Post AXzJB52tywskAewmki by bullivant@mastodon.ie
(DIR) More posts by bullivant@mastodon.ie
(DIR) Post #AXzHKSfpIuAA9JV1E0 by bullivant@mastodon.ie
2023-07-23T11:49:42Z
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So we are about to lose access to WhatsApp, Apple and Facebook in the UK. If it happens I cannot imagine what the reaction of the public will be [irony]?Seriously what on earth are the Tories thinking? They are as reliant on these platforms as the rest of us. Do they think that the tech companies are bluffing and that the UK is too important a market to exit? If they do, they could be in for an awful shock.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66256081#UKPolitics #WhatsApp #Facebook #Apple #Internexit
(DIR) Post #AXzHKTgvWIdZJ11PZw by matthewtoad43@climatejustice.social
2023-07-23T12:06:00Z
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@bullivant First it's "to scan for child abuse material". Then it's requiring immediate changes without the usual review process. Then it's "protect the public from criminals, child sex abusers and terrorists".It gets broader. Of course it'll be used for broader crimes. Likely including protest - there are powers to add more crimes to the list by secondary legislation, i.e. without meaningful scrutiny.I guess I understand why the child abuse charities are all in favour. It's a serious problem, although contact offending mostly involves people the children already know, but grooming *is* a real problem (even though it's used as a political slur).Nonetheless, the government has not installed microphones in everyone's front room. That is the level of surveillance being discussed here. The ability to not only scan for prohibited files - which will not only be child abuse images but also any other prohibited documents, as with existing systems - but also prohibited discussions. And then read the contents of matching conversations by returning the encryption key.I don't know whether the tech companies will back down. There are plenty of markets where the government is the main barrier (e.g. China), and they'd love this. We'll see.The point about updates is good. The only way to make this invisible to a sophisticated target is to always compromise people's security - client side scanning will have to report in when it finds something. And end to end encryption is only as good as the software; if you're the vendor, you can always ship an update that breaks it. This is particularly bad for web sites; for apps, shipping a custom update for individuals only would require the collaboration of the app store. I would be surprised if that is not already happening with the existing Snooper's Charter powers though.
(DIR) Post #AXzHKUY6KbAhxvtsSe by APPTeOORuzvlGOetVY.verita84@poster.place
2023-07-23T13:33:36.814398Z
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@matthewtoad43 @bullivant What happened to the UK? They are the most cucked nation. They love loosing their freedoms and surveillance and mass immigration. They love destroying themselves
(DIR) Post #AXzHKVpVZMgpwD3IES by matthewtoad43@climatejustice.social
2023-07-23T12:14:23Z
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@bullivant From a business perspective, there are times when you need secure communication other than your main platform. If your main platform is Teams, which does go down sometimes, you may well need to use e.g. Whatsapp as a backup system. Especially if your infrastructure has been compromised. There are a few people working on specialised continuity apps, but it's not uncommon to use technology intended for consumers for emergency communications. Or even for sending part of a shared secret using a different platform etc.The fewer safeguards there are - and the safeguards in the already problematic Snooper's Charter are being removed - the more likely such powers will be used by corrupt civil servants for commercial espionage. And as always they will hide behind the Official Secrets Act. Just as we've seen in the US with some of the NSA leaks; when they checked for a period, 300 unauthorized wiretaps, 80 of which were stalking; what were the rest?Some of this commercial espionage is "official". Governments spying on foreign corporations for "the economic security of the united kingdom". One classic example was the a major summit under Gordon Brown, where he set up fake web cafes etc to spy on diplomats. Intelligence is routinely used for commercial espionage, they just don't get caught very often.However, the fewer the safeguards, the more likely it will also be used for outright corruption.
(DIR) Post #AXzHKY8N0Cxx5HtNuS by matthewtoad43@climatejustice.social
2023-07-23T12:20:40Z
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@bullivant Further technical note re client side surveillance, updates etc:What that means is that real targets, if they have the know-how, will use alternative solutions where this is not an issue. On the upside, that means they stick out like a sore thumb and the intelligence agencies will simply compromise their device (under existing powers). So maybe that aspect is somewhat practical, if not necessarily desirable?Whether you can use the "standard" system (i.e. Whatsapp rather than Signal) and still detect when it flags you as a bad guy, is less clear, it probably depends on a rooted device, how the communication protocols work, how good their anti-debugging software is, etc.
(DIR) Post #AXzIxt4jB2IjHRVh20 by penguin42@mastodon.org.uk
2023-07-23T13:51:58Z
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@bullivant a) They know Labour won't oppose it.b) If they try they'll get blamed as helping paedophilesc) They can always blame the big tech companies for not cooperating.d) What's their way out?
(DIR) Post #AXzJB52tywskAewmki by bullivant@mastodon.ie
2023-07-23T13:54:20Z
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@penguin42 Very much on the point. They have got themselves in a hole on this one. It will be humiliating for them if these companies pull out of the UK. There's Wikipedia and presumably large parts of the rest of the internet (Twitter, Reddit?) as well.