12 ms·

Cameron reaffirms there will be no “safe spaces” from UK government snooping

133 points by ionised 11y ago

robmcm 11y ago
This kind of thinking smacks of ignorance, it is akin to saying we should ban international travel to avoid terrorist attacks over seas.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- toyg 11y ago
  Don't give them ideas.
- higherpurpose 11y ago
  Or knives. I believe the recent beheading in France was caused by a knife. Something must be done about these dangerous weapons that facilitate beheading!
higherpurpose 11y ago
So Cameron wants to reinstate the writ of assistance for the online world? Because that's what his proposed "warrant" is (signed only by the Home Secretary). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writ_of_assistance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writ_of_assistance
jackgavigan 11y ago
Last week, the UK minister for Internet Safety and Security Baroness Joanna Shields was speaking at a conference in London. She was asked about the potential impact on the fintech sector of mandating backdoors in encryption and she said, in reference to what Cameron said, "That quote was misinterpreted." Everyone has assumed that when Cameron says that he wants to "ensure that terrorists do not have a safe space in which to communicate", that means that he wants to mandate encryption backdoors. I think that assumption is incorrect. The guys at Number 10 are well aware that (a) they can't ban math, and (b) the UK tech sector would suffer if they legislated to mandate backdoors in all encryption. I suspect that what Cameron actual means is that he wants to put in place a legal mechanism to authorise GCHQ (presumably by issuing a warrant) to hack into suspect's laptop or smartphone in order to gain access to the content of whatever messages or communications they may be exchanging with any co-conspirators.
- jackweirdy 11y ago
  While I hope that's the case, Number 10 must also be aware that the language they're using does make it sound like thei plan is to restrict the availability/legality of ciphers. Cameron was originally quoted as saying: > The question is are we going to allow a means of communications which it simply isn’t possible to read. My answer to that question is: no, we must not That's a very specific quote that says they want to target the communication itself. Not the machines it's on or the wires it passes through, the 1s and 0s as they go over the wire. They're either using language to make it sound much more military than it is, in which case they should stop, or they're testing the waters and reigning back when they see the reaction from the tech industry. I don't like either, and I'd much prefer they asked "What can we do" rather than make their own assertions.
- DanBC 11y ago
  > I suspect that what Cameron actual means is that he wants to put in place a legal mechanism to authorise GCHQ (presumably by issuing a warrant) to hack into suspect's laptop or smartphone in order to gain access to the content of whatever messages or communications they may be exchanging with any co-conspirators. Don't they already have that power? http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/uk-government-rewrites-surveillance-law-to-get-away-with-hacking-and-allow-cyber-attacks-campaigners-claim-10253485.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new... EDIT: not to forget RIPA which already allows them to put in prison anyone who does not make decrypted material available.
  - jackjeff 11y ago
    Under RIPA if you can prove that you no longer posses the decryption key, you don't have to go to jail. That's not as easy as it sounds, since being a possession of the key "previously" makes the law assumes you still posses the key, but at least you have a chance... That's a step up from the French key disclosure law, where you go to jail regardless (no backups? your HSM is dead? tough...)
- anon1385 11y ago
  The public statements are very much designed to make people think that they are going to ban encryption. When the media outlets all interpreted it that way there were no government ministers rushing out to correct the misinterpretation, as they normally would after the PM 'accidentally' announced he wanted to destroy a multi billion pound industry. So even if they aren't actually going to do it, they clearly want people (voters) to think that they are. That's grossly irresponsible in two ways. Firstly the massive risk to UK tech/financial investment. Secondly it creates an expectation among the public and commitariat that encryption bans are feasible and desirable. The home office has a history of creating wildly impossible expectations among the more reactionary sections of the public, which then results in a huge mess when reality gets in the way. For example talking up deporting 'undesirable' people, and then wasting huge amounts of time and money fighting the courts when they actually try to deport somebody to a country where they would be tried on the basis of evidence gained under torture.
jgrahamc 11y ago
I'm mostly concerned about the 'safe space' in Iraq and Syria that is the acting as a recruiting and training ground for people.
- yc1010 11y ago
