UK Home Secretary says encryption on messaging services is unacceptable - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-security-rudd-idUSKBN16X0BE <comment><USER3> We're a very long way from being a totalitarian state and likely to remain so for quite some time but, make no mistake, this is the thin end of a very long and ultimately very fat wedge. It therefore behooves us well to hold the government to account when they try to get us to swallow more of that wedge.

Sure, encryption helps terrorists as well as ordinary citizens but it's my belief that freedom and privacy are more important than that. The work of police and security services has never been easy in a free society, but protecting and upholding that free society is the very essence of the job. Dilution of that freedom is therefore counter to the purpose for which these agencies exist, and so when the government tries to move in that direction we, as citizens, should voice our resistance, and keep voicing it until they understand.

<comment><USER4> Every time a person in a position of power calls for the intentional weakening of cryptographic systems - be it via backdoors, limits on key length or whatever, I long for a gutsy interviewer to ask them - preferably live - whether they advocate that position out of ignorance or malice.

There really aren't many other alternatives.

<comment><USER5> I believe they do it because they've been elected to do so.

It takes too much to reply: "Tell you what, I'm going to educate you better instead". Because you can educate all you want, you will not have results that helps your re-election 4-5 years down the road.

<comment><USER6> No properly-informed voter would want this kind of legislation.

<comment><USER7> "No true Scotsman..."

I have a feeling that some top level FBI people are properly informed, but still want this kind of legislation.

<comment><USER8> Simply because it wouldn't apply to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Amber Rudd is the UK's Home Secretary not just any minister.

"We need to make sure that our intelligence services have the ability to get into situations like encrypted Whatsapp."

She has said she is "calling in" technology companies this week to try to "deliver a solution".

Marr asks if they refuse to do that, will you legislate to force them to change? She's not drawn on that.

Interview is here:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08l62r7/the-andrew- mar...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08l62r7/the-andrew-marr- show-26032017) [from 45:18]

I understood that UK IP Bill already mean that she already has the ability to e.g. demand a backdoored version of Whatsapp be sent to a target device, but that's not covered in the interview.

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/30/investigatory_power...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/30/investigatory_powers_act_backdoors/)

<comment><USER10> UK's best shot at surviving Brexit is become stronger on value added industries. They have a very good head start over any other EU country in IT and in some research areas.

Amber Rudd seems hell bent on destroying their only chance.

<comment><USER11> They all are intent on crippling any chance the UK has at becoming stronger in high tech industries.

I'm so sick of getting "this is an adult resource and you can't view it" anytime I search for information about a drug (pharmaceutical, not just "weed LSD and lols").

Great fucking way to encourage your future chemists. Maybe ban keywords like JavaScript, PHP and SQL while at it, them's the powerful drugs maaan.

<comment><USER12> > _I 'm so sick of getting "this is an adult resource and you can't view it" > anytime I search for information_

Switch ISP, or contact your current one to disable this. They don't all do it by default, or at all.

<comment><USER13> As far as I'm aware all new accounts in the U.K. do this unless you call to have it disabled (and give personal information). I mean, how else would you protect the children...

<comment> k-mcgrady >> As far as I'm aware all new accounts in the U.K. do this unless you call to have it disabled (and give personal information).

Usually you can have it disabled while you sign up (and they usually ask if you want it). As for giving personal info - they're you're ISP. They have your name, address, billing details, have done a credit check...what else are they going to ask for that you haven't already supplied?

<comment><USER13> I can buy a 'burner' SIM when landing at Heathrow without giving any information - paying in cash. However, to disable the content filter requires giving up personal information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I watched Amber Rudd interviewed by Andrew Marr this morning and the scariest thing about it was that Marr completely agreed with her. Rather than providing an opposing viewpoint and counteracting her points, he agreed with the idea that it was unacceptable for people to be allowed to use encryption and that it was terrible these companies were using it as a selling point. All he pushed her on was if she would enforce cooperation from tech companies.

<comment><USER15> This isn't all that surprising, given that the government has repeatedly threatened the BBC with the loss/alteration of their charter for being critical of the government and not sufficiently jubilant about Brexit. ITV owning the BBC would arguably be a greater disaster than watered down coverage.

For a corollary see the paucity of coverage on the mass demonstration in London yesterday.

