Message encryption a 'problem' – UK home secretary

Re:Message encryption a 'problem' – UK home secretary by DanBC on Tuesday August 01, 2017 @07:21AM (#14899542)

The PREVENT strategy could have been useful. But schools over-report (because that's the safest thing to do when you're compelled to report) and there doesn't seem to be sensible triage in place to filter out over-zealous referrals.

Here's an example of what the PREVENT agenda should be about: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2016/9.html

or this case: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/3171.html

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Re:Message encryption a 'problem' – UK home secretary by mtgx on Tuesday August 01, 2017 @11:16AM (#14901542)

> The PREVENT strategy could have been useful.

No, it couldn't have been. It's a mistake to believe that any prevention strategy will work on a large scale, and the reason is you'll always get too many false positives like that [1].

It's not just an issue with schools being too eager to report. It will happen in any scenario, including inside intelligence agencies if you force them to go after any "remotely potential terrorist". There will be thousands and thousands of false positives.

[1] - https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/data_mining_f...

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Re:Message encryption a 'problem' – UK home secretary by saimiam on Tuesday August 01, 2017 @02:55PM (#14904096)

> thousands and thousands of false positives.

Or, for Iraqis from 2003-2007, one truly egregious one.

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