WhatsApp and Snapchat could be banned under new surveillance plans
independent.co.uk
independent.co.uk
I could say something about how this is exactly how terrorism wins, but that's not really the case. This is just how we lose.
These ideas of sweeping restrictions could be due to the same incompetent thinking that caused the problem in the first place, or might be a cynical leveraging of the situation to quench an unending thirst for more control and power, but whatever the reason, this is the kind of thinking that threatens the foundations on which free societies are built upon.
It's not going to change until people truly appreciate the trade-off of freedom vs. security, which probably wont happen until the majority really feel the pinch of losing the former.
Some of the biggest offenders of the Freedom of Press are now not battling for the protection of the press, but for being seen by the media as one of the mourners in the first row of the Paris events on the weekend (for a better overview of that see https://storify.com/tometty/staunch-defenders-of-free-press-...)
Most of these providing their "condolences" have been constantly mocked by CH, have tried to criminalize the work of CH in the past (e.g. German politicians), and are now shamelessly exploiting media attention and believe again that there will be no better time to even further crush the rights of European citizens, some with measures (e.g. further extending telco data retention, dragnet snooping in the UK & Germany) that latest with the events in Paris should again been demonstrated as not effective to protect from such attacks (both measures were already in place and broadly used in France before the attacks).
We can only hope that Cameron's statement in the article linked is solely a political one, fishing for voters in the far right & UKIP spectrum. Otherwise this might be another nail in the coffin of a growing and successful UK Internet industry.
Some additional info: Noam Chomsky on the aftermath / events in Paris - http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/We-Are-All---Fill-i... Reporters sans Frontieres / Reporters without Borders: http://en.rsf.org/rwb-condemns-presence-of-predators-11-01-2...
I wonder if people of UK are like frog in boiling water? Do they not realize that their rights are being removed with each passing law? I hope at least tech companies will move out of UK, prompting the UK government to ponder over its actions.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Chiropractic_Associatio...
[2] No one can make fun of Her Royal Majesty, and UK prime minister was on the parade showing solidarity with dead French satirists
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Unit...
[4] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/britain-targets-g...
Are we living in the same country?
So now the British wants to outlaw math.
But realistically, nobody will be able to shut down the FOSS tools that already exist. Use Tor or VPNs if necessary in countries with internet censorship.
Also, just because the suspects in the cases you mentioned were well known to the authority doesn't mean their communication was monitored 24/7. We simply don't know.
You think politicians would stay quiet about them if there were?
While in england they are all like, "No more spying in secret, time to actually take your rights away".
The english are hardcore, the NSA has more freedom in england than in the US. Sad, but funny.
Yes, we do.
It's awful that he can say we don't want something that would be protected in the US.
I'm so glad HN exists because I sometimes I feel I'm the only one who notices it.
In most parliamentary systems, the Head of State is compelled to invite the party with the largest representation in parliament to form a government, and that party then proposes a government which is then subject to a confirmation election in the parliament, which it must win in order to be the government. So, generally, Prime Ministers win an election among members of parliament, who are themselves elected by the public (whether or individually or by party name depends on the particular parliamentary electoral system -- the UK system, as I understand, uses first-past-the-post with candidate names and parties on the ballot, much like most US elections -- while some systems use party-list-proportional where seats are allocated proportionally to the number of votes cast for parties, and there are various hybrid and other systems in use, as well.)
This is not entirely unlike US Presidents, who are also elected indirectly by presidential electors who are in turn elected by the public, however, it does differ in that the electors in the UK are also legislators rather than being elected solely as electors. Its kind of like if, in the US, members of Congress elected the President.
(Which, in fact, can happen in the US system, but only if the Congressional count of the vote by the electors doesn't give a majority for any candidate.)
In most parliamentary systems, the parliament is the direct representative of the people, and they elect and appoint the government, and can disband it whenever the government loses support of the parliament. The UK is slightly odd here, because I believe the members of the government are also still members of parliament. I have no idea whether the LibDems have the power to withdraw their support and send Cameron home (or at least back to his seat, while the LibDems form a new government with Labour). In many other countries, they would definitely have that power.
