
Cameron reaffirms there will be no “safe spaces” from UK government snooping - ionised
http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/07/cameron-reaffirms-there-will-be-no-safe-spaces-from-uk-government-snooping/
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bobm_kite9
Is this really about terrorism? I have a feeling that terrorism is the excuse
being used to try and surveil the public generally.

Why would they want to do this? My feeling is so that they can keep control of
public order. It's a mystery to me why there hasn't been more public activism
around unemployment levels and wealth equality in Europe so far.

[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/01/europe-...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/01/europe-
young-people-rioting-denied-education-jobs)

~~~
madaxe_again
I'm a firm believer that the whole "Terrorism" illusion has been foisted in
order to maintain control of increasingly uncontrollable populations (as
information is a powerful weapon).

I mean, Germany, 1930's, they deflected from the economic woes inflicted by
reparations by banging on about communist and jewish terror - and that's just
one, small, well-known recent example. This tactic has been applied over and
over since hierarchical societies emerged - i.e. forever.

I'm sure tribal big men thousands of years ago would go "hey, don't look at
me, I didn't make the yams not grow this year, it's those fuckers across the
valley, worshipping the wrong gods! Let's get 'em!!!".

Same same.

~~~
cstross
_I 'm a firm believer that the whole "Terrorism" illusion has been foisted in
order to maintain control of increasingly uncontrollable populations (as
information is a powerful weapon)._

Note the way voting patterns are trending in the UK, long term, with both
major parties from the historical duopoly now in decline and more people
voting for a minority party than for the eventual government. Note the way the
UK is being marketed as a hub for international finance and London turned into
a dormitory town for global billionaires. Every government since Bloody Sunday
has been worried about public insurrection somewhere, to some extent: arguably
the UK is in a long-term trend towards what used to be called a pre-
revolutionary situation, as the interests of the general populace and the
elite diverge.

(The real solution is a sustained dose of Piketty's proposed wealth tax, and
any other measures necessary to reduce the widening Gini coefficient, but
neither the Conservative or Labour parties, which are both in hock to the
capital accumulators, are able to address the problem effectively.)

~~~
SixSigma
Britain has an offshore tax haven in a square mile of its capital city and
it's not new or even modern.

[http://treasureislands.org/](http://treasureislands.org/)

------
JulianMorrison
What I'd like to see is all the big internet names - Google, Microsoft,
Facebook, and so on - getting together to say "We will provide our services
_only_ over fully secure encryption with strong keys. We will not implement
backdoors, weaken our algorithms, or let you put a tap behind the SSL servers
in our network. We will pull up our roots and leave your country if you demand
them. And if you block your public from using strong encryption, they will
have to manage without our services."

~~~
batou
Problem is the companies exist to generate money for shareholders.

That is against what the shareholders want because it reduces the money.

Ergo, it will never happen.

At best we can expect some half baked ambiguous promises about not being evil
(Google), excited yapping about something else as a distraction (Microsoft) or
deafening silence (Apple) all backed up with thousands of pages of legalese
and even more ambiguous international law.

So forget it; we have to move our feet. Stop being lazy and relying on all the
services. Take a minimal set of services from elsewhere (I just have a domain
and an IMAP box hosted by two small companies) and give the finger to them
all.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Could the shareholders be convinced that the combination leaving (inevitably)
exploitable backdoors and telling all of their customers that they'll roll
over on 'em at government's slightest whim result in losing more customers
than pulling up stakes?

~~~
Shivetya
because governments won't take no for an answer. they have the means to
effectively put a company out of business. hence shareholders really have no
voice in this area.

this isn't about profit as some claim, its about the absolute ability of
governments to do as they wish. you choice as a corporation is simple,
cooperate or get shut down.

to fix this requires getting voters to elect politicians who abhor this
arrangement.

~~~
duncan_bayne
"to fix this requires getting voters to elect politicians who abhor this
arrangement."

Do you honestly believe that is an option, when the mechanism for election is
controlled by the very people and system you'd try to replace?

------
madaxe_again
I run an ecommerce agency in the UK. We turn over several million quid, employ
forty odd people, and process the better part of £1bn of ecommerce purchases
in the UK.

Needless to say, if encryption is banned here, we'll either be going out of
business or moving to a progressive regime - say Yemen.

The UK is the second biggest ecommerce market in the world. He kills
encryption, he will sink the UK retail economy - which is rather at odds with
the whole "nation of shopkeepers" bit.

Actually, if it does happen, I'll raise an army and march on Westminster.
Cromwell managed.

~~~
minthd
It's possible to solve this technically ,such that the encryption will happen
on government mandated servers, in a fully secure manner that doesn't hurt
most businesses - and hat's probably how they'll handle that.

~~~
batou
I'm not sure if this comment is a joke, shill or some serious fucking crack
smoking.

The chain of trust is broken. It doesn't matter where or who does it.

~~~
onion2k
"Nothing the government can't read" doesn't mean no encryption. It means that
there has to be a stored version of the message and the encryption key is
handed over if asked, otherwise you go to prison. It'll be no different to
what we have now (it's already illegal to withhold an encryption key) but with
mandated storage.

