Encrypting Facebook Messenger Could Be a 'Grotesque Betrayal', Says Top UK Politician (theverge.com) 97
Facebook's parent company Meta is heading into another political battle over the planned introduction of end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in its Messenger chat platform. From a report: The UK's home secretary, Priti Patel, makes this clear in an op-ed for Tory mouthpiece The Telegraph this week, saying it would be a "grotesque betrayal" if the company didn't consider issues of child safety while introducing E2EE. Similar arguments are likely to be raised in the US, too. Meta has been working on adding E2EE to Messenger for years, and recently confirmed that it aims to encrypt all chats and calls on the platform by default next year. (It currently only offers default E2EE on its other big chat platform, WhatsApp, though users can opt-in to E2EE on Messenger on a chat-by-chat basis.)
The move is reigniting decades-old debates in politics and tech about the right way to balance user privacy and safety. In the US, these arguments have been heightened by the potential for police to issues search warrants for user chats in order to enforce new abortion laws after the overturn of Roe v. Wade. In the UK, arguments over encryption tend to focus on child safety and the dissemination of of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM. "A great many child predators use social media platforms such as Facebook to discover, target and sexually abuse children," writes Patel in her op-ed. "It is vital that law enforcement have access to the information they need to identify the children in these images and safeguard them from vile predators."
The move is reigniting decades-old debates in politics and tech about the right way to balance user privacy and safety. In the US, these arguments have been heightened by the potential for police to issues search warrants for user chats in order to enforce new abortion laws after the overturn of Roe v. Wade. In the UK, arguments over encryption tend to focus on child safety and the dissemination of of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM. "A great many child predators use social media platforms such as Facebook to discover, target and sexually abuse children," writes Patel in her op-ed. "It is vital that law enforcement have access to the information they need to identify the children in these images and safeguard them from vile predators."
If Priti Patel's against it (Score:5, Insightful)
It must be good.
Re:If Priti Patel's against it (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook are scarcely better, so in this case you can't really judge by whom the argument is between.
Although in this case, easy availability of strong encryption to ordinary people is good. And will even be important to the safety of many children. As well as the safety of many adults, who aren't really any less important.
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Can't we just burn them both and be done with it?
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The Zuck may be the douche of all douchebags. But even a broken clock is correct twice a day, as they say. And there are various levels of loathsomeness. And versus Patel... or any other Tory I can think of off the top of my head, really... I'll side with the Zuck every time.
Re:If Priti Patel's against it (Score:5, Insightful)
If child safety is so important, how come religious and scouting abuse scandals continued for decades before any action?
And Jim'll Fix It's predilictions were well known and covered up by the BCC for years...
Re:If Priti Patel's against it (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm so hoping that Pritti nasty Patel is back on to the back benches when we get our new PM in a few weeks. Along with the Anti-culture Secretary Nadine Dorries. I really hope we don't have to wait until the next general election to give these vile people the boot. Sadly neither choice of PM looks promising, although Liz Truss is looking like she's cut from the same cloth.
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"Liz Truss is looking like she's cut from the same cloth."
And she's heavily favored to win it.
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Better stock up on cheese.
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Between Priti Patel, Nadine Dorries and Liz Truss you'd have enough intelligence to make a half-wit.
You could add Jacob Rees Mogg, Michael Gove and John Redwood into the mix and maybe you'd accumulate enough compassion and empathy between all 6 to make up a sociopath.
For overseas readers who don't know who these are -- you lucky people!
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I get all my British Political updates from Have I Got News for You.
Ya'll are screwed. :)
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This is also the same administration that oversaw school children routinely being strip searched at school by the police without parental/guardian consent or consultation. Will nobody in the Tory party think of the poor children?!
That sounds like they *are* thinking of the children... just not in the way most people mean.
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Think of the children!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Think of the children!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
While it takes a village to raise a kid, it's still your kid and you can't shift the burden of keeping your child safe onto the village.
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Of course you can, we have laws, hospitals, police, fire fighters ... all of these keep my children safe, and are provided by society. What I think you mean is you can't shift the entire burden onto society its still your responsibility too. I would agree that the government monitoring every conversation is shifting the responsibility too far, even if in essence I trust the government.
