UK surveillance bill includes powers to limit end-to-end encryption

I think this same logic that is purportedly the reasoning behind this bill would also require us to constantly record all of our vocal communications, as that would be the only way we could ensure that criminals could not have communications that aren&#x27;t accessible to law enforcement.<p>This, of course, would require microphones on all citizens as well as many more in the surrounding environment, to ensure communications of unwilling citizens can be monitored as well. And, of course, we&#x27;d need video as well to get those pesky sign language users[0].<p>These sort of bills always make me wonder if we&#x27;ll ever see a moral stance taken by tech companies. There&#x27;s a few skirmishes that happen every now and then but there doesn&#x27;t seem to be any general consensus on what companies will tolerate in both themselves and their business partners. I&#x27;d love to see a &quot;Fair Trade&quot;-esque branding used as an indication that the product and its supply chain don&#x27;t include actors who support government surveillance.<p>[0]: OT, but it makes me realize you can literally make illegal gestures due to <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United...</a>

It&#x27;s such a pointless war on its own law-abiding citizens. It makes me sad.<p>People that <i>really</i> care about privacy, people who need to hide what they do will not be majorly impacted.<p>* The main threat is metadata anyways, not the data itself. Locating where you are (e.g. with millions of cameras and facial recognition) is a much worse threat.<p>* They will still use full disk encryption, free software, PGP or AES, etc. outside of the affected apps. That software won&#x27;t stop to exist, nor the mathematics that powers it will stop working.<p>The sad part is that the people who will be disproportionally affected will be the common people who have nothing to hide anyways, and do not have the technical means, or the will, to protect themselves.<p>TLDR: useless and damaging.

&gt; &#x27;If we do not provide for access to encrypted communications when it is necessary and proportionate to do so then we must simply accept that there can be areas online beyond the reach of the law.&#x27;<p>Yes, yes we must accept that, since it&#x27;s reality. Queen Elizabeth can no more hold back encrypted communications than King Canute could hold back the tide.

If I want to keep my communications encrypted online, I&#x27;m going to do so. The only people who won&#x27;t have the same luxury as me are those that follow the law. I don&#x27;t get it.

Interesting to see that at the same time the EU privacy watch dog is proposing to mandate encryption and outlaw these kind of decryption methodologies[0]. While still an opinion, it is good to see that in this area the EU is among the most progressive governments around. [0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;secure.edps.europa.eu&#x2F;EDPSWEB&#x2F;webdav&#x2F;site&#x2F;mySite&#x2F;shared&#x2F;Documents&#x2F;Consultation&#x2F;Opinions&#x2F;2016&#x2F;16-07-22_Opinion_ePrivacy_EN.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;secure.edps.europa.eu&#x2F;EDPSWEB&#x2F;webdav&#x2F;site&#x2F;mySite&#x2F;sha...</a>

This belief that you can somehow force the strong encryption genie back in his bottle is fascinating, if sad.<p>I guess it is not as futile as it may appear at first glance, though - after all, you don&#x27;t need all the world&#x27;s suppliers of communication software to adhere to be successful; just force the major ones to help you out, then simply assume that anyone using an insignificant (by user base) app is up to something nefarious.<p>Bah. Orwell was an optimist.

Anyone hell bent on killing people will likely succeed. Surveillance is not the answer. Too much data is just as bad as not enough. The solution is finding out WHY people want to kill you and fix THAT.

What possibly can they do with all this data ?<p>It seems that current governments can&#x27;t seem to solve the drug war, the war on terror, gun crime, or the increasing number of terrorist attacks.<p>How much intrusion do they actually need and what is the cost of the technology before they can actually seem to make headway on solving issues.

Dear UK government,<p>Good luck with that.<p>Signed,<p>An open source software developer outside your jurisdiction

I can&#x27;t help but wonder how this bill, on top of Brexit, will affect the state of technology entrepreneurship in the UK. Why should an entrepreneur start up a technology business in the UK if his efforts will be hampered by politicians who have no clue about how technology actually works?

