UK PM Theresa May's response to terror attacks 'shortsighted' The UK's Prime Minister has been taken to task for trying to make the internet "both more and less safe" at the same time – and failing to publicly acknowledge the dichotomy. Following the attacks on two major British cities in the past fortnight, Theresa May yesterday gave a speech saying that "enough is enough", calling for …
Well she's going to point at the internet and blame that for what happened on Saturday and the week before that in Manchester.
Why? Because it diverts attention from the cuts she announced in 2015 to Police budgets, which in reality has led to the situation we find ourselves in. And it's all well and good saying "enough is enough" and that Britain has been too soft on terrorism - it was her bloody job for the last 6 years to be harder on terrorism and to put things in place to protect the UK from these brain dead wankers who do what they do under the name of Islam when in all reality they have fuck all to do with Islam.
Peter Kirkham, chief inspector from 1981 to 2002, has called the Government out on their lies. Forces have been cut across the country. Saying "we're putting more Police on the streets" just means coppers from other forces are moved to where they're needed, hours are increased, it's pathetic. Even in the counter terrorism branch of the Police they just don't have the resources to look at every single person who's reported.
The internet, on the whole, isn't to blame for the mess we're in now. It's the actions of those MP's who we've elected, who brought us in to illegal wars, who continue to fund regimes with weapons and money to carry on those and other wars, who allow proxy wars to continue to be fought, who allow Police force budgets to be cut - they are responsible.
I'm undecided as to who I'm going to vote for, however it's nice to know that in 2015 when Corbyn (during PMQ's) asked then Prime Minister David Cameron about what effects those cuts would have on the safety of the Public he was told (not quite verbatim): "Get a proper suit, wear a tie, and learn the national anthem". With dozy dick May grimacing in delight.
Cut funding and then blame some one or something else for resulting failures is a move right out of the American GOP playbook.
The year before the infamous Benghazi attack, the GOP had severely cut ALL foreign embassy security funding. But who do they blame?
Your T. May is a dangerous lying psychopath.
"I'm undecided as to who I'm going to vote for"
You work in tech and you're undecided who to vote for?
I never got into technology so I could control and spy on everyone around me. I got into tech, because I could see how powerful it was and how it could enhance people lives, not lock them in virtual chains, in order to trip them up, financially head clip their every move with fines from CCTV/Monitoring. This is where we're going with the current use of technology in the next 5 years, it's just awful.
24/7 HADECS 3 Motorway stealth speed cameras mass monitoring/ANPR Cameras, acting as trip wires in the remotest parts of the UK (that have no/little crime, therefore justification) as the new form of regressive taxation.
There is absolutely no justification for much of this technology being implemented especially in the remote parts of the UK. It's often linked to lowering of speed limits, to remove the margin of error. A speeding fine has the added ability (when booking a speed awareness course) to link names/address/car registration to a valid IP Address/email/mobile phone numbers.
This is "zero tolerance" population monitoring, so someone can explicitly cross the t's and dot the i's and leave no surveillance gaps. There seems some sort of master plan to turn the UK into the equivalent of an Open Prison, knowing which sector any person is, at any time of day or night.
All this technology has to be maintained/data analysed for mostly no benefit/purpose. Spending money on this, at the same cutting taxes for the 5% and which areas of spending are cut to compensate? - free school meals for all children. It's almost as though we have a doppelganger of Myra Hindley in power, in both Theresa May and Amber Rudd.
I'd rather put a spanner in Theresa May's plans, give Corbyn a chance. Seeing her losing face on Friday is worth every penny of extra tax I'd pay under Corbyn (if at all).
I genuinely can't see why anyone would find the idea of Theresa May as Prime Minister for the next 5 years, even slightly palatable. If you work in tech, it beggars belief why you would vote for her and Rudd.
I don't think that's at all fair. She's not a psychopath; she's merely a dangerous liar.
AKA a politician.
Don't expect any politician to have a clue what to do with this stuff, they just have some crap advisors.
None of the useless fools presented for election this time round will have any idea how to approach this problem.
You work in tech and you're undecided who to vote for?
That assumes that May's position on trying to force companies to backdoor their systems is the only determining factor on who to vote for. If you had a choice between her and Hitler, where Hitler promised to leave tech companies alone and focus solely on his "final solution", would you still imply that a techie couldn't vote for May?
Sorry, didn't mean to Godwin the thread, I went overboard to illustrate that there are some things the opposition could advocate for that some will see as worse - possibly much worse. I realize there are more than two choices, but even if the other choices didn't advocate for anything as bad as backdooring tech, but they each had 100 small bad ideas, are those 100 small bad things preferable to 1 big bad thing?
""I'm undecided as to who I'm going to vote for"
You work in tech and you're undecided who to vote for?"
Trouble is it was New Labour who were pushing for the ID card linked to a totally over the top database which the Conservative/LibDem coalition abandoned. Wasn't that another of Theresa May's decisions?
