back to article UK ministers to push anti-encryption laws after election

The UK government will push through orders next month to force all communications companies including Google and Facebook to break data encryption. That's according to the Sun newspaper, which quotes a government minister as saying "we will do this as soon as we can after the election, as long as we get back in. The level of …

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  1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate."

    Manchester was a personal tragedy for 22 families.

    The first incident in the UK in 12 years. Or the equivalent of less 4.5 days of deaths on British roads for 2016.

    Or less than 2.5 Hours of deaths caused by smoking in NHS hospitals in 2014.

    I point these things out because safety is an illusion. "Perfect" safety is a con. There are only levels of risk, right down to the possibility that reading this text will over stress your body to cause a fatal stroke. A vanishingly small chance, but if you insist on "perfect" safety....

    Doesn't the human race have enough history that demonizing an ethnic or religious group because you are afraid of them (or merely jealous of their success) leads to very bad outcomes ?

    Most British Moslems, like most people everywhere just want to get on with their lives in a law abiding society. More Draconian security measures, more security theatre, is a waste of time and money.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate."

      "Doesn't the human race have enough history that demonizing an ethnic or religious group because you are afraid of them (or merely jealous of their success) leads to very bad outcomes ?" Plus demonizing purely because they're different in some way because of who they are (maybe they have an accent, or like different food, or were born somewhere else), rather than what they do, is just plain wrong .....

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate."

        Which is pretty bad news sick it's also pretty much INSTINCT.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So basically...

    The cnuts that want us to live in the 14th century have had their wish granted by the UK gov.!

    AWESOME!

    Are UK gov using ex. Microsoft advisers? Asking for a friend, obvs.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So basically...

      "The cnuts that want us to live in the 14th century have had their wish granted by the UK gov.!"

      Hate to point this out but C'nut was quite an enlightened chap. Not a bit like either main party of government we've had this century, he didn't think stating BS would make it happen.

      1. Charles 9

        Re: So basically...

        Not enlightened enough, I'd say, to realize some will believe their own words and will refuse to listen to reason. IOW, to them, his demonstration was simply him not trying hard enough. Some fights you just cannot win; an argument against an irrational person is one of them.

  3. MachDiamond Silver badge

    Special Dispensation

    How many loopholes will they write in to such a law?

    Construction workers must wear a hard hat, yet Sikh's are exempt for cultural reasons.

    You must take off your hat and glasses for a driving license photo, but muslim women can be all wrapped up like a mummy.

    The elite will be exempt claiming the communications are of a financial nature leaving the masses open to more surveillance than ever before.

    I've heard it said that the amount of data hoovered up by Intel agencies is a huge problem. They have a harder time processing the data in time to make it worth anything and can miss the wheat for all of the chaff. If one needs to search a haystack for a needle, it's best to believe there is a high probability of there being a needle in the haystack to start with before processing every stack in a farmer's field just to see if there is a needle.

  4. Cincinnataroo

    What can WE do about this

    I'm guessing a few people around here know how to apply GPG/PGP encryption, or whatever, to a text email.

    There's no need to rely on a third party.

    Why not swap public keys a bit more and increase use of encrypted email?

    Show your friends...

    You don't need help to encrypt a bit of text.

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