  What do you want to be done about it, send more young boys from "western" countries to die and/or be crippled like has happened in the wars of the last decade? Spend further billions of dollars/euro and for what, the locals would still hate "us" no matter what when by now its plainly obvious that the greatest danger to the average muslim are other muslims. I am not sure how wiretapping everyone in the west would help, if someone wants to go to Syria, let them, hell take their passport off an buy them a one way ticket to that shithole to learn all about their religion and how it treats people and hopefully they endup in their heaven surrounded by 72 other jihadi virgins.
madaxe_again 11y ago
I run an ecommerce agency in the UK. We turn over several million quid, employ forty odd people, and process the better part of £1bn of ecommerce purchases in the UK. Needless to say, if encryption is banned here, we'll either be going out of business or moving to a progressive regime - say Yemen. The UK is the second biggest ecommerce market in the world. He kills encryption, he will sink the UK retail economy - which is rather at odds with the whole "nation of shopkeepers" bit. Actually, if it does happen, I'll raise an army and march on Westminster. Cromwell managed.
- viraptor 11y ago
  If they really do plan to ban encryption, the response will be much faster than retail. There is literally no way London financial business can safely exist without encryption. Investments, accounts, insurances, etc. pretty much require encryption under the current DPA and any comparable law of other countries. The moment London banks say "we're forced to use backdoored/no encryption", any foreign business they interact with will (have to) say "LOL, bye then". Majority of tech companies are not even comparable to that market.
  - batou 11y ago
    Indeed. UK finance here. Several billion goes through our platform. We've already moved company registration offshore in case the shit goes down. We're about ready to move all our kit out of the country as well. As for staff, we're staying put because when everything else goes down the shitter, we're going to be in the last position of power financially. House time. Edit: Also EU safe harbour; fucking joke if there ever was one.
    - secfirstmd 11y ago
      Your welcome to bring your business to Ireland! We love tech and finance companies (most major international ones work here), have a sensible attitude to terrorism related issues (we have a bit of a past history), part of the Euro, long-term plans to stay in the EU, don't force backdoors or intimidation of large companies, stable politically, neutral foreign policy, easy enough to get high-skilled visas. Great place to work, cool people, English speaking, 12.5% Corporation tax, good grants, good beer and music. Find out more: www.idaireland.com :)
blfr 11y ago
As the domestic European terrorism (ETA, IRA, RAF) faded, our governments/elites imported foreign (mostly Muslim) terrorism and are now using this as an excuse to spy on everyone. I guess if we let them get away with it, we deserve the fallout.
bobm_kite9 11y ago
Is this really about terrorism? I have a feeling that terrorism is the excuse being used to try and surveil the public generally. Why would they want to do this? My feeling is so that they can keep control of public order. It's a mystery to me why there hasn't been more public activism around unemployment levels and wealth equality in Europe so far. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/01/europe-young-people-rioting-denied-education-jobs http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/01/europe-...
- toyg 11y ago
  > I have a feeling that terrorism is the excuse being used to try and surveil the public generally. Pedophilia failed* so they moved on to the next excuse. If that fails, they'll probably use drug trafficking. * well, sort of: they did get DNS bans in place and the opt-in porn firewall.
  - crottypeter 11y ago
    You mean opt-out.
    - toyg 11y ago
      As an existing Virgin broadband customer, I think I was given the option to enable it or not. I don't know how it works for new customers.
      - ionised 11y ago
        I was an existing Virgin Fibre when these measures were implemented and I had to opt out on my Virgin account web page.
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    You are also forgetting one of the biggest successes; they convinced most all of society to agree to not only ban data, but to see possession of that data as one of the worst wrongs a person can commit. The notion that changing the pattern of bits on your hard drive can be worse than killing someone has now been driven to the core of our society. And as for the US, drug trafficking has worked great for the most part. For example the concept that intent to distribute can be determined simply by possessing more than some arbitrary amount, with the prosecutor not needing to show any other evidence, is a disastrous development. Civil forfeiture, where one's property is charged with a crime, is also another great development for them, though it is a hand they are beginning to overplay. LGBT individuals should count themselves very lucky. Had they delayed their rights movement by a few decades, they may have been hunted down (imagine if the social hatred of homosexuals that was present in the early 20th century was combined with the modern day power to pry into people's lives).
