Won't somebody please think of the children!!! UK to mount fresh assault on end-to-end encryption in Facebook
- Reference: 1618857910
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/04/19/uk_anti_encryption/
- Source link:
The ever-popular politician will say at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) event: "Sadly, at a time when we need to be taking more action, Facebook are pursuing end-to-end encryption plans that place the good work and progress achieved so far [on fighting the issue of child abuse] in jeopardy."
[1]
Patel's speech is intended to kickstart a fresh round of government campaigning against end-to-end encryption, as [2]previewed by Wired a few weeks ago.
The British state is hostile towards end-to-end encryption; the idea of people being able to communicate privately without the government listening in seems intolerable to Whitehall. Bureaucrats' favoured way of campaigning against messaging apps' adoption of E2E encryption is to depict it as actively putting children into harm's way.
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Wired wrote that advisory firm PA Consulting has been paid by the Home Office to write a report talking up how E2E encryption protects "adults' privacy at the expense of children's safety." In particular, the report will claim that methods for government agencies to read people's messages in the E2E era will "almost certainly be less effective than the current ability to scan for harmful content."
Zoom's end-to-end encryption isn't actually end-to-end at all. Good thing the PM isn't using it for Cabinet calls. Oh, for f... [4]READ MORE
In a prepared statement, a Facebook spokesperson said E2E encryption's "rollout on our messaging services is a long-term project and we are building strong safety measures into our plans."
Law enforcement agencies claim that E2E encryption would make it more difficult for them to investigate crimes at all levels. Last year the National Crime Agency [5]revealed the depth of splits within the establishment ; the agency claimed a sex offender "wouldn't have been caught" if Facebook had enabled E2E encryption, but also revealed that classic join-the-dots policing led to his identification and arrest.
Neither does E2E always pose a significant speedbump to police nowadays. French and Dutch police [6]took down the Encrochat E2E phone network by deploying malware to all of its users that copied the contents of their handsets back to police-controlled servers. There is no reason in principle that this couldn't be done under strict judicial pre-authorisation against named individual suspects in the UK.
Closer to home, 400,000 arrest, fingerprint, and DNA records [7]were accidentally deleted by bungling Home Office officials, suggesting that time and effort spent railing against social media companies is better spent on teaching and reinforcing the basics of police record-keeping and investigatory techniques.
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The only fully-thought-out plan for snooping on E2E encrypted chats was put forward by the National Cyber Security Centre's technical chief, Ian Levy, who suggested police were automatically added to every single messaging app conversation as a "ghost user." The Western infosec world [9]laughed it out of the room. ®
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YH39d9VQtyX5WH9V2iQ@tQAAABE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-encryption-facebook-home-office-nspcc
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YH39d9VQtyX5WH9V2iQ@tQAAABE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/01/zoom_spotlight/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/27/encryption_backdoor_petition/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/13/encrochat_hack_judicial_review_judgment/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/18/lost_police_records_jump_to_400k/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YH39d9VQtyX5WH9V2iQ@tQAAABE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/30/tech_hits_back_at_gchq_ghost_user_privacy_buster/
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
What's good for the goose ..
make it so for everyone and everything .. police , army , and even more so to politician's email and communications. wanna make encryption illegal .. start at home with all your accounts .. how you feel now ? :D
Re: What's good for the goose ..
But the police and politicians never do wrong, so it's fine if they are excluded from having their backdoors probed.
As for the rest of us, we are not trust worthy.
Re: What's good for the goose ..
But wouldn't Facebook also have to give the backdoors to other governments - and they are almost all foreigners so you can't trust them.
The more they protest, the more technical the miscreants will get in hiding their activities.
Facebook may do E2E encryption but they will still be looking at messages in order to profile users so they can serve ads.
I wouldn’t trust Facebook E2E encryption, government shouldn’t trust it either.
The 2nd last paragraph reminded me....
Just how much progress has been made in recovering those 400,000 mugshots and fingerprints that got fat-fingered off the Police Database?
Its about time we had a progress report on that. I know the answer is probably "no comment", but all the same an official progress report to confirm or deny what we all expect would be nice.
It is clear to me...
...that many politicians are being targeted by misinformation campaigns spread by antisocial networking sites. You see, if users can't encrypt their data then they can't hide it from the antisocial networks. Also, if the politicians are trying to regulate encryption they are obviously too busy to regulate corporations and run-away-capitalist-oligarch makers.
So if we ban encryption?
Then let's ban clothing everywhere too - and maybe force all cars, buses, and airplanes to use the Wonder Woman "invisible" plane mechanism. If everything should be accessible to the police then maybe even politicians would have to tell everyone all the companies they are working for and how many wives and kids they have ...
Keep adding up all these results and banning encryption will be banned.
This kind of idiocy is the responsibility of everyone who voted for these colossal evidence denying assholes.
Child protection
'... there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so'. (Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2, page 11)
The problem the politicians have is that end to end encryption (which cannot be read by state actors) is lauded when used by dissidents in countries of which the politicians disapprove, but criticised when used by 'our own' criminals. Dissidents fighting against oppression, revealing human rights abuses are good, whilst paedophiles, drug smugglers and people traffickers are bad. Both will use the technology available to the general population, and you cannot possibly make sure that only 'the good guys' have access to the secure tools.
It is a difficult problem and I do not envy the politicians in trying to find a solution. The fact is though that, paedophilles are often caught in ways other than reading their communications. The monstrous crimes of Barry Bennell were not revealed due to interception of electronic communications, but because some of his victims were brave enough to speak out publicly while he was alive. The crimes of Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith did not get publicity until after their respective deaths, but it is unlikely that end-to-end encryption played any part in their evading justice.
Protecting children from abuse is a social issue and needs social solutions. Even if banning end-to-end strong encryption in consumer communications is one of those measures, that will not be anything like enough on its own, so maybe Priti Patel could say what other measures she is taking to protect children, like, for example, enhanced funding for child protection and social services?
Re: Child protection
Seeing as most child abuse happens within the family or involving others who are so close as to almost be family... would Priti (useless) Patel care to claim hust how protesting E2E encryption going to help with this... compared to the complete destruction of social care services and outreach services that she has personally overseen?
Re: Child protection
"The crimes of Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith did not get publicity until after their respective deaths"
There were accusations about them, just not much ever done about it & people covering for them e.g. David Steel admitted he knew Cyril Smith was an abuser back in the late 70's but did nothing about it
Re: Child protection
You could say the same about demanding ID to create a social media account as is being put forward in various places, mainly Australia. By forcing ID, you kill off things like the Myanmar protests, because anyone speaking against the coup will be rounded up by the military.
Once again the tired refrain
"think of the children" - whenever I hear a politician using that appeal (or anything similar) I immediately assume that the proposal is something which would be completely unjustifiable and unacceptable if subject to any rational review. In this case the implication is that if you oppose end-to-end encryption you are clearly a paedophile or some other sort of vile pervert.
Simple
Require Huawei kit in the network, then everything will be magically read by the Chinese army.