Tuesday 1 August 2017

'Real' people don't need encryption

Unfortunately, our Home Secretary here in the UK is the increasingly deranged Amber Rudd. Amber Rudd wants to break encyrption in the name of security fascism.

She seems to be channelling the Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who recently said:
The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia.
Here’s Rudd’s version:
I know some will argue that it’s impossible to have both – that if a system is end-to-end encrypted then it’s impossible ever to access the communication. That might be true in theory. But the reality is different.
Unfortunately, the source is behind a paywall if that’s the sort of thing that slows you down.

She goes on to say that “real” people don’t use encryption:
Real people often prefer ease of use and a multitude of features to perfect, unbreakable security. So this is not about asking the companies to break encryption or create so called “back doors”. Who uses WhatsApp because it is end-to-end encrypted, rather than because it is an incredibly 
user-friendly and cheap way of staying in touch with friends and family? Companies are constantly making trade-offs between security and “usability”, and it is here where our experts believe opportunities may lie.
I’m not sure what “opportunities” she means or why usability is scare-quoted, but there are lots of us who use certain channels because they are e2e encrypted rather than because of how nice they look. We have legitimate reasons for keeping secrets, not least of which are the things Amber Rudd says.

Want to see something even scarier from the same article?
So, there are options. But they rely on mature conversations between the tech companies and Government 
– and they must be confidential.
Let that sink in. Let. It. Sink. In. We won't be privy to the details of whether or how our conversations are to be laid bare to all and sundry. It'll be done and it'll be done in secret.

She finishes thisway:
The key point is that this is not about compromising wider security. It is about working together so we can find a way for our intelligence services, in very specific circumstances, to get more information on what serious criminals and terrorists are doing online.
It might not be about compromising wider security but that’s what it will do. She obviously knows that or she wouldn’t be fielding those objections. She’s lying. She's obviously lying.

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