ways, and then once we got the firewall completely configured, we could not get the app to work. It took another 2 weeks, and burned 40 hours of engineer time on our side, before somebody on their end realized that they had modified the wrong firewall! I wish I could say that was an unusual experience. In another jurisdiction it took two months and we finally got to the point where even providing specific coaching telling them that it wasn't working because they opened the TCP port numbers we said instead of UDP, even though UDP was heavily emphasized. The stonewalling and constant battling ended up delaying our launch to the point where the decision makers decided to just can it instead of fight with their own IT organization. Now that said, I have worked with some truly incredible and brilliant people on the government side. There definitely are some fantastic people that work for the government. Unfortunately they seem to be in a minority.

gbil 10mo ago

Curtains should also fall under the same category because they do make it more difficult for UK security and intelligence agencies to monitor suspect activities. Then of course you also have walls... The argument is so fundamentally stupid that they should be embarrassed just putting it down in writing!

debugnik 10mo ago
Don't worry, WiFi sensing will eventually remove our walls and curtains for free in that respect.
- everdrive 10mo ago
  And if this were weaponized in a big way, you'd still have people leaving their wifi enabled, but complaining "why can we regulate this problem away!"
- dylan604 10mo ago
  We'd probably see new regulations mandating WiFi 7, and making anything older illegal
- kevin_thibedeau 10mo ago
  Aluminum siding will make a comeback.
  - iamacyborg 10mo ago
    Unlikely after Grenfell.
gnfargbl 10mo ago
Both you and the poster above you may be misunderstanding the point that Jonathan Hall KC appears to be making. If you take a look at what he actually writes [1], then it is pretty clear that he is presenting these hypothetical cases as examples of obvious over-reach. This is a warning from the independent reviewer that the law is too potentially broad, not an argument to retain these powers. [1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69411a3eadb5707d9f33d7e8/E03512978_-_Un-Act_The_National_Security_Act_in_2024_Accessible.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69411a3eadb57..., pages 112 and 113

andy_ppp 10mo ago

This is about the astonishing lack of ability in the political class in the UK. The security services are honestly wagging the dog and they think they can force some kind of key escrow eventually, but instead they’ll just destroy software development in the UK and possibly financial services. It’s the same with the multi billion ID cards and digital ID which is almost impossible for a government as incompetent as this one to implement.

trollbridge 10mo ago
And whatever is foisted on the public will be so insecure you’ll have to deal with your identity constantly being stolen, and it being your problem to fix it.
- rightbyte 10mo ago
  Your identity can't be stolen. That is something banks have made up to pretend the they aren't at fault.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]

mihaaly 10mo ago

I wonder if architects should be prosecuted first making non-transparent building structures making the observation of people very very hard for those puny security and intelligence agencies! Architects, you bastards! You aid and abet criminals! Don't get me started on locksmiths, oh the horror!

poly2it 10mo ago

> Time to read up on which parties are sane and which aren't when it comes to technical infrastructure. Check out the Pirate party's stance on integrity and internet: https://piratpartiet.se/sakpolitik/integritetspolitik/ https://piratpartiet.se/sakpolitik/integritetspolitik/ https://piratpartiet.se/sakpolitik/natpolitik/ https://piratpartiet.se/sakpolitik/natpolitik/

chii 10mo ago

> I see why governments think they are doing this to protect the people. they're not doing this to protect people, they're doing this to ensure there cannot be rebellion against unpopular policies. Organization is harder if all communications is monitored. But this is how gov't get to be kept in check - the risk of "rebellion". If this risk is removed, you get authoritarian states - see north korea.

9dev 10mo ago
I know its satisfying to think of the government as some singular nefarious entity, but the reality is far worse: There is no one in charge. It’s chaos all the way down.
- taylorius 10mo ago
  No need for a formal command structure when everyone's interests point in the same direction. Self organisation will occur readily enough.
- cjbgkagh 10mo ago
  There are a few people in charge, they just don’t advertise the fact. Similar how the ‘Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence’. These both appear correct to the vast majority of people because of the Pareto distribution of outcomes, the vast majority of people experience the incompetence / no-one in charge and don’t experience the relatively tiny number of events when the competent malevolent people in charge do make their decisions. Consider if you were hosting the Jekyll Island meeting, how many people of what caliber would you invite to be there? And that’s just one of the meetings we know about. Another good one is the involvement of Bohemian Grove in selecting Ronald Regan to run for president. Their motto, "Weaving spiders come not here", like many institutions, describes the opposite of what actually happens there.
  - 9dev 10mo ago
    No, that's what I was getting at. Thinking "they" are in charge is actually very widespread, with varying opinions on who "they" actually are—whether it's billionaires for you, the Rothschild's for others, or Reptilians for some. How great it would be to have a select few evil masterminds, a clear enemy to roil against! That isn't reality, though. Would the super-secret council of puppet masters have allowed Trump to become president of the USA (again) and ruin the economy? You'll have an answer to that, obviously. It matters little. Reality is far more complex, shadow masters prefer stability over chaos, and the world is generally full of competing and opposing interests. A few rich men might hold a lot of power in their hands, I give you that; but unless you limit "the world" to mean an arbitrary smaller region of earth, nobody is in charge of it all.