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I think they're talking about situations where the people responsible for keeping the kid safe are the ones exploiting them. I actually think society and the government should protect vulnerable individuals who can't protect themselves, though I share your concern for the constant surveillance state.
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Where do the authoritarians and their useful idiots get the idea that encrypted communications means the bad guys won't get caught?
Has there ever been such a case?
Re: Think of the children!!! (Score:2)
By definition we'll never know.
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You also never had full-blown fascism. Seems the Tories want to correct that oversight...
Re:Think of the children!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think with the govt. overreach we've seen in a number of western countries, that "stick it to the man anti-government" isn't really a 17th century mentality, it should very much be a 21st century mentality.
Re:Think of the children!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
When you see stuff like this (Score:1)
Still technically about race, but not in the way that most Americans would think (and that linking to the Mirror and nypost implies). Rather, it's like how Jeffery Dahmer almost got away with murder because cops don't treat domestic violence among homosexuals the same as they do with cis folk.
Basically, rather than being "too woke" the cops aren't woke enough. i.e th
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I am more concerned about harm being done en masse though, which is why I favour private communication and feel it should be protected as a human right.
It already _is_ protected as a human right. This makes it even more clear what the real nature of the people opposed to it is.
Re:Think of the children!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Here in the UK we don't have quite the same 17th century stick-it-to-the-man anti government mentality as you do in the states. Most people here accept that there has to be a compromise with personal privacy vs crime fighting. Whether this is it I don't know, but the kids do matter which you'll understand when you become a parent.
1st, from parent to parent i sincerely hope that you have quite A LOT of other means and resources to protect your children from abuse, other than giving your government a blanket right to invade everyone's privacy. basically because that means that your children are as good as fucked.
2nd, distrust in institutions is a logical reaction to institutions being dysfunctional and politicians being lying pots and crooks, it has nothing in particular to do with 17th century cultures.
Re: Think of the children!!! (Score:1)
Invasion of privacy is part of crime fighting. Or do you think police detectives just wait for the paedos to hand themselves in?
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Invasion of privacy is part of crime fighting.
so please report your bank passwords to the nearest police station now, just in case there were some embezzlement to fight.
Or do you think police detectives just wait for the paedos to hand themselves in?
nah, they just sit all day snooping on fb messenger waiting for paedos to get chatty. and eating doughnuts. and touching themselves while their bosses rape children in their mansions.
Re: Think of the children!!! (Score:2)
Which part of the word "compromise" confuses you?
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giving the state the monopoly of the use of violence is compromise more than enough, there is really no need for the state to supervise every private conversation between citizens.
excuse my jokes but your argument is hard to take seriously. there are many ways law enforcement can get to paedos without compromising everyone's privacy. for starters, they can go under cover and quite possibly they will be more than willing to exchange private conversation with them. voilà. they have been doing this with h
Re:Think of the children!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Any approach to helping law enforcement that leaves you more vulnerable to crime simply cannot be the right compromise.
Re: Think of the children!!! (Score:2)
I guess a lot of americans would also argue the UKs ban on most guns leaves us less protected. We dont see it that way.
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At least we don't have to beg other countries to ship us boom sticks when shit gets ugly.
http://whichgun.com/img/blog-p... [whichgun.com]
Re: Think of the children!!! (Score:2)
Fuck knows what that's about. How long did it take you to dig that ancient irrelevance up?
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I had seen it before, and took me all of 10 seconds to find it.
People forget the lessons of the past. Then they have to re-learn them again.
What's that about is that since King George III disarmed his peasants back while we were still his Colonies, we told him to go get fucked and kept our guns. Fast forward to the 1940's and suddenly England has to beg for guns for home defense against a foreign invader.
So fuck anyone trying to take our irons, AND DO YOU NEED A FUCKING CRAYON-DRAWN VISUAL AID to understa
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Are you honestly saying that having 2,350 gun deaths to go with the 235 stabbing deaths is better?
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Yet who has the most violent deaths per capita out of the USA or UK... hmmm , tricky...
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Would you accept this statement?: "Secure communication and public safety are deeply incompatible, and no society can possibly have both at the same time."
Re:Think of the children!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Here in the UK we don't have quite the same 17th century stick-it-to-the-man anti government mentality as you do in the states.
