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British Government Wants To Outlaw Secure Communication (To Keep You Safe)
Submitted by Simon Black via Sovereign Man blog,
Well at least someone finally had the candor to just come out and say it.
In the wake of recent terror attacks in Europe, British Prime Minister David Cameron has called for an end to secure communications technology.
In other words, he wants to ensure that you will never again be able to use encryption technology to maintain privacy.
Nothing should be safe from government’s prying eyes. Nothing.
This is the same sad cycle repeating itself yet again: something terrible happens, and government reacts by awarding themselves even more power and taking away even more freedom.
Prime Minister Cameron’s remarks came in a press conference in which he stated:
“The simple principle is this: do we want to allow a means of communications between people which, even in extremis, with a signed warrant from the home secretary personally, that we cannot read?”
“And my answer to that is, no, we must not. The first duty of any government is to keep out country and our people safe. . . The powers that I believe we need, whether on communications data or on the content of communications, I’m very comfortable that those are absolutely right for a modern, liberal democracy.”
Nice. Spying. Censorship. Unlimited control.
Cameron’s statement starts with a very fundamental premise that is repeated by politicians around the world (especially in the Land of the Free): ‘the first duty of any government is to keep our people safe.’
No, actually it’s not.
Politicians say over and over again, and people believe it. It becomes axiomatic through repetition.
But in fact there’s absolutely no legal or moral basis for that assertion whatsoever.
In the United States, for example, the Preamble states very clearly that the Constitution was drafted for multiple reasons.
Sure, one of those reasons is provide for the common defense. But there are several others, including to “secure the blessing of our liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
Nowhere does it say… anywhere… that ‘homeland security’ is far and away the most important duty of government.
What’s really interesting is that national defense and security are mentioned a grand total of… TWO times… in the entire body of the Constitution.
The first comes in Article I, and it’s a scant mention:
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence. . .”
The only other time it’s brought up is in a little corner of the Constitution called the Second Amendment:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
How interesting.
It turns out that security is not the responsibility of the government… but rather the right of the people to have the opportunity to protect themselves. Hmmm.
Well who needs that stupid Constitution anyhow.
Back in the UK, it’s a bit more complicated.
There really is no British Constitution… rather a series of laws and statutes that go back to the iconic Magna Carta from eight centuries ago.
What’s interesting is that out of any of these documents, from the 1689 Bill of Rights to the Terrorism Act of 2000, there is no such assertion that the government’s primary responsibility is to protect its citizens.
Conversely, there’s a hell of a lot of language about government’s duty to safeguard civil liberties.
Yes there are bad people in the world who, from time to time, do horrible things. That’s life.
But a little bit of anxiety is a small price to pay for freedom… especially when governments present a far greater threat to your security and livelihood than extremists.
Besides– did you ever notice how this seems to only work in one direction?
Acts of love, generosity, and compassion occur on a daily basis.
Yet they do not relax gun control laws every time a firearm is used safely and responsibly.
They do not increase our freedoms whenever a complete stranger gives up a kidney to save a child’s life.
But once in a blue moon, a bad guy blows something up and they take away our freedom.
This is ironic, because, whenever this occurs, politicians frantically rush to tell us that we should not judge Islam by the isolated acts of a few.
But in taking away everyone’s freedom and treating us all like criminal terrorist suspects, why are they effectively judging all of humanity because of the isolated acts of a few?
Funny how that works.
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Alas, poor https://, I knew thee well.
I can't keep up tonight. Too much too fast. Fucking world is dying.
Not dying, being reformed the hard way,
How exactly does this work? Are they going to outlaw open protocols? Maybe they should outlaw all open source software and math pertaining to encryption while they're at it.
Good luck control freaks.
They don't outlaw anything. They catch someone for a minor crime, point out they were using encryption, and add that onto charges. Probably good for another 7 years hard time by then. The law also gives them the opportunity to watch packet flow, find encryption in use, and go after whoever is on the other end "just in case, and we have a law for that."
Simples.
Steganography to carry an immediate death sentence by droning squad!
p.s. aren't the fields of "computer security", cryptography, etc. pretty much "terrizz studies"?