Just as well there is more to the election than just 'security', there's cuts to disability benefits, free school lunches for infants, the dismantling of the NHS, etc so it still quite easy to work out who to vote for.
> Trouble is it was New Labour who were pushing for the ID card linked to a totally over the top database
However Corbyn's Labour have promised no further loss of civil liberties to fight terrorism, it is only right wing c*nt parties, UKIP and the Tories that are actively promising LESS rights for all
Perhaps you missed this interview the other day
https://www.channel4.com/news/corbyn-criticises-may-over-police-funding
> "You work in tech and you're undecided who to vote for?"
You work in tech or any other job capacity or situation that requires a functioning economy and you're undecided who to vote for? Just saying - it's a democracy and a plurality of views is in the patent description.
Actually, just go and research 'confirmation bias' instead.
I'm undecided also.
It's only ever going to be between blue and red where I live. Whilst I fundamentally disagree with the tech, surveillance and terrorism inspired policies of May, I also fundamentally disagree with the economics policies of Corbyn. I also see a lot of people telling me to "look at the policies" when indeed looking at policies of both Labour and Conservative in previous elections has led to said policies not ever being implemented because we all know that politicians will say anything to get elected, then backtrack when it involves doing actual work and decision making.
Think I might spoil my ballot this time. Neither option is palatable to me in the slightest.
Given the UK is the only country in Europe with the FPTP system you either vote to ensure whoevers in your seat remains in your seat or you vote for the runner up from last time as they have the best chance of getting them out.
If the incumbent, or the runner up is of the party you support that's a bonus.
But with the UK electoral system as it is those are really you're only took options that will make a difference.
With the events of the past few weeks, having a free NHS there, never knowing when you might need it (even if you are fit and healthy), has really come to the fore. Imagine the premium increases with this level of Terrorism threat, currently. It would be exploited by Insurance firms to the hilt.
Made me think back to the 2012 London Olympics Opening Ceremony and kids happily jumping on beds, to the sound of Tubular bells, into the letters of the NHS. Never was there, a more powerful symbol of what being British stands for in times of terror.
Danny Boyle was completely right in his message, in putting the NHS at the centre of everything we do. The NHS has shown to be the backbone, of allowing everyone to pick up the pieces after the events of late, without having to worry in the short term at least, how you'd afford to pay for such care.
In 5 years Theresa May / Jeremy Hunt will have privatised all the back end services and starved services to the point of collapse. Ready to implement full privatisation and/or charges/insurance premiums.
Don't let it happen. Vote tactically on Thurday, for the sake of a Free NHS for all.
"Free NHS"
Free at the point of delivery. There is no magic money tree.
Tory, Labour, whatever - vote (and do vote) for whoever you think will be best for the economy so we can afford the NHS. (Or at least most of it, many admins could go the way of free prescriptions as far as I'm concerned.)
"Tory, Labour, whatever - vote (and do vote) for whoever you think will be best for the economy so we can afford the NHS."
It's not about being able to afford it, although clearly we need to but that's another story (one about tax). It's about wanting the NHS in its true public form, not the private-by-stealth version that the Tories want to bring in, which will make profits for their mates and put revenue above everything, especially that pesky standard of care the customers, er, I mean patients, expect.
@ David Nash
"It's about wanting the NHS in its true public form"
Unfortunately this causes a massive problem of what its true form is. A massive religion opposed to change of any form bar more money has left us with the current system. Free at the point of use seems to be what people want except they then want input on how that is to be delivered.
The problem seems to be that people want good quality, cheap and quick. Oh and nothing private, more doctors, more nurses, more hospitals, more drugs, more expensive drugs, extra cash for speciality drugs not offered because of a lack of cost/benefit, etc.
I do feel bad that the NHS is going to fall under its own weight and to a point its success (people live longer). But the best healthcare system in the world is not copied elsewhere and only really boasts about free at the point of use. And its supporters boast it is better than the US as if the US is the entire developed world.
I think the first part of any solution is to recognise the problem and be honest about it. I hope we look to solve it before the health service crashes and burns.
@wolftone,
"The internet, on the whole, isn't to blame for the mess we're in now. It's the actions of those MP's who we've elected, who brought us in to illegal wars, who continue to fund regimes with weapons and money to carry on those and other wars, who allow proxy wars to continue to be fought, ...."
So you think that terrorist attacks in, say, Britain are linked to deployment of British forces elsewhere? So exactly what did Sweden do to attract the attention of these brain dead wankers? Or Belgium? Or the Philippines? Or Pakistan? Or India? Or Iraq? Or Argentina? I don't recall those countries being involved in deployments beyond their own borders.
It's a monumental level of naivety to assume that there is any connection whatsoever between a country's foreign policy and whether or not it becomes a target for terrorists. Saying "Stop being beastly and the terrorists will stop being beastly to us" is demonstrably a load of bollocks.
