Backlash Against British Encryption Law 409
gardenermike writes "The BBC is reporting on some backlash against the British Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) that came into force in 2000, which makes it a criminal act to refuse to decrypt files on a computer. Not surprisingly, the bugaboos of child pornography and terrorism, while unquestionably heinous, are being used to justify a law which does little to protect against either.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury is quoted 'You do not secure the liberty of our country and value of our democracy by undermining them, that's the road to hell.'"
Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:4, Funny)
But if you really wanna rack up jail time, try copyright infringement!
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:4, Insightful)
The real problem between those is that we're recognizing the power of rage to erase reason, but not of lust. That seems... uneven.
Trauma (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously though -- I suggest you ask a rape victim sometime: would it have been equally unpleasant if you had been killed instead? See how many of them take you seriously. Then note how many rape victims have gone on to relatively normal lives. Hint: it's an awful lot of them. Statistics say that 1 in 4 women experiences sexual assault of some kind during her life. Do you see 1 in 4 women wishing she'd been killed instead? Do you see 1 in 4 women spending the rest of their lives hiding in their basement with a baseball bat because they can't go on with life? Are 1 in 4 women effectively dead?
Murder > Rape. Deal with it. That doesn't mean that rape isn't a serious crime worthy of serious punishment. It's just that it's stupid to suggest that they're just as bad as each other.
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:3, Insightful)
Never spoken to a rape victim I see. I suppose the years of sleepless nights, nightmares, inability to trust others or form a meaningful relationship, and fear of people in general *does* eventually end, but I wouldn't say it's all over in a few minutes.
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously? What about an image which is 100% computer generated?
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:2)
Under PROTECT, things like hentai with children in them are illegal, it is a felony to be caught in posession of them.
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine doing a heinous act with a child. Not a crime (yet).
Draw a picture of said heinous act. Now it's a crime, even tho *no actual children were harmed*.
A parallel:
Imagine killing someone, and how you'd do it. Not a crime (yet).
Write in your diary about killing someone, and how you'd do it. Is this now a crime, even tho no actual persons were harmed? what is the difference between this and being in possession of wholly-fictional kiddie porn??
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:3, Insightful)
==========
Shouldn't that read like this?:
"Imagine killing _a fictional character_, and how you'd do it. Not a crime (yet).
Write in your diary about killing _said fictional character_, and how you'd do it. Is this now a crime, even tho no actual persons were harmed? what is the difference between this and being in possession of wholly-fictional kiddie porn??"
Clearly, premeditating murder of an actual person could b
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:2)
Who the crap said it was? TFA didn't. The summary didn't. Mentioning two things in the same sentence does not imply that they are equal.
Besides, even if one did claim that the two are just as bad, they would have an argument. How many people outside Iraq's warzone were killed by terrorist acts this year? Not nearly as many as the number of kids that were exploited and are going to have screwed up lives because of these sick fuckers. To many people, child porno
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:3, Informative)
There is no real Terrorism to speak of, in practical terms. Statistically you have a better chance of being struck by lightning multiple times - or be killed in a random crash with an 18 wheel Deisel, than perishing in a 'terror attack'.
With these real facts, why hasn't the American president lanched a pre-emptive war against Meteorology or Interstate Trucking? Oh yeah these are real hazards, not EMMANUEL GOLDSTEIN.
Paedophiles are real, and probably live withinn 2 miles of your house, if you ar
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:2)
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:3, Informative)
Aside from that, though, I worry about the word "unquestionably". Anyone who thinks terrorism is unquestionably heinous should really r
Children (Score:3, Insightful)
Molesting a few children and taking pictures of it is definitely nowhere NEAR as bad as killing hundreds of people (including dozens of children). But crimes against children evoke a far more visceral revulsion in people than just pushing a button that blows some people up. In fact, the difference in how people respond to immoral acts has been studied with interesting results.
http://www.discover.com/issues/apr-04/features/who se-life-would-you-save/ [discover.com]
Basically it seems to come down to how directly som
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering the ease of how most computers are compromised through a Trojan horse, its a nice way to send someone you don't like to jail. I'm surprised it hasn't been used more often.
One would wonder if the defense team could get access to the computer afterwards to prove there was a back door installed or would the prosecution not allow "tampering" with the evidence and not let the defense use it as evidence.
Of course that could lead to a plausible deniability if you were harboring such images and were guilty but left an inactive copy of back orifice on your computer so you could blame a so called "hacker" when you were caught.