I realize this is going on in England, but if the shoe fits:...
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
What part of the above do they not understand?
Cue the celebrity holding up an AES256 algorithm saying...
"From my Cold Dead Hands!"
Only terrorists have something to hide. /s
Despite the sarcasm, this does explains why governments are are so secretive (e.g. Obama's most transparent government ever).
Governments are secretive because they interpret any and all political enemies as enemies of the state. There is no allowance for separation between political opponents and enemies of the state, they are all enemies of those in charge. In order to be effective finding & punishing your enemies, secrecy about what you are doing is somewhat of a requirement.
Essentially, by outlawing encryption, the government of Britain is flatly telling it's own citizens that they are all suspected of being enemies of the state.
"British Government Wants To Outlaw Secure Communication"
I was going to make fun of the loser Brits, but the NSA already did this to Americans. I guess we're the real losers. But at least we have the 2nd Amendment.
FUCK THEM!!!
This Cameron fuckface represents a bunch of toff pedophiles. They should all be assassinated one by fuckin' one in the streets around Westminster.
" something terrible happens, and government reacts by awarding themselves even more power and taking away even more freedom."
funny, I always thought that when it comes to terrorism, the government was more proactive than re
Secrets only protect those that keep them, never those they are kept FROM.
This won't work. You can't ban numbers.
"You can't ban numbers."
Progressivism is working on it. Anything quantitative is bad. Anything subjective it good.
Exactly. Have you seen common core math questions?
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/373840/ten-dumbest-common-core-pro...
A properly used 'one-time pad' is theoretically uncrackable.
People should start sending each other total gibberish 20% of the time and use the above method for anything really important.
Should fuck with the bastards heads a bit, at least.
Running for government office is the real terrorist activity.
Gibberish with stategically placed key-words placed in it. With a font color that matches the background...
IIRC the Fourth Stooging did a superb job a while back.
All I can remember is Joey Heatherton & Wink Martindale. ;D
"I’m very comfortable that those are absolutely right for a modern, liberal democracy.”
Guess it's past time to dispense with the "modern liberal democracy" then, eh?
Exactly. No one owns the software they're talking about. They think they have terrorism worries now... Start fucking with people freedom of information. Blackhats everywhere are salivating as we speak.
Maybe it's the next "war": the war on private communication.
I can tell you by 2020 it's a full on rush for total digital.
No more PSN.
Prolly makes the job easier...snooping that is.
Relax. All that insanity is just an unmistakable sign of total despair of the ruling scum. They already know they are finished. The more control they'll trying to grab the sooner they'll lose it all.
My thoughts as well. This Cameron must be off his meds...wonder what his fate will be when the tower comes down crashing. In the meantime just keep on stacking...
the real fun begins when the same government rejects mandate encryption for protection of personal information... lol... let's see who wins this epic battle between NSA and HIPAA HITECH... here comes the "key escrow" bullshit again...
This is actually impossible on it's face. It is possible to hide encryption in seemingly normal communication. All the Brits will do is screw over the normal working-class person. The terrorist still has plenty of methods available.
And that should tell you whom the real enemy is perceived to be, no?
.
Wow, you guys weren't kidding when you said grab the popcorn.
The British government wanted to outlaw Paul Revere's communication and interdict it, too.
https:// pure symmetry
I'm down with GPG yeah you know me...
Soon, only the UK pedophile murderer politicians and the MI6 jihadist mercenaries will have secure communications.
Communicate in Pig Latin - go to jail.
(ommunicateCay inyay igPay atinLay - ogay otay ailjay)
Communicate via Facebook messaging and go mad.
You have to be mad before you start.
Who, in their right mind, would sign up for Facebook/Twitter .... etc. etc.
Who, in their right mind, would pay to carry a tracking device that irradiates their brian?
I don't invite lying manipulative people into my home, which is why I don't have a TV.
I could go off on a rant, but I'll restrain myself
Ooo . self bondage .... you are enjoying yourself today !!
V for Vendetta.
