
UK government calls out Whatsapp for enabling criminals to communicate in secret - chatmasta
https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/04/uk-gives-whatsapp-another-spanking-over-e2e-crypto/
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mmjaa
I find it incredibly difficult to comprehend that any UK politician would use
the phrase "protect people from pedophiles" with a straight face: This is a
political class which has, for decades, protected its own pedophiles from
prosecution.

It is highly troubling that this would be being used as a public button, when
there is much evidence that UK politicians have no desire, whatever, to
actually prosecute the biggest pedophiles in their state - those within their
own ranks.

~~~
b3lvedere
Those who are in power want to stay in power, no matter what.

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jchw
There's a scary, completely secret communication method that bypasses almost
all law enforcement surveillance technology we have, and worse, it's existed
for a long time and is already in common use with pedophiles and terrorists
alike.

It's called "talking to somebody behind closed doors."

~~~
egeozcan
Luckily, we have Internet of Things to remedy that unacceptable situation.
With the advances of machine learning, we won't even need that. We will be
able to tell if you are a criminal from the way you walk on the street which
are full of surveillance cameras.

~~~
romanovcode
Not to mention cool new phones from Google with always-on microphones!

~~~
adrianN
Every phone (even dumbphones!) is a phone with an always-on microphone.

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jstanley
Why aren't they also calling out ISPs, computer manufacturers, and the
national grid for enabling criminals to communicate in secret?

If we want to stop criminals from being able to access neutral services,
surely we should be starting with running water, supermarkets, restaurants,
and anyone else who supplies food or drink. That would put a stop to the
problem much more quickly.

~~~
stevekemp
The national grid? You think the electricity suppliers should, somehow, stop
"terrorists" from using electricity to make toast?

~~~
falcolas
Yes! Down with Terrorist Toast slathered in pedophile peanut butter! The true
menace to society!

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oblio
The interesting thing about all these debates, that many here seem to forget
is: these actions are awful, but in the grand scheme of things, they are
actually good and a sign of progress.

The reason governments do this is that due to the Internet, for the first time
in human history, humans can have access to truly secure telecommunications.
I'm pretty sure that before they could just phone tap/bug their way to all the
communications they wanted to follow and this is proving harder today. That's
why they're making so much noise about it.

It will be a fight to keep the (favorable for individuals) status quo, but in
my opinion the status quo is an evolution over what we had say, 40 years ago.

~~~
BjoernKW
There's a fundamental difference to both the pre-phone and the pre-Internet
age:

In the grand scheme of things phone tapping is a relatively new affair. Before
the general availability of phones you needed actual human snitches to spy on
dissidents and deviants.

Even once phones were widely used oppressive regimes still needed a huge
number of human agents because not every conversation happened on phone.

Physically spying on others is both dangerous and expensive, which is why it's
usually done selectively.

All of that changed with the general widespread use of digital means of
communication: Not only do most dissident, potentially 'dangerous'
conversations take place in digital media but those conversations are also
easily available for governments to harvest and draw upon to whatever end.

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b5
They've done these things before WhatsApp and will continue to do it no matter
what changes are made to the law. As long as there are bad people, they'll
find a way. This is just another, hard-to-criticise vector to undermine
privacy for the vast majority of people who are not criminals.

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y7
WhatsApp enables _everyone_ to communicate in secret, including the >99% of
people who are not criminals. This is an equally valid way to frame the
debate.

~~~
shubb
Maybe the effects of the equifax breach or a successor will be widespread
enough to make the general population appreciate end to end encryption and
proper security...

~~~
sitepodmatt
I think the p2p keys generated for a WhatsApp chat should be sent to certified
contractor such as Equifax for their secure mainframes to store, and their
staff to monitor the communications under a 5yr non-revokable GCHQ contract...

~~~
pritambaral
Not sure if serious or Poe's law.

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albertgoeswoof
Everyone gets their apps from two places: the Apple app store and Google Play.
To enforce a ban on whatsapp, all the government has to do is compel Google
and Apple to pull them from the app store.

The common user is currently entrenched in two walled gardens for almost all
of their activity, and banning encrypted communications for 95% of the
population is now feasible, and perhaps quite likely. That sucks.

~~~
zimpenfish
> all the government has to do is compel Google and Apple to pull them from
> the app store.

I would honestly love to see UKGOV try that. There wouldn't be enough popcorn
in the world for what a disaster that would be on every level.

