
Silicon Valley faces backlash over attacks - madradavid
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34855462
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hoodoof
No doubt extremism has come about because of silicon valley, not the failure
of government policy over many years, and the alienation of people in the
middle east. It's not the result of twenty years of war against people who
have no power to strike back except with terror tactics.

Clearly terrorism is the fault of those secure instant messaging apps that
have led to the end of peaceful society. I think I saw a terrorist in a
newspaper photo using snapchat.

Oh and computer games too.

Time to get my witch hunting pop-gun and dig up McCarthy.

The good news is that with encryption banned, there will be absolutely no way
for terrorists to communicate in secrecy, and all communications will be
intercepted and terrorism will end. Can't come soon enough.

Our governments have really, really tried to stop terrorism - I promise - it's
just that really with encryption, it's kind of impossible so you can't blame
them.

Thus we see the terrorists have succeeded in turning our most powerful
institutions against each other. Tech versus government. The government have
become the agents of the terrorists without even knowing it.

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jordanb
And look at what the Beeb decided not to report:

[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151118/08474732854/after...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151118/08474732854/after-
endless-demonization-encryption-police-find-paris-attackers-coordinated-via-
unencrypted-sms.shtml)

"""Yet news emerging from Paris — as well as evidence from a Belgian ISIS raid
in January — suggests that the ISIS terror networks involved were
communicating in the clear, and that the data on their smartphones was not
encrypted."""

I guess that wasn't "on message."

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niccaluim
Yeah, the U.S. government has really shown themselves to be responsible
stewards of other people's data.

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hoodoof
A gorgeous quote from the article:

"I propose banning words," he said. "There's evidence [to suggest] that
they're being used by terrorists to communicate."

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eldr
"In the piece, published back in August, they wrote about a murder near
Chicago in which a father of six had been shot. At the scene, officers found
two mobile phones. But they were passcode locked. Neither Google or Apple (the
phones ran their software) could unlock the phones, and therefore the data was
inaccessible.

"On behalf of crime victims the world over," the opinion piece read, "we are
asking whether this encryption is truly worth the cost.""

Am I missing something here? Don't phones have SIM cards, IMEI numbers, serial
numbers etc? Don't service providers keep records? Would they complain if a
gun was found on the scene but the killer had not made the effort to engrave
his name on it? Maybe they should spend their time doing investigations rather
than writing editorials?

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jdc
The media seems to do this rather frequently -- they report on other people's
opinions, sometimes claiming "outrage" on their behalf, while offering scant
evidence or analysis. Not impressed.

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orthecreedence
Oh gee, we sure are scared!!

Of course by Silicon Valley, they mean Silicon Valley and every business in
the world that does any sort of online transaction. Because, news flash, they
all use encryption just as much as everyone in Silicon Valley.

Also, as far as I can see there are way more stupid apps the valley pumps out
(like snapchat) that DON'T encrypt than ones that do.

Way to be a mouthpiece for bozotron government officials who _wouldn 't even
know what to look for if they HAD the unencrypted data_.

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ViViDboarder
Even if encryption made it easier for a terrorist to organize, it also has
made it easier for dissidents to organize against oppression.

Although, I suppose that the government sees both as a problem...

