Britain Wants Tech Firms to Tackle Extremism (fortune.com) 137
Britain will tell Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft on Thursday to do more to stop extremists posting content on their platforms and using encrypted messaging services to plan attacks. From a report: Home Secretary Amber Rudd said on Sunday tech companies should stop offering a "secret place for terrorists to communicate," after British parliament attacker Khalid Masood was widely reported to have sent encrypted messages moments before he killed four people last week. Rudd has summoned the Internet companies to a meeting to urge them to do more to block extremist content from platforms like Facebook and Google's YouTube, but a government spokesman said encryption was also on the agenda. "The message is the government thinks there is more they can do in relation to taking down extremist and hate material and that is what they are going to be talking about this afternoon," the prime minister's spokesman said on Thursday.
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I don't know where this idea that the further away and less accountable a government is the better the results.
I have never seen any evidence that local governments are less repressive, less corrupt, or more accountable than national governments.
If anything, I think that that experience shows that local governments tend to be more repressive and corrupt, and for the most part completely unaccountable for their actions.
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True, but who is easier to get rid of? The corrupt mayor or the corrupt prime minister?
Since there are vastly more local officials than national officials, and the local officials have more power and less scrutiny, it is far harder to get rid of them than national politicians.
National politicians come and go. Local ones insert hooked barbs into the precinct and stay forever.
"taking down extremist" (Score:1)
Doesn't work by blocking their SM accounts.
FFS, leave crypto alone (Score:5, Insightful)
Crypto is the only real privacy. You can see where someone truly stands on totalitarianism vs liberty by their attitude towards crypto.
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Agreed. A person who is anti-encryption is necessarily anti-freedom, because encrypting one's communications is the voluntary act, and forbidding encryption is the coercive act.
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Of course you can. There were plenty of science fields banned throughout history.
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The most interesting part to me is the TLAs -- organizations full of experts in the field -- deciding it's worth the risk. That so long as they get to snoop, it's okay to risk literally everything should someone with malice get access to the same backdoor.
How anyone can consider it acceptable with a straight face -- especially in light of the CIA leak -- is beyond me.
Minutes from the Meeting (Score:5, Funny)
Amber Rudd: We need you to do more to combat extremists. How about you use some of those tools from CSI? And also give us back doors into your services.
Google: Sure, no problem
Facebook: OK
Twitter: What ever you say
MS: Why not
outside the meeting
Google: So you guys going to do anything?
MS: haha, fuck that.
Twitter: Yeh. Stupid cow, what the fuck was she talking about?
Facebook: Pub?
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Implausible. Twitter would not be invited to hangout with those three.
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Twitter: Yeh. Stupid cow, what the fuck was she talking about?
It's ironic you say that, since of all the companies you listed, Twitter has made the strongest efforts towards not disrespecting women.
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Still the same England (Score:1)
Now it wants to run their email.
On the other hand I'd rather live there than the EU.
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The EU is easier to deal with. They're so undecided that by the time they finally come to an agreement, you can rest assured that the circumvention technology has been established and superseded by at least another generation of the tools.
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The EU is easier to deal with. They're so undecided that by the time they finally come to an agreement, you can rest assured that the circumvention technology has been established and superseded by at least another generation of the tools.
Did you mean U.S.?
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My ancestors left England because it was trying to run their religion and their business. .
Interesting. What religion were your ancestors and when was this? The original pilgrims who left for religious reasons did so mostly because England was too tolerant and they wanted to go somewhere they could oppress others but given the volume of settlers and the time frame I'm sure there must have been plenty of exceptions.
Who decides who is a terrorist? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who defines the "Terrorist"?
Is it just suicide bombers and folks assaulting civilians with deadly weapons?
Or is it anyone who opposes the policies and or people running their local and or national governments?
Re: Who decides who is a terrorist? (Score:1)
This is why you don't let the kids redefine words. Now we got emojis in the dictionary and we can't decide what forms of murder are terrifying.