Many countries across Europe have woken up too late to the fact that despite a policy of non-involvement in the affairs of the Middle East they are just as targetted as anywhere else. That's come as a nasty shock.
Well she's going to point at the internet and blame that for what happened on Saturday and the week before that in Manchester.
She's not pointing at the Internet, she's pointing at companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Apple.
Google and Facebook in particular seem to be quite happy to host some truly nasty content, make money from placing ads next to it, and are currently highly ineffective at blocking it from upload and responding to take down notifications. Their feeble attempts thus far seem to focus around making content ineligble for "monetisation", which is a long way from "deleting the content and reporting the user responsible to the police". This approach seems more focused on persuading advertisers that their ads won't appear next to such content, rather than preventing the content being there in the first place. That's really taking the piss.
Whether Google/Facebook like it or not there's kids out there seeking out this kind of material. They're also using these companies' services to talk to some truly nasty, manipulative, far-from-brain-dead wankers who do a good job at grooming them to the point where they're willing to kill themselves and a whole load of others. That's the nub of it. No one is born to do this kind of thing, and it's generally not the parents egging them on, and here in the UK the Police are generally on good terms with Mosques these days. There's actually a ton of good community / police cooperation; parents do not want their sons going off the rails and doing something fatally stupid.
The social media networks acknowledge that they are a conduit for this, and yet they are being very unhelpful or wilfully obstructive in helping law enforcement agencies identify these people. The only reason why the social network companies are being unhelpful and obstructive is because it's going to cost them a ton of cash to do anything about it, or they need to change their business model entirely, or they need to stop pandering to their US users and swallow their First Ammendment pride, or let law enforcement agencies into their data sets so that they can police the content themselves. All of that sounds massively unprofitable.
Well fuck that. I and everyone else (including yourself) want these wankers, brain dead or otherwise, to be hindered, identified, arrested and jailed. If the companies aren't going to usefully help with that, then they're going to have to be forced. If that means regulation and users having to give up the effective anonymity currently afforded by the companies' freetard business models, so be it. If the companies don't like that, well hard luck, get a different business model.
So, given that, how exactly do you expect any elected government to respond? Yes, that's right, elections 101: being lax on law enforcement doesn't look good at the ballot box. The incumbent Spanish government lost the general election immediately after the Madrid bombings thanks to it's poor response; other politicians (though apparently not Corbyn or the Lib Dems) took careful note of that.
So it's no surprise that governments all over Europe are talking about or have already taken similar actions. For example, France has an enduring state of emergency where there's a lot of extra-judical activity going on. Germany will now be handing out €50m fines. Belgium has been having a bit of a crackdown too. I've no idea what the Swedes have been doing.
By being so pathetically useless at cleaning up their act the companies are bringing this upon themselves.
Network Fractures
Having said all that, I think the logical conclusion of strong intervention by governments across Europe against US social network tech companies is 1) they'll have to stop offering a global service and offer non-connected regional services, or 2) they'll withdraw their service entirely from Europe, or 3) they'll abandon or change their US market, or 4) countries will start establishing things akin to the Great Firewall of China to block them and any other non-compliant service.
Ultimately this is boiling down to battle of wills between US users and users in Europe / UK / Canada / elsewhere, and whether or not a company decides to operate in one environment or the other. Americans are quite often vociferously paranoid about the Federal government (which explains the attitudes of the American companies), whereas Europeans, etc. generally trust their governments. Despite the occasional raving the contrary on forums such as this, the majority of of people in Europe can tell the difference between an oppressive totalitarian regime and sensible policing measures. Go ask an East German aged 50 or older, they'll give you an exceptionally clear explanation.
In the past, when it's come to similar Europe / rest of the world vs the USA decisions (e.g. Apple choosing a phone standard for the first iPhone), there is form for American companies realising that the USA is too small a market (Apple chose GSM).
You're Calling for a Police State?
Putting more police on the streets seems wrong. What would you have them do? Stop every white van they see and ask the driver what their intentions are? Follow everyone who looks like they might have Middle Eastern ancestry everywhere to see what they're doing? Stop and search to see if they have a kitchen knife about their person? Sounds like you're calling for a police state. No thanks. No thanks at all.
Police on the streets are only any good for stopping crimes in the act of being committed, if they see it happening. Or for sweeping up the pieces afterwards.
What we need is to stop young kids being turned into brain dead wankers in the first place, and you're not going to achieve that by putting a load of bobbies on the beat. Arguably having more spooks is a part of that, and curiously enough I think they've been recruiting recently.
Another Way
Of course, the only reason why attacks like this happen at all is the vast amounts of publicity they generate. So stop publishing news stories about it.
This was done back in the late 1980s / early 1990s, when the IRA were calling in a load of hoax bomb warnings on the London Underground. The government forced the press and media to stop reporting the incidents, and the hoaxes dried up very quickly.
