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United Kingdom Security The Internet

Digital IDs Needed To End 'Mob Rule' Online, Says UK's Security Minister (independent.co.uk) 517

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Digital IDs should be brought in to end online anonymity that permits "mob rule" and lawlessness online, the security minister of United Kingdom has said. From a report: Ben Wallace said authentication used by banks could also by employed by internet firms to crack down on bullying and grooming, as he warned that people had to make a choice between "the wild west or a civilised society" online. He also took aim at the "phoniness" of Silicon Valley billionaires, and called for companies such as WhatsApp to contribute to society over the negative costs of their technology, such as end-to-end encryption. It comes after Theresa May took another step against tech giants, saying they would be ordered to clamp down on vile attacks against women on their platforms. The prime minister will target firms such as Facebook and Twitter as she makes the pitch at the G7 summit this weekend, where she will urge social media firms to treat violent misogyny with the same urgency as they do terror threats. Mr Wallace told The Times: "A lot of the bullying on social media and the grooming is because those people know you cannot identify them. It is mob rule on the internet. You shouldn't be able to hide behind anonymity."
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Digital IDs Needed To End 'Mob Rule' Online, Says UK's Security Minister More

Digital IDs Needed To End 'Mob Rule' Online, Says UK's Security Minister

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  • UK's security minister (Score:5, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Sunday June 10, 2018 @09:33PM (#56762478)
    UK's security minister needs to go bugger a diseased goat, says anyone who's not an authoritarian skumbag...

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 )

      UK's security minister needs to go bugger a diseased goat, says anyone who's not an authoritarian skumbag...

      Here in the actual Wild West, it's the possibility of having people like Ben Wallace who motivate us to cling to our guns.

    • There's probably already pictures. Like Cameron and the pig.

  • His "plan" aside... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Sunday June 10, 2018 @09:36PM (#56762492)

    His plan to make everyone who uses the Internet "show papers" aside, his commentary about the hypocrisy of Silicon Valley billionaires is to the point.

    But the solution to this isn't LESS privacy, it's MORE privacy, if anything.

    • Re:His "plan" aside... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by goose-incarnated ( 1145029 ) on Monday June 11, 2018 @12:32AM (#56763098) Journal

      His plan to make everyone who uses the Internet "show papers" aside, his commentary about the hypocrisy of Silicon Valley billionaires is to the point.

      But the solution to this isn't LESS privacy, it's MORE privacy, if anything.

      Firstly , it's "her", not "him". Secondly, I was one of those who repeatedly warned that claiming misogyny and racism where there was none is the thin end of the wedge.

      Unfortunately people who challenge unwarranted claims of sexism, racism, etc get called sexists, racists, etc. Pointing out, for example, that the gender pay gap doesn't exist gets you lynched.

      The problem the moderate left has is that the moderate left allow the hard left to use shaming language rather than arguments and then fail to distance themselves from that shit. It is far easier to call people who are against affirmative action racists than to find an argument to support it (I haven't seen a good argument yet).

      The end result, of course, is this - monitoring everyone for their own good. Because most people are basically good people, calling them misogynists if they don't allow the state to read their private correspondence is probably going to work.

      That's also the reason that the hard left uses insults int the first place - calling an actual racist a racist is pointless - why would they care if someone identified them correctly? Same with calling an actual sexist a sexist.

      Insults only work on people who aren't correctly identified. Calling a non-racist a racist or calling a non-sexist a sexist "works" because it either aggravates them (shutting down the conversation) or causes them to remain silent about your excesses. Either result is preferable to having facts introduced into a conversation.

      The next time someone says trump is racist because he hates immigrants, see what happens you you introduce a fact such as "legal immigrants are different from illegal immigrants". The next time someone says something about a gender pay gap try introducing a fact or two and see what happens. Or even better, when in company of a hard left (or even moderate left these days) point out that Islam is extremely hard right, more to the right than even the KKK - IOW relative to Islam, the KKK is slightly left (how insane is that?)

      Everyone must be tracked to prevent misogyny? Sure, why not? We've already given everything else to the alternative-truth brigade and anyway if you object you must be a misogynist!

  • Unspoken followup (Score:5, Informative)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Sunday June 10, 2018 @09:47PM (#56762530)

    Digital ID's needed for all - so we can arrest Twitter users speaking out against the State.

    Sounds farfetched? The UK is doing that today [businessinsider.com].