Great Movie -- and becoming more true every day...
Wasn't there a movie called V about lizard like aliens taking over the earth ? Maybe not...
It was a documentary. Only slightly ahead of its time.
Hunger Games in 2019?
All you Brits need to tell Ca-moron to kiss you where it smells funny.
Take him to Hamilton, Ontario?*
Or to Coventry, Currystan County, UK?
* Old Canadian joke:
This guy -- nice guy but not too swift -- was on a date that was going really well, and the girl asks him to kiss her where it smells.
So he took her to Hamilton.
Only 2 things smell like fish.
One of 'em's fish.
Yes, the right to private and anonymous communications which the UK government several times has stated as important for dissenters in regimes they do not like.
Of course they do not want law-abiding citizens of their own country to have that right. People who break the law don't care if secure communications is outlawed.
We'll that confirms it, the only way to save it is to burn it.
the brits have always been, and currently are,
entirely out of their minds. that also explains
the insanity of the american experience, btw.
they call it "civilization".
The Brits are bigger pussy than Americans between them they have a empty ball sack at best , yes cameron will get his wet dream.
i forbid myself from imagining a cameron
wet dream, it is way too creepy and stupid sick
to contemplate. the ball sack thing is not the problem,
it is the heart mind deficiency that causes all
the troubles, imho.
You wouldn't know a guy call Tony, by any chance? If you ever talk to him, tell him I've really missed his acerbic wit at ZH. I do wish the Tyler who is conducting the pogrom against free speech at ZH would think first before he starts deleting the accounts of the most entertaining, informative and thoughtful posters.
dupe
I can think of a few parts of UK where uttering such crap would give you the chance to sample hospital food.
Not in Glasgow -he'd be dead. :)
WTF? Almost everything I do on and offline is encrypted. What are they going to do, make me publish all my bank details every time I buy a book at Waterstones? Encryption makes e-commerce work and I've been protecting my clients and my IP with pgp and the like for well over a decade now. Bloody stupid idea, which probably means they'll do it.
I've been a proponent of small government but now I'm beginning to like Honestann's ideas about having absolutely no government at all.
honestann has thought it all the way through. Life on planet Earth works by a predator-prey mechanism. Gubbamin is a creation of this mechanism. Totally centralized gubbaminology and corporatology (of which the deathpolice is a necessary product) is the endgame of the predator-prey system, in which we have annihilated the remainder of the species in the biosphere, and predators in our own species who have 'adapted' (morally, ethically, humanly sold out) to the successful preying on the rest.
Someone internalized the Dune series, especially God Emperor, Dune....
Eloi, meet (meat?) Morlock.
no government at all is a fervent... wish. a chimera. a good point to argue... philosophically. and as unpractical as hell, except if you live like honestann as far away from other human beings as possible
not workable on your "overcrowded" island, and you know it
the real question is quality of government. gov is supposed to serve the people. when it doesn't, it lacks... quality. which you can't outweight with quantity in either direction
now is UKIP's Nigel Farage of libertarian bent, the darling of "ZH's libertarians against the EU" accusing Cameron as a MEP on the floor of the EU Parliament for this wild plan of stripping every privacy from the UK? Note that he would earn applause from the majority of the other MEPs, who see privacy as a human right
I hope he will, but I won't hold my breath for that
Yeah. I like the idea, while accepting the reality of it being unworkable in an urban setting, at least in these times when there is no awareness of alternatives to .gov in the national consciousness. Said much the same thing a long time ago to honestann, but her notions are attractive.
I started with an intense dislike of UKIP when I first saw them - the characters in the early days were trash - but have grown to like Nigel's oratory skills. :). I don't know enough about him, but maybe he'll surprise us both by standing up against Cameron in the EU.
The name Cameron is an abbreviation of "camera on".
The man is beyond stupid and the Brits will be even more stupid if they re-elect him.
The commercial damage that could be done to firms is beyond belief. Is the man serious or is he daft?
They already can see emails, tweets, and YouTube videos -- yet they do NOTHING to stop people like the Frenchies who did the shooting. In Amerika, every cop in the big city knows who the drug dealers are on the corner -- but no judge will convict them!
