Govt now wants access to all encrypted messages

Fretwired

digitalscream said:

Fretwired said:

Rudderless is an embarrassment - she'll want to ban cars next as they can be used as weapons.

She's just doing what May tells her to. Don't forget that the hallmark of May's time as Home Sec was an exclusive focus on exactly this.

She may well be but she's a total arsehole who is out of her depth.  She has trouble slinging coherent sentences and arguments together. In fairness I have sympathy for the government and I'm sure part of this is arse covering. The public will want to be protected and the security services and Home Office will now have a get out of jail free card in not getting access to encrypted data.

digitalscream

Fretwired said:

digitalscream said:

Fretwired said:

Rudderless is an embarrassment - she'll want to ban cars next as they can be used as weapons.

She's just doing what May tells her to. Don't forget that the hallmark of May's time as Home Sec was an exclusive focus on exactly this.

She may well be but she's a total arsehole who is out of her depth.  She has trouble slinging coherent sentences and arguments together. In fairness I have sympathy for the government and I'm sure part of this is arse covering. The public will want to be protected and the security services and Home Office will now have a get out of jail free card in not getting access to encrypted data.

Oh, I'm not defending her at all; she's more or less completely incompetent. It's just that calling her an embarrassment for the whole encryption thing is giving her far more credit than she's due.

notanon

It was something like 1997 (can't remember) and the government wanted to ban the use of encryption. If that had happened there would be no online secure transactions - NONE

digitalscream

notanon said:

It was something like 1997 (can't remember) and the government wanted to ban the use of encryption. If that had happened there would be no online secure transactions - NONE

The amazing part is that they don't learn their lessons - the American government did actually ban all encryption they couldn't crack, thus limiting all US banking transactions to 40-bit RSA and weakening the security of their entire financial infrastructure, and ensuring that US banks remained hugely behind the rest of the world for about a decade.

notanon

What was the result from the swear thread? Can I fire off​ a load of expletives here please.

HAL9000

mike_l said:

But, if you haven't done anything wrong they'll not look at your data, it's a waste of their time.

If you were a Jew living in Nazi Germany, you may have done nothing wrong but you would have everything to fear. The 'if you've done  nothing wrong...' argument is constantly being trotted out by those who would erode civil liberties.

Evilmags

The government don´t understand the internet beyond it being a marketing tool for politicians. 

exocet

This is probably not the right thread for this question but here goes anyway.
On the "we know the attacker used WhatsApp 2 minutes before the attack, how do they know that?

Presumably if they have his phone, it's a case of hacking into the phone like the recent case in the US? Once into the phone, just open up the app to read everything? 

I'm guessing that the only reason they know that WhatsApp was used is data from network carriers? Presumably WhatsApp uses a Defined port number so that it can be identified as a service but the content of any message cant be  decrypted? 

digitalscream

exocet said:

This is probably not the right thread for this question but here goes anyway.
On the "we know the attacker used WhatsApp 2 minutes before the attack, how do they know that?

Presumably if they have his phone, it's a case of hacking into the phone like the recent case in the US? Once into the phone, just open up the app to read everything? 

I'm guessing that the only reason they know that WhatsApp was used is data from network carriers? Presumably WhatsApp uses a Defined port number so that it can be identified as a service but the content of any message cant be  decrypted? 

They'll be able to see that traffic was sent from his phone to the WhatsApp servers, under existing legislation that allows them to suck up traffic metadata. What they can't do is see what's inside that traffic, because the data in WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted using Signal...even WhatsApp can't see the content.

That's the whole point of Signal...such that even the FBI (unofficially) recommends people use it for sensitive conversations, because it's essentially uncrackable.

Fretwired

digitalscream said:

That's the whole point of Signal...such that even the FBI (unofficially) recommends people use it for sensitive conversations, because it's essentially uncrackable.

Is anything really uncrackable?

notanon

If he smoked and had a cigarette before it happened would we have reported that?

exocet

So in reality, it's the same scenario as in the US where Apple refused to assist with the removal of the "10 failed login attempts deletes all data on the phone" security feature?

If the authorities can unlock the phone  (not heard  the manufacturer mentioned yet ) they can read all of the WhatsApp content sent between the various parties? 

digitalscream

Fretwired said:

digitalscream said:

That's the whole point of Signal...such that even the FBI (unofficially) recommends people use it for sensitive conversations, because it's essentially uncrackable.

Is anything really uncrackable?

It's uncrackable in the sense that it couldn't be done with current (or in-development) technology before the heat death of the Sun

exocet said:

So in reality, it's the same scenario as in the US where Apple refused to assist with the removal of the "10 failed login attempts deletes all data on the phone" security feature?

If the authorities can unlock the phone  (not heard  the manufacturer mentioned yet ) they can read all of the WhatsApp content sent between the various parties? 

In a technical sense no, because it's an entirely different architecture. In a practical sense...yes, because the encryption key for the messages is stored on the phone.

CabbageCat

It pisses me off when people think that they can record my private activity under the banner of protection just because I'm doing it across public/third-party infrastructure.

Edit: Sorry wrong thread. Thought this was the dashcam one.

notanon

The comments are worth reading at the reg:https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2017/03/26/amber_rudd_calls_for_encryption_workaround/

Fretwired

Rudd is being supported by European governments and the EU may officially endorse the UK's position. Apparently WhatsApp could be blocked within the EU. Brazil blocked WhatsApp last year for a while.

FazTheWookie

The next time someone you know uses the "if you've got nothing to hide..." line, ask them if they're willing to unlock their phone and hand it to you!

Evilmags

Fretwired said:

Rudd is being supported by European governments and the EU may officially endorse the UK's position. Apparently WhatsApp could be blocked within the EU. Brazil blocked WhatsApp last year for a while.

Then you put a VPN on you phone and it works again.. 

Fretwired

FazTheWookie said:

The next time someone you know uses the "if you've got nothing to hide..." line, ask them if they're willing to unlock their phone and hand it to you!

But should a government be allowed to see the messages of a known terrorist? Surely the average person would have nothing to fear if a government had to legally prove a need to access data from certain individuals in front of a panel of judges. Access would be on a case by case basis.

57Deluxe

Br9zFdYkaDQo49cjTv1J/Dn6p86TFULDHMqpY5osZjdM+/DIhd+CiSJTC+J4Z54MJoXR43t5Ys63ogzA3KYjmdVC2SqmDtekocDN/pd1RQLl2LPF4HJcLxZXdjNdgtcs