UK Home Secretary: I Need People Who Understand The Necessary Hashtags To Censor Bad People Online
from the oh,-and-to-break-encryption-to dept
So, last week a clearly troubled individual by the name of Khalid Masood killed four people in Westminster and, as happens all too often after something bad happens, politicians went insane. But no one more so than UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who really maybe should have taken a moment or two to find out what the hell she was talking about before going on TV spouting off complete and utter nonsense about technology, social media and encryption. Instead, Rudd, who again, I remind you, is in a very powerful position within the British Cabinet (sort of loosely equivalent to the head of Homeland Security in the US) said this while talking about getting various social media companies to be more proactive in censoring content:
“What I’m saying is the best people who understand the technology, who understand the necessary hashtags to stop this stuff even being put up, not just taking it down, are going to be them. That’s why I would like to have an industry-wide board set up where they do it themselves.”
The best people... who understand the necessary hashtags. The. Necessary. Hashtags. Or should that be #NecessaryHashtags. I mean, that's so insane that it distracts from the fact that the UK Home Secretary is literally saying that she wants internet companies to come together in a mass collusion to censor content the UK Home Secretary doesn't like.
Believe it or not, that wasn't even the craziest thing that this person-in-power had to say. Prior to the #NecessaryHashtags, we were given a full throated UK-version of James Comey and his silly, debunked "going dark" nonsense, just with a British accent:
“It is completely unacceptable. There should be no place for terrorists to hide.
“We need to make sure that organisations like WhatsApp, and there are plenty of others like that, don’t provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other.
“It used to be that people would steam open envelopes, or just listen in on phones, when they wanted to find out what people were doing, legally, through warrantry, but in this situation we need to make sure that our intelligences services have the ability to get into situations like encrypted WhatsApp.”
We don't necessarily (hashtag or not!) need to rehash just how wrong this is -- we've covered that plenty of times in the past. The fact is there are always going to be tons of places where "terrorists" can communicate with each other that no one can see. Sometimes it will be in person. Sometimes it will be in public, but using a pre-designated code. And, of course, even more importantly, this crazy decision to blame encrypted communications apps in a case where even Rudd admits the guy was a lone actor, completely ignores just how important encrypted, private communications are to the rest of us. It takes quite a misguided thought process to think "here we have a disturbed lone actor who did an attack, and therefore we need to make absolutely everyone else significantly less safe." It takes an even more misguided process to take that thought and go on TV and announce it as an official plan of the UK government.
Oh, and remember, this is the same UK government that just months ago got massive new powers to spy on the public.
If it's not yet obvious from what was said above that Rudd is just playing tech buzzword bingo and has simply no idea what she's talking about, she also said this:
“We’re not saying open up, we don’t want to go into the cloud, we don’t want to do all sorts of things like that, but we do want them to recognise they have a responsibility to engage with government, to engage with law enforcement agencies when there is a terrorist situation”.
You're not saying open up and you don't want to go into the cloud? But you are saying that encryption shouldn't be allowed to work? What is she even saying? This is all nonsense. The companies do engage with governments all the time. When given a valid and legal warrant, they do what they can. Sometimes that's nothing.
Of course, all of this is coming on the heels of another misguided outrage at other tech companies for sometimes allowing bad people to use their tools. Paul Bernal has an oasis of sanity responding to some of this cesspool of craziness.
Terrorists use the internet to communicate and to plan because we all use the internet to communicate and plan. Terrorists use the internet to access information because we all use the internet to access information. The internet is a communicative tool, so of course they’ll use it – and as it develops and becomes better at all these things, we’ll all be able to use it in this way. And this applies to all the tools on the net. Yes, terrorists will use Google. Yes, they’ll use Facebook too. And Twitter. And WhatsApp. Why? Because they’re useful tools, systems, platforms, whatever you want to call them – and because they’re what we all use. Just as we use hire cars and kitchen knives.
[....]
The same is true of privacy itself. We all need it. Undermining it – for example by building in backdoors to services like WhatsApp – undermines us all. Further, calls for mass surveillance damage us all – and attacks like that at Westminster absolutely do not help build the case for more of it. Precisely the opposite. To the surprise of no-one who works in privacy, it turns out that the attacker was already known to the authorities – so did not need to be found by mass surveillance. The same has been true of the perpetrators of all the major terrorist attacks in the West in recent years. The murderers of Lee Rigby. The Boston Bombers. The Charlie Hebdo shooters. The Sydney siege perpetrators. The Bataclan killers. None of these attacks needed identifying through mass surveillance. At a time when resources are short, to spend time, money, effort and expertise on mass surveillance rather than improving targeted intelligence, putting more human intelligence into place – more police, more investigators rather than more millions into the hands of IT contractors – is hard to defend.
Why is it that all the sane thoughts on this seem to be coming from outside the government, and the craziest ideas coming from those in the highest positions of power?