    I mean, they do that already without digital ID"s, but it would save the police state a lot of time and bother if they could have the address pop up alongside the reported thought crim... er I mean tweet.

    • good thing i am not a British subject, they would have put me in prison already for having an opinion about not just islam but christianity too,

    • Digital ID's needed for all - so we can arrest Twitter users

      FTFY

  • Of course it will be funny when such a system turns into a circular firing squad resulting in the banning of feminists, SJWs, leftist political action committees, and the media from the internet for doing exactly what she is complaining about.

    Some of the biggest trolls on the internet are not the kiddies on 4chan or the infamous "alt-right", but the leftists, progressives, and their minions.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Of course it will be funny when such a system turns into a circular firing squad resulting in the banning of feminists, SJWs, leftist political action committees, and the media from the internet for doing exactly what she is complaining about.

      Some of the biggest trolls on the internet are not the kiddies on 4chan or the infamous "alt-right", but the leftists, progressives, and their minions.

      Your activism is harassment, my harassment is activism.

  • He wants his 18th century security ideas back.

    Hey, King George was on the phone, he had some ideas about stamp taxes, too. You might like those. Are you interested, Mr Security Minister?

  • like forcing folks to to give the government something to target if you say something they disagree with. :|

  • The cat's out of the bag. How are you going to stop swarms, PGP, TOR? Free and anonymous speech and transfer of data is necessary for advanced societies and probably can't be effectively denied by legislation. That's what the network was designed for.

  • for MI5, MI6 and the GCHQ to keep track of all the innovative US tech people in the UK and Ireland like to use online.
    What could return the internet to a 1970's phone exchange? Every dwelling gets an internet, an ip for that dwelling and it has an ISP paper billing address on it?
    How to ensure every internet user in the UK has an IP connected to one ISP?
    To return to a phone network all over the UK with all UK social media use returning to an approved ip range and a dwelling.

    Let the great network beg

    • Username not appropriate?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        1984 meets National Lampoon's European Vacation nitehawk214.
        Every UK address gets one government network. 3/1 for consumers? 5/5 for workers who have registed part of their dwelling as an approved home office?
        Only one gov approved new GCHQ ready modem per ip, per isp per dwelling.
        MI5/6/GCHQ ready if that UK account gets political and expects 1990's style online US freedom of speech.
  • because free speech is human nature, people have opinions and they are going to express them, like me for example i dont trust religion and consider them meddlesome and divisive, and i dont trust government and consider them fascistic and runs on mostly treachery

  • Off you be fucking, Mr Wallace, off you be fucking.

  • But what about the children?

  • When it tries to claim that certain domestic politicians don't officially exist:
    https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]

    even to the extent of imprisoning people who mention his name, it has lost any authority to comment on what might be fake news.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Its all free speech until the SAS van pulls up. Then its gets all 1980's Ireland.

    • Re:Don't take seriously anything that government s (Score:5, Informative)

      by KozmoStevnNaut ( 630146 ) on Monday June 11, 2018 @03:32AM (#56763504)

      Tommy Robinson breached a reporting ban (his second offense of this type). This type of ban is typically put in place in order to prevent mob justice and harassment of suspects who are still not convicted, in cases of a sensitive nature.

      Would you want your name and face live streamed to Facebook, simply for being the suspect in a trial, where you may or may not be guilty?

      Tommy Robinson tried to short-circuit the legal system, including the protections put in place for suspects who are yet to be convicted. In other words he tried to impose his own personal judgment on a case in which he has absolutely no right to interfere. Not to mention that this is the second time he's done so, hence the harsher punishment this time. Tommy Robinson is a radicalized extremist who apparently thinks he is above the law. He is not.

      • Here that's how every trial of a celebrity is handled, with the judge only able to control reporting from inside the courtroom. Are you saying that if O J Simpson had been tried in the UK, nobody would know he had even been tried because of being acquitted?

        Is the intent to protect the privacy of the defendant, or to prevent publicity about what the prosecutionis doing?

  • What a bunch of Hypocrites, Right!, Any government! will take care of things. Didn't we just read about "Unresolved Login Issue Prevented Florida 'Concealed Weapon' Background Checks For Over a Year" [slashdot.org] does that not prove the government is usually not part of the solution to problems?
    I know that was the only time government failed, NOT!

    Just my 2 cents ;)
  • When Trump hears of this and announces his new plan he will roast the Brits for stealing his idea.