~~~
batou
So they can factor your keys at their leisure?

No chance.

------
jackgavigan
Last week, the UK minister for Internet Safety and Security Baroness Joanna
Shields was speaking at a conference in London. She was asked about the
potential impact on the fintech sector of mandating backdoors in encryption
and she said, in reference to what Cameron said, "That quote was
misinterpreted."

Everyone has assumed that when Cameron says that he wants to "ensure that
terrorists do not have a safe space in which to communicate", that means that
he wants to mandate encryption backdoors.

I think that assumption is incorrect. The guys at Number 10 are well aware
that (a) they can't ban math, and (b) the UK tech sector would suffer if they
legislated to mandate backdoors in all encryption.

I suspect that what Cameron actual means is that he wants to put in place a
legal mechanism to authorise GCHQ (presumably by issuing a warrant) to hack
into suspect's laptop or smartphone in order to gain access to the content of
whatever messages or communications they may be exchanging with any co-
conspirators.

~~~
forloop
Another apologist.

Cameron has all but said he wants to ban encryption:

“[I]n our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people
which we cannot read?”, the prime minister asked rhetorically.[0]

I like the UK. They're backwards in some areas of policy, though. And probably
have a penchant to control _their_ populace by any means possible.

\---

[0]
[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/13/cameron...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/13/cameron-
ban-encryption-digital-britain-online-shopping-banking-messaging-terror)

~~~
alextgordon
Politicians long ago worked out that you don't actually have to _do_ something
to get the positive effect, you just have to _say_ you'll do it.

Most people want to "deny safe spaces to terrorists", so the more they harp on
about it, the more popular they become.

We're doing their dirty work by publicising it.

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robmcm
This kind of thinking smacks of ignorance, it is akin to saying we should ban
international travel to avoid terrorist attacks over seas.

~~~
toyg
Don't give them ideas.

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secfirstmd
According to todays news, No "safe spaces" apparently also includes Amnesty
International.

"UK surveillance Tribunal reveals the government spied on Amnesty
International"

[https://www.amnesty.org/latest/news/2015/07/uk-
surveillance-...](https://www.amnesty.org/latest/news/2015/07/uk-surveillance-
tribunal-reveals-the-government-spied-on-amnesty-international/)

------
higherpurpose
So Cameron wants to reinstate the writ of assistance for the online world?
Because that's what his proposed "warrant" is (signed only by the Home
Secretary).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writ_of_assistance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writ_of_assistance)

------
jgrahamc
I'm mostly concerned about the 'safe space' in Iraq and Syria that is the
acting as a recruiting and training ground for people.

~~~
yc1010
What do you want to be done about it, send more young boys from "western"
countries to die and/or be crippled like has happened in the wars of the last
decade? Spend further billions of dollars/euro and for what, the locals would
still hate "us" no matter what when by now its plainly obvious that the
greatest danger to the average muslim are other muslims.

I am not sure how wiretapping everyone in the west would help, if someone
wants to go to Syria, let them, hell take their passport off an buy them a one
way ticket to that shithole to learn all about their religion and how it
treats people and hopefully they endup in their heaven surrounded by 72 other
jihadi virgins.

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p01926
Would anybody like to predict and defend a probability above 0.00 that gov.uk
will be able to meaningfully impede my ability use cryptography by 2020?
Obviously politician's rhetoric, and to a large extent the law, have become
unhinged from reality, so the odds of passing one more moronic, ineffectual
law are a given: 1.0. But I'm asking someone to seriously state and defend
even the slightest possibility that David Cameron might, in even the smallest
sense, succeed. I can't.

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mavdi
Conspiracy theory here... Me thinks they've already got their hands on a
quantum computer and this is all just a smoke screen.

Yes yes, encryption, can't get through that...

~~~
alextgordon
In case you weren't aware, quantum computers cannot break modern symmetric
encryption.

~~~
knodi123
dude's alleging secret future-tech developed by some modern covert bletchley
park, and you're gonna refute it with a fine point about what algorithms can
currently do? I don't think you two are playing tennis on the same court.

~~~
alextgordon
My point was that "quantum computer" sounds like a scary apocalypse scenario,
but isn't. It makes key exchange awkward but by no means impossible.

We already know that GCHQ has an underground level full of _conventional_
computers. That's a lot scarier.

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userbinator
It's like they really want to become 1984.

I wonder what Orwell would say if he were still alive today.

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rm_-rf_slash
If Britain mandated encryption for Internet services in the UK, I would feel
extremely unsafe making any kind of financial transaction while I'm there
unless it's in cash.

Wait, shit, isn't London the global center of the finance industry?

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dumbassbitch
Someone tried to steal the genderless no form factor options of everyone &
more long ago. They may have succeeded, or they may have failed.

One of the two happened...

Which would mean, the public would be absolutely useless to them anyway.

------
blfr
As the domestic European terrorism (ETA, IRA, RAF) faded, our
governments/elites imported foreign (mostly Muslim) terrorism and are now
using this as an excuse to spy on everyone. I guess if we let them get away
with it, we deserve the fallout.

