Privacy is for paedophiles, UK government seems to be saying while spending £500k demonising online chat encryption
- Reference: 1642691184
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/01/20/no_place_hide_campaign_anti_e2ee_ukgov/
- Source link:
Reported by us [1]well in advance last year , the £500k campaign aims to destroy public support for end-to-end encryption (E2EE) as part of a wider strategy.
That intends to make it easy for police workers and other public-sector snoopers to read the public's online conversations without having to get prior permission or defeat privacy protections.
[2]
Judging by videos earnestly distributed by organisations supporting it, the No Place To Hide campaign (being run by ad agency M&C Saatchi) is much wider than merely targeting Facebook Messenger as was previously thought.
Do you know what end-to-end encryption means?
It could mean social media platforms no longer being able to detect cases of child sexual abuse and no longer being able to report it to the police.
Retweet to raise awareness of the dangers of end-to-end encryption. [3]#NoPlaceToHide [4]pic.twitter.com/Hs6itgRiJO — Barnardo’s (@barnardos) [5]January 18, 2022
Here the video's contents reflect the police view of E2EE as a digital smokescreen that prevents them from trawling through conversations at random and seizing on anything they don't like the look of. The message is clear: privacy is for paedophiles.
Inevitably, smart people have fought back – with one buying up an unclaimed domain name similar to the official No Place To Hide site and pointing those at informative material explaining the benefits of E2EE. Thus noplacetohide.uk goes to ex-Facebook chap Alec Muffett's blog post titled "There are more and better ways to help kids, without destroying the future of internet privacy". We note that other similar domains appear to be unowned at the time of writing.
[6]
[7]
Otherwise, the campaign is off to a slow and unnoticeable start. This may be deliberate, so its opponents tire themselves out before it ramps up, but as an exercise in spending £500k in public money for minimal effect it's doing spiffingly so far.
E2EE is a force for good
Lest anyone reading this gets the idea that the UK government has a point about E2EE protecting paedophiles, the technology does far more than that and the government is deliberately omitting this information.
Your mobile banking app uses E2EE; online chats with HMRC are protected through E2EE; you'd no more have an unsecured web chat with the taxman's helpdesk than read out your P60 in the middle of a shopping centre.
[8]Government-favoured child safety app warned it could violate the UK's Investigatory Powers Act with message-scanning tech
[9]UK data watchdog calls for end-to-end encryption across video chat apps by default
[10]UK.gov is launching an anti-Facebook encryption push. Don't think of the children: Think of the nuances and edge cases instead
[11]Can WhatsApp moderators really read your encrypted texts? Yes ... if you forward them to the abuse dept
Your family WhatsApp group is protected through E2EE, too, which prevents nefarious people from trawling it for information they can use to target and harm you and your loved ones. Yet the British government wants such protections taken away, mainly because it means police then have to do less work.
Do all these online protections help paedophiles? As an unwanted by-product of all the good E2EE does, yes. As an imperfect analogy, road accidents kill thousands of people by accident every year. Yet nobody argues that roads should be closed to prevent those deaths.
Money spent publicly lobbying Facebook not to enable E2EE and demonising the tech itself is money better spent on public awareness campaigns about ways to report crimes, outreach to children, parental education on how to talk to (and supervise) children about using social media today – and who children should talk to if a strange adult suddenly tries to befriend them online.
[12]
Money spent with M&C Saatchi, famous for its long association with the Conservative Party as well as a [13]long-running accounting scandal , certainly won't hurt any police or civil service careers under today's Conservative government – but that doesn't sweep aside the fact this money has been wasted chasing a pointless target.
Demonising technology that has long been adopted as routine in the enterprise IT world is a road to nowhere, and an increasingly tech and security-savvy population simply aren't going to buy into "think of the children" rhetoric for something that will make them less safe online. No matter how hard public-sector figures try to make this about child abusers. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/08/uk_anti_encryption_facebook_e2ee_push_begins/
[2] 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=2YemVOFNwkKGKbs63HbQDywAAAI8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://twitter.com/hashtag/NoPlaceToHide?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[4] https://t.co/Hs6itgRiJO
[5] https://twitter.com/barnardos/status/1483384708541173760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[6] 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=44YemVOFNwkKGKbs63HbQDywAAAI8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] 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=33YemVOFNwkKGKbs63HbQDywAAAI8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/26/safetonet_message_scanning_legal_warning/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/29/ico_end_to_end_encryption_call_video_apps/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/08/uk_anti_encryption_facebook_e2ee_push_begins/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/07/whatsapp_privacy_propublica/
[12] 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=44YemVOFNwkKGKbs63HbQDywAAAI8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.cityam.com/mc-saatchi-founders-step-down-following-accounting-scandal/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Lord GNU
Sure you are not Lord Gnome?
Mine's the one with the latest Private Eye in the pocket.
What do you expect for £500,000?
This is obviously not a serious attempt to do anything. If they really meant it, there would be £50 million in funds exclusively available to their mates, Tory party donors, and other, sundry criminals. Even that pub landlord next door, wouldn't get out of bed for £500,000.
Re: What do you expect for £500,000?
Are Barnardo's chipping in a few quid too maybe? Very disappointed to see them wading into such a far-reaching political argument.
Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide....
...is a term used by the fascist state who want a Stasi level of monitoring into every aspect of your life.