  • civilisation == heirarchal society (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Sunday June 10, 2018 @10:17PM (#56762682) Homepage Journal

    Or at least that is what the people on the top want the rest of us to believe. An authoritarian's ideal structure is one with a small number at the top and the rest of the people on the bottom. Online communication is the most profound change to society in the last few centuries, perhaps in all of human history. So of course authoritarian-leaning people want to be the gatekeepers to it.

    Fear mongering would be telling you that we'll have a lawless wild west if we don't quickly transfer authority to a central entity. As if this is an either or scenario.

    • Re: civilisation == heirarchal society (Score:4, Insightful)

      by reanjr ( 588767 ) on Sunday June 10, 2018 @10:48PM (#56762798) Homepage

      All civilizations are hierarchical because it is necessary to organize people who do not know one another. Even in some fantasy scenario where everyone is equal, but some act as liaisons to organize society, those liaisons are de facto heads of state.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        All civilizations are hierarchical because it is necessary to organize people who do not know one another. Even in some fantasy scenario where everyone is equal, but some act as liaisons to organize society, those liaisons are de facto heads of state.

        That argument is weaker than the intelligent design one: "There must be an intelligent designer because things in nature are so complex they could not have come about by chance".

        Simply put, a central planner is not essential for people to achieve productive co-operation. Markets, for example, afford remarkable efficiency using prices as their primary co-ordination mechanism.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Terry Carlino ( 2923311 )

          The Romans had it right until they screwed it up. When a crisis happens pick the best guy to deal with the crisis who doesn't want the job. As soon as the crisis is over he runs back to the farm because he didn't want the job in the first place.

          The U.S. started out that way, with Washington, but quickly degenerated into parties full of people who wanted to be in charge.

    • Online communication is the most profound change to society in the last few centuries, perhaps in all of human history.

      Probably, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily a good thing

      So of course authoritarian-leaning people want to be the gatekeepers to it.

      Fear mongering would be telling you that we'll have a lawless wild west if we don't quickly transfer authority to a central entity. As if this is an either or scenario.

      I'm expecting that most posts here will reflect the same OMGZ Big Brother! tone, but I agree that some sort of digital ID could be useful. And I'll stress that a digital identity doesn't mean the same thing as a single government ID.
      Identity is an interesting subject and there are plenty of existing ways of implementing it without giving up privacy or anonymity.

      • there are plenty of existing ways of implementing it without giving up privacy or anonymity.

        However many IDs Theresa May has, they are all bad. (For all possible readings of this phrase).

  • ... I thought for sure it was going to be in the name of protecting us from child porn, not online bullying.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Anonymity isn't the cause. (Score:5, Informative)

    by shess ( 31691 ) on Sunday June 10, 2018 @11:09PM (#56762868) Homepage

    Every few years, someone comes out with a social thing for forum thing or whatever, and they insist that using "real" names will make people better-behaved. Every time they are proven wrong. People we well-behaved in small groups, people are not well-behaved in large groups. Full stop. There's surely a marginal size where knowing who people are will make a difference, like when you grow from 50,000 people to 100,000 people maybe, but "online" or "The Internet" are far far far beyond that region, so it doesn't matter.

    This isn't just a problem in online forums. I've seen it in workplaces, a workplace with under a thousand people can feel fairly homey and interconnected and grounded, 5,000 people starts to get a little dicey but workable, but when you get up to like 25,000 people, even with the best intentions things routinely get out of control and mobs are always forming. It's not only that people fell they can get away with stuff, it's that people stop standing up for what's right. In a smaller group, when someone gets drunk at a company event and starts making an ass of themselves, unrelated people step up and usher them out. In a larger group, everyone feels like they aren't responsible for the group, so nobody steps up, and the asshole just keeps on going until something horrible happens.

  • Democracy *IS* mob rule (Score:3)

    by IckySplat ( 218140 ) on Monday June 11, 2018 @12:06AM (#56763044)

    Digital IDs should be brought in to end online anonymity that permits "mob rule" and lawlessness online

    What... Like the fact when voting during an election, your vote is supposed to be anonymous

    The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voter's choices in an election or a referendum is anonymous, forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vote buying. The system is one means of achieving the goal of political privacy.

    Democracy *IS* mob rule... right?

  • He's talking to the wrong people. Technology companies aren't equipped to verify the identities of billions of people all over the world. If governments are willing to issue digitally-verifiable IDs that they'll back with their own laws, then the problem space would be reduced.