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a massive amount of poorly written press when it comes to serious taboo issues like this, however comparing paedophilia to baby pictures is just plain stupid and I can't be bothered to be more polite about it then that.
It's true that some child actors grow up with problems, but if you hadn't noticed some adult actors seem to make up for lost time if they weren'
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:3)
I'm confused. Intent of the photographer, or intent of the viewer of the photograph?
Should pictures of naked babies be illegal? How about if a paedophile took a picture of a naked baby? What about a picture of a naked baby sitting on the lap of a naked man?
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:3, Insightful)
If it were not illegal to own child porn then the demand for it would go up. I can't prove this, but I can make basic assumptions based on how supply and demand work.
So i mean
Just a Continuation of McCarthyism Tactics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just a Continuation of McCarthyism Tactics (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just a Continuation of McCarthyism Tactics (Score:3, Insightful)
People fear terrorism, which is what this law was probably meant to address. Unfortunately, with this sort of law in place, people still fear terrorism - and begin to fear their own government.
One of the primary roles of any government is to protect the interests of its citizens on at least the most basic levels. But in pursuing their safety, there are lines that ought not be crossed. There is no
It's another thing to be afraid of hunters (Score:5, Insightful)
I read something here [slashdot.org] a long time ago, and I think I'll repost it in it's entirety because it's just that important:
"If you haven't done anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"
Ever heard that one? I work in information security, so I have heard it more than my fair share. I've always hated that reasoning, because I am a little bit paranoid by nature, something which serves me very well in my profession. So my standard response to people who have asked that question near me has been "because I'm paranoid." But that doesn't usually help, since most people who would ask that question see paranoia as a bad thing to begin with. So for a long time I've been trying to come up with a valid, reasoned, and intelligent answer which shoots the holes in the flawed logic that need to be there.
And someone unknowingly provided me with just that answer today. In a conversation about hunting, somebody posted this about prey animals and hunters:
"Yeah! Hunters don't kill the *innocent* animals - they look for the shifty-eyed ones that are probably the criminal element of their species!"
but in a brilliant (and very funny) retort, someone else said:
"If they're not guilty, why are they running?"
Suddenly it made sense, that nagging thing in the back of my head. The logical reason why a reasonable dose of paranoia is healthy. Because it's one thing to be afraid of the TRUTH. People who commit murder or otherwise deprive others of their Natural Rights are afraid of the TRUTH, because it is the light of TRUTH that will help bring them to justice.
But it's another thing entirely to be afraid of hunters. And all too often, the hunters are the ones proclaiming to be looking for TRUTH. But they are more concerned with removing any obstactles to finding the TRUTH, even when that means bulldozing over people's rights (the right to privacy, the right to anonymity) in their quest for it. And sadly, these people often cannot tell the difference between the appearance of TRUTH and TRUTH itself. And these, the ones who are so convinced they have found the TRUTH that they stop looking for it, are some of the worst oppressors of Natural Rights the world has ever known.
They are the hunters, and it is right and good for the prey to be afraid of the hunters, and to run away from them. Do not be fooled when a hunter says "why are you running from me if you have nothing to hide?" Because having something to hide is not the only reason to be hiding something.
Re:It's another thing to be afraid of hunters (Score:5, Insightful)
I forgot to add this from here [slashdot.org]
3. Because there are lots of little things we do every day that break the rules. These include: j-walking, downloading MP3's, subletting without telling your landlord, recording sporting events without express written concent, undocumented domestic help, recreational drug use, stealing cable, logging on to other people's wireless networks, "leaking" company information to your girlfriend, anything besides the missionary position (in many states), cheating on your wife (in many states), rolling stops on empty streets, u-turns in the middle of empty streets, locking your bicycle to the handrailing, lying about your age to get into movies, lying about your age to get senior citizens discounts, lying about your age to avoid getting senior citizens discounts, telling your company that you're "sick" when you really mean you're "sick and tired of this crappy job," not reporting e-bay sales as taxable income, grabbing an extra newspaper when someone else buys one from the machine, putting chairs in the street to save your parking spot, stealing office supplies, stealing the towels, littering, loitering, the office NCAA pool, etc etc. All of these are necessary for the functioning of our society in some way or another, but are illegal. Yet we would go batshit insane without a few personal pet vices.
And the system has been built with this in mind: nobody wants to stop your weekly 5$ poker match, they wanted to stop the gambling houses where people lost their rent money. Enforce the letter of the law, and the intent of the law gets lost.
Re:It's another thing to be afraid of hunters (Score:5, Insightful)
De minimis non curat lex.
"The law does not concern itself with trifles".
