Encrypted Messaging Apps Face New Scrutiny Over Possible Role in Paris Attacks

Re:Encrypted Messaging Apps Face New Scrutiny Over Possible ... by x5n1 on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @01:23AM (#10579471)

There may come a time soon where the violence is widespread enough to actually justify this level of invasion of privacy. The threat of these sorts of attacks is increasing and if countries like Pakistan are any clue, it's simply not possible to ignore it and say everything will be fine because only a small portion of the population is involved. That small portion can wreak havoc and must be managed and surveillance is the right tool to do just that. It's by far better than any other method of dealing with the problem... and it does allow for surgical precision as long as the authorities don't use it instead to go after other crime, which they inadvertently do.

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Re:Encrypted Messaging Apps Face New Scrutiny Over Possible ... by terryf on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @01:42AM (#10579527)

It has almost never been a safer time to live in Europe than it is now. Look at crime rates, they are dropping everywhere. Homicide is down, robberies are down. Terrorist attacks happen so rarely that they almost don't count. The number of people killed in traffic accidents in the USA on the same day of the Paris attacks is almost the same as the number of people killed by terrorists. I'm sorry to be so cold, but they didn't even manage to make a dent in the stats graph.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_European_Unio...

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Re:Encrypted Messaging Apps Face New Scrutiny Over Possible ... by tomjen3 on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @03:08AM (#10579792)

And if I was Spock I might care about that kind of argument. As it happens, people care far more about the feeling of safety than safety and believe me that feeling tanked after Paris.

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Re:Encrypted Messaging Apps Face New Scrutiny Over Possible ... by andreyf on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @03:24AM (#10579828)

There are other ways of addressing feelings of safety that don't involve giving up liberties.

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Re:Encrypted Messaging Apps Face New Scrutiny Over Possible ... by inopinatus on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @01:53AM (#10579561)

The issue isn't whether the invasive surveillance is acceptable or not.

The issue is that it won't work. If you introduce mandatory backdoors into any commercial messaging system, it will not be used; the Bad Guys(tm) will simply return to using open source crypto, like pgp-over-whatever that we've had for decades.

I.e. if strong crypto is outlawed, then only outlaws will have strong crypto.

The intelligence agencies know this. Anyone pushing for backdoors in the name of counter-terrorism is either a fool or a liar.

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Re:Encrypted Messaging Apps Face New Scrutiny Over Possible ... by LoSboccacc on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @01:58AM (#10579574)

https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2006/05/the_eternal...

Here, read and understand.

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Re:Encrypted Messaging Apps Face New Scrutiny Over Possible ... by aianus on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @01:29AM (#10579486)

> The threat of these sorts of attacks is increasing

Any data to back that up? 9/11 was by far the worst and that was 14 years ago. Seems to me Islamic terrorism is hanging pretty steady at a 'virtually non-existent' level.

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Re:Encrypted Messaging Apps Face New Scrutiny Over Possible ... by x5n1 on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @01:35AM (#10579503)

Depends on which countries you are talking about, if you are talking about Western countries ... then yes... If you are talking about Muslim countries then no...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_%28non-state%29_terror...

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Re:Encrypted Messaging Apps Face New Scrutiny Over Possible ... by TeMPOraL on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @02:17AM (#10579635)

Well, but if the East has problems with terrorist attacks, then there's exactly zero reason why the West should be giving up their liberties because of that.

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Re:Encrypted Messaging Apps Face New Scrutiny Over Possible ... by PavlovsCat on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @03:07AM (#10579788)

Maybe we could start with low hanging fruit like Bush and Blair going to jail? Let's talk about "catching" people once we started not being complete hypocrites. Many of the major crimes in the world are well documented, and the perpetrators are known.

Besides, mass surveillance in itself is an attack on human rights, and as such not terribly useful for defending human rights. Maybe if it could avert millions of murders each year, we could talk about it. But with it averting nearly nothing, it's like cutting off your arm because you have an ink stain on your finger.

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Re:Encrypted Messaging Apps Face New Scrutiny Over Possible ... by nickysielicki on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @01:38AM (#10579512)

You're so afraid. I genuinely pity you. I don't mean that as a personal attack, I'm just saying I can't imagine living life with that much anxiety. I think you should watch less mainstream news.

Personally, I'd rather die free than live surveilled. You can call me young and naive and say my principles just haven't had time to be challenged. I don't care. I stand by this completely and don't apologize for it. Freedom is the basis for a meaningful life.

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