And how hard is basic spycraft to simply have a pre-set set of words that mean different things --
Meet me at XYZZ at AABCC and we will talk about NNRRT.
There are a FEW things that the criminals could do -- during the actual committing of the crime -- when secure comm is helpful to them -- but assuming that the cops cannot predict the scene of the crime, there is no way they could accumulate the necessary monitoring gear at the site.
And really, the only thing that might help the cops if you ban secure comm is that the criminals will be the ones using it!
Behold!
The one time cypher pad.
And for an encore all western governments turn on their own people in order to keep the banksters in charge.
What do you mean 'for an encore'?
That's the main part of the play.
Yeah, I'm still waiting for the 4th act myself.
While three men hold together, the kingdoms are less by three. (Algernon Charles Swinburne).
Next they will want to install cameras and microphones in every room of every house. For our own protection.
Orwell spins
"Next they will want to install cameras and microphones in every room of every house. For our own protection."
Give it time. I'm sure if Jacqui Jackboots was still in the Home Office, she'd have tabled that urgent requirement by now. Blair would have gone out swearing that the power wouldn't be abused.
Utter, utter scum. Both of them
Not at all. The people will install the cameras themselves. The government will simply require that they can gain access.
They already did.
It's called a "smart" phone.
It even has the handy feature of telling where you are, and thus where you have been.
We bought our own manicles for .gov.
Yes, but you have the option to put in a can when not needed.
This is what happens when you conduct your foreign policy to suppport US foreign policy which is conducted to advance Israeli interests.
Who needs Downing Street, the Whitehouse or Congress?
We have our own little governments keeping our roads up, providing education, fire protection and so on.
Who needs the big money sucking central governments and their prima donna heads of state?
I don't
Encryption can't be gotten rid of anymore than everyone (all goverments) can agree on anything because they all have different interests and are in constant conflict with.each other. If some goverment fool starts talking about having a backdoor it's because they don't have a clue. If there's a known weakness in an encyption algorythm no one will use it.
One TRILLION dollars.
That's just the downpayment.
Move along....
Free Speech for all -- anyone can say what they want -- but it is a crime to LISTEN to anyone critical of the British government!
time for a repost...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YBumQHPAeU
Empty suit David Cameron spake thus: “The simple principle is this: do we want to allow a means of communications between people which, even in extremis, with a signed warrant from the home secretary personally, that we cannot read?”
This crap from an empty suit who has the balls to call himself a "conservative". He finally exposes himself as a liberal Lefty control freak.
I love the way he claims that each reading of peoples' private e-mail contents will be by "a signed warrant" from his laughable Home Secretary Teresa May.
And when people switch to sending e-mails using HTTPS, what then? Ban HTTPS Secure Socket Layer? Right on. That'll be the end of home banking and Internet shopping and a bunch of other things, including paying taxes via the Internet.
Cameron is technically incompetent and being advised by Civil Service buffoons who are no better.
Anti-liberty control freakery ROOLS.
Forget the outdated old left-right political paradigm. Today it is only useful to make the sheep think voting can make a difference.
If the UK outlaws encrypted communications, it will hit the UK economy big time.
I work as a security manager of a small IT company outside the UK, and banning encrypted communications would hit just our UK customers for about GBP 500 million per year. Fortunately many of our UK customers have subsidiaries outside the UK, and I would guess a UK ban on encryption would just mean that the relevant business would move outside the UK.
You're right. And I run a private file server which uses the HTTPS protocol. I already use it for distributing private encrypted files including confidential messages. There's no easy way Cameron could stop that since it sets up a direct connection between my IP address and the other person's IP address. And what about folks who use a private VPN service based outside the UK?
Cameron is whistling in the wind. He's just a mouth on legs.
And all you need to do is run that VPN over https port 443. Then what? What if you need to log into a server via ssh? Does that mean that passwords must be sent plaintext? Or that managing IT infrastructure remotely will be banned? He doesn't even know what he doesn't know. Stupid little chimp.