Hey England, how about you deal with extremism in the real world, you know, where you can die. Every time I get killed online I just respawn, so it isn't particularly terrifying.
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Dying in one of the Amnesia games or Alien: Isolation can be pretty scary. Have you ever drowned in a Sonic game?
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These days it is mostly "person we don't like and can get away with calling terrorist". Even violence seems to have become optional.
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A terrorist is someone who uses terror to effect political or social change. I.e. someone like Amber Rudd, who uses fear of terror attacks to destroy freedom and privacy.
No, Britain wants surveillance tools (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yeah, or how about just cutting down on the vast number of Muslims who immigrate every year? Statistically pretty much guaranteed to increase the number of terrorists.
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Yeah, or how about just cutting down on the vast number of Muslims who immigrate every year?
You mean like the latest attacker who ran over those people and stabbed the police officer to death? Oh, wait, he was born in England....
Re:No, Britain wants surveillance tools (Score:5, Interesting)
Aaaaaaand he was a Muslim convert. What's your point? That if we hadn't imported tons of Islam he would still have converted?
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Aaaaaaand he was a Muslim convert. What's your point? That if we hadn't imported tons of Islam he would still have converted?
Quite possibly. There is this thing called the Internet, you know.
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Aaaaaaand he was a Muslim convert. What's your point? That if we hadn't imported tons of Islam he would still have converted?
Quite possibly. There is this thing called the Internet, you know.
So to circumvent the spreading of Islamic danger, we should control every form of communication? I see where this is going.
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Aaaaaaand he was a Muslim convert. What's your point? That if we hadn't imported tons of Islam he would still have converted?
Quite possibly. There is this thing called the Internet, you know.
So to circumvent the spreading of Islamic danger, we should control every form of communication? I see where this is going.
Nope, I'm saying you will never be able to stop extremism, and fascist acts such as destroying personal privacy and xenophobic/nationalistic acts such as barring all immigrants from a single specific category won't work and will end up hurting, not helping your society in the long run.
Re: No, Britain wants surveillance tools (Score:2)
Oh, agreed, whole-heatedly.
Re:No, Britain wants surveillance tools (Score:5, Interesting)
Aaaaaaand he was a Muslim convert. What's your point? That if we hadn't imported tons of Islam he would still have converted?
Quite possibly. There is this thing called the Internet, you know.
So to circumvent the spreading of Islamic danger, we should control every form of communication? I see where this is going.
Nope, I'm saying you will never be able to stop extremism, and fascist acts such as destroying personal privacy and xenophobic/nationalistic acts such as barring all immigrants from a single specific category won't work and will end up hurting, not helping your society in the long run.
There is a sliding scale. Most Muslims in the US have integrated into society quite nicely. The UK used to be able to say the same thing. Letting a million or so come in at once and not even attempting to ensure assimilation has caused the problem. We could say the same of Germany, Poland, Sweden, and any other Country who has done the same thing as the UK.
Going a bit further, I don't believe that this is an issue with just Muslims. They happen to be the biggest influx in most of those countries so the easiest to discuss. The US has similar issues with people from South America who have no interest in integrating and hate the US. They just want the stuff the US hands out (not all of them, but there is a measurable percentage).
When people come from areas that do not have free speech and they learn the power of suppressing speech, why would you think they would want free speech when they move into your country? If people come from an area that deals with legal issues by violence, why would that immediately change in your country?
Assimilation of immigrants should be the discussion, which requires temperament with how many immigrants a Country allows.
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The UK does not suddenly have a million extra Muslim immigrants, it took ten years for this increase and they represent 5% of the population in total. There is certainly an issue with assimilation. Though we are too cheap assed as a nation to pay for them to learn English so it is probably not surprising that the men leave their women at home and don't bother to pay for them to learn for example. We have done a crap job of assimilating them so you cannot put all the blame on them. No doubt the current clima
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Bullshit, the economy does not collapse without immigration. That has never happened anywhere. Wages go up and unemployment drops with vacancies, which is beneficial to current citizens of a country. A Migrant coming in and working for a month then taking all of his pay back to his home does not help the British economy in any way. In fact that month or three harms Britain, because people would work summers can't compete to get the jobs (College and High school students, recent grads unsure of a career
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Bullshit, the economy does not collapse without immigration. That has never happened anywhere.