mavdi 11y ago
Conspiracy theory here... Me thinks they've already got their hands on a quantum computer and this is all just a smoke screen. Yes yes, encryption, can't get through that...
- alextgordon 11y ago
  In case you weren't aware, quantum computers cannot break modern symmetric encryption.
  - knodi123 11y ago
    dude's alleging secret future-tech developed by some modern covert bletchley park, and you're gonna refute it with a fine point about what algorithms can currently do? I don't think you two are playing tennis on the same court.
    - _nedR 11y ago
      I still found the exchange, informative/insightful and apropos.
    - alextgordon 11y ago
      My point was that "quantum computer" sounds like a scary apocalypse scenario, but isn't. It makes key exchange awkward but by no means impossible. We already know that GCHQ has an underground level full of conventional computers. That's a lot scarier.
  - tyho 11y ago
    Well it would reduce the security factor of AES-128 to as low as 64bits which is somewhat tractable.
JulianMorrison 11y ago
What I'd like to see is all the big internet names - Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on - getting together to say "We will provide our services only over fully secure encryption with strong keys. We will not implement backdoors, weaken our algorithms, or let you put a tap behind the SSL servers in our network. We will pull up our roots and leave your country if you demand them. And if you block your public from using strong encryption, they will have to manage without our services."
- tinkerrr 11y ago
  You mean the biggest internet names will no longer operate in almost any of the developed world?
  - Roodgorf 11y ago
    If these companies simultaneously put their foot down in this way and did not waiver I really doubt the government would go through with doing anything that would risk them leaving. Any one of these examples alone would be a huge loss to the market for, say, the United States. The political backlash would be enormous, and that's not even including the community actually concerned about privacy. That being said, whether such an ultimatum would ever actually happen? Yeeeeeah...
    - wahsd 11y ago
      The governments will simply step up their particular set of sticks and carrots to compel companies to be incentivized to not do those kinds of things. What, did you, the cattle, think you could revolt against your rancher masters with impunity forever? What do you think Google will say and do if the Government suggests giving preferences and lavish benefits to Microsoft or vice versa? The only thing that really can be done is getting politically involved. Politics, elections, transparency, combating corruption, digital activism, etc. are all the only way that this will ever be prevented from metastasizing into something far more devious and nefarious. I hate to say it, but the only solution is suffocating and starving our own governments into submission. We have bred a bred beasts and they are fed with endless and unrestrained taxing power, reality is that we really need to implement what Republicans pay lip service to .... actually cutting taxes. Cut, cut, cut, taxes; limit the tax money to a set amount which then forces the government to have to prioritize, that includes for the military. We have a sleeping demon on our hands with the current surveillance government, which is directly a result of the plundering bonanza of unlimited and unfettered funding for militarism under the guise of security and freedom from boogiemen we create.
userbinator 11y ago
It's like they really want to become 1984. I wonder what Orwell would say if he were still alive today.
p01926 11y ago
Would anybody like to predict and defend a probability above 0.00 that gov.uk will be able to meaningfully impede my ability use cryptography by 2020? Obviously politician's rhetoric, and to a large extent the law, have become unhinged from reality, so the odds of passing one more moronic, ineffectual law are a given: 1.0. But I'm asking someone to seriously state and defend even the slightest possibility that David Cameron might, in even the smallest sense, succeed. I can't.
raspasov 11y ago
Useless politician.
rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
If Britain mandated encryption for Internet services in the UK, I would feel extremely unsafe making any kind of financial transaction while I'm there unless it's in cash. Wait, shit, isn't London the global center of the finance industry?
secfirstmd 11y ago
According to todays news, No "safe spaces" apparently also includes Amnesty International. "UK surveillance Tribunal reveals the government spied on Amnesty International" https://www.amnesty.org/latest/news/2015/07/uk-surveillance-tribunal-reveals-the-government-spied-on-amnesty-international/ https://www.amnesty.org/latest/news/2015/07/uk-surveillance-...
dumbassbitch 11y ago
Someone tried to steal the genderless no form factor options of everyone & more long ago. They may have succeeded, or they may have failed. One of the two happened... Which would mean, the public would be absolutely useless to them anyway.