If the same level of blackout could be achieved for these attacks, they'd stop happening. Though in this day and age, and with the fatalities involved, it would be difficult. Still, it would be very effective, requires no technology or changes in how we live our lives, etc.
'So you think that terrorist attacks in, say, Britain are linked to deployment of British forces elsewhere?'
If you think there's no causative relationship, then you're being rather naïve.
'..So exactly what did Sweden do to attract the attention of these brain dead wankers?'
Google Operation Enduring Freedom.
'..Or Belgium?'
Google Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Unified Protector
'..Or the Philippines?'
Now, that's trickier. There has been an ongoing Muslim 'insurgency' there for something like 400 years, any ISIS 'flagged' operations there have to be viewed in that context. Google The Moros.
'..Or Pakistan?'
Still 'not Muslim enough' for these idiots..Google Wahhabism,
Still 'working for the yankee dollar...' as far as they're concerned
'..Or India?'
You seriously have to ask that?
Back in the 90's while working in a London University I had the 'pleasure' of having to deal with a number of muslim students from several east african countries who hated, with a passion (to the point of fights in the labs), the hindu students from India and Sri Lanka (though they picked mainly on the Indians, as there was a strong LTTE 'presence' in the Sri Lankans which took no shit).
And these were students studying engineering.
If you want a truly rather simplistic answer to this part of your question, the problem is that you have adherents of a religion which has, as, a slogan, 'no god but allah, mohammed is his prophet' vs a religion where they can't actually agree how many deities there are, and are not that fussed about it.
'..Or Iraq?'
Which part don't you get?
ISIS vs USian 'puppets'
ISIS vs Shia Islam (as ISIS are Sunnis, Wahhabis..)
'..Or Argentina?'
Had to look this up, Hezbollah's actions there I knew about, but with regards to ISIS all I could find was reference to threats to the Jewish community living there.
You've got to remember, when all else fails, in their eyes there's always the Jews to fall back on as a traditional enemy, any Jewish community anywhere are a target as far as they're concerned.
'..I don't recall those countries being involved in deployments beyond their own borders.'
See above.
(and for any spook reading this, trying to get the Saudis to keep their dogs on a leash by supplying them with weapons isn't exactly working out, is it?)
She is pushing an agenda and the terrorist acts are "Casus Belli". They are not a cause, and the response does not aim to have any relation to them. It is a MayBot response. Whatever happens, she has only one answer - total surveillance and police state. That is her goal and anything happening around her is simply leveraged to provide the causes.
@ BarryUK
Labour is a brexit alternative? I dont think labour know what labour is apart from economic suicide. Didnt they suggest a vote on the outcome of the negotiations? Thereby making negotiation irrelevant. Apart from Tories the only other party accepting brexit is UKIP and while I had high hopes for them last GE this time they seem to be a bit chaotic.
Apart from that as you point out there is a denial of democracy even from the self named liberal democrats. As for getting involved in politics do you think I have time or money to create from scratch a political party to see through brexit and see tot he national interests in security, economy, etc? And since this is a national problem not a local one that is the scale we are talking.
@ Suricou Raven
"Leave won the referendum by a 2% margin. That's barely a win. Such a close vote would suggest the country wants out of the EU, but should still maintain some level of close ties - perhaps purely economic rather than political."
Just a little highlighting to state the point. And the referendum was a simple in or out vote, not a 60 shades of interpretation. You might interpret it that way but thats just you. Both remain and leave had various different ideas of what winning ment for them but the question was a simple one. Presented by the remain camp and a rigged vote in favour of the remain camp.
"It was May and the Conservative party who decided that 52% means to abandoned Europe entirely, rule out from day one any chance of close economic union, and burn any bridges leading back."
Actually it was the EU who decided it was entirety in or out. It is the EU who are breaking their own negotiating rules by demanding parts of the negotiation must be completed before the rest (the bill and 4 'freedoms' rubbish). It is the EU talking about punishing anyone who dare choose to leave the group. Hopefully may will have the spine to take no deal instead of a bad one.
Leave won the referendum by a 2% margin. That's barely a win. Such a close vote would suggest the country wants out of the EU, but should still maintain some level of close ties - perhaps purely economic rather than political.
It was May and the Conservative party who decided that 52% means to abandoned Europe entirely, rule out from day one any chance of close economic union, and burn any bridges leading back.
@ Brangdon
"LibDems do accept Brexit is going to happen."
Really? Last I checked their whole argument to be elected is to stop brexit. If thats not the case then someone needs to tell their supporters.
"They think we should read the fine print before signing the contract, is all."
A contract for not being in the club and not being subject to the EU and its rules. The lib dems (and even labour) cant seem to grasp the concept of a full brexit and if they cant accept no deal as a possibility they cannot negotiate.
May is way too close to the spooks.
Corbyn doesn't have a clue (Speaks out about mass surveillance but supports snooper's charter)
Lib Dems seem irrelevant.
How to vote on Thursday?
Farron is the only party leader I have heard speaking out against back-dooring encryption - well sod it, he just swung himself a vote.
