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.