Welcome to Tory 'police state' Britain.
Re: Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide....
Maybe we should ask ministers to [1]read this paper .
Actually I suspect that they know the arguments and really hope that most of us do not read it.
Further [2]comments by Bruce Schneier
[1] https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1159&context=faculty_publications
[2] http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2006/05/70886
Re: Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide....
Just reading this article would be a good start.
Re: Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide....
Just to point out, Labour were as bad on this topic when it was their turn to make up the rules.
Re: Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide....
@A/c
This stuff has being going on for years. All governments want to know everything about us.
Remind me again, which government was going to bring in I.D. cards?
As an aside, I remember reading a year or so ago that most M.P's werel switching from WhatsApp to Signal. Indeed large parts of the American military have been ordered not to use it. What do our M.P's know that they are not telling us?
Though in the U.K. none of this natters. If you are asked to give up your password and you refuse? I think it is a maximum of 2 years in prison. Been that way for decades now.
You could always write to your M.P..
https://www.theyworkforyou.com
But very few will
Re: Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide....
No maximum for withholding (or forgetting), they can bring you back and ask again ad infinitum.
Each one a repeat offence...
Re: Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide....
You're thinking of a Gestapo police state, The Stasi were anything but fascist.
The unlucky Germans who suffered both will tell you there was zip difference in practise.
It's governments fear of the masses, not political parties behind banning encryption.
Re: Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide....
Same thing, different coat of paint.
Power
The power needs to know who, when and how is conspiring against them. Given the Great Reset agenda and potential unrest building up they need to have a view of all conversations.
Re: Power
They know who is conspiring against them, it's backbenchers and usually the home secretary
Re: Power
Hence the House of Commons maxim:
Your opponents are opposite you, your enemies are behind you.
I do wonder what species politicians are; they're not anywhere near intelligent enough for humans...
Oh really? Did Prince Andrew do much online chatting with e2e then?
Ban private jets - problem solved
@A/C
The "child" was 17 when she was supposedly assaulted.
There is a very simple counter argument, that the lay person can understand.
Would you willingly accept someone you don't know standing outside of your front door, and when the postman comes to deliver your letters, this person would take the letters and read them before putting them through your door?
No?
Then why would you be against E2EE?
I explained it to a neighbour by saying:
Would you want government cameras in your house - the obvious answer is no.
Even those who have "nothing to hide" as they like to argue typically cave when you ask why they don't want government monitored cameras in their hall outside their bathroom.
Alternatively:
Do you shop, bank or use any other service online? If so read the T&Cs of those services and you will that there are things you are contractually obliged to hide.
Isnt' it wonderful
I'm so happy that there are so many people in Government who understand the necessary hashtags.
Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Fear. Something to Hide, Everything to Fear.
IT aint hard to understand surely?
Was it all just a dream or did I read somewhere recently that MP’s have switched to using Telegram [or was it Signal] rather than WhatsApp to try and keep their shenanigans more private than was available to them before? I wonder what GCHQ and the terrorist watch squads in the likes of MI5/MI6 make of that adjustment ..... even as the honourable members imagine they are not being surveilled because of some prior agreement ages ago which suggested that there be no need and they have a privileged position which renders them immune from covert investigation ...... which of course would be one of the dumbest and most crazy of things to consider wise and acceptable, given what is so well known about all of things that they do and have done.
Some of them are out and out warmongers and others crooked fraudsters spending and wasting hundreds of million of other folks money on things which are not fit for purpose. What a racket.
Re: Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Fear. Something to Hide, Everything to Fear.
I always did think that if an algorithm was going to fade over into thought, that cynicism would be the favoured mode...
Again I find you have a very clear view of reality..!
Isn't the majority of child abuse committed by someone already known to the child anyway like a family member? So they are much more likely to be communicating face to face than through some E2EE chat app. So maybe the government should also mandate everyone gets a Google or Amazon smart speaker installed in their houses so we can monitor for conversations about child abuse IRL as well. See how that goes down with Jo Public.
Yes, family members & other individuals in positions of power.
Random other people generally have little to no access to children in an environment where abuse could take place unseen.
Sure. Why not cull E2EE...?
...but - and I've said this before, here, it has to be across the board. After all, if our government, ministers, police forces, armed forces etc have nothing to hide they have nothing to fear.
Make it 100% mandatory across the board, but - and this is the crucial part - there can be no exemptions for MP's, senior police officers, etc etc etc. And anyone found using it at the point - those included - can be charged.
Let's see how far their support goes when they actually have to eat their own dog food. Let's see how they react when told that all their banking has to be done without encryption and that when they visit a bank in person, they can't actually talk in private to staff - a complete stranger has to be there to record every word, spoken or written.
Re: Sure. Why not cull E2EE...?
A complete stranger no.
Do this properly, put the visits on a dedicated free to view TV channel.
Remember to...
THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!
Inrage and outrage
I am outraged. Of course I do not want e2e when communicating with my accountant, lawyer, significant other, business partners, bank, or anybody else in my life. I am gagging for any and every shady little hacker to help themselves, and I trust the police, Google, Facebook, online stalkers, agents provocateurs and organised crime implicitly, not to abuse the absence of it. How can these e2e activists possibly imagine otherwise? The government should be told!
Pip pip!
pp. Lord GNU Object Model Environment (no relation)