"Those have arisen due to too many idealists and not enough engineers."
I would love to be able to support the Green Party, but I can't get past the constant quoting of fuzzy facts and the inability to understand the difference in generating capacity between rooftop solar panels and what this country actually needs. You can't make adults numerate, especially when they don't want to be.
(Plus our local Green candidate seems to live in a large house with a large carbon footprint.)
I would love to be able to support the Green Party, but I can't get past the constant quoting of fuzzy facts and the inability to understand the difference in generating capacity between rooftop solar panels and what this country actually needs. You can't make adults numerate, especially when they don't want to be.
This is my exact problem. I have a few panels and I know what they generate as I built the MPPT tracker that keeps an eye on them. Factoring in the cost and the resources used to make the things in the first place, they don't really make financial or ecological sense. It's the same story with electric cars. Mining the raw materials, shipping them to Japan, making Li_Ion cells and then shipping them to Tesla is not ecologically sound, even if the electricity that recharges them (500 times or so before they're stuffed and the whole wasteful cycle starts again) was renewable, which there's a fairly good chance it wasn't.
Just like Ms May's "reaction" to these latest exceptions that prove evolution, it's all "to be seen to be doing something." Nobody cares if it's actually effective, it's just a sop to the PR people.
Well, hopefully it's just a sop or we've got a real problem with both the major parties deliberately steering us into 1984 with knobs on.
I can see your point, tiggity, and I'll be the first to admit that the current resource usage on this planet is unsustainable but the figures don't add up. Either all the lights go out and we go back to the most popular car being An Ox or someone has to come up with a fully-arsed solution which will probably involve nuclear, wind power, hydroelectric, hydrogen and proper integrated management of those generating sources (nuke for baseload, hydro/wind for in-fill, surplus wind at off-peak times used to pump back up the hydro and electrolyse sea water into H2, which may then be used for transport and the resultant pure water harvested back at the filling station so every vehicle becomes a mobile desalination plant as a side effect) rather than just dumping it onto the grid. Yes, that will probably mean renationalisation of the power generating facilities, if for no other reason than to put them all on the same page in the hymn book.
There's also the urea fuel cell. Wind and piss are two things this country is never short of.
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I'm curious as to what has pulled their particular chain but such people seem to lack the ability to engage with other human beings except by doing this.
Presumably I've pushed a little too hard and collapsed some part of their world view, but who knows?
Since my posts on this thread have loosely been about the UK electoral system I'm guessing they either don't like the idea of voting tactically and voting in someone you don't like to get rid of someone you don't like even more or they didn't like to be reminded that when UKIP had a solid gold opportunity (highest leave vote in that region of the UK) they still lost.
To which I'll say the Lib Dems got an election referendum out of the Conservatives. Did you vote for BAU, or did you not bother? If you chose either of those that is the outcome you got.
Or perhaps it's something else. If they can't string the words together for a post then I'll just have to live with the ignorance.
I sort of feel sorry for the politicians, it's the usual case of 'surely you can do something' no matter how stupid and impractical the something is otherwise you're accused of being weak.
I have no idea how the non-political organisations who really understand the balances and implications can help shape public opinion without becoming political themselves, or co-opted into it. Left to politics this issue, and many others, are just too toxic and we get nowhere.
FWIW, Corbyn was honest enough to talk about the need to address the root causes, and he was lambasted for being "weak on terrorism".
I would like to hope that in 20 or 30 years time, we'll look back on the current era in the same way as we look back at Ireland in the 1970's now. And like it or not, the way that situation was resolved was by engaging with the people concerned, not by being "tough" on them.
People don't blow themselves up (let alone other people) unless they have a pretty major grievance. Granted that these people have a particularly warped world view.
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"People don't blow themselves up (let alone other people) unless they have a pretty major grievance."
Or unless Daesh is threatening to kill all of the rest of the family if they don't. Or they are mentally ill and have been worked on systematically by the real terrorists (who can afford the same sort of psychologists that worked at Guantanamo Bay, don't forget.) Or they are just young and stupid and easily persuaded.
"Or unless Daesh is threatening to kill all of the rest of the family"
"they are mentally ill"
"young and stupid and easily persuaded."
All of which can be define within the 'major grievance' or simply extreme negative emotion. The problem is no enough effort has been done to fix the particular root problems. No one continued to save the victims in the war zone. Signs of mentally ill and instability in the country were ignored by health officer, authority and government (see recent news on two separate report to authority on unstable boy). The existing policies had left plenty of young Muslim nothing good to do, and poor.
Also, they should start thinking what the bombing is doing is reinforcing the 'major grievance'. They need alternative.
