UK Gov't: Encryption Endangers Kids. Also UK Gov't: No, Encryption *Protects* Kids
from the take-it-to-the-Thunderdome,-regulators dept
What's the greatest threat to children since the invention of contraceptives? Why, encryption, of course. Just ask (almost) anyone. FBI directors have pointed to device and end-to-end encryption as an aider and abettor in child sexual abuse. Government leaders from around the world have claimed the addition of end-to-end encryption to Facebook's messaging service will result in millions of abused kids. Others who find the chanting of "national security concerns" just isn't getting the job done have often chosen to lean on abused children to make their points (badly) about the "dangers" encryption poses.
The UK government is trying to regulate encryption into nonexistence. It doesn't have the strength of character to flat-out demand encryption backdoors so it's trying to apply indirect pressure to accomplish the same thing. Its efforts are being aided by an extremely manipulative ad campaign -- one detailed here with righteous anger by Rianna Pfefferkorn. The ad flips the script on the sanctity of the home -- one given ultimate protection from government intrusion -- turning it into a black box where evildoers are free to sexually assault children. The shitty metaphor equates a home with curtains drawn to end-to-end encryption, turning privacy into secrecy while suggesting only criminals are interested in private communications.
But encryption is good for kids, argues none other than the… UK government???
The UK data watchdog has intervened in the debate over end-to-end encryption, warning that delaying its introduction puts “everyone at risk” including children.
The Information Commissioner’s Office said strongly encrypting communications strengthens online safety for children by reducing their exposure to threats such as blackmail, while also allowing businesses to share information securely.
Huh. Well, that severely undercuts the rest of the government, which has claimed repeatedly that encrypted communications only aids criminals. The narrative is that the innocent have nothing to fear from pervasive surveillance and unsecured communications. The most innocent of all are the children, who the UK government apparently feels aren't worthy of strong device or communications security. The UK government -- the ICO notwithstanding -- is seemingly willing to feed the kids to the proverbial wolves in exchange for nominal law enforcement gains. The ICO, fortunately, is pointing out how the UK government will endanger children (as well as other at-risk groups) by regulating encryption out of existence.
“E2EE [end-to-end encryption] serves an important role both in safeguarding our privacy and online safety,” said Stephen Bonner, the ICO’s executive director for innovation and technology. “It strengthens children’s online safety by not allowing criminals and abusers to send them harmful content or access their pictures or location.”
That's the salient point that almost always goes ignored by critics of encryption: whatever holes are created for law enforcement can be exploited by bad people as well. It's not as though criminals steer clear of legislatively-mandated security flaws. They'll abuse any opening, no matter its genesis. Pretending this won't happen is an extremely popular form of denial -- one exercised loudly and repeatedly by government officials who believe security tradeoffs should only negatively affect the largest group of stakeholders: the governed. After all, if they knew what was best for the nation (and the nation's children), surely they would have been elected by now and busily foisting security flaws on their constituents.
Presumably, the ICO's input will be ignored in favor of the UK government's insistence that privacy and security are just tools of the criminal trade, rather than something that should be revered, protected, and strengthened by legislation. The fact that some criminals are getting away with something continues to irk those who seem irritated that the government is incapable of controlling everything. The Online Safety bill is just a naked power grab, brought to UK residents by legislators willing to expose their indifference for the public to everyone and their children.
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Filed Under: encryption, going dark, protect the children, uk, uk ico
Reader Comments
The First Word
“The anti-encryption arguments just boil down to "Everyone needs to leave a key under the doormat so cops can always get into your home to protect you"
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'Not being constantly watched and tracked is a terrible threat!'
UK government: The children will be in great danger if it's not possible for anyone with the proper keys to access every single scrap of information about them, up to and including their location in real time.
Skeptical individual: And what happens when that deeply personal and potentially dangerous information gets into the hands of those with less-than-good intentions, because it will if you mandate that vulnerability.
UK government: That is a price we are willing to (have the children) pay.
Few things wave the 'We have no valid arguments or defense for our position' flag quite so enthusiastically like 'Think of the children!'
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The anti-encryption arguments just boil down to "Everyone needs to leave a key under the doormat so cops can always get into your home to protect you"
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Re:
Followed by assurances that of course no-one else will ever find and use that key other than them, why the very thought is downright silly and anyone bringing it up is obviously a criminal sympathizer who wants to use fear and play on the emotions of the good, law-abiding citizens who the police just super-duper want to protect with the key.
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Re:
Police don't actually need a reason to enter your house, just fyi. Warrants aren't really a thing here.
Ever been to /r/policeuk? So many cops boasting about how they can just make up stuff to gain access to a property.
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Re: Re:
Well, if they already do it with marijuana.
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Sense of smell
Do you think they can smell child sex abuse from a car going the opposite direction at speed with the windows up?
Can they smell it if the odor is in the UK and not encrypted?
Can they then ticket the sex abuser via a text message?
I tried researching it and got caught by this guy:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7231#section-6.5.2
I guess I'll just have to go make a 5G call at the airport before one of my confidantes betrays me to Dan Ball from OAN.
E
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Re: Sense of smell
"Do you think they can smell child sex abuse from a car going the opposite direction at speed with the windows up?"
Sure they can. The same way you people have historically been "able to tell" someones criminal inclination by measuring the bumps on their skull or how they similarly "could tell" the actor with the hooked nose playing a moneychanger would turn out to be the villain.
Nothing to do with biased preconceptions at all.
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Re: Re: Sense of smell
[Edit]
Typo; "The same way some people have historically been "able to tell" someones criminal inclination by measuring the bumps on their skull or how they similarly "could tell" the actor with the hooked nose playing a moneychanger would turn out to be the villain."