It&#x27;s time to call this stuff out for what it is: flat out idiocy or lies. Possibly both.<p>Here&#x27;s a brief thought to uncover why:<p>There are two countries. Country A has security capabilities equivalent to today&#x27;s UK. Country B, equivalent to today&#x27;s UK plus the proposed changes.<p>Could maniacs based in country B commit attacks of equivalent fatality to maniacs based in country A? Of course they could.<p>Could a criminal gang in country B get away with crimes of similar magnitude to a similar gang in country A? Of course they could.<p>Other threads here have pointed out the minimal extra effort that would be required by perpetrators, if any.<p>So why propose these changes, and why give the stated reasons?<p>Perhaps the government doesn&#x27;t understand the negligible impact they&#x27;ll have. This seems unlikely, although perhaps they &quot;can&#x27;t see the wood for the trees&quot; and are getting carried away with the current xenophobic mood in the air.<p>Perhaps the government is showing its true colours and exercising the basic Conservative desire to deny societal evolution, by tightening control over anything new and complex.<p>Perhaps they&#x27;ve had a good hard think to the best of their abilities, and have genuinely decided this is The Best Thing To Do.<p>Whatever the reason, it&#x27;s either founded on idiocy or couched in lies.

It is to an extent funny to think that governments think they can sit on top of communications and implement mass surveillance. If you make it illegal to encrypt your stuff, the knowledged&#x2F;tech savvy people will start to work on using steganography. There will be an explosion of cat pictures in the Internet. Good luck finding the hideous cat :-)<p>All the government does now is inconvenience to the majority of citizens who they have nothing to worry about anyway.

So, how are companies supposed to keep customer data safe from hackers without encryption exactly?<p>This kind of thing can only make the people of the UK less safe, more at risk, and more likely to be hacked and otherwise digitally abused.<p>If you wanna keep the people safe, you don&#x27;t ban encryption. Better would be to mandate it.

This is a fairly obvious sacrificial anode bit of the legislation. They&#x27;ll drop this, while making the &quot;provide the keys&quot; bit of RIPA stronger.

If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy.<p>They created terrorism in the first place by bombing and occupying other countries, removing dictators.

I am surprised they did not add the line &quot;think of the children&quot; in there somewhere...<p>Meanwhile in the real world, criminals will resort to sending encrypted USB sticks via post, or carrier pigeons, or implanted in mules. There is always a way around these things for those that absolutely do not want their communications compromised. It is safe to say that any criminal enterprise knows that live electronic communication of any sort is likely to be compromised.<p>Also of concern, is that criminals will now have extra attack vectors to sensitive data, because if encryption has to be weakened for Government, it will be easier for other parties to exploit.

Has the UK lost their god damned minds?<p>I&#x27;m sorry but between this and everything else lately...they seem pretty committed to &quot;Security at any economic and&#x2F;or personal cost! Security for everyone!&quot;<p>In the real world, that never works.

<i>&quot;...there should be no safe spaces...&quot;</i><p>Got it.

If the laws are this regressive and encompassing, the very least we as citizens can do is to lobby for full transparency in requests - after all the data belongs to the individual (regardless of what the TOS claims) and the individual deserves to know about requests on his data immediately.

&quot;The Lives of Others&quot; [0]<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;The_Lives_of_Others" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;The_Lives_of_Others</a>

If UK finishes leaving the EU, they will just be excluded from the market given their diminished relevance. Are sure given the power vacuum in tech, I&#x27;ll release a gimped software product for their citizens. $£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£$£

Will the last tech company to leave the UK please turn off the lights?

Two can play at this game. Surely folks here at HN can create something that is not technically or legally encryption, but accomplishes the same goal.

When does something become encryption?<p>Say I switch t and r in evetyrhing I rype, is that encryption? No? Then at what point of mixing does it all become encryption?

Just another little reminder that you must never confuse the government&#x27;s interests with your own.

Govt should limit end-to-end encryption AFTER open sourcing all their software;

&gt; “Doors are now almost ubiquitous and are the default for most houses and buildings. If we do not provide for access to people&#x27;s bathrooms when it is necessary and proportionate to do so then we must simply accept that there can be rooms beyond the reach of the law,”<p>There are well-established and functional methods for extending law into areas that you can&#x27;t see all the time. You don&#x27;t need to ban encryption, in exactly the same way that you don&#x27;t have to ban doors. Just because it&#x27;s ooon the iiiinterneeettttt doesn&#x27;t mean you need to break everything.