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Filed Under: amber rudd, censorship, encryption, free speech, going dark, necessary hashtags
Companies: telegram, whatsapp, wordpress
Reader Comments
The First Word
“iJabberwocky
`Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid post and upload in the cloud:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the meme raths download.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The files that hide, the clouds that catch!
Beware the Twitter bird, and shun
The frumious Instagram!"
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Because it's not about sanity, it's about control. They don't care about terrorists, they care about control.
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Re:
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Sane people....
If you are still sane when you
start, after a few years, done.
Group think, indoctrination.
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Re: Sane people....
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Re: Control
This is a perennial distraction game that is basically the same thing Donald Trump does, but professional politicians are so much better at hiding it. When the first executive order for the muslim ban was issued, Trump was also making his most grandiose claims yet about voter fraud in the US election - saying that there were 3 to 4 million fraudulent votes that cost him the popular vote.
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Re:
The more you try to censor people, the more isolated those with more extreme views will feel, and the more likely that they will carry out lone wolf attacks. What is required is the much more difficult task of engaging with them
What - these people are nothing like IRA. If someone believes that killing p5 people in a suicide attack will cancel their sins and send them straight to heaven you can't "engage" with them - except to convince them that their beliefs are false. Unfortunately a concerted effort to make the argument that Islam is false is not on the agenda
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Re: Re: Re:
Terrorist organizations are no different from governments,
I suggest you wath "Mars Attacks" and see how far that approach got the "President."
There is no negotiating with these people, and even if you did it and it seemed to go well you might consider the plight of the tribes who thought that they had negotiated a deal with Mohammed. As soon as he felt strong anough he turned round and wiped most of them out.
Thomas Jefferson's experience with the Barbary pirates are also salutary. When they made an agreement it was written in English and Arabic - unfortunately the two documents did not say the same thing.
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It only takes one side to start and continue a war, but two sides to talk if it is to be resolved by means other than genocide.
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It also takes some side resisting.
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Maybe it should be. Actually, there's no "maybe" about it.
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Oh Dear
1) The Iranians, the Saudis and every other totalitarian Islamic government in the world (who by the way are the reall promoters of this kind of terrorism) will just love the fact that the Christians, the Bahais, the Apostates andthe atheist bloggers will have nowhere to hide if there is no secure encryption.
2) As the article points out this kind of terrorist doesn't need a support network and secure communications - all he had was a driving licence and a kitchen knife.
3)Stopping the terroists from public propaganda is a bad idea - their public propaganda has the effect of telling the truth about Islam - which the likes of Theresa May are trying to keep quiet about. Better out in the open where everyone can see it for what it is - and then there will be fewer people to provide cover. All Amber Rudd seems to want is a set of peril sensitive sunglasses.
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Re: Oh Dear
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Re: Re: Oh Dear
6) Stop listening to the platitudes of the "Islam is a religion of peace" brigade
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Re: Re: Re: Oh Dear
8) Stop telling other people what to think.
9) Make me a sammich.
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We all breathe air
So do terrorists. We need to ban air, water, food and dirt ASAP. Because otherwise the terrorists win. smh
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Re: We all breathe air
It's time all walls are made of glass. Next we'll outlaw drapes.
Obviously Big Brick will be against us but think of the children!
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iJabberwocky
Did post and upload in the cloud:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the meme raths download.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The files that hide, the clouds that catch!
Beware the Twitter bird, and shun
The frumious Instagram!"
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Warnign speach..
Encryption is a pain, and it does not matter how safe it is, it TAKES TIME to encrypt and decrypt.. LAG, for all you Computer people..
" ..recognise they have a responsibility to engage with government, to engage with law enforcement agencies when there is a terrorist situation”
Love this IDEA...a Gov agency telling the PEOPLE that the internet and its service HAVE to be open enough to MONITOR what is happening in their services..
The amounts of data to SORT and process...IS HUGE..private or Gov. processing is HUGE.. and it Cant be fully automated..
There is something here that SOME may not notice. In developed nations we have TONS of Identification and Paper work on everyone. In other countries they barely KNOW who is WHO..
Then we have Tons of people crossing borders and WE HAVE NO PAPER WORK ON THEM..And the countries they come from has very little..
HOW open would the gov. Be, if they had to be MORE OPEN..that we could monitor EVERYTHING they do..
How much of our gov. business is DONE OUTSIDE the office? Off the floor WHERE ITS SUPPOSED TO BE..
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Privacy
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Oh, censoring is bad, eh? Yet my prior browser session here was blocked after two comments! Masnick is somewhere below hypocrisy.
That's one reason you see so little opposition on the site. But even the fanboys are weary of trivia.
