Lets ban all encryption coz protection!!!

[watercooled]

That seems to be the gist of it anyway. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...hell-ban-them/

This really is quite pathetic yet depressing at the same time, for what I assume are pretty obvious reasons. But just in case you didn't already know, it's worth knowing.

I really, really try not to get involved in anything political on forums as it's rare you get anything positive out if it, but this goes beyond the level of the usual politician-level-insane, both in terms of how it would be possible, why it would be useful, and why it wouldn't cause immeasurable harm in the process of of not living up to its goals.

Sigh...

[herulach]

Wow, because it being illegal will stop all those nasty terrorists going about their otherwise perfectly law abiding lives. Not only would it be incredibly easy to mask (just needs a client that communicates over https, looks like any other kind of https transaction) its also impossible to implement.

I for one will be presenting a false positive everytime I logon to my work laptop at home. The alternative is you have everyone that doesn't know what they're doing using the 'uk' version of backdoored apps and everyone else using encrypted versions.

[watercooled]

This even puts the 'adult'-filter saga to shame on so many levels. Between even the politicians supposedly responsible for it not understanding what it actually did, or what it was blocking, or confusing it with IWF when answering criticism, and the sheer ease of bypassing the whole thing and the false-positives blocking innocent websites, and so on.

But still, this eclipses it. By far.

Oh... dear! I've no idea how I managed to post this in the hardware forum; if a mod sees this could they please move it to GD (or anywhere they feel is most appropriate)?

[jim]

Moved to GD

[Biscuit]

The terrifying thing bout it is that people buy into it. They repeatedly try and do the same kind of thing under the guise of protecting the children from peados and every time there are elements of society who lap it up.
I personally find it revolting that they have the guile to use these atrocities to their advantage, yet not at all surprising.

This offers ZERO protection against the things they claim it will, especially if you announce to the world you are going to do it
Nothing more than another step toward a right wing police state.

[wasabi]

Nothing more than another step toward a right wing police state.

Why a 'right wing' one?

Labour wanted ID cards

Nazis were socialists.

Still, live in Cameron's constituency and am a floating voter. He has just lost my vote, not that it will count for much.

[Spud1]

It's incredibly frustrating, as Mr Cameron has decided to put this in his manifesto for the election and is making a point of this in his campaign. I doubt it will actually get through (but all sorts of stupid laws get passed I guess..), but the most frustrating thing is that I cannot vote for the Conservatives with this sort of drivel being spouted. For me, this is a bigger issue than immigration, overseas aid etc etc.

That means Lib Dems get a vote - the only other options are the nutters and the idiots (ukip and labour) and I am not daft enough to give either of them a free vote.

[watercooled]

The terrifying thing bout it is that people buy into it. They repeatedly try and do the same kind of thing under the guise of protecting the children from peados and every time there are elements of society who lap it up.
I personally find it revolting that they have the guile to use these atrocities to their advantage, yet not at all surprising.

This offers ZERO protection against the things they claim it will, especially if you announce to the world you are going to do it
Nothing more than another step toward a right wing police state.

All precisely my thoughts. And if you don't like it, you must be one of those terrorist or child-abuser types of course!

I think he's just given the Lib-Dems a free pass to a load of votes it was seeming increasingly unlikely they'd get. If they're smart about it, they could easily use this to their advantage. Perhaps they could start by explaining to people how incredibly stupid it is. Either way you look at it, you end up with a government seeking to do something like this, and you end up with a government so incompetent to not realise how idiotic the proposal is.

If they're going to treat everyone who uses encryption as a criminal, the prisons are going to get a bit crowded. Might as well just build a wall around the country and be done with it. If they're not going to do it that way, then what's the point? Any real criminal I imagine would be a least smart enough to stop using a known-compromised service.

[Ttaskmaster]

There are plenty of other ways to effectively communicate criminal activities, even without encrypted emails. I know naff-all about The Dark Web and encryptions, VPNs etc, yet I still know how to manage it. These are not exactly new technologies either and are available free to all people.

If you're being caught through the likes of FB and email, you're just being dumb and deserve everything you get!!

[Smudger]

Nazis were socialists.

Not quite...

Hitler and the Nazis outlawed socialism, and executed socialists and communists en masse, even before they started rounding up Jews. In 1933, the Dachau concentration camp held socialists and leftists exclusively. The Nazis arrested more than 11,000 Germans for "illegal socialist activity" in 1936.