133 points by ionised 11y ago

This kind of thinking smacks of ignorance, it is akin to saying we should ban international travel to avoid terrorist attacks over seas.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
toyg 11y ago
Don't give them ideas.
higherpurpose 11y ago
Or knives. I believe the recent beheading in France was caused by a knife. Something must be done about these dangerous weapons that facilitate beheading!

higherpurpose 11y ago

So Cameron wants to reinstate the writ of assistance for the online world? Because that's what his proposed "warrant" is (signed only by the Home Secretary). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writ_of_assistance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writ_of_assistance

jackgavigan 11y ago

Last week, the UK minister for Internet Safety and Security Baroness Joanna Shields was speaking at a conference in London. She was asked about the potential impact on the fintech sector of mandating backdoors in encryption and she said, in reference to what Cameron said, "That quote was misinterpreted." Everyone has assumed that when Cameron says that he wants to "ensure that terrorists do not have a safe space in which to communicate", that means that he wants to mandate encryption backdoors. I think that assumption is incorrect. The guys at Number 10 are well aware that (a) they can't ban math, and (b) the UK tech sector would suffer if they legislated to mandate backdoors in all encryption. I suspect that what Cameron actual means is that he wants to put in place a legal mechanism to authorise GCHQ (presumably by issuing a warrant) to hack into suspect's laptop or smartphone in order to gain access to the content of whatever messages or communications they may be exchanging with any co-conspirators.

jackweirdy 11y ago
While I hope that's the case, Number 10 must also be aware that the language they're using does make it sound like thei plan is to restrict the availability/legality of ciphers. Cameron was originally quoted as saying: > The question is are we going to allow a means of communications which it simply isn’t possible to read. My answer to that question is: no, we must not That's a very specific quote that says they want to target the communication itself. Not the machines it's on or the wires it passes through, the 1s and 0s as they go over the wire. They're either using language to make it sound much more military than it is, in which case they should stop, or they're testing the waters and reigning back when they see the reaction from the tech industry. I don't like either, and I'd much prefer they asked "What can we do" rather than make their own assertions.
DanBC 11y ago
> I suspect that what Cameron actual means is that he wants to put in place a legal mechanism to authorise GCHQ (presumably by issuing a warrant) to hack into suspect's laptop or smartphone in order to gain access to the content of whatever messages or communications they may be exchanging with any co-conspirators. Don't they already have that power? http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/uk-government-rewrites-surveillance-law-to-get-away-with-hacking-and-allow-cyber-attacks-campaigners-claim-10253485.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new... EDIT: not to forget RIPA which already allows them to put in prison anyone who does not make decrypted material available.
- jackjeff 11y ago
  Under RIPA if you can prove that you no longer posses the decryption key, you don't have to go to jail. That's not as easy as it sounds, since being a possession of the key "previously" makes the law assumes you still posses the key, but at least you have a chance... That's a step up from the French key disclosure law, where you go to jail regardless (no backups? your HSM is dead? tough...)
anon1385 11y ago
The public statements are very much designed to make people think that they are going to ban encryption. When the media outlets all interpreted it that way there were no government ministers rushing out to correct the misinterpretation, as they normally would after the PM 'accidentally' announced he wanted to destroy a multi billion pound industry. So even if they aren't actually going to do it, they clearly want people (voters) to think that they are. That's grossly irresponsible in two ways. Firstly the massive risk to UK tech/financial investment. Secondly it creates an expectation among the public and commitariat that encryption bans are feasible and desirable. The home office has a history of creating wildly impossible expectations among the more reactionary sections of the public, which then results in a huge mess when reality gets in the way. For example talking up deporting 'undesirable' people, and then wasting huge amounts of time and money fighting the courts when they actually try to deport somebody to a country where they would be tried on the basis of evidence gained under torture.

jgrahamc 11y ago

I'm mostly concerned about the 'safe space' in Iraq and Syria that is the acting as a recruiting and training ground for people.