IOW, the purpose of the law is put in place to hold society as a whole together by punishing those whose actions threaten the fabric of society, rather than those whose actions which, while technically illegal, are of such little consequence that quite frankly the court has better things to do with its time than listen to them.
Re:It's another thing to be afraid of hunters (Score:2, Insightful)
People on the 'What do you have to hide?' bandwagon always seem to assume that it is GUILTY things I want to keep secret...
MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:2)
Re:Just a Continuation of McCarthyism Tactics (Score:2)
If you disagree with copyright laws you are just a thief.
If you disagree with drug laws you are just a junkie who wants to smoke dope.
If you disagree with laws setting arbitrary speed limits you are just a bad driver.
Re:Just a Continuation of McCarthyism Tactics (Score:2)
If you disagree with not protecting IP you're a corporate shill.
If you disagree with total drug deregulation (which BTW I agree with) you're like, totally a bigot, mon.
If you disagree with Israelis fighting for their lives you're a fascist pig.
Nobody is innocent of this tactic. Deal with it.
Hit the costume store (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hit the costume store (Score:2)
just for fun..
Re:Hit the costume store (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hit the costume store (Score:2)
What I find funny is Lord anything talking about Democracy...
Re:Hit the costume store (Score:3, Insightful)
It's past time to bail out; but there's no where to bail out to.
The counter-intuitive nature of British parliament (Score:5, Insightful)
Strange, that it's precisely the people who are voted into power who abuse it, but the "undemocratic" "establishment" figures are the ones who defend it. Sad, really. The lords can do and say what they like because they're not elected (well, some (all?) are, now), and that freedom is worth something to others.
When Tony Blair said he was going to abolish the house of Lords, I thought "there goes democracy in Britain", I've lost count of the number of times the Lords have told the government (and I mean *both* parties here, both Tory and Labour) of the day to re-think something because the effect on the least-fortunate or most-vulnerable in society is too extreme. Partly it comes because they're *not* elected, part because of the social contract inherent in British society, partly because as individuals they *are* partisan, so the {labour} lords will pick apart the {tory} government policies and vice versa. It's a weird typically-British hotch-potch of conflicts, but somehow it all works... You'd never get it past a "government design" planning committe...
The government can always bulldoze a bill through parliament if it gets rejected/resubmitted by the Lords 3 times (I think), but that creates news, and normally when a bill is that bad, news is not what the government want... The Lords act as a counter-balance to over-eager legislation. It *is* weird, but it works quite well
Thank [insert random deity] for the Lords
Simon.
Re:The counter-intuitive nature of British parliam (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact that our democratically elected government are the ones trying to bring in all of these laws to erase our civil liberties and it's the priveliged Lords that actually make a stand for personal freedom is, to my mind, one of the strangest things in politics.
No wonder Tony and co. have been trying to castrate the House of Lords for the last decade as an "old fashioned, outdated bastion of the Old School Ties", despite the fact that these aging peers seem to have a clu
Lord Phillips (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Lord Phillips (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, since the House of Lords don't have to chase after votes all the time, they help chuck out all the stupid knee-jerk laws the House of Commons come up with to make it look like they are doing something important. It's a useful component of a democratic system that mitigates one of the downsides of democracy - that the elected representatives are concerned with appearances more than the well-being of the country.
Re:Lord Phillips (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets hope that Parliament doesn't further castrate the House of Lords with its latest reforms of the lower chamber.
Re:Lord Phillips (Score:5, Insightful)
The US has the same idea with the Senate v the House of Representatives (although the Senate is elected), with the Senate being the more "measured" of the two.
What most people - even Americans - don't know is that in fact the Senate was not originally elected at all. It was filled with the appointees of states legislatures (two from each state), who could fill the appointments however they best saw fit. It wasn't until the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, made during an era of populist progressivism in 1913, that the Senate became filled by direct election.
Personally, I think it is an open question whether this particular reform has been a net positive or negative.
Re:Lord Phillips (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I think it is an open question whether this particular reform has been a net positive or negative.
I don't think it's a question at all. I think it's been very negative because it eliminated the voice that state governments had in the federal government, allowing the federal government to run roughshod over the states. The fact that senators were appointed by (and could be recalled by!) their respective states was another way of setting the components of government in opposition to one another. By making senators popularly elected, we significantly reduced the strength of one of the "checks and balances" built into the system.
Re:Lord Phillips (Score:2)
Re:Lord Phillips (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lord Phillips (Score:2)
I don't -- I think it's a negative, right along with electors being chosen by popular vote (it ought to be done by the state legislatures).