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Better phrased as compliant and passive citizens have nothing to fear from encryption, while those who would change the objectives of government or the direction of society, by peaceful means, have everything to fear from surveillance.
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Re:
That first one be fear from surveillance
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Re:
My suddenly and unexpectedly encrypted hard drive and I beg to differ.
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Encrypted drives and Compliant Passive Citizens
Anyone who says "I have nothing to hide" please fill this out:
If you want to frame it as "I have nothing to hide" provide the data you don't need to hide.
Me - like papa poster, encrypt everything. Let God sort it out.
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Re: Encrypted drives and Compliant Passive Citizens
As for more serious information citizens may be entitled not to disclose to any government official who might ask, the justification we use to invade other countries are very inspirational. You know, when we topple evil dictators because they force their citizens to [followed by list of things our government thinks citizens of evil dictator's country should not have to disclose. ]
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Re: Encrypted drives and Compliant Passive Citizens
"Anyone who says "I have nothing to hide"..."
I like the old example given by Rick Falkvinge, founder of the first Pirate Party; *"He who says he has nothing to hide, ask him if he'd object to using a toilet in a see-through cubicle on the town square".
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Enough with the children
Clearly the problem is that people in the UK are having children, and then failing to protect them. Rather than dealing with their own responsibilities, these people want law-enforcement, government, and private websites to nanny their kids.
If those who don't want to parent their kid would just stop having kids ... within 20 years none of their children would need that parental protection -- that they don't have -- and then the rest of us wouldn't have to hear about. Worked for China.
CAPS for emphasis and standing out... not yelling.
Thoughts about this article, attitude of irresponsible parents, and those who want to eat the dinner but not wash the plates:
end to end encryption is bad for children.
Too hard to have children, not take care of them, and then blame everyone else in the world because... encryption.
I'm sorry the UK is a "Nanny State." Nevertheless, I offer a solution:
or if you do
or if you're unable
It's great to have kids... just realize your DUTY as their parent is to keep them healthy and away from harm... until they can do so themselves. Cops, government, laws, schools, that helps... but the real job is at home. This has nothing to do with the value of encryption.
E
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Re: Enough with the children
The problem is not parents. The problem is the gov't wanting access&control and using security and/or children as the justification. Parents have no say - "it's for your own good". Also, this desire for control crosses political boundaries - this sort of stuff often gets all party support.
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Re: Enough with the children
"Clearly the problem is that people in the UK are having children, and then failing to protect them."
Well, if they have too many children to properly protect them I have a Humble Proposal to posit...
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They will be removing my encrypted communications from my cold, dead hands!
<Looks up at the copy of Pretty Good Privacy on the shelf> Here we go again...
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Well clearly the takeaway here is that the UK is governed by pedophiles.
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Re:
And so the road opens to Fish'n'ChipGate (Or Chicken Tikka MasalaGate)
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Re:
Balderdash, I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent reason they want to have on-demand access to the most personal information on every child in the country, from their private messages and pictures to the real-time location....
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"If everyone would kindly only use circa WW2 German cryptography that we have already cracked, that would be great. Thank you."
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Antone know the 1% rule?
its the idea that if 1% are not affected it really dont matter that much.
And if these folks want the Whole world counted. The cops are abusing the kids more then the Child molesters.
7.9 billion est population of this planet.
If we can hit 800,000,000 Child molestation cases around the world(not counting Bangkok)
Lets suggest,
First things first. ALL political departments must NOT have any encoding on their respective phones.
This include police, state and federal and international.
This includes Every politician and all State/fed/international, agencies.
If you do this for the next 3-5 years, and DONT GET PISSED OFF, we can all change to unencrypted phones.
In the background,
Dear newspapers and TV agencies. Do I have a sale for you. Fairly over priced unit to isolate and listen to Any and all Broadcast signals. With isolation and tracking abilities.
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The Online Safety bill is likely to be a huge mess and be unenforceable.
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Re:
The Online Safety bill is likely to be a huge mess, be unenforceable with regards to the rich and/or powerful, not achieve its stated aim, but be the perfect tool for interfering elsewhere.
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Encryption protects users privacy security and makes it hard to spy, track on random users it's like cyclists use helmets and drivers use seat for safety finance and banks use it to protect user data and make online transactions safe and secure for non tech experts just because some gangs or criminals use it does not not mean it should be banned or compromised
If the Uk goes the way of Russia or Australia in making stupid extreme laws it will. Reduce user privacy and encourage tech finance startup company's to move to Ireland or other country's that value used privacy rights and freedom of speech
This at a time when more people are using mobile apps to buy products in shops or online or transfer money
Being out of the EU means the UK do not have to follow gdpr unless they are dealing with customers outside the UK eg France, Spain
But then the torys seem to want to destroy the bbc the UK s global standard media company so asking torys to make
Logical sensible policy's right now with media or tech issues seems to be impossible right now
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There is no place to hide, the master decryption key
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The Last Word
“'Not being constantly watched and tracked is a terrible threat!'
UK government: The children will be in great danger if it's not possible for anyone with the proper keys to access every single scrap of information about them, up to and including their location in real time.
Skeptical individual: And what happens when that deeply personal and potentially dangerous information gets into the hands of those with less-than-good intentions, because it will if you mandate that vulnerability.
UK government: That is a price we are willing to (have the children) pay.
Few things wave the 'We have no valid arguments or defense for our position' flag quite so enthusiastically like 'Think of the children!'
made the Last Word by James Burkhardt