Of course the US and the UK are both oddballs in that they have a pure district system, whereas most democracies have some level of proportional representation. (Often purely proportional, but some have a hybrid system where people still have a representative directly from their district.)
But a few things will spring to mind,
1) we tend to vote conservative when the books need balancing, and labour when we feel wealth is not being distributed properly
2) the conservatives always try to "cost save" on the NHS by privatising parts of it. This virtually always leads to decreased performance. We like the NHS (a lot).
3) like in most places in the world, we're in a living standards squeeze. They say they're turning the economy around, but in reality while the books might say that, the poor and middle class haven't noticed the difference. Tax has also not been noticeably reduced which is usually a conservative winner.
4) they formed a coalition government with the lib dems (they did not have a majority). Due to lib dems u-turning on some key points (tuition fees for example), and most lib dem voters are not pro conservative, they are likely to lose a lot of seats. So many so that another coalition seems unlikely.
5) nanny state-ism. An election point in the past here accused labour of this kind of behaviour, but now with their default on porn ban, the snoopers charter and others, it's starting to wash off.
oh and 6) UKIP. Historically the hard right wanted to exit the EU (and stop migration), but the conservatives keep dallying around on the subject(s). They're losing voters and MPs to UKIP who are seen by hard liners as more likely to deliver.
The end result is that you are likely to see the Tories back in power by the end of summer, in a somewhat different coalition and with mildly adjusted policies. Either way, more of the same.
Obviously if party supporters were evenly spread throughout the country, the outcome of the election would be a whitewash. It's not the case, though -- "Scotland tends to vote Labour" and so on. Gross vote supremacy obviously helps to win seats, but the relationship isn't obvious -- certainly small parties will tend to be under-represented, for example.
They tried to trade their boundary change bill in exchange for House of Lords reform, but failed because of a rebellion in their own ranks. Thus the constituency borders are favourable to Labour.
During their term, UKIP became the 3rd most popular party, which is splitting their vote.
Labour's popularity has also increased since 2010 (when it was at record lows).
The Conservatives' only saving grace is that if Labour does not achieve a majority, David Cameron gets the first chance to try to form a government.
However the mechanics of FPTP are such that UKIP are unlikely to achieve a share of seats proportional to their vote, and the Lib Dems are unlikely to be completely annihilated.
So the most likely outcome is that neither Conservative + Lib Dem nor Conservative + UKIP will add up to a majority. A three-way is right out.
They can of course try for a minority government, but if Labour are almost at a majority and the Cons are much further away, the Queen (should) say "Errrr... no".
Firstly, we know it's technically infeasible, secondly it would have a serious chilling effect on UK Internet companies and the digital economy, and thirdly it would actually take very popular apps and tools from young voters hands. So does he really think people will be panicked enough by the threat of terrorism to vote for it?
And even if the UK has no written constitution, they signed the Human Rights Act 1998 incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights (the “Convention”) into UK law. Article 8(1) of the Convention provides that “everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_in_English_law for more.
Obama does not care a shit about his constitution anymore, and consequently his poodle in the UK neither. So they should just waive the Human Rights Act, and consequently leave the European Union. We pay enough for their cows anyway, and they are way above their tolerable abuses of civil freedom anyway.
1) Whatsapp has never said publicly they are doing that
2) Now they might backtrack and say they never intended to add E2E encryption
3) Without a privacy policy change as well, the encryption change may be meaningless, since they'd give themselves permission to modify it whenever they wish.
Why should it be diffrent? What did you expect to change? Thats the good thing about good crypto, the user does not even know its there.
I mean sure, I would like to be able to validate the other persons fingerprint and discover as soon as we are communicating diffrently, but relasticlly, what whatsapp did is the biggest jump in crypto usage since https.