I probably stand to be massively downvoted, but here goes. On of the root causes , at leats one which gives the perpretrators license to commit their crimesis certain passages in the Koran. We can address the other issues, but the issue of religious justification will not go away so long as those verses remain part of core Islamic teaching. Moderate muslims may well object to the behaviour of the more radical believers, but so long as they share the same techings the rest of the population is at risk from their religion, and the religion needs to be reformed to allow them to live alongside others in peace and harmony. To use an analogy, we have speed limits because of the risk of accidents at high speed. Nobody claims that accidents will occur when anybody breaks the speed limit, nobody denies the utility of getting from A to B as quickly as possible and nobody wants to deny the right to use cars, but it is generally agreed that a little moderation works for the greater good.
A good friend of mine spent about 2 years prepping to join the police force about 3 years ago, which he did, motivated by a sense of justice and community spirit. After a year he stood to to become a Special as he was run ragged by the hours and the pressure. He was very sad that he just couldn't take what it was doing to him mentally and to his home life. He said the cuts have made life impossible.
WhatsApp, for example, controls a trusted server in the middle, which alone is enough to make conversation interception possible - that's before you consider they also control the client software.
They would certainly not need to introduce a backdoor'd encryption in order to intercept conversations. Trusted man-in-the-middle style interception would be trivial for them.
WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption, they keys are generated on and stored on the user's devices.
Unless they change their software to hold copies of those keys on their servers (i.e. back-dooring the encryption system) then they CAN'T decrypt the messages passing through. Neither could a disgruntled employee working for them. Neither could a criminal gang or foreign (or own) power who hacked in to their servers. It is the whole point of end-to-end systems.
They can and do provide the metadata on court request, but that is not enough for some who demand a global panoptican.
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"Such a solution would basically be as secure as their servers."
And who would secure the servers?
The team that secured Talk Talk, Ashley Madison, JP Morgan Chase, Linkedin, Sony, Walmart, Yahoo, Verizon, US Department of Defence, UK Ministry of Defence?
All the above have been hacked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_data_breaches
As soon as a backdoor or MITM access is given to end to end encryption it becomes insecure. And anyone concerned with security using it would switch to another method.
If you work in a largish company then I'd strongly suspect that any "secure" https connections you make out of the company will go via a "man-in-the-middle" packet inspection in the firewall ... and, assuming you use the "corporate standard" browser/OS/etc they will have installed security certificates that will make it appear that you have an end to end secure connection. Happened where I worked a few years ago when people like me preferring Firefox instead of IE ... or even sometimes browising from Unix ... found that all https connections started to flag certificate errors.
WhenTRUMP held MAYS Hand in AMERICA I saw a STIFFENING.
Of his resolve TO DO THE right thing and HELP THE YOUKAY come what MAY (not a JAKE). MAY got visibly WET AFTERWADZ.
DUE to the freaks storm.
Look to TRUMP AND grashus LADY MAGNESIUM for your guidance AND HIS COMING ON Your land will SURPRIZS YOU. DO not VOTE COCKBUN is MY ADVISE as HE WILL not be stung and consistent LIKE TRMP IS. no tweets about POLICY. I am SORRY THE land of shakkespure is OVERRUN by TERRIERISTS but TRUMP WILL HELP each and every one of YOU GET HARD.
AGainst those who would take your liberty AWAY.
This story is the example I have been using to try and explain this to non-technical people, the analogy seems to help them
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/39744644/epidemic-of-van-tool-thefts-blamed-on-skeleton-key
A skeleton key meant for use only by locksmiths and law enforcement is available for a small fee online, and is the cause of a spate of thefts of expensive tools from vans. Now assume that the key opens secure communication channels rather than vans and what is being stolen is whatever data is in those channels. Yes, it COULD be terrorists talking to each other. Could also be medical information, bank details, communications between Governments, Nuclear Launch Codes or any of thousands of other legitimate uses of encryption.
Encryption = mathematics + a tiny bit of programming.
Unless she magically figures out a way to ban mathematics she just embarrasses herself every time she says something so ridiculously stupid.
Now maybe it's possible that the terror attacks we are suffering are made by people too stupid to do the basic programming required, but it's pretty unlikely that someone, somewhere in the organisation is not smart enough.
All she can do is make us all less safe than we already are.
Unless she magically figures out a way to ban mathematics she just embarrasses herself every time she says something so ridiculously stupid.
The trouble is that the vast majority of the electorate don't know either. So they hear her saying "something must be done" and stop listening (after agreeing that "something orter be dun"). They will assume that she's been briefed by Someone Who Knows.
It's quite obvious to us that she (and Ms Rudd) haven't and that their proposal to "fix encryption" will damage safety and security of real-world data. But it sure ain't obvious to the Vox Pop.
So, the terrorists have, at last, worked out that their best tactic is small scale attacks that can't be defended against without completely disrupting normal way of life. Who needs bombs, or the internet, when a van, a knife and going to your local town at a busy time will be much more effective in causing death, terror and disruption?
There are only two things that can be done about this. Both are within the power of the government, should be obvious and should have been done before now: 1) more police on the streets (both in target areas and in the community), and 2) addressing the source of the problem: the disaffected and violent attackers.
