UK think tank proposes Online Safety Bill reviewer to keep tabs on Ofcom decisions

Even think tanks with close links to the UK's Conservative government are now criticising the Online Safety Bill, with the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) describing it today as "a significant threat to freedom of speech, privacy and innovation." The IEA, which tends to side with free-market conservatives, said today that …

[Anonymous Coward]

My Buddies Use Salsa20...Snoops Are Welcome To Decipher.....

Quote: "... decryption laws should be watered down..."

So....let us know what this enciphered response actually says...in the spirit of "watered down"...the encryption is Salsa20.

*

6T7RVBgvrL7jT0k+CaECzoG9sCLG776PZri3/CZ833zc4OBXI2/9jVfwXnvzLMzt/E+47zIBYxT3

KsiHm0IRYVhxgt9P0xtOXQyY2MTFKRheaDvPh0UQnb9i6iAMcIO7R33ljawmELwgcMJhP55rixUL

YrxjQNy4/Y9kO7kRadNttNcAGIhPK8SOq4eV+U876OMIZumUGe9uiU3WSt2pcgd732p1iPKE30DY

3V1L7PSDQ45LUHwe336rq0N8aTwU7PWDX2UYpgu1QdG8qKErKxIOwc3dtEYBz75q+hxN79MXqc/y

0xQQcUydJiaQRoxh88SCLvRdtuY=

*

Me and my buddies use Salsa20 for private messages.....snoops in Cheltenham or Fort Meade are welcome to participate!

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: My Buddies Use Salsa20...Snoops Are Welcome To Decipher.....

How many years in prison is it for AC not to hand over the keys to that message?

Better hope that wasn't random gibberish, you get to be held indefinitely in contempt if the judge doesn't believe you.

[mbiggs]

Re: My Buddies Use Salsa20...Snoops Are Welcome To Decipher.....

@Yet_Another_Anonymous_Coward

Apologies, but the message was built using a Diffie/Helman handshake BY THE SOFTWARE.

So....the key was a one time random key built for this message only and then thrown away.

The sender and the reciepient HAVE NO PART in creating the key, and they certainly have absolutely no knowledge of the key.

I wonder what sort of society contemplates "jail time" for citizens using software to mediate perfectly legal PRIVATE messaging.

Please tell!

[Cederic]

Re: My Buddies Use Salsa20...Snoops Are Welcome To Decipher.....

Sadly your defence may not save you from prison for failing to disclose the key.

Welcome to Section 49 of the RIP Act 2000.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/section/49

Yes, we did protest it at the time. No, nobody listened.

[Mike 137]

"creating a free speech czar"

Czar derives (via misspelling) from the Russian Tsar, a Russian contraction for Caesar (as in Julius). Thus a czar is an autocrat. So what the hell is a 'free speech autocrat'? I suspect it will turn out to be an impressive sounding dummy role that exists to 'show we take free speech seriously' while clamping down in parallel on expressions of dissent wherever 'state policy' deems it necessary.

[Eclectic Man]

Re: "creating a free speech czar"

Obviously it means a person who ensures that everyone is free to say whatever they like, as long as they agree with the Czar.

[Eclectic Man]

Re: "creating a free speech czar"

See: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/01/cancel-culture-books-anti-church-lgbtq-banned-us

"Want to know what real cancel culture looks like? Well, just sit back and look at the unprecedented surge of book banning efforts happening across the United States. Last year, for example, a county prosecutor’s office considered charging library employees in a conservative Wyoming city for stocking books about sex education and containing LGBTQ themes. Around the same time, Moms for Liberty, a rightwing advocacy group, tried to get a number of books banned from Tennessee schools because they contained content that disturbed them. They deemed a book about Galileo to be “anti-church”, and were outraged that a book about Martin Luther King contained “photographs of political violence”."

It seems that Galileo and Martin Luther King Jr. are still on someone's banned list.

(Yes, I know that criticising anything in the USA risks downvotes, but genuinely free speech is important.)