Right. He's doing what GCHQ & Co have told him to do, in part to legalise their (currently) criminal activities in scooping up everybody's e-mails but claiming only to be collecting metadata.
This latest "snooper's charter" anti-privacy idea may get churned about a lot and end up with some sort of unique Internet logon becoming necessary whereby each user has to register their access keys with the user's unique logon being stamped in the metadata of every packet. Like this, people can continue to use encryption but the spooks can easily identify the sender and access that person's keys for decryption.
Actually it's easy to defeat HTTPS if you have governmental level access.
HTTPS relies on "certificates" to prove the identity of those involved. The certificates are issued by third parties, like Verisign. So the government can go to Verisign or alternative and tell them that they have to issue a valid certificate for their systems, pretending to be you. They then point your name at their systems, and then their systems make a connection on to your system.
They become the man in the middle able to read (and alter) everything that goes over the wire and the only way you or the other people would be aware, is if you knew which specific IP addresses are being used, most people simply aren't that technical.
This has already been done BTW. The French were caught at it[1] , but the idea that all other security services might not is laughable.
To get round this hole the other model is a web of trust, where you publish your own keys and when someone wants to talk to you they have to download your key. This has problems as well, like ensuring that the key is really from who it says it is. You can't rely on the DNS to talk to a keyserver because that may be operated/proxied by the man in the middle who supplies his own keys instead. It basically comes down to USB sticks or CDs and meeting the person.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosures_%282013%E2%...
If you get another hundred Muslims and Africans on the island shit sinks!
hehe.
Sure, why waste money on the crumbling public transport in London? They shoudl make commuting even more difficult and expensive, because the government has more important priorities. Something like a war somewhere in the Middle East, or a brand new data centre for the GCHQ, where they can store all that information to protect its citizens.
"Yet they do not relax gun control laws every time a firearm is used safely and responsibly."
Actually Russia did it. Now you can carry a gun legally in Russia, as long as you get the permit, of course. Interesting how the world changes...
is twitter down?
If this POS returns as PM i'm requesting political asylum in Yemen.
Well Hell--No more Bond Movies.
What's an Enigma machine go for on Ebay?
Won't help.
At the end of WW2 the Brits collected as many Enigma machines as they possibly could.
They then gave these to lots of governments around the world.
As the fact that the code had been cracked was kept top secret for 40 years, the users thought their communications were secure.
The GCHQ guys could read everything pretty much in real time.
Towards the end of WW2, Churchill quite often read messages sent to Hitler before Hitler did!
The first duty of any government is to keep out country and our people safe. . .
BS.
The first duty of any government, is the perpetuation of said government.
The first duty of any organization created to solve a problem is to make sure the problem never goes away.
Which organization ever solved the problem it was created to solve?
Excellent piece Simon.
But these self important career paper pushers may as well ban the internet. But luckily enough they're a step behind in the game. I don't see how anyone in the world would be able to prevent me from encrypting my data and sharing it with whomever I'd like. The tools are readily available. Unless of course the sociopaths block internet...
All the real fun begins once they take the guns!!!
Oh, they'll be coming for them alright:
http://www.armytimes.com/article/20140830/NEWS/308300056/Army-sees-megac...
"Somebody put me back in the freezer." -Demolition Man
The only secret communication that needs to be exposed to keep us safe is the government's
For the sake of security the internet (and power grid etc) will have to be hardened over the next few years. That means total de-centralisation and full encryption of all internet traffic. That presents the Intelligence Agencies with a dilemma. However it is inevitable that full encryption of the Internet will happen.
VOTE UKIP
time for encrypted smoke signals
No secure communication? As in no encrypted traffic? I suppose no more e-banking in the UK then. This is stupid and unenforceable on so many levels it could have only come from a politician.
They drive on the left!
That's encrypted traffic for most of the rest of the world.
The question is :
What is more expensive to the system overall ? No encryption (privacy) whatsoever equals a system wide open to total fraud system / a hackers heaven or encryption (privacy) and government snoopers having to do some actual work to gather Intel ?
At what point will they realise ENCRYPTION = SECURITY.