yc1010 11y ago
What do you want to be done about it, send more young boys from "western" countries to die and/or be crippled like has happened in the wars of the last decade? Spend further billions of dollars/euro and for what, the locals would still hate "us" no matter what when by now its plainly obvious that the greatest danger to the average muslim are other muslims. I am not sure how wiretapping everyone in the west would help, if someone wants to go to Syria, let them, hell take their passport off an buy them a one way ticket to that shithole to learn all about their religion and how it treats people and hopefully they endup in their heaven surrounded by 72 other jihadi virgins.

madaxe_again 11y ago

I run an ecommerce agency in the UK. We turn over several million quid, employ forty odd people, and process the better part of £1bn of ecommerce purchases in the UK. Needless to say, if encryption is banned here, we'll either be going out of business or moving to a progressive regime - say Yemen. The UK is the second biggest ecommerce market in the world. He kills encryption, he will sink the UK retail economy - which is rather at odds with the whole "nation of shopkeepers" bit. Actually, if it does happen, I'll raise an army and march on Westminster. Cromwell managed.

viraptor 11y ago
If they really do plan to ban encryption, the response will be much faster than retail. There is literally no way London financial business can safely exist without encryption. Investments, accounts, insurances, etc. pretty much require encryption under the current DPA and any comparable law of other countries. The moment London banks say "we're forced to use backdoored/no encryption", any foreign business they interact with will (have to) say "LOL, bye then". Majority of tech companies are not even comparable to that market.
- batou 11y ago
  Indeed. UK finance here. Several billion goes through our platform. We've already moved company registration offshore in case the shit goes down. We're about ready to move all our kit out of the country as well. As for staff, we're staying put because when everything else goes down the shitter, we're going to be in the last position of power financially. House time. Edit: Also EU safe harbour; fucking joke if there ever was one.
  - secfirstmd 11y ago
    Your welcome to bring your business to Ireland! We love tech and finance companies (most major international ones work here), have a sensible attitude to terrorism related issues (we have a bit of a past history), part of the Euro, long-term plans to stay in the EU, don't force backdoors or intimidation of large companies, stable politically, neutral foreign policy, easy enough to get high-skilled visas. Great place to work, cool people, English speaking, 12.5% Corporation tax, good grants, good beer and music. Find out more: www.idaireland.com :)

blfr 11y ago

As the domestic European terrorism (ETA, IRA, RAF) faded, our governments/elites imported foreign (mostly Muslim) terrorism and are now using this as an excuse to spy on everyone. I guess if we let them get away with it, we deserve the fallout.

bobm_kite9 11y ago

Is this really about terrorism? I have a feeling that terrorism is the excuse being used to try and surveil the public generally. Why would they want to do this? My feeling is so that they can keep control of public order. It's a mystery to me why there hasn't been more public activism around unemployment levels and wealth equality in Europe so far. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/01/europe-young-people-rioting-denied-education-jobs http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/01/europe-...

toyg 11y ago
> I have a feeling that terrorism is the excuse being used to try and surveil the public generally. Pedophilia failed* so they moved on to the next excuse. If that fails, they'll probably use drug trafficking. * well, sort of: they did get DNS bans in place and the opt-in porn firewall.
- crottypeter 11y ago
  You mean opt-out.
  - toyg 11y ago
    As an existing Virgin broadband customer, I think I was given the option to enable it or not. I don't know how it works for new customers.
    - ionised 11y ago
      I was an existing Virgin Fibre when these measures were implemented and I had to opt out on my Virgin account web page.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  You are also forgetting one of the biggest successes; they convinced most all of society to agree to not only ban data, but to see possession of that data as one of the worst wrongs a person can commit. The notion that changing the pattern of bits on your hard drive can be worse than killing someone has now been driven to the core of our society. And as for the US, drug trafficking has worked great for the most part. For example the concept that intent to distribute can be determined simply by possessing more than some arbitrary amount, with the prosecutor not needing to show any other evidence, is a disastrous development. Civil forfeiture, where one's property is charged with a crime, is also another great development for them, though it is a hand they are beginning to overplay. LGBT individuals should count themselves very lucky. Had they delayed their rights movement by a few decades, they may have been hunted down (imagine if the social hatred of homosexuals that was present in the early 20th century was combined with the modern day power to pry into people's lives).