    If Digital IDs were available, tech companies wouldn't have to require them. Just make them optional, and give people the ability to filter out messages from anyone who isn't IDd. I doubt it would take long for users to choose to filt

  • This authoritarian idiot's solution to tyranny of the majority is to effectively pre-dox everyone? What could possibly go wrong with that idea?

  • I'm getting so fucking tired of immature ignorant whinning of dim prepotent politicians trying to vilify and polarize technologies they don't understand and trying to paint a black and white picture that only exists in their fantasy land... or more likely, don't exist at all because they never tried to understand the stuff they are talking about.
    That is the true problem we have today. This sorta shit. If we had less shitheads berating against anonymity, privacy and encryption - and by now we had a very long

  • Perspective... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bert64 ( 520050 ) <bert AT slashdot DOT firenzee DOT com> on Monday June 11, 2018 @01:46AM (#56763256) Homepage

    "saying they would be ordered to clamp down on vile attacks against women on their platforms"

    The thing with anonymity is that your gender and race do not need to be disclosed, you can claim anything or be anyone. Everyone is equal online and that's the whole point.

    As for the word "attack", you can't attack anyone online, you can only throw insults at them, it's only words from random people who you don't know and who don't matter to you. Ignore them, respond in kind or better yet just laugh and ridicule their feeble attempts to insult you.

    People need to take the internet for what it is and embrace the anonymity. You can be who you want to be online, if you feel that being a woman online makes you weak and opens you up to "attacks" then pretend to be a man and see what happens. If someone anonymous doesn't like you then so what? You can be just as anonymous as them, they can't do anything to you.

    People troll because they get a response, by running away crying about being "attacked" you are giving them a response and making them feel powerful because they had the ability to affect you. If you laugh at them and show them that not only are you suffering no negative effects from their trolling, but you are actually finding their pathetic attempts to insult you amusing then they will soon give up anyway.

  • OOOh vile attacks on women, good excuse to get rid of secure encryption.

  • Also if everyone had to walk round carrying a placard with their real name and address, this would cut down on real life antisocial behaviour. I imagine he has this lined up for phase two

  • Calm down (Score:5, Informative)

    by andrewbaldwin ( 442273 ) on Monday June 11, 2018 @04:06AM (#56763562)

    As someone who lives in the UK, I take a slightly different view from the somewhat rabid and over-hyped fear-mongers on this site.

    Let's have some context:

    The UK government is in a mess. The whole Brexit fiasco was poorly thought out and people were asked to vote on little/no information at best and outright lies at worst. This has resulted in many many views on what the result meant and massive in-fighting in the government which is spending so much time on the issue nothing else substantive seems to be happening. Couple this with an election leaving a minority party in power, with little opportunity to make any changes and you have a confused muddle.

    So what to do? take decisive action? no too hard!! -- let's have a distraction: royal weddings are good for a couple of months run-up but even they pass. An attack on internet companies is always a short term winner - it panders to the worst elements of the press (who see their business model of peddling hate and discord being threatened) and hits the hot buttons of "terror" and "what of the children/women?".

    The level of debate here shows the distraction technique works.

    As for implementation -- just look at history: England have more chance of winning the world cup than a UK Government IT system working properly. A few consultancies and IT companies may make some money (but at least nowadays the government does try to claw back overspend on its fiascos)

    I seriously doubt that anything will really change and in six months to a year's time things will be just the same.

  • The idea of the greater internet dickwad theory is an attractive one. Normal person + anonymity = dickwad. So if this is true, then it stands to reason removing anonymity is the solution.

    But heres the thing ,we've tried that in facebooks real name property, and it never worked. In fact it made things worse. If people want to bully someone, that person is right there easy to find on facebook. If they want to hide, they can't unless they want to pull out a significant chunk of their social life. This , by the

  • "...the negative costs of their technology, such as end-to-end encryption"

    Negative. Costs.

    Well, that's a fairly subjective view of the situation, isn't it it, old chap? I think there are a great many people who would like to see your working on that one, before giving you a smash in the face with a frying pan for being an utter twatknacker.

  • will mean implementing strong censorship rules after Brexit.

  • Is to access government services - taxes, passports, benefits etc. There is no reason whatsoever for it to extend beyond that, and besides it would be trivially easy to sidestep, e.g. using a VPN to another country.

  • Given the timing, this must be some sort of viral advertising by NordVPN - just can't go anywhere these days without seeing their ads :p

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