Without encyryption there is no security.
tcuuvguiglih8pvyih piug fkfdciytdiytculyfcfcljfdtldkdtydyof /ljh Jhvlgcgkhfxfxjjfxzdzhzhzhzh
cameron is a judeo-nazi - that is why his bilderberger buddy hollande planned with netanyahu the TOTALLY FAKE TERRORIST attack in paris last week. cameron, hollande, and netanyahu are pure horse shit.
just like the boston marathon and sandy hook, it is total god damned lie.
The UK's real problem: It's totally infested.
You cant outlaw encryption its practically impossible to do.
Anyone can send an encrypted msg anywhere instantly..... and the msg might not even appear to be encrypted.... there are soo many cyphers that could be used... for gods-sake cereal boxes used to come with "encoder rings" in them . . .
For all you know what I just typed is encrypted.
fvxhj ra wvnhm
oyzehtsprlqufxvwgmabdcnkji
Cameron is an even bigger neocon, globalist rat-fucker than Blair.
Only a criminal governmnet needs to spy on the people.
The banksters need to repay us.
Of course, they say that they care and that all of their efforts are about taking care of us. However, most of their efforts go into controlling and spying on us. Could that be because they are nothing more than a syndicate of thieves and murderers?!
<<--- Thick Brits are more moronic
<<--- Dumb Yanks are more moronic
I'm respectfully going with the "Brits" on this one because they let them confiscate their Liberty-Levers, guns.
Hard to get the banksters, pols, crats, and funcs to the guillotines without your guns.
The banksters need to repay us.
"A bankster dead by nail-gun, nice. A bankster's head in a basket, 'priceless.'"
"There really is no British Constitution… rather a series of laws and statutes that go back to the iconic Magna Carta from eight centuries ago."
Er... yeah, there is - the Bill of Rights, which was a contract between the people and the crown, put the people firmly in charge of things with a legal system answerable to a jury of the people. But the Bill of Rights has been swept under the carpet - to the extent that most in the UK know little to nothing about it. What about the Coronation Oath? Hmm....?
This passage from the English Bill of Rights might seem somewhat familiar:
"That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted".
Inconvenient truths.....
If you would like to know more, you should really watch this:
http://www.britishconstitutiongroup.com/british-constitution
But Cameron is a blustering twat who continues to prove his ignorance to a global audience, but more importantly, he can go fuck himself.
re There really is no British Constitution…
And there in no longer a functioning USA Constitution... apart from Zionism
Sorry, but no. As with all Parliamentarian Social Democracies in developed nations, if something bad happens (Australia, Tasmanian massacre) the public mood and legisltative mood will encourage that Bill of Rights to be re-written, changed, gutted or eliminated during the shock that follows.
Whilst the USA has a Constitution that requires a much higher hurdle to change, and many consider those Rights to be innate and what is on that paper just a reminder to the king of what men have regardless.
However if you just ignore everything and rule as an oligarch and get everyone to rubber stamp it or ignore it, a hard to change Constitution is just as weak. Still, it's better that what the UK or Australia have.
I don't want to call you a complete fucking idiot....but it kinda describes you really well....so i'll have to stick with it.
Australia does have a constitution and the elected parliamant cannot change it via legislation. It requires a referrendum of which since 1902 44 have been held and only 8 passed. Requires a majority vote of the public and a majority of states.
What we don't have is a stupid part in our constitution about any nutjob owning a weapon. Although given 1939 court decision regarding the rights of U.S citizens to own a sawn off shotgun neither does yours. Do you really think the founding fathers of your constitution had the current system in mind when they wrote that ammendment?
Is there any evidence that the French attackers were even using encrypted communications?
Can i still encrypt my snail mail?
If you like waterboarding for breakfast on a nice tropical island.
They mean of course outlaw secure communication for you only, the Government will still keep it as it realizes unencrypted communication is an idiot idea best kept for the idiot masses only.
As a matter of Principle I'm as shocked and dismayed as anyone else, but no longer surprised (coming from Cameron's regime).
