No doubt extremism has come about because of silicon valley, not the failure of government policy over many years, and the alienation of people in the middle east. It's not the result of twenty years of war against people who have no power to strike back except with terror tactics.<p>Clearly terrorism is the fault of those secure instant messaging apps that have led to the end of peaceful society. I think I saw a terrorist in a newspaper photo using snapchat.<p>Oh and computer games too.<p>Time to get my witch hunting pop-gun and dig up McCarthy.<p>The good news is that with encryption banned, there will be absolutely no way for terrorists to communicate in secrecy, and all communications will be intercepted and terrorism will end. Can't come soon enough.<p>Our governments have really, really tried to stop terrorism - I promise - it's just that really with encryption, it's kind of impossible so you can't blame them.<p>Thus we see the terrorists have succeeded in turning our most powerful institutions against each other. Tech versus government. The government have become the agents of the terrorists without even knowing it.
And look at what the Beeb decided not to report:<p><a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151118/08474732854/after-endless-demonization-encryption-police-find-paris-attackers-coordinated-via-unencrypted-sms.shtml" rel="nofollow">https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151118/08474732854/after...</a><p>"""Yet news emerging from Paris — as well as evidence from a Belgian ISIS raid in January — suggests that the ISIS terror networks involved were communicating in the clear, and that the data on their smartphones was not encrypted."""<p>I guess that wasn't "on message."
A gorgeous quote from the article:<p>"I propose banning words," he said. "There's evidence [to suggest] that they're being used by terrorists to communicate."
"In the piece, published back in August, they wrote about a murder near Chicago in which a father of six had been shot. At the scene, officers found two mobile phones. But they were passcode locked. Neither Google or Apple (the phones ran their software) could unlock the phones, and therefore the data was inaccessible.<p>"On behalf of crime victims the world over," the opinion piece read, "we are asking whether this encryption is truly worth the cost.""<p>Am I missing something here? Don't phones have SIM cards, IMEI numbers, serial numbers etc? Don't service providers keep records? Would they complain if a gun was found on the scene but the killer had not made the effort to engrave his name on it? Maybe they should spend their time doing investigations rather than writing editorials?
The media seems to do this rather frequently -- they report on other people's opinions, sometimes claiming "outrage" on their behalf, while offering scant evidence or analysis. Not impressed.
Oh gee, we sure are scared!!<p>Of course by Silicon Valley, they mean Silicon Valley and every business in the world that does any sort of online transaction. Because, news flash, they all use encryption just as much as everyone in Silicon Valley.<p>Also, as far as I can see there are way more stupid apps the valley pumps out (like snapchat) that DON'T encrypt than ones that do.<p>Way to be a mouthpiece for bozotron government officials who <i>wouldn't even know what to look for if they HAD the unencrypted data</i>.
Even if encryption made it easier for a terrorist to organize, it also has made it easier for dissidents to organize against oppression.<p>Although, I suppose that the government sees both as a problem...