simianparrot 10mo ago

They can’t even prosecute grooming gangs, the pretence it’s about “the children” rings completely hollow. The UK is a failing nation run by pedophile apologist imbeciles. This is just desperate flailing to hold onto power by any means.

joe463369 10mo ago
The UK can and does prosecute grooming gangs.
- christkv 10mo ago
  Yeah after hiding it for decades and then trying to bury it in inquiries after public outrage.
  - joe463369 10mo ago
    How on earth is holding an inquiry burying it? It's the opposite.
- simianparrot 10mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooming_gangs_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooming_gangs_scandal "Can"? Sure. "Does"? Now that's debatable. Still waiting for the latest scandal to wrap up. Any day now. Surely it was the last. Surely the limp response hasn't led to more. _Surely_ arresting people for talking about it on social media hasn't led to more of it going on.

weinzierl 10mo ago

I agree with your point and this is just a minor thing but it annoys me whenever it comes up: Telegram is a terrible example. It is one of the few messengers that do not support end-to-end enrypted group chats. It is also heavily moderated. Your group will not be closed immediately but before anyone could pick up their pitchfork and certainly before it reaches a critical mass.

t0bia_s 10mo ago

So you still believe that system which gives people less freedom with every new regulation would solve anything by contributing to it? Shouldn't we abandon the idea of giving our repsonsibility and power to uknown electorate?

dylan604 10mo ago

> Today, someone can post a Telegram group message and make thousands of people rally to a town square The "fun" part of this is that the person writing the message on these apps might not even be a local person involved, but some person far away in another country just trying to stir up some shit.

JoshTriplett 10mo ago

> Today, someone can post a Telegram group message and make thousands of people rally to a town square. I see the dangers, and I see why governments think they are doing this to protect the people. Don't play into their propaganda. Governments don't like it because they're protecting themselves and their power; making it harder for people to find each other and organize and rally is one of many ways governments do that. (There's a reason authoritarian governments regularly shut down cell networks.) https://bsky.app/profile/tupped.bsky.social/post/3lwgcmswmy222 https://bsky.app/profile/tupped.bsky.social/post/3lwgcmswmy2... > The U.K. Online Safety Act was (avowedly, as revealed in a recent High Court case) “not primarily aimed at protecting children” but at regulating “services that have a significant influence over public discourse.”

rvnx 10mo ago
You don't even have to go that far, in Europe, to use a large social network (50M users), and the definition is very broad (WhatsApp is a social network, Telegram, Signal, TEMU, Aliexpress, etc), all users will have to provide their ID to that they are not a minor, otherwise the website can be blocked or fined. This is to protect minors of course. Did you think about the children ? Telegram, whether it's true or not, claims they are not a large platform (so if this is a lie, it may really pay off). https://sumsub.com/blog/age-verification-on-social-media/ https://sumsub.com/blog/age-verification-on-social-media/ "WhatsApp is now a Very Large platform in the EU, and will face tougher regulation" https://www.theverge.com/news/614445/whatsapp-channels-very-large-platform-vlop-digital-services-act-eu https://www.theverge.com/news/614445/whatsapp-channels-very-...

kelnos 10mo ago

> I see the dangers, and I see why governments think they are doing this to protect the people. That's what they say, but that's a smokescreen. They do it because they believe it helps them consolidate and keep power.

pzo 10mo ago

> If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites, I don't think their real intention is to stop criminals, it's just the smoke screen similar to ChatControl and other similar legislations prohibiting privacy elsewhere.

wartywhoa23 10mo ago

> Today, someone can post a Telegram group message and make thousands of people rally to a town square. I see the dangers, and I see why governments think they are doing this to protect the people. No one wants civil war. The solution for government is simple: stop being scumbags whose only purpose is making people's lives more and more miserable by optimizing for total control and corporate profits.

eYrKEC2 10mo ago

ben_w 10mo ago

> If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites, And what do you do when the criminals can successfully prevent focus? Whether by encryption or by locked doors keeping cops out or by letting it be known that grasses get concrete shoes? You and I and everyone on this site knows why encryption is important. We all know that the internet fundamentally can't work without it; not only but also online banking and online shopping. We here know it keeps all of society safe from hackers and blackmailers. It's common knowledge amongst us that it keeps critical infrastructure secure. I think there's a genuine disconnect in the halls of government from all that: They're used to a world with humans that are flawed and who make mistakes, but those mistakes are at a personal scale. To err is human, to really foul up, as the saying goes, requires a computer, and I don't think popular culture has internalised what that means, despite the existence of all the websites with near-instant content lookup — look at how hacking is seen in pop culture, how it's akin to lock picking rather than programming: the perception is of one person's skill against a puzzle box, the reality is automation where once the puzzle is solved, the lock picked, every safe in the world opens in the blink of an eye. Laws and press opinions about the need for government backdoors treat it like allowing police to break into houses: "got a warrant, then it's fine"; they don't realise it's more like "fake uniforms, ID badges, and warrants are available on most streets". That doesn't make the problem category this is supposed to solve go away. There's a few reasons why I'd like to maximally liberalise the laws, one of them is so that criminal prosecution can be more tightly focussed on what matters. Other reasons include "people should be aware of all the laws that affect them, and it's not OK when the system is so complicated you have to be a lawyer to even get that far".