As a matter or Pragmatism, I'll point out that those people who are TRULY serious about keeping their private correspondence private, there is ALWAYS a way. If not via high tech, then via Low Tech (that goes way beyond their bandwidth of manpower and resources).
Seems to me that this is more about the ongoing PsyOp program of conditioning the sheep, as to who's in charge and hoping they'll obey. Brits being Brits, odds are they will. Just like the Germans love to follow orders, Italians don't blow against the wind, and Scandinavians don't want to make waves.
Euro-sheep!
p.s. I no longer visit the UK. Too much of a bother, tired of the tourist crap, cool, drafty rooms and lousy weather. That's what camping is for.
This UK is cold drafty etc .... true ..... but the NHS is remarkably good, and since I am getting on in years, with the usual raft of health issues, the UK suits me well. In the USA I would have been bankrupted by my illness (if not dead because of insufficient funds)
Plus of course, there are 5 airports around London - so getting away to somewhere warm, and pleasant is very easy... Right now, I am avoiding all that snow in the UK by being next to the Mediteranean having a pleasant breakfast.
ELI5 - no country is perfect ... use a mix to get the situation that best matches your needs.
Soon even thinking about sending a secure message will be grounds for arrest.
The irony is that, in the face of their abject failure to effectively ban guns, this doofus sincerely believes that he can ban crypto. This is the quality of intellect that wields such immense power in western democracies...
Looks like some people are going through a Brain Drain AND a Venture Capital Drain - all the while enduring a Real Estate Asset Bubble from all the Oilgarchs parking their laundered winnings.
Well, would anyone like to guess how many software developers just started designing or writing applications that send completely open, readable, sensible unicode text... that contains hidden messages that cannot be extracted without special software?
Hahaha, Tarkin. The more you squeeze, the more systems will slip through your fingers.
Count on it.
BTW, these kinds of message encoding systems are BULKY... meaning they require a large number of characters of "readable, sensible text" for each character of hidden "message". Which means the bulk of messages they need to read to attempt to find and decode messages will be astronomical.
Furthermore, when they decode any suspicious message, no way exists to prove the hidden message was intentional. Why? With a literally infinite ways to decode/extract "suspicious messages" (or even "clearly evil messages), every single text file ever sent by anyone to anyone contains endless numbers of these encoded messages... most by random coincidence! Which is real and which is memorex? No way to tell.
In fact, unlike now, they will need to probe EVERY message, because every normal, readable, sensible plain text message can carry hidden messages. As it is currently, encrypted messages are easy to identify, so you can ignore 99% of data that flows over the internet. Hahaha!
Damn, this is fun software to design and write too. I wish I wasn't so busy with other software [and hardware and technology]. Really.
Steganography. Software (free) already exists to do it.
It doesn't have to be text either. You can hide messages in the colours of images also. An ASCII character is 8 bits long. A typical RGB image uses 24 bits to represent the colour of 1 pixel. You can for example, take the smallest bit of the blue component and if it is an odd number it represents a binary 0 and if it's an even number it represents a binary 1. Then you can encode an ASCII character into 8 pixels (or 3, if you use all colours) and it's basically undetectable unless you know for sure it's there, the encoded images look completely normal. So then you just attach an image to mail or on a web site; A photo, a logo or whatever.
That's totally true, and works great. However, for this purpose, it doesn't work well enough. Why? Because it is so easy for the decoders to look for messages encoded this way... unless you layer over top of this technique a few more layers of algorithms to scramble the order, and skip some bits, and flip some bits, and ignore some bits and otherwise make the number of possible ways to extract the message [near] infinite. But you are entirely correct that information (or keys, or a combination) can be encoded in images and other binary data.
This issue isn't about security, monitoring, message interception, or anything potentially legitimate.
It's about conditioning the muppets to accept govt intervention without question.
That's how the modern facism works--maintain relentless interventionary pressure, even for the mundane. Eventually the intervention will achieve critical mass because there is long-standing precedent.
It takes a long time and mountains of sophistry, but eventually the govt gets it's way. Unlike the top-down, command/control fascism of old, this bottom-up neo-fascism is gradual enough that it doesn't stir the pot.