mavdi 11y ago

Conspiracy theory here... Me thinks they've already got their hands on a quantum computer and this is all just a smoke screen. Yes yes, encryption, can't get through that...

alextgordon 11y ago
In case you weren't aware, quantum computers cannot break modern symmetric encryption.
- knodi123 11y ago
  dude's alleging secret future-tech developed by some modern covert bletchley park, and you're gonna refute it with a fine point about what algorithms can currently do? I don't think you two are playing tennis on the same court.
  - _nedR 11y ago
    I still found the exchange, informative/insightful and apropos.
  - alextgordon 11y ago
    My point was that "quantum computer" sounds like a scary apocalypse scenario, but isn't. It makes key exchange awkward but by no means impossible. We already know that GCHQ has an underground level full of conventional computers. That's a lot scarier.
- tyho 11y ago
  Well it would reduce the security factor of AES-128 to as low as 64bits which is somewhat tractable.

JulianMorrison 11y ago

What I'd like to see is all the big internet names - Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on - getting together to say "We will provide our services only over fully secure encryption with strong keys. We will not implement backdoors, weaken our algorithms, or let you put a tap behind the SSL servers in our network. We will pull up our roots and leave your country if you demand them. And if you block your public from using strong encryption, they will have to manage without our services."

tinkerrr 11y ago
You mean the biggest internet names will no longer operate in almost any of the developed world?
- Roodgorf 11y ago
  If these companies simultaneously put their foot down in this way and did not waiver I really doubt the government would go through with doing anything that would risk them leaving. Any one of these examples alone would be a huge loss to the market for, say, the United States. The political backlash would be enormous, and that's not even including the community actually concerned about privacy. That being said, whether such an ultimatum would ever actually happen? Yeeeeeah...
  - wahsd 11y ago
    The governments will simply step up their particular set of sticks and carrots to compel companies to be incentivized to not do those kinds of things. What, did you, the cattle, think you could revolt against your rancher masters with impunity forever? What do you think Google will say and do if the Government suggests giving preferences and lavish benefits to Microsoft or vice versa? The only thing that really can be done is getting politically involved. Politics, elections, transparency, combating corruption, digital activism, etc. are all the only way that this will ever be prevented from metastasizing into something far more devious and nefarious. I hate to say it, but the only solution is suffocating and starving our own governments into submission. We have bred a bred beasts and they are fed with endless and unrestrained taxing power, reality is that we really need to implement what Republicans pay lip service to .... actually cutting taxes. Cut, cut, cut, taxes; limit the tax money to a set amount which then forces the government to have to prioritize, that includes for the military. We have a sleeping demon on our hands with the current surveillance government, which is directly a result of the plundering bonanza of unlimited and unfettered funding for militarism under the guise of security and freedom from boogiemen we create.

userbinator 11y ago

It's like they really want to become 1984. I wonder what Orwell would say if he were still alive today.

p01926 11y ago

Would anybody like to predict and defend a probability above 0.00 that gov.uk will be able to meaningfully impede my ability use cryptography by 2020? Obviously politician's rhetoric, and to a large extent the law, have become unhinged from reality, so the odds of passing one more moronic, ineffectual law are a given: 1.0. But I'm asking someone to seriously state and defend even the slightest possibility that David Cameron might, in even the smallest sense, succeed. I can't.

raspasov 11y ago

Useless politician.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago

If Britain mandated encryption for Internet services in the UK, I would feel extremely unsafe making any kind of financial transaction while I'm there unless it's in cash. Wait, shit, isn't London the global center of the finance industry?

secfirstmd 11y ago

According to todays news, No "safe spaces" apparently also includes Amnesty International. "UK surveillance Tribunal reveals the government spied on Amnesty International" https://www.amnesty.org/latest/news/2015/07/uk-surveillance-tribunal-reveals-the-government-spied-on-amnesty-international/ https://www.amnesty.org/latest/news/2015/07/uk-surveillance-...

dumbassbitch 11y ago

Someone tried to steal the genderless no form factor options of everyone & more long ago. They may have succeeded, or they may have failed. One of the two happened... Which would mean, the public would be absolutely useless to them anyway.