Now, this comment whining about being censored out of sight has a shot at appearing so as to "prove" there's no censoring. But you simply don't see the censored comments, nor from the probably many blocked IPA, and there's the cheaty trick of only letting appear long late so don't affect discussion.
I'd do more of the good honest criticism so sorely needed here if the "public" comment box wasn't so often "moderated" into the bit-bucket. But I win whether you allow criticism or are The Masnocrit.
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Re: Oh, censoring is bad, eh? Yet my prior browser session here was blocked after two comments! Masnick is somewhere below hypocrisy.
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Re: Re: Oh, censoring is bad, eh? Yet my prior browser session here was blocked after two comments! Masnick is somewhere below hypocrisy.
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Oh, censoring is bad, eh? Yet my prior browser session here was blocked after two comments! Masnick is somewhere below hypocrisy.
That's one reason you see so little opposition on the site. But even the fanboys are weary of trivia.
Now, this comment whining about being censored out of sight has a shot at appearing so as to "prove" there's no censoring. But you simply don't see the censored comments, nor from the probably many blocked IPA, and there's the cheaty trick of only letting appear long late so don't affect discussion.
I'd do more of the good honest criticism so sorely needed here if the "public" comment box wasn't so often "moderated" into the bit-bucket. But I win whether you allow criticism or are The Masnocrit.
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Re: Oh, censoring is bad, eh? Yet my prior browser session here was blocked after two comments! Masnick is somewhere below hypocrisy.
I see your opposition all the time. Are you really so dumb that you don't know that it's this community telling you to get the f*ck out, and it's Masnick who's allowing you to keep posting?
"But you simply don't see the censored comments,"
Again, I see your bullshit all the time. Stop it.
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Re: Oh, censoring is bad, eh? Yet my prior browser session here was blocked after two comments! Masnick is somewhere below hypocrisy.
Yet, I don't feel censored or inconvenienced, I just understand how a spam filter works and know that it's nothing personal against me. So, I'll continue my day and not have a rant against an imagined conspiracy. Funny, that.
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Burn All Bibles....
So, assuming you choose a book (let's say the bible) that someone might logically have on their shelf, your code is pretty near unbreakable and to thwart this dastardly plan, you would need to outlaw all Bibles .... Or maybe all books ... or maybe writing in general..
Now if you knew what book I was using, you could decode the following message (or since I made it SUPER easy, you might be able to guess it)... :)
23.19 74.100 43.88 80.12 109.85 42.37 73.89
Just something to think about.
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Re: Burn All Bibles....
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Re: Burn All Bibles....
Btw, that was a very uncalled for thing to say about my mother.
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Re: Re: Burn All Bibles....
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#NecessaryHashtags
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Simple fix
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Re: Simple fix
That only works where hashtags are allowed.
A lower level and more general solution for all types of internet traffic is RFC 3514 otherwise known as the Evil Bit.
You could keep your terrorist traffic safely encrypted. Since you would flag all of your packets by setting the evil bit, internet routers and other equipment would be aware of the malicious intent of your communication, without any need to decrypt it.
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No need to give them ideas, they already thought of them
“It is completely unacceptable. There should be no place for terrorists to hide.
I'd go with the usual poe about how the government probably wants to outlaw private conversations because terrorists, but given the Snoopers Charter they recently passed I can't help but think that they actually would if they thought they could get away with it.
The UK government's recent actions and statements certainly give the appearance of a government that believes in protecting privacy only for the rich and powerful, and no privacy whatsoever for the general public.
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“It is completely unacceptable. There should be no place for terrorists to hide.
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Re: “It is completely unacceptable. There should be no place for terrorists to hide.
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Ted Heath...,
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"Understand the necessary hashtags" far surpasses "series of tubes" in terms of technical illiteracy by a member of a government. It sounds like something out of a TV cop show.
Zoom in and enhance! Access granted!
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Appologies...
I know our education system has been dumbed down somewhat but even they don't normally pretend basic mathematics should be illegal, and most here realise that stuff like the Code Talkers of WW2 was actually both _useful_ and essentially impossible to stop.
If someone really wants to pass a message where the meaning is incomprehensible to all, all they need to do is use 'govspeak' then no one will ever understand it.
Sorry for the inconvenience, I thought the encryption wars occurred a long time ago and settled such rubbish, but it seems we have a government for whom the study of history should be illegal.
Your 'Math is not a crime" T shirts may need a slight spelling adjustment but could soon do reasonably well over here
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Re: Appologies...
*Not a typo, I'm being facetious.
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Re: Re: Appologies...
Then again, I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to one singular "mathematic", either...
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Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/grammar/comments/2txdif/is_the_word_mathematics_singular_or_plural/
The prevailing view is that "Maths" is singular. Mostly.
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Can't we censor people like Rudd?
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Here's an idea....
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Isn't their album out again on vinyl re-release?
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Yo dawg! I saw you like # so I put a # in your #
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