~~~
albertgoeswoof
I wouldn't, it's not like Google doesn't already comply with state censorship
laws:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google)

Most people would switch to something that is compliant with government
legislation, very quickly. Because most people don't know or care what
encryption is, they just want to talk to their friends.

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Sacho
We have accepted that you can curtail certain rights for criminals, so I can't
see why we couldn't add "not using Whatsapp" to them.

All you have to do is prove a certain person is a criminal. Innocent until
proven guilty, due process, the justice system - any of these minor details
ring a bell to Amber Rudd?

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pawelkomarnicki
Whatsapp will add EULA "service cannot be used for criminal activity" ;-)

~~~
RegW
That would be just too succinct. They have got a whole paragraph on Legal and
Acceptable Use. [https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/#terms-of-
service](https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/#terms-of-service)

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benevol
The UK is part of the international "five eyes" mass surveillance group. The
NSA certainly has access to all Whatsapp messages. Therefor, the UK has it
too.

Therefor, this article certainly is nothing but propaganda.

~~~
evgen
You are so full of shit it is hard to know where to begin. End to end
encryption means that WhatsApp does not have access to the messages, so the
NSA most certainly does not. What is most annoying about delusional paranoid
comments like this is that you distract from where the real fight is.

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CapitalistCartr
Criminals also have access to fast automobiles and efficient dual carriageways
that enable their escapes. Further, they are using a powerful radio network to
communicate with ease. We must act now to remove these things for the good of
the people!

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codegladiator
Genuine question, Are guns allowed in UK just in the same way as in US ? Also,
is it so hard to come up with another way of secure communication if they ban
whatsapp ?

edit: also, if i could have worded that better ?

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oblio
There's probably many alternatives to Whatsapp, if you need them...

Regarding guns, no. Even police officers don't have them.

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theyregreat
That’s incorrect. There are over 5000 Authorised Firearms Officers (AFO’s) in
the UK.

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gambiting
Sure, but your local street-patrolling officer does not have a gun with them.
There might be one locked in their car but your ordinary policemen don't carry
weapons.

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albertgoeswoof
They don't have guns in the car. Only trained police officers are allowed to
use firearms.

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briandear
Why aren’t all cops trained to use firearms?

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pjc50
Because armed response is rarely necessary.

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codegladiator
That is if you ban guns.

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pjc50
Well, yes. Although they're not entirely banned, only handguns are banned.
Shotgun licenses and hunting licenses are fairly readily available.

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oever
I'd prefer to see a headline like "UK government calls out Apple, Facebook and
Google for spying on their citizens"

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Grollicus
Whenever I lately read things the UK government says about human rights I am
soo glad they are leaving the EU.

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jlebrech
In that case couldn't the government track their movements as they have a
mobile phone on them.

for example, you could find out who associated with a terrorist by their
location history.

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numpad
Can you give an example of locations you'd look for when searching for
terrorists?

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buro9
This is just part of signals intelligence.

Once you have a known event, then you can use the information that you know
about that to start asking more questions.

Proximity is an obvious one, who was near or in contact with the alleged
terrorist in the hours, days, weeks beforehand. Were there recurrences of
close proximity amongst those individuals previously not considered persons of
interest.

This methodology is precisely the same as how fraud and money laundering risk
is mitigated. Once you work back from a KE (known event) to build up the
pattern of related activities you can use this as a signature on observed
future behaviour to try and identify future activity that you'd like to
investigate more closely or act on.

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Tepix
Pedophiles, criminals and of course terrorists! If we can't read everything,
encryption must be outlawed!

/s

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chillydawg
To be fair, whatsapp makes it super easy - far easier than it's ever really
been - to communicate so easily and securely with so many people. It's never
black and white - you cant ban crypto and you also cant give criminals carte
blanche for uncrackable crypto. The middle ground is the very difficult thing.

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adrianN
It's impossible to ban crypto only for criminals. Either strong cryptography
is generally available or nobody can communicate privately.

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gambiting
One-time-pad is so easy to use that a child could figure it out and is
literally unbreakable. Even if you outlaw "hard encryption" this extremely
easy encryption method will always be available and will always offer 100%
secrecy for anyone needing it. This is just a smokescreen, as always.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
OTP requires a meeting, dead drop, or other open communication though. That's
a massive vulnerability over purely virtual communications.

