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Comment by TillE | Hacker News Reader

Yet another example of an insane, unworkable internet policy from the UK which will never actually be implemented. I don't know why they keep doing this.

Even if they were serious about it, they're a tiny country that lacks the clout to push around American tech giants. They lack the leverage of even Ireland, where most of these companies have their European tax base.

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> they're a tiny country that lacks the clout to push around American tech giants

I'd wager the power dynamic is more along the UK's membership in five-eyes and their ability to be a useful sigint ally.

For all we know the NSA wants a better way to spy on Americans using Signal. How does that work? Get the Brits to do it.

But there is no reason signal would ever comply with some law like this passed outside their jurisdiction. Even if a law like this was passed in the US, you could just move your headquarters to Egypt.

This is the same mentality that got UK to pass a referendum for Brexit.

As absurd an idea might be, it doesn't mean we can stand still and do nothing because we're sure the idea is so dumb it won't come to fruition. We need to fight it to prevent it from becoming a reality.

It WILL be implemented. Remember: both the EU and the US are pushing these laws. And soon they will be extended to cover terrorist propaganda, drug trafficking and calls for unlawful protests.

I wonder how that will work against steganography? With the right cipher and signal-to-noise ratio it's essentially impossible to prove beyond doubt that a given file contains secret information.

No one's gonna use steganography but nerds.

They get to print something along the lines of "we tried to protect the children and those irresponsible American tech giants stopped us" in the Daily Mail.

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