<comment><USER16> It isn't all that surprising to me either. But for different reasons. They have no idea what they are talking about.

Do we think they know our online banking software uses the same kind of encryption? Probably not. Andrew Marr not knowing this is annoying. But an entire government being ignorant of it is deeply worrying.

<comment><USER17> Why do you think the government doesn't know? Why do you think they believe what they say?

This is just populist bullshit. It follows on from other populist bullshit.

<comment><USER16> I think they don't know because I've never seen any of them describe encryption in a way that would suggest they know what they are talking about.

I don't doubt that _someone_ in government knows. Probably an entry level staffer. But whenever technology comes up (such as blocking types of content from the internet) the policy is always utterly ham fisted.

<comment><USER18> I agree that the policies are always ham fisted, but I'm not sure how you could have a policy that achieves the goal of blocking specific "bad sites" _without_ it being ham fisted.

How would you achieve the goal of coming up with a non-ham fisted technical solution to a ham fisted problem?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How do they want to prevent someone from creating his own end-to-end encryption app? It may use other protocols to encode content (images, tweets, fb posts etc.).

For me it seems to be more in a direction of so called "Big Brother" than real counter-terrorism.

<comment><USER20> _How do they want to prevent someone from creating his own end-to-end encryption app?_

That's not an issue. Writing solid encryption software is very difficult on its own. You will hear "do not roll your own crypto" all the time from security experts. We don't live in a James Bond universe and it's beyond the reach of terrorist organisations.

<comment><USER21> You don't have to roll your own crypto to create an own end-to-end encryption app. You can use existing crypto. Writing a user interface around it is not so difficult.

Beyound the reach of the terrorist organisations? We have already seen pretty sophisticated operations by relatively small crime organizations (like exploiting pseudorandom generators in casino slot machines). There's an established black market for exploits. I think writing an end-to-end encryption app is not much more difficult compared to this. What's more, it will even be perfectly legal in many countries, meaning you could legally hire professionals to do the job. Terrorist organisations won't need to esablish a development office in SV to write the app, they will only need to know how to use Tor and wire money to the app producer. Which isn't such a huge competence to ask for.

<comment> loup-vaillant > _small crime organizations (like exploiting pseudorandom generators in > casino slot machines)_

If all you do is pushing the buttons of the slot machine in the right order with the right timing, that's hardly a crime —and I don't care about court judgements to the contrary. If a slot machine has a crappy pseudo random number generator, they're just asking for it. I'd rather sue the slot machine's _maker_ for providing a machine that's not fit for its intended purpose.

<comment><USER21> It is a crime as in "unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority". You are welcome to disagree, but I'd be interested in your definition of "crime" then.

<comment> loup-vaillant My point is, there is nothing wrong with pushing a slot machine's buttons, even if it is done in a way that defeats the RNG. The difference between this and counting cards in a game of Black Jack is, the RNG can easily be fixed to prevent this.

You provided it as an example of "organized crime", and doing so heavily suggests that it _is_ wrong.

We tend to conflate "wrong" and "unlawful", and for good reason: the law is supposed to prevent wrong things from being committed. There are exceptions however, and this is one of them. I'd rather use another example if possible.

<comment><USER21> My argument is that even small organized crime groups were capabale of sophisticated operations so it's absolutely not far-fetched to assume that they may be able to implement end-to-end encryption apps. Whether this "organized crime" is "wrong" does not make much difference. It might be even easier to find people to implement it as not many would have moral issues.

Speaking of moral issues, cheating on casino is pretty much off limits on my personal moral compass. That the attack was possible within the normal mode of operation does not make it less of a fraud. Imagine if the casino would reverse-engineer a slot machine and find a way to abuse it within the normal mode of operation, making odds (even more) in their favor. That would be fraud, plain and simple, and I don't see why a player should be held to a different standard.

You are absolutely right, not everything unlawful is wrong. But I fail to see which benefit we as a society would have by allowing exploitation of technical deficiencies in slot machines for profit. It is a crime and it is wrong in my book.

<comment> loup-vaillant OK, so our disagreement is very simple: exploiting the flaws of a slot machine is not cheating in my book. Neither is counting cards now that I think of it.