By the time a significant portion of the population realizes what's going on, the govt machinations are in place to eliminate resistance. We've already reached this point in the US.
Can't argue that. But it is still important that the few who really get it, are prepared to evade claws of the beasts.
I suspect, by this point in time, those few who are realists and really get it, understand the best they can hope for is a good life for themselves.
Frankly, most folks who value "family" are likely to go down with the ship, because almost all "family" refuses to listen to the realist in the family, or act as necessary when the time comes. So a great many who value family more than self will refuse to abandon family and leave them to their fate, and thus go down with them.
Sad, but reality can be a harsh mistress, as someone once said.
PS: OTOH, a family solidly on the same page and ready to act, can be a great asset.
Lets hope it doesn't have to come to this, sad days if it does and there will be a lot worse things happening to us by then.
But if you really want privacy, here is a simple, pretty unbreakable code. A kind of one-time pad.
Agree a long time before and preferably in person or on Skype-type, some books, or magazines, or a blog, or a song, or a poem, or a series of them, with your co-respondant.
send a simple message with book, today's issue of the magazine, the page, chapter or verse, encoded as a birthdate a football score, some simple math, whatever.
Convey the precise page text in that book you are going to use by either mixing up the date and time numbers in a set way (01-31-2015-0945), or different peoples phone numbers, in your message.
Or- "Hi", Good morning, How's it hanging, Bongiorno, Depressed, Sorry to have been so long, that gives you 6 different ways to say which book from your list.
"Darling", Dave, old friend, sweetie, precious, there are five for the next paragraph or verse
Then take the first paragraph of the page and assign a,b,c 1,2,3 etc. to the first free 36 letters, and write your first sentence or paragraph using these swap letters. You can even use txt shortcuts (cul8r) to mix things up.
For your second paragraph, move the the 2nd paragraph of your book and start again with all new swaps. And so on.
If you are lazy, you can set these up in a spreadsheet but that weakens your security. better to write by hand -most folks can still write as far as I know.
So, from "Love's been good to me" by Frank Sinatra
There was a girl, in Portland, before the winter snow Oh her hair was golden, how I loved her so.
becomes
abcd- efg - hi-j -k lm----no p-q--- --- r----- ---s
For infrequent letters like jqz (have a look at scrabble) you can just throw in a random letter, difficult to mistake a word if only the q is wrong.
"In an assymmetric war, low-tech usually wins"
Sun Tsu -6th Century BC FFS (loose transltion)
David Cameron / GCHQ can fuck right off basically.
Encrypted communications should be the norm and intergrated seamlessly into all devices for EVERYONE'S right to privacy.
citizen5
LOL. Just as a reminder, the majority in the EU Parliament sees privacy as a human right. The UK's conservatives under PM Cameron are quite an outlier, politically speaking
now of course it would be wonderful if UKIP would denouce this announced future British policy on the floor of the EU Parliament, and join the majority in drafting further protections of the EU citizen from the prying eyes of national surveilliance agencies
but I won't hold my breath about that
------
EU Data_Protection_Directive
Nah.
What TPTB do when they want something is they tell you something really bad. Really stupid. Like "we're going to ban encryption". Then after the screaming and shouting is over, they propose what they really wanted in the first place. e.g. Mandated government access to some compulsory standardised encryption system.
Everyone sighs with relief and hands over their freedom. "Thank fuck we managed to talk some sense into them, aren't we clever.".
We are all Islam now - says Cameron
We will Normalize to rules from the Saudi Kingdom, Whatever the King & his Lords Decide goes for Everyone
The British Royals are German in part, Transylvanian in Part, I suppose they have some Latent Qualities in her subjects from those older Regimes.
The New World Order - must be like a Cry for Crusades, A Triumphant Return to Neo-Fuedalism
"The King is Dead, Long Live the King".
"Bow your Heads by order of the King".
Actually the UK has been slowly making firearm ownership easier.
Who the hell are you and what have you done to Simon?
Who the hell are you and what have you done to Simon?