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.'"
Re:Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism? (Score:2, Interesting)
Lord Phillips of Sudbury == good (Score:2, Interesting)
Why not... (Score:4, Interesting)
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: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.
False payload encryption (Score:2, Interesting)
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:Lord Phillips (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's another thing to be afraid of hunters (Score:1, Interesting)
Those things are illegal. Don't do them. I don't.
All of these are necessary for the functioning of our society in some way or another, but are illegal.
No. It's not necessary to lie, to cheat, or to steal to be a functional part of society. In fact, it's frowned upon in civilized circles.
Yet we would go batshit insane without a few personal pet vices
How can you claim to be sane if you're claiming to break the laws with a clear conscience? If you follow only the rules you like, how are you any better than a criminal? Society is based on a single, unwavering principle: the rules are the same for everybody.
If you think you should be able to break the rules with impunity, well, why shouldn't someone who dislikes you be able to break, say, your kneecaps with impunity? After all, if you can break the rule of law, why not them?
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.
Re:Is this wrong? (Score:2, Interesting)
I think you misunderstood 'this forces you to incriminate yourself'. He wasn't talking about the search, but the requirement you hand over your keys.
And actually it's a pretty good arguement that's been ignored for some bullshit reason.
Let's compare two things:
1. Evidence of a crime in real life (bloody gloves)
2. Evidence of a crime on a computer (documents implimenting me in a fraud)
The police cannot make me tell them where to find 1. The best encryption analogy is, if I have them locked in a unknown safety deposit box, they can't make me tell them which one. This counts as 'incrimination', and I don't have to do it. It doesn't matter than they don't have time to search each one in each bank.
Forcing me to give them 2, by the same logic, must also count as incrimination.
Now, I forget what the UK's rule in that respect is, but I'm pretty certain they can't normally be compelled to testify either. The problem is, that might just be a law, and hence this law could trivially override it.
Re:Securing power and control, not liberty... (Score:2, Interesting)
When has 50+% of the population ever fought in a revolutionary war? That certainly didn't happen during the American Revolution. During the American Revolution, at most 10% of the population fought against the British (see here [wikipedia.org] for the number of men who fought and here for the population figures).
It would take the participation of a lot more civilians to stand even the remotest of chances against a modern military. Remember: they can't just survive (as the Iraqi insurgents have), they have to defeat the sitting government. The latter is a much, much harder task.
For a revolution against a sitting government to succeed, the revolutionaries would have to get a large part of the government's military on their side.
Store Encrypted Information with Trusted Entity (Score:2, Interesting)
To get a little philosophical, the sad part is that like every tool/technology mankind is blessed with, it can be used for both good and evil. But, it is NEVER the right answer to attack the tool/technology. The only thing we can do is to correct the problems that cause individuals to use the given tool/technology for evil rather than good.
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.
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: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 clue what the House of Commons are actually trying to do.
I'm as much pro-democracy as the next man, but when the UK has to rely on a (primarily) hereditary system to look out for the gov giving itself infinite power, we should start worrying.
It reminds me a little of Zaphod Beeblebrox - the Lords are not elected, and therefore do not have to strive for votes. The MP's in the House of Commons however actually seek their posts instead of being born into them, and therefore must continually strive to retain their positions. Is this just another case of those who seek to posess power being the least capable of wielding it responsibly?