May is trying to a) blame everyone other than herself, and b) find a technological solution to a non-technical problem. More police in back offices, more surveillance, more GCHQ wizardry, changes by "internet giants", harsher punishments, internment will all have zero effect. The people doing this are extremely highly motivated, do not expect to survive (let alone be punished) and do not require specialist support (e.g. bomb-makers) or communications (secret or otherwise). None of the things May is talking about, or has done as Home Secretary or Prime Minister, will have any effect at all on this type of terrorism.
The real fix is to stop creating disaffected and motivated killers by channelling their energy, concern and commitment into a more positive activity. When a jihadist returns from Syria, don't throw them in jail (to radicalise others. become even more radical themselves, and build up all the contacts they need for future violence): work with the community to turn some of these highly motivated and committed returning fighters into community leaders, journalists, lawyers, activists and politicians. Channel that energy to fix what they see as the problems of society into a desire to solve the problem instead of destroying society.
Of course, it won't work with everyone, which is why we need police on the streets and very hard work to make sure the community do not endorse or even permit violence.
Spend money in the communities. Reduce poverty. Address the grievances and concerns. And remember that violence has always been with us, always will be, and is at an extremely low level now compared with both recent and longer term history.
And give up magical thinking that technology either causes or can help reduce this.
I'm surprised none of them tried a school. Lots of children packed in close for morning assembly. Practially no security. If you can get a bomb then just walk in and blow, if not then bring your truck to the school run. Not only to you rank up a high kill-count, but targeting children ensures maximum possible public outrage. The angrier the public gets, the most Muslims tend to get randomly assaulted on the street, and the easier it is to convince them to join a holy war in self-defence.
Why encrypt at all? There's so many channels of communication they can't monitor them all. All you need is a Flash movie on a page that provides a public chat box and doesn't store the history. Then just create a free chat site using that Flash movie open to the public, with standard chat topics - Marvel, Superman, Batman, Pokemon, Doctor Who - and allow people to create their own rooms. Now all you do is create one with a seemingly non suspicious name and use the "private chat" function. Done.
F/OSS Mastodon, suitably re-jigged on the log end of things would do nicely. Heck, there's enough of them already and that's not counting newer instances all the time. Conduct your conversation private. Even has fixed the Let's Encrypt implementation as I recall, so https dead simple.
With the addition of aging and strict logging to dev-null, well it's not exactly hard and, why yes, I've thought of doing this with a couple of servers here not doing anything at all lately. Heck, hop-scotching VPS'es would do if you are involved in a whack-a-mole contest with state/IP actors.
Since 2000, there have been 13 separate pieces of legislation designed in part or whole to deal with terrorism. They haven't really achieved much in terms of keeping people safe, or preventing terrorist attacks.
As has been identified, police numbers have been cut substantially; 20,000 front line staff, including 1,300 firearms officers. They are struggling to deal with what they are being tasked to do, with a lot of overtime, shifting officers between areas, that will almost certainly lead to severe burn out, and further loss of staff.
The politicians need to stop trying to blow smoke up our arses, interfering with the the various security bodies, and let them get on with their jobs.
As I recall, there are 3,000+ known extremists in the UK, not all supposed 'Islamists', to be monitored and it's apparently beyond current forces to monitor them all. That's not counting others being added to list all the time. And now the PM wants to make the haystack even larger? Good luck with that.
The politicians need to stop trying to blow smoke up our arses, interfering with the the various security bodies, and let them get on with their jobs.
What politicians need to do is GROW UP and explain, in an adult way, that it is impossible to protect everyone all the time and to stop pretending that that is what they are doing. Explain that terrorism has been around a long time and that we have beaten it before, not with guns, prisons or magic (i.e. technology) but by staying firm to our principles and fixing the issues causing people to become terrorists so they prefer to do something else instead. Stop pretending, and do the real hard work of being a leader!
Unfortunately, this would require a charismatic leader. As there don't seem to be any of those around, that should be the government's main priority.
It seems to me that May has realised she's being set up as the fall guy for everything that inevitably goes wrong during the course of Brexit and has decided to get out. Like Cameron before her, she can't be bothered doing the fucking hard stuff and ruining her reputation over it.
>It seems to me that May has realised she's being set up as the fall guy for everything that inevitably goes wrong during the course of Brexit and has decided to get out. Like Cameron before her, she can't be bothered doing the fucking hard stuff and ruining her reputation over it.
I suspect that even if the Tories win the election, the knives will be out for May shortly after. Her performance has been woeful since calling it, and too many of the big names are keeping their heads down ready for a tilt at the top job in the party *win or lose*.
Exactly so. This is really the post war transition from the purpose of government being to look after its people and preserve its borders to the purpose of government is simply to control the mindset of the population, and do nothing whatever to affect their material situation.
Virtue signalling.