Economies have certainly collapsed due to an absence of cheap labour. In fact, just about every country that closed its borders and became insular has had an economic collapse. Hell, if immigration control was so effective, why isn't North Korea an economic power.
However the immigration control part of Brexit isn't whats going to kill the UK economy, the dual effects of losing access to the single market and losing Scotland and Northern Ireland is what will sink the UK. If the UKIP got their way a few bu
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Economies have certainly collapsed due to an absence of cheap labour. In fact, just about every country that closed its borders and became insular has had an economic collapse. Hell, if immigration control was so effective, why isn't North Korea an economic power.
Ahh, so your only example of an economy in trouble is not a Western economy, but an authoritarian/totalitarian system like DPRK or perhaps Venezuela. Where those problems are not actually due to immigration at all.
If that was not already in the deep end, you go even further.
However the immigration control part of Brexit isn't whats going to kill the UK economy, the dual effects of losing access to the single market and losing Scotland and Northern Ireland is what will sink the UK
Oh I get it! You have information from Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny that nobody else has. The Tooth fairy told you so! Your crystal ball claims it's going to be a problem, not that you have any actual evidence.
Considering that bo
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Aaaaaaand he was a Muslim convert. What's your point? That if we hadn't imported tons of Islam he would still have converted?
He was converted whilst serving in one of Her Majesties fine institutions.
So perhaps if he was locked up less, he wouldn't have converted. I see why you like spurious reasoning, it's fun.
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Yeah that would've stopped the last couple of attackers.
OH WAIT
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Yeah that would've stopped the last couple of attackers.
OH WAIT
But.. but.. but... at least they know who did it afterwards, and that makes things safer! Right? /idiotmode=off
I think what a reasonable person should want (Score:3)
Basically, going after extremism for real is a very, very touchy subject...
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If one is going to try to be rational and believe in religion then one has to accept that most religions demand some pretty irrational beliefs.
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Or how about having a decent method of stopping all forms of extremism - that way when your chosen demon of the day ceases to be an issue, your entire system isn't wasted. Your knee-jerk reaction sounds like a good idea, but upon closer inspection it's anything but.
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Exactly. Outlawing religion would fix the problem if they wanted to actually fix the problem. Instead they want violence so they refuse to protect the people by outlawing religion. They're refusing to protect the people.
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The Queen is not just the Head of State, she is also the "Defender of the Faith"
So sort of like a Paladin or Inquisitor?
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Rudd? Working on becoming Cameron's successor? (Score:2)
Seriously, Cameron was awesome when it came to finding blunders and jumping right into the middle of them. Actually the Cameron is the SI unit for the minimum distance between two blunders.
Is Rudd really trying to outdo the grand master? It's not easy, but she's very obviously ambitious and willing to put her mind to it. Or ... well, whatever substitute she has.
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It is like the Brits having started to move the unfit and stupid into politics to get rid of them. That is a really bad idea.
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Well, the rest of Europe is sending those politicians that are embarrassing but know too much so you can't simply fire them to Brussels.
England now doesn't have that option anymore.
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That's not what the rest of Europe is doing. A lovely scapegoat you've made, but not exactly based in truth. I'm sure you can find a couple of politicians who fit this description, but if you look how they got there and the number of decent politicians also there, your quip falls flat.
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If I go down our list of EU politicians, I find a lot of inefficient, lazy bums. And I'm only counting the ones that are not either under investigation or have already been convicted of taking bribes from lobbying groups.
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you forgot Northern Ireland.
Ummah Kaliphate history (Score:2)
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They have had a great cricket team - Imran Khan, Javed Miandad, Wasim Akram etc
I'd call that a success.