That's because you motherfuckers stuck it to us. Remember, we kicked you out of our country.
YOU are literally the reason for us having the Bill of Rights.
Now get out, stay out, and keep your fascist police state with all your CCTV cameras and government snooping out of our country.
Re:Think of the children!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Remember, we kicked you out of our country.
Not really. You got the French to do most of it for you
Re:Think of the children!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember, we kicked you out of our country.
Not really. You got the French to do most of it for you
AND we made them pay for it.
Bankrupted France, got rid of their Monarchy, caused another series of European wars, and made bank selling to both sides.
Not too shabby.
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The USA bill of rights is a copy of the British one dating from 1689
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The USA bill of rights is a copy of the British one dating from 1689
Really? Oh wow. Could you please be so kind to show the provision in the U.S. Bill of Rights (which are, in fact, simple Amendments to the U.S. Constitution), where the inheritance of the Crown is codified?
Oh, wait, I forgot. We elect our rulers, as opposed to them being born into it.
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I am a parent and as a parent I understand there is absolutely no level of protection you that you can give that will make me feel secure. It is all a matter of degree. I think the point at which the government has the power to monitor every conversation to "protect" my children is clearly too far. Before the internet conversations happened the government didn't know what people said and society didn't collapse. Also thinking of my children, I want them to live in a society that doesn't have a government mo
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Here in the UK we don't have quite the same 17th century stick-it-to-the-man anti government mentality as you do in the states. Most people here accept that there has to be a compromise with personal privacy vs crime fighting. Whether this is it I don't know, but the kids do matter which you'll understand when you become a parent.
I think you got America wrong. It's not a 17th Century mentality; life was more civilized back then (sarcasm?)
In America...government sticks it to you - IRS audits; FBI raids; TSA probing your ghoulies (or goolies); inflation going up faster than a SpaceX rocket; everything you eat either causes cancer or gets you sick.
Re: Think of the children!!! (Score:2)
If the kids matter, then you should fight for blocking Facebook/Instagram/Twitter, or at least mandate a more accessible, universal all-devixr form of parental controls.
And no, saying "all parents should have technical know how" is just as valid "parents must know how to teach their kids self defense, or their child deserves to be beaten"
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Kids matter, yes. But the reality is, that particular drum has been the war cry for truly egregious invasions of privacy in the UK for decades.
The government does not need to know where every single citizen is at every moment of every day and have unrestricted access to everyone's social media, bank accounts, and indeed, cctv inside your home (a real pilot project) to "protect the children".
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> You don't deserve privacy from big government - we have to protect the children at all costs!
I'll believe it when they release and go after the Epstein list that Ghislaine Maxwell is holding.
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"It's for the children" (Score:5, Informative)
"It's for the children" is code for, "you won't like our actual reasons, so we're going to use this convenient red herring to distract you".
FWIW: jabber is still around, you can stand up your own server and use a gpg enabled client if that's what you need.
Re:"It's for the children" (Score:5, Funny)
If I have to side with a pedo or a Tory, I side with the pedo. Simply because I'm too old for the pedo to screw me.
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FWIW: jabber is still around, you can stand up your own server and use a gpg enabled client if that's what you need.
And Signal will more conveniently do the job for "normal" people.
Remember (Score:5, Funny)
If you think of the children all the time, you're probably a pedo.
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Pretty much. Works on the same principle that the most violently anti-gay people turn out time and again to be gays that cannot deal with their own nature.
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The problem is that when you start spying on your kids, you will eventually lose all their trust and thereby the ability to protect them.
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Maybe someone should tell the government that, because exactly the same thing happens there.
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Anybody that does not know this does not want to know it or has never really thought about it...
The government does not want to know. They also do not want to protect children, or anybody, really. They want surveillance as much as they can get and they want power.
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Well, yeah... MDM is a thing. And unless your children are over 18 they don't have the legal ability to enter into a cell phone contract or their own credit cards to pay for it. So you should be partnering your own damn kids (if you have any), using the MDM provider of your choice to manage their phones, and leaving the rest of us the hell alone. And if your children ARE over 18 and paying for their own phone, well... they're not children anymore in the first place... and it's none of your damn business
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Yup. I'll "think of the children" if and when I change my mind on the matter (not bloody likely) and decide to procreate and have some. Until and unless that happens; I'll thank you kindly to stop trying to make me fill the role of anyone else's baby-daddy.