The rules for slot machines are ostensibly very simple. As long as you're only pushing the buttons that are supposed to be pushed without deteriorating them, you are acting within the rules of the slot machine, and as such _cannot_ cheat.

The presence of hidden rules such as "don't push the buttons in this particular order and timing", or "don't push the buttons in a way that reliably causes you to win", are just silly and unfair. Especially considering casinos are exploiting gamblers' minds in the first place. Don't like slot machine exploiters? Fix your slot machines.

Likewise for counting cards: the player is merely acting upon information naturally gathered buy observation and play. Asking players not to act upon such information is intrusive —and unheard of in competitive play. Don't like card counters? Invest in a continuous shuffling machine.

<comment><USER21> "The presence of hidden rules..." except they are not hidden. IANAL and don't have link at hand, but there was recently a legally pretty well based argument in a case of a player who had an assitant able of recognizing cards from the back pattern.

"you're only pushing the buttons" except they were not only pushing a button, they were also recording sequences and sending them abroad for analysis.

But as you directly say that exploiting the flaws of a slot machine is not cheating and that it's fair, I guess I won't be able to persuade you otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> We hear most terrorists ate with forks so all forks are now banned.

Also, we were shocked to discover that virtually ALL criminals rely on something called Oxygen to perform their work so this is now a controlled substance that will be heavily regulated.

We were then terrified to learn that after banning forks, terrorists were able to successfully eat with spoons or even their hands.

/s

Seriously, you cannot ban tools. Lawmakers have to approach this with a firm grounding in statistics (how LIKELY is a risk, relative to the magnitude of the measures to prevent it?). They also have to realize that some things are just necessary for society to function. Stop being paranoid.

<comment><USER23> More to the point, terrorists lock their doors! We need to ban deadbolts!

<comment><USER24> Seriously though. Next step would be to force people to install locks that have a master key that only intelligence services have and can only use for good reasons.

If you're ok with encryption back doors you should also be ok with govt master keys for all your stuff (house, car, bank account, etc)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So they get a backdoor into WhatsApp and terrorists just move onto some other non-compromised tool. Rinse and repeat. You can't ban maths ffs.

TBH I am surprised attackers do not better destroy their electronic equipment just before they carry out their attack. Pop your phone and SSD/flash drives in the microwave on high for a few minutes is pretty much going to destroy all evidence on them, and if not then chances are you are dead anyway so whatever data they might be able to get off will most likely be useless to them anyway.

<comment><USER26> It's in the interest of the terrorists to get WhatsApp banned.

Terrorists just use something else while the populace feels gradually more oppressed/controlled/...

In a way they get something for nothing.

<comment><USER27> I think this is not about terrorists (that is just a side effect), but for state ability to know what people think and talk about. That is very powerful thing to have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> >Referring to Whatsapp's system of end-to-end encryption, she said: "It is completely unacceptable. There should be no place for terrorists to hide.

Thats it guys. Mommy says no more maths.

<comment><USER29> > "It is completely unacceptable. There should be no place for terrorists to > hide."

Agreed. I'm terrorized when I hear gov representatives talking like that. Who's the terrorist, I wonder.

<comment><USER30> I seem to remember in pre-inet news, rogue actors with mental disorders seldom made national headlines. Now an individual with no affiliation with organized hate-based groups and some twisted logic can dream of international recognition for their actions if they manage to fulfill loose criteria under the "terrorists" FUD umbrella. Dead or alive, they want to be significant in some way different from their previously banal existence, consequences be damned.

<comment><USER31> I was discussing this with friends. The fact that people are acting in the name of Islam and there is a common ideology behind the attacks is why they are considered "terrorism" rather than lone wold attacks. Admittedly this one seems to be somewhere in between. Mass shootings in the US by contrast, do seem to be done by rouge actors in general, and there doesn't seem to be a common element to such attacks. As with everything such definitions aren't black and white and more of a sliding scale, so can be interpreted differently depending on your viewpoint.

<comment><USER32> No common element in US attacks? I think in the majority of cases that's just not true. People weren't killed, but the PizzaGate shooter was motivated by what can only be described as a large cult of a particular persuasion, Planned Parenthood shooter certainly had his political motives, Charleston shooter had motives that have existed in the US almost continuously, Oregon standoff were all anti-government types, I could go on and on. I would say the main difference is we are not actively at war with people that share their faith or look like them overseas. As far as I'm aware the Boston bombers and Orlando shooter were only inspired by, but received no support from groups such as ISIS. In that way they were just as self-radicalized as Dylan Roof the Charleston shooter.