[tip pc]

Re: "creating a free speech czar"

A bit like being pro vaccine but not sure about the current lot of cv19 vaccines, you get your posts deleted and accused of being anti when your not and just want some questions answered.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: "creating a free speech czar"

Just for the controversy but weren't the Guardianistas banning Enid Blyton books from British schools ?

[Eclectic Man]

Re: "creating a free speech czar"

Some of Enid Blyton's books were banned due to racism. In the Noddy books, for example the (black) Golliwogs were always the villains. And the various groups of children (with or without dogs) were invariably middle-class and the villains working class. Also, the descriptions of caves were generally geologically incorrect. (I'm not a geologist, but heard a radio show several years ago when a (working-class) geologist explained why he banned Enid Blyton from his home, not due to the classism, but the awful geology.)

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: "creating a free speech czar"

>Also, the descriptions of caves were generally geologically incorrect

Yes I remember that, he said it wasn't fair that all the caves they had to explore were never flooded and always had flat sandy floors !

[elsergiovolador]

Re: "creating a free speech czar"

This government operates under Nudge principles (and that's why they hire hundreds of psychologists and psy op specialists to shape policies).

They want to be able to see there is a free speech in this country, but in reality it's quite the opposite.

One of successful examples of Nudge are IR35 changes. They couldn't ban service based small business, but they created such a laws that technically nothing stops you from running such company, but you will unlikely to find any clients willing to work with you, because of the risk of HMRC going after them if they choose to engage. At the same time they keep repeating lies that only reason such business is formed is to avoid tax and thus through such messaging they got approval of the public.

They are going to use similar tricks to curb free speech. If you have nothing to hide... etc. etc.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: "creating a free speech czar"

Presumably czar because they get the same political fate as the first Caesar

[Dave 15]

Lets stop messing around shall we?

Every person must have a government approved and employed political commissar sitting on their shoulder at ALL times (awake, asleep, on the loo, having sex, where ever and when ever) to ensure they do not say or do anything that isnt government approved. Any misbehaviour will first result in a severe beating followed by a long period in room 101 to adjust back to behaving.

The government will control all sources of information - news, internet, and even speech - to ensure you get only he information that is government approved as correct.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Lets stop messing around shall we?

And you think the government(s) don't already do this.

With access to ubiquitous cameras, phone locations, logs, and conversations, emails, internet connections, browser history, and various other accounts, Big Brother is here.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Lets stop messing around shall we?

And yet they can't keep a birthday party for the Great Leader secret.

Of course Boris could just be a distraction from the man who really runs the place - and lives in a hut somewhere with 'Lord' his cat

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Lets stop messing around shall we?

>they do not say or do anything that isnt government approved

Given the current government that leads a pretty wide scope !

[Terry 6]

Re: Lets stop messing around shall we?

It's interesting that the BBC governors have a cabinet office representative, now.

And since the govt. (i.e in effect the actual PM and cabinet, not the MPs) decide on whether the BBC gets to keep its funding and how much, said representative is as much a political commissar as any Soviet cadre. Though to be fair, they won't be sending anyone to a Gulag- they'll just block knighthoods and well paid sinecures when they leave.

[Howard Sway]

So we need a new regulator to regulate the regulator

Anti-regulation small government think tank the IEA appear to be calling for yet more layers of costly bureaucracy here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Quis custodiet...

And surely we will soon need a regulator for the regulators of regulators...

But don't worry, the establishment has plenty of old Di(l)does hanging about waiting for those cushy sinecures!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Tufton Street Kids

What are they after now, I wonder ...?

[stewwy]

It's to do with IT.

We can be sure that the government will FUBAR

and cause a SNAFU, such as the one we are now living through.

There, the English language is almost designed for encryption, in perilous times

Are you a Friend of Dorothy?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

The US Navy launched an investigation to find Dorothy, and determine if they were a Soviet agent making their sailors gay.