As far as modifications to our government's structure go, I do think the Presidential term limits are a good thing, and that the concept ought to be expanded to cover Congress as well. Of course, it might be useful only to limit congressmen to two consecutive t
Re:Lord Phillips (Score:3, Informative)
right along with electors being chosen by popular vote (it ought to be done by the state legislatures).
Technically, it is being done by the state legislatures. It's just that all the legislatures have decided to base their decision on a popular vote. There's no federal or constitutional requirement that they hold a vote, though.
Re:Lord Phillips (Score:2)
Arguably things have gone downhill since, althought the 6-year term for senators vs 2 years for representatives does help a bit -- the latter are pretty much campaigning all the time.
Re:Lord Phillips (Score:2)
The House of Lords does not often overturn bills; they see their job is to oversee the House of Commons, not compete with them. But I think that having them there has a moderating effect on the bills that are put into play.
Re:Lord Phillips (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Lord Phillips (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Lord Phillips (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Lord Phillips (Score:3, Informative)
That's fair comment, but it's worth pointing out the first elected parliament was instigated by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, in England in 1265. So arguably modern parliamentary democracy was invented by someone with a peerage
Re:Lord Phillips (Score:3, Insightful)
It really better to look at the substance of what people say rather than peg them to a stereotype.
Re:Lord Phillips (Score:5, Informative)
The closest parallel I can think of would be one of your Chief Justices... They provide some oversight on Parliament's legislation, tend to be less bound by party politics and rarely bothered by winning votes.
Personally, given the parlous state of your nation, I'd think twice about throwing jibes around about democracy.
rejecting laws repugnant to principles (Score:2, Insightful)
Lord Phillips of Sudbury == good (Score:2, Interesting)
Won't work.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Our Beloved government... (Score:2, Informative)
It is widely acknoweledged that many of these laws are badly thought out and despite the attempts of the House of Lords to revise them, they are actually inneffectual and sometimes impossible to enforce by both the Police and the Courts.
This is one of those laws.
There was huge amounts of SPIN associated with its passage through parliament. Sort of like "This law will save the world"
Now, just a
Re:Our Beloved government... (Score:2)
Suggested compromise (Score:2)
The entire family has this problem. (Score:2, Funny)
With such a surname, this might be a problem that everyone in this family might run into.
implications for programming. (Score:2, Funny)
Why not... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why not... (Score:2)
Hidden TrueCrypt Volumes (Score:2)
If a 16GB volume reveals only ~1mb of racy pics after you meet their decryption demands, you can bet they'll apply some force towards determining the probability of hidden contents being present after the outer container is revealed. How strong is the deniability of having further data present?
Re:Hidden TrueCrypt Volumes (Score:2)
As comapred to the US? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe it's the history of the British fight against the IRA, but it seems to me that the British people have been a little more tolerant of state intrusion than Americans. What I infer is happening now is that the overboard Orwellianism of the current British government is reaching a tipping point where a lot of Brits are wondering, "How much is too much?".
Unfortunately, in the US, I think we're nowhere close to that tipping point yet... and quite honestly, I'm not sure that a majority of the public is aware of how little freedom[1] they have, nor of how long it will take for that mindset to change.
At any rate, It's good to see that someone is vocally taking a stance (won't happen by a major figure in the US; too much conserative/moderate vote-pandering -- heaven forbid you're 'weak on terra').
[1] Besides the obvious encroachments on our traditional liberties, what about the freedom to elect whom we choose? Corporate sponsorship of candidates, the two-party system; these all contribute to mass disenfranchisement (never mind about vote tabulation fraud and individual disenfranchisements).
Re:As comapred to the US? (Score:3, Interesting)
You left out the biggest one of them all -- gerrymandering. I don't have the cite handy, but I'm pretty sure that somewhere well north of 80% of all federal offices are gerrymandered in the USA.
Re:As comapred to the US? (Score:2)
Re:As comapred to the US? (Score:3, Informative)
This works for and against the British. Politicians, knowing that they will receive leniency, are more inclined to abuse power. So there's a vast amount of low-grade abuse. But actual high-grade in-your-face abu
Simple enough (Score:3, Informative)
One password decrypts to unimportant data, the other provides your true payload.
Then when they demand your password, you give them the first one. You have met the law and have plausible deniability.
jail anyone (Score:4, Insightful)
(1) Grab someone's computer.
(2) Find a binary file containing more-or-less random data, or pick an image on their machine and claim it has stegonometric data embedded in it.