[wasabi]

Not quite...

Half true. They were anti Marxism-socialism.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism#Anti-communism

But all a bit of a distraction - I don't want to derail the thread with Nazi stuff. Just get annoyed when people throw the term 'right wing' as abuse when those on the left are often equally guilty of creating police states.

[Biscuit]

Half true. They were anti Marxism-socialism.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism#Anti-communism

But all a bit of a distraction - I don't want to derail the thread with Nazi stuff. Just get annoyed when people throw the term 'right wing' as abuse when those on the left are often equally guilty of creating police states.

But the conservatives are right wing, they are in power, they are pushing the country farther right... and its their policy...

I think you are reading too far into the adjective.

[Ttaskmaster]

So expecting the National *Socialist* German Workers Party to actually be Socialist.... well, since when has a politician ever told the truth?!

On the one hand, I think Cameron really is making a stupid move if this goes ahead... on the other, it seems like something people would so easily get all riled up over, which makes me wonder if this is being done to distract us while he sneaks something else far more serious under the radar...

[abaxas]

Steganography (which I cant pronouce) will be the way forward.

Same message wrapped up in a boring long email. Same data hidden in a spreadsheet. Etc

[Ttaskmaster]

Nah, the old ways will return - Veiled speech, one-time cypher pads and the like.

I personally prefer the Christoper Lambert approach in Fortress 2: Playing a game of chess and conveying the secret message whenever you touch the King ... which is then spoken so blindingly blatantly, the cops would NEVER find out, eh!!

[peterb]

OK - a little bit of perspective...

First ly, it isn't a ban on encryption as such, but an ability for Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) to have a back door into encrypted communications. However, the vast majority of e mail communication is not encrypted (or not particularly strongly) so it is only that which is encrypted would come under a new law. The law already requires someone suspected of a crime to reveal passwords, and failure to do so is an offence with a two year maximum prison sentence - a bit low imho as someone concealing a crime carrying - on conviction - a prison sentence more than that may wish to take their chance with the lower punishment.

Given the large number of communication, it is unlikely that every e mail or other communication is read or, more importantly, analysed in real time, hence the requirement for storage, It is likely that only if a person comes under suspicion from other intelligence that e mails etc might be read. however there is the question of timeliness - if the contents of a message contain details of some serious crime, it needs to be read before the event takes place.

There is also the question of a Government discharging its duty to protect the population. There has been criticism of Governments when a terrorist attack has taken place because intelligence wasn't in place. Is it right that criminal activity should be hidden from LEAs? Where does the balance lie?

What checks and balances should there be? Some form of judicial oversight to ensure the LEAs are acting within their legal framework, and transparency about that framework.

And the measures need to be proportionate to the threat. And there is little doubt that there is a threat from terrorism as the recent events in France, the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby, the Glasgow Airport attack, the 7 July London bombings all demonstrate. I have left out Child abuse - but an equally unpleasant crime exploiting children, not only images, but the grooming of children. |But all crimes operate under some cloak of secrecy, should they have the protection of secure communication?

Of course, the facrt that some criminals may use encryption is not the same that all who use encryption have criminal intent - but some may, and that is where proportionality and judicial oversight plays a role.

How workable would a ban be? Not at all - which is why a requirement for a backdoor is the proposal. But that requires international coo-operation, or stiff penalties for anyone detected using encryption mechanisms without - and if everyone started using them, the enforcement would be impossible - but most people won't because it is too much effort.

There are many other forms of encryption or protection that carry plausible deniability. A one time pad is unbreakable and can be made to be plausibly deniable - but it is a manual process and a lot of faff. Coding is another - substitute one innocuous word - say sausages - for - say - nuclear warheads, and a shopping list takes on a whole new meaning. But that all involves extra work for the ne'er do well, and as Enigma showed, cider breaking often results in operator or user error.

The other danger is if the backdoor becomes known to others outside Government, and that is, IMHO, where the real risk and threat to privacy lies.

So there is an element of sabre rattling or knee jerk in all this. For what its worth I suspect most publicly available crypto system as decrypt able given enough time and resource, but that raises the question of timeliness.

But in the end it is a question of the balance between the public's right to privacy and the publics right to protection.