Two leading ladies of Europe warn that internet regulation is coming

Re: But Angela has a working brain...

Tory MP in homosessual tryst shocker. Not

Re: But Angela has a working brain...

A Ph.d. in Chemistry, while not likely to be a candidate for the Field's medal any time in the near future should have a high enough level of mathematical understand to grasp concepts such as factoring and coefficients. She might not understand the relationship of mersenne primes and polynomial based encryption mechanisms... but I'm pretty sure she has friends she respects who do.

I don't like Merkel... and with regard to politics, I don't particularly respect her. I suppose this is very likely because the leadership positions in Germany have demands which make people into assholes (where in most other countries, asshole is a prerequisite). But I do think she's competent. Theresa May shares the shit out of me and gives me nightmares. She's basically Donald Trump with an accent which sounds benign. I really think she should change her name to Umbridge and get herself some special quill pens.

Re: Logic Of Extra Monitoring

Re: false positives

I think you're kinda missing the point. No one is born a terrorist, it's something they're persuaded to do.

Can we tell who in a population of 50million has been persuaded? Well, you're right about that part, unless they've been incompetent their Internet browsing history won't betray them particularly.

The point is that when they have gone and done something, like stab a load of people in a pub or whatever, you then want to know who persuaded them to do it. You no longer care about the attacker themselves, they're likely dead.

So at this point you have a true positive - a dead attacker.

What the Internet then makes very difficult is finding out who they've been talking to, because it's that person you really want to find.

And the reason the Internet matters in all this is because persuasion needs communication, and that's either face to face, or over the 'net. They're not going to be using the phone, or the post, or pigeons...

Conflicting Requirements

The difficulty has always been that the Internet is trying to meet conflicting requirements. The first is to let good people do whatever the hell they like. The second is to stop bad people using it at all. The Internet can't tell the difference...

The situation the governments find themselves in is one where American social network companies are deliberately making the job of finding the persuaders impossible. You go to WhatsApp with a dead terrorist, an undeniably true positive, and WhatsApp refuse to cooperate (their end encryption doesn't mean they don't know the who-to-who).

That doesn't go down well. Not well at all.

And any elected and ruling politicians, who therefore have a responsibility for law and order, will then behave the same, no matter what European country or party they're from. They're gonna do something about it.

Not doing something about it is demonstrably electoral suicide (look at Spain and the Madrid bombings).

So they will pass stringent laws, impose fines, demand access, ban services; that's what politicians do. It's inevitable.

Adapt or Die?

What the social networks seem to be ignoring is that elected governments in Europe with clear majorities can and will pass such laws. Germany already has. If the companies don't adapt, they'll lose out.

So why not cave in a little, open up a little? Answer: it won't wash well in the US... That's the risk of trying to run a global network and impose a US themed moral mono-culture on everyone else.

Re: How to evolve a smarter criminal in easy steps

"where neighbour reports on neighbour"

But that's exactly what NSA and GCHQ and their friends have been doing for 20 years and more, in effect: traffic analysis of metadata tells them who talks to who, with no need to break encryption. And the worst bad people not being stupid, they aren't going to use any kind of encryption that's subject to a back door attack for the stuff that really matters. You might want to watch the documentary "A Good American".

Agencies looking for bad people don't need to break encryption, but the Thought Police need to break encryption, which is why this is very scary. See you in the Chestnut Tree Cafe.

Re: How to evolve a smarter criminal in easy steps

The idiots will continue to be encouraged into being idiots too.

Cannon-Fodder for the security forces who will convince themselves they're doing a blinding job while the real terrorists get on with the real work.

We keep being told how many plots are foiled compared to the 'few' that succeed. But what if they're the ones that are supposed to be foiled?

Yes, we "need" them again.....

the "Blockwarts" and "IMs". German Stasi will looks like a kindergarden if we go down this road further....

Re: How to evolve a smarter criminal in easy steps

>Driving the issue off the internet, for terrorism, means physical monitoring approaches, and this is vastly more expensive that internet monitoring.

Terrorism was never on the internet.

It is simple and its low-tech, because that is reliable. Given that nearly all terrorism is Islamic, they tend not to worry about surviving. People willing to die a almost impossible to stop. Smarter terrorists are not required for effective terrorism.

Terrorists are like celebrities. The only thing worst than being hurt is being ignored.

Re: Blasphemy

I thought they wanted to ban gays from having abortions.