(3) Demand the password for this "data".
(4) Jail the "miscreant" when he claims he doesn't know.
Is this wrong? (Score:2)
Re:Is this wrong? (Score:2)
I think this is an important point. An awful lot of legislation that goes into our books is badly thought out, but worse, is usually already covered by existing legislation. And as you point out, at the end of the day, a court can insist on you decrypting your data and if you refuse, you risk contempt of court (which is far more serious than it sounds).
Re:Is this wrong? (Score:2)
Re:Is this wrong? (Score:2, Insightful)
And how is that different from the police searching your home with a warrant? Suppose they found a murder weapon in your home that you knew of? Is "allowing" them to search thus incriminating yourself as well? No. Self incrimination only refers to speech under oath. Further, you can be compelled to self-incriminating speech (here in the US) u
Re:Is this wrong? (Score:2)
Indeed, and that's exactly why the proposed law is a bad thing. Every unnecessary law removes some freedom, imposes some burden, is prone to some misuse and may ultimately lead to unintended consequences. As hard as it is to get a law passed, it is a million times harder to have a law removed, and becomes exponentially harder with time.
It's such an important point that I'll
Deviant alternative (Score:2, Informative)
Stupid laws, not so stupid people (Score:2)
As I was saying elsewhere [reddit.com], the UK has a history of passing stupid laws, and then having the rest of the country ignore or bypass them.
For example, we have a law saying that all schools must provide daily worship of a predominantly Christian nature. Over three-quarters of schools in the country are simply breaking the law [bbc.co.uk] or finding loopholes [bbc.co.uk]. As a result, the law is being relaxed [bbc.co.uk], and will probably be disposed of entirely before long.
If you are approaching this from an American perspective, where b
Exactly... (Score:2)
Here in the UK, we will follow the law, unless it's inconvenient (speed limits), unpopular (drug laws), badly thought-out (foxhunting ban) or merely obscure (did you know that all men in England are required to practice archery for an afternoon a week? Not required in Scotland, Wales or NI, and possibly repealed in England now).
False payload encryption (Score:2, Interesting)
Why would anyone give over? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why would anyone give over? (Score:3, Informative)
Whereas Gary Glitter was apparently sentenced to four months [wikipedia.org] for possession of child porn.
That being said, it's probably rather easier to resume a normal life if your CV reads "3 years in prison for not complying with an RIPA demand" rather than "4 months in prison for possessing indecent pictures of small children".
Warrant Canaries (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt [rsync.net]
They have a statement, updated weekly, that says that they have never been served a warrant.
Their reasoning is that they can be forced to not inform their userbase that a warrant has been issued, but they believe that they cannot be forced to continue updating the canary page. As such if the page stops updating, we can assume that they either got lazy or were served a warrant.
Constitutionality (Score:2)
If such a thing is really constitutional, then it should also be constitutional to demand that anyone accused of murder turn over the body or imprision them forever in contempt of court. You'd just better pray that you actually did commit the murder, or you may never get out.
Double Decryption Key (Score:2)
Misread the title (Score:3, Funny)
At first, I read the title as "Backlash Against British Encryption Law Against British Law". The sad part is, I wasn't surprised.
Re:Heinous? (Score:3, Interesting)
There were some figures in the guardian today showing most girls in the UK lost their virginity at 15/16, whereas for boys it was 6 months - 1 year later. Presumably reflecting delayed sexual development.
if ~ 1/3 of UK girls are losing their virginity at 15 then thats an awful lot of statutory rape.
Re:Heinous? (Score:2)
Re:Heinous? (Score:5, Informative)
Um, what? This thread is about a UK law, and thus has nothing to do with the American First amendment.
Re:Heinous? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Heinous? (Score:3, Insightful)
if somebody say a child at 12 consent to have sex with him/her, i would be very worrying, but if it's a 15, i'd be a lot less worrying, and at 17 i think him/her would be mature enough. it's not the existence of an age limit that's important, but it's the actual valu
Re:Fifth amendment (Score:2)
yea i hate to point it out.. but i think we don't have one either
Re:Fifth amendment (Score:2)
Re:Securing power and control, not liberty... (Score:2)
I know.
Just look how quickly and effectively we put down the pan-Islamist uprising in Iraq.
Re:Securing power and control, not liberty... (Score:2)
Re:Securing power and control, not liberty... (Score:3)
Re:Securing power and control, not liberty... (Score:3, Interesting)
One wonders at what point such "laws of the land" become "illegal orders", which military personnel are *obligated* to disobey.