Politics, politics, politics. (Score:3)
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Exactly, this is 95% grandstanding to make the government look like it is doing something and pick up a few votes. The news cycle never follows up on a story like this so the people just know that the government is kicking the tech companies about "Terrorists". It doesn't matter a hoot if nothing comes of it because if it doesn't it won't get reported. And the Tech companies can always get some positive brand promotion by announcing in response that they are increasing the spending on their "taking down bad
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#What #are #you #talking #about?
Freedom of speech is needed for unpopular content (Score:2, Interesting)
In the United States we have this idea that even speech we don't necessarily like should be protected- especially so. Speech that is popular doesn't need protection after all. While the US has done a piss poor job at protecting freedom of speech in the most outrageous of circumstances there is at least protection for KKK-style "hate" speech, pornography to one extent or another, and similar communications.
If terrorists are actually threatening to use violence against people you can arrest them for it. If yo
Why always these fake arguments? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Lots of, if not most, people these days use encrypted messages. That's what makes this funny.
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Not just that: they have access to his phone, and have presumably broken into it to see who he contacted. And looks like it worked: they did arrest a few people that he contacted. This is unlike the San Bernardino case, where they wanted help in breaking into the phone in the first place.
To know that someone has been using WhatsApp, they'd have to have his phone, since it's something that users choose to use, not something that comes preloaded on most phones.
Absolutely! Um, one question... HOW? (Score:2)
So easy to ask the questions or make the demands.
It is an entirely different thing to make it happen and work as intended.
But.. fine. Let's gather your requirements, and we'll go from there. As long as you fund the project.
Ah, fascism (Score:2)
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The UK is in Europe now? I thought the 'make Britain great again' movement had just declared independence. :)
Wait (Score:1)
When did tech companies become mosques?
Colour me impressed (Score:2)
Would please someone explain me what it prevents some ISIS/Alquaeda/fictitous "terrorist" group/buck of kids setting up a tor service for private video/voice/text chat via browser?
Oh, the horror, will Britain now outlaw having open source tools too?
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Depends who you ask (Score:2)
I don't get it. (Score:2)
I'm lost. How is this different from asking manufacturers of walkie-talkies or GMRS-style radios to take control of their products' operation and intercept all communications? If they need a finger to point, it's an IP. Having encrypted communications with a key match pretty much removes discrepancies from the accuracy of the IP-finger-pointing. Plus, they will be solving no problems, they will just be giving the entities encouragement to try another.
Good old UK (Score:2)
Extremism (Score:4, Funny)
Like Brexit?
No, just conservatism. (Score:1)
They're happy to defend their extremists of the Islamic kind.
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U wot m8? You know its the conservative party saying this shite, right?
Use it to your advantage (Score:1)
So, some (or most?) perpetrators post hate stuff on their FB wall?
Well, then why don't you send Scotland Yard to knock on their door, have a little chat with them and if it turns out they really mean it, ask them to kindly leave the country?
Asking Google, FB etc. to delete the content instead is like deliberately destroying evidence or intelligence that could be used to prevent crimes. Stupid request.
Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to (Score:1)
As soon as the post office does the same thing, the tech firms will get right on it
Diplomacy (Score:1)
Does anyone remember when we used diplomacy to sort our problems? When rational people demanded governments use diplomacy to sort out problems instead of using taxpayer money to make bombs and then use them to create new enemies for us.
When bravery meant some unarmed professional diplomats went in to a hostile zone to see if they could *prevent* a war from starting. What a parody of democratic ideals our governments have become.
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"He who makes peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." - John. F. Kennedy President of the United States of America.
Blame shifting (Score:1)
Encryption Good (Score:1)
Tech companies SHOULD offering a "secret place for citizens to communicate"
What a load of crap that we should worry that ever single bit of communication prior to some crime MUST be known. That's nutty thinking with the end desire to never have any (legal) conversation occur outside of government recording, monitoring and evidence collection.
No, just conservatism. (Score:2)
They're happy to defend their extremists of the Islamic kind....