Always been there, but Nu Labia made it into ALL there was.
every time I see this, the response to the government should mostly be along the lines of this:
1/ just because you keep saying these things doesn't mean you are making them possible
2/ every time you repeat the mantra of "no safe place", "backdoor encryption" etc, we
roll our eyes and think "you're a bunch of feckin' muppets"
3/ we've explained encryption so many times and you haven't understood it, so please shut the feck up and find someone to take your place who actually understands at least something about communication systems
4/ yes, we really do think you are morons, and what few vestiges of respect you might ever have had are long gone
5/ our previous response still applies, see the last 20 times you made these stupid statements and they were rebutted, and every lame argument you made was refuted
If Terriers May actually manages to push total interception into law, presumably some kind of proper tech people such as GCHQ will have to try to implement it.
I assume these government techies have some kind of pipeline to May, so what are they telling her now?
They know the problems and consequences her actions are going to generate, or are they just thinking of their temorarily expanded budgetsand self importance?
This is three days before a general election. Anyone pressuring the politicians to make commitments on strategy around security or who is planning to vote on such commitments ought to seriously consider their reasoning. Anything which is said now about recent events is inevitably either poorly thought out or political opportunism or both - whether that's Corbyn complaining about community policing or May banging on about being tough on tech firms.
Personally I'm not making any decision based on what is said about these matters at this time - I'll go for a slightly longer view and look at track record (ahem, or have a postal vote and vote before most of the electioneering begins anyway <grin>). Otherwise, as Michael Gove so wisely said, "Right now, we should let the experts get on with doing their jobs and make a sensible decision after due consideration of their informed input about the available evidence."
Not much point in more internet snooping when most of these scum bags were already reported to the police. One even featured on a tv documentary about extremists ! What is abundantly clear is that May was warned repeatedly by police that the cuts were causing intelligence to dry up risking more terrorism. Her response - to accuse the police of scaremongering. My response - I'm not voting for May. Without enough police monitoring suspects there is feck all point in more access to the internet. Not all terrorists are dumb enough to post their intentions online.
Taking a very high-level view of this, to understand any sort of social phenomenon, you have to look at causes and effects. Since I'm a Buddhist, I'd use the word "karma" to describe this.
At a certain point in time, Bart Kosko was a kind of evangelist for fuzzy logic and for basing public policy on clear understanding of factors that exacerbate and ameliorate certain social ills. In his book "Fuzzy Logic", he applied this to the problems of drug addiction and how the social ills deriving from it could be tackled. Not all factors are directly linked to the outcomes, but he was able to show how they eventually strengthened the pattern of "dependent origination" (another Buddhist term) as a result.
Let me just throw out a few "causes" and see how they relate to the particular "effect" in question:
You know, the only way to stop this cycle isn't for people to become more entrenched and isolated, but to start learning about the interdependencies that we all share, whether that's on the spiritual plane, because, obviously, all religions share the so-called "Golden Rule", or the material one, where we can all agree, regardless of belief or lack of it, that causing suffering to other people is bad for everyone, ourselves included. A good start would be to recognise valid grievances and contributing factors that give rise to these problems and try to engage individually or as groups to removing the causes so that, as much as possible, the negative effects can be averted.
QUOTE: ' "The alternative is a government that monitors and controls the internet in the way that China or North Korea does. If we turn the internet into a tool for censorship and surveillance, the terrorists will have won." '
InterNet users in both China and the DPRK can usually bypass the controls - it's more of a hassle than anything. 'Foreign Guest Workers' in the DPRK are current on world events - learned from Western sources.
If you parse MAY'S words carefully, she is leaking some secrets!
If you seriously think HMG gave up the ID Card battle, think again. DVLA issue them and the proposals for biometric data inclusion is far worse than the original ID Card project. Why withdraw paper licenses otherwise?
It doesn't matter who you vote for, the government still wins. Unelected senior civil servants v naive/compliant politician - no contest.
Here's a proposal.
Let's legislate to make all vehicle manufacturers electronically limit their vehicles to the speed limit.
Now, in order to help the emergency services do their job we're going to allow the government to unlock vehicles assigned to approved groups so that they can exceed the posted limit.
Let's see how long it takes for dodgy garages to offer an unlocking service...
is that for Some Causes, demands to censor the internet are welcomed, even though no one knows how to actually do it.
Other Causes, well, any attempt to mention how internet anonymity helps it along are Instantly Condemned.
Seems to me if one is "okay" with the idea of removing Dangerous Knowledge that might enable or inspire "Domestic Terrorism" they should be okay with similar actions for Religious Extremism from Abroad as well.
But sending in "agents" into one godbotherers' church system and various sects while wringing hands about even counting cars in the parking lot of the knockoff brand religion, or having pols rant about "rooting out" the words of one and getting wise nods in agreement, but suggest the competition be similarly "rooted" and there's widespread condemnation or clever reminders of how "bad" such policies would be if they were even technically feasable.
I guess Rome isn't buying enough television stations anymore.
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