Well, the Tories are grotesquely stupid, so (Score:2)
Lets just throw out all decency and right and wrong out the windows and abandon all rights, except those of abused children. (Sorry, non-abused children, you do not get any rights either...)
I propose we start by installing web-cams in Ms. Patel's bedroom and bathroom.
Its for your own good! (Score:4, Insightful)
Or satansend (Score:3)
Dictatorships around the world are lousy with spying on the people, to maintain their power.
Encryption is a godsend, and should be pushed by the free west. Half of humanity doesn't have to merely "Imagine a boot stepping on a human face, forever."
They are living the 1984 dream!
Is Facebook really going to give up all that data? (Score:3)
They might though. What triggered this was America criminalizing abortion in about half the country. A girl is now facing jail time based on FB messages with her mom. Her abortion was done before the courts overturned Roe v Wade, so they're trying to get her for desecrating a corpse (and without Roe they'll succeed) but the next one will be facing Murder Charges and Facebook doesn't want to be in the middle of that.
Still, it's an awful lot of valuable data to give up, and makes me wonder if they'll try and have their cake (the data) and eat it too. But I don't see how that's possible.
Re:Is Facebook really going to give up all that da (Score:4, Interesting)
It simply means they have to move their data miner out of the server and into the app itself, before the encryption stage. It's still encrypted end to end, it's just that the ends are compromised. If you don't trust FB's server you shouldn't trust their app either.
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It's not hard for a prosecutor to mine that information out of the metadata. Target rather famously informed of Father his teenage daughter was pregnant before she did based on metadata of her purchases.
And while it's true none of that is necessa
Rephrase: Think of the children without encryption (Score:3)
Say by beaming an open hot spot at the playground, someone can access a kids unencrypted messages, then that someone has a better idea who the kid most susceptible for grooming is. I see that as having far less chance of outing themselves by randomly selecting a kid to target.
unintended consequences (Score:2)
Everybody with a library card who is a bit handy with computers can program his own chat app with E2E encryption. The result of forcing whatsapp and messenger to add a backdoor: perpetrators will move to their own underground chat app. The rest of us will be surveyed continuously. It's the number one reason why this is utterly stupid.
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They know that, but still say the thing so they get more power
Hooray for Facebook. (Score:2)
OMFG, I can't believe I'm saying this, but given examples like this story from earlier [slashdot.org], I find myself cheering for FB for once. Maybe I should post this as AC?...
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LOL, Priti? (Score:2)
She wanted to build wave-machines to push back refugees to their death or push-boats when people laughed their asses off.
She's a complete nutjob.
Think of the children! (Score:2)
As for Priti Patel, I challenge anyone to find
Child safety (Score:3)
We saw in an article yesterday at least one child that would have been safer with encryption. Had his photo, sent to the pediatrician, been encrypted less people would have seen it and he wouldn't have been in danger of being ripped from his parents. The father's problems with communication that resulted from Google shutting down all his accounts may yet prove detrimental to the child.
Same asshole that ok'd Assange Extradition (Score:1)
the abuse by assholes like her going after whistleblowers and journalists and therefore EVERYONE'S freedom. ...and in a bit of Irony, the person she OK'd to be extradited to a War Criminal regime helped Australian authorities to bust a child trafficking ring.
It's Facebook, Duh (Score:3)
My normie friends are making Signal groups like mad - not for e2ee specifically but because it's not Facebook and it's not spyware like Telegram.
Facebook must be seeing this and thinking that if they get e2ee right people will come back.
That's not the problem.
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My normie friends are making Signal groups like mad
Most of my "normie" friends also use Signal; however, making Signal groups is much harder, because nearly everybody has a WhatsApp account. Bottom line : I use Signal for most of direct messages, and WhatsApp for group messages...
This is the situation in Europe, it might be different elsewhere.
Lead by example (Score:2)
I tire of this 'prove your innocence' grand-standing. If politicians truly believe it, they can lead by example.
The government is going to protect teenage schoolgirls by reading their Facebook chats. Again, politicians should receive the same protection.
"Tory mouthpiece"? (Score:2)
So for the good of children (Score:2)
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