Obviously it's all more complicated than I could quickly write, but to me there's a big difference between the self-radicalized generally disconnected persons in the US or U.K. versus those on the ground overseas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The British gov is looking more and more like the Finger from V for Vendetta. The US president more and more like the one from Idiocracy. That we tend to live up to caricatures should be an alarming sign, but I only see worries on sites like HN. Most people still don't see the catastrophy in it.

<comment><USER18> _> I only see worries on sites like HN. Most people still don't see the catastrophy in it._

I'm not in the US. I have actually been very impressed by the outspoken actions of anti-Trump people in the US, with the massive protests and constant (well-deserved) media scrutiny. Also I never knew I could have so much respect for Hawaiian judges.

Why they didn't bother to vote is beyond me, though. Trump is a buffoon, but he was able to successfully motivate other buffoons to actually vote.

I did hear the description of their vote as being force to choose "between a disaster and a catastrophe" though, so that might go some way to explaining it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> If I may ask a very naive question: Do politicians like her really think encryption is dangerous or is it a devious way to expand mass surveillance?

Attacks of the past have shown that terrorists don't have a need to resort to encryption. The people involved in the Berlin attack last year, for instance, were monitored. Authorities knew they would strike but they didn't have sufficient incriminating evidence that would count in court to lock those guys up.

Even if encryption on messaging services were forbidden (which would make millions of law abiding people vulnerable in some way), terrorists could use throwaway email accounts from internet cafés and wrap their messages in password protected attachments.

<comment><USER35> > really think encryption is dangerous or is it a devious way to expand mass > surveillance

The latter her and the precious home secretary (now PM) have been banging on about how under threat we are from the terrorist hoards for years now - all so they can erode freedoms and increase mass surveillance under the guise of 'keeping Britain safe'.

The idea that banning encryption of private conversations will prevent these few crazy people from causing damage is of course ridiculous.

<comment><USER18> It's an interesting question though, isn't it.

They _must_ know enough to know that this won't actually fix the problem, so I would have to surmise that they are just trying to do _something_ and stay somehow relevant before their term comes to an end.

"Never mind the collateral damage, I'll be retired on a government pension by then."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It would help the UK government's argument if they didn't grossly abuse every single surveillance power they have: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/25/british- counci...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/25/british-councils- used-investigatory-powers-ripa-to-secretly-spy-on-public)

</comment><comment><USER37> Coming from the same government that wants all ISPs to keep a log of all the sites you visit. These people are beasts and as dangerous, if not more, as the perils they are supposed to save us from.

If people knew the damage these idiots do, they would be in the streets.

Oh wait, they already are in the streets...

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm surprised it took this long for her to bring up the subject – Theresa May would've had her soundbites prepared in advance and released within hours of the attack if she was still Home Sec.

> That is my view - it is completely unacceptable

You know what else is completely unacceptable? Technologically illiterate, authoritarian jobsworths capitalising on tragedy to push through their agendas. But that's just my view.

Home Office always seems to attract the nastiest and dumbest of politicians, but this is a whole new level of dumb, and sadly will only gain her more support, because the general public either have no idea about the implications of backdoored crypto, or simply don't have any expectation of privacy and are happy to give up what little they have left in order to feel safe.

<comment><USER39> Sure she'll get support and they may even be stupid enough to attempt to enact this stuff. But rest assured there'll be a massive backlash from big business and various political fallouts from the scandals that will ensue.

Then some genius will come up with what's essentially an "encryption is illegal for terrorists" bill and we'll have the best of both worlds: full use of encryption where we need it, whilst the terrorists can't use it because it's illegal!!

<comment><USER40> Yeah that'll be totally humane, just like how it's illegal to commit crimes while wearing body armor in most of the US! Or like how street dealers and felons aren't allowed to carry guns or vote! We are being declawed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> It is the duty of the Home Secretary (and the UK's various nosey institutions - e.g. intelligence agencies, police, etc) to continuously badger us for this information - unfortunately, it's pretty much part of the job description.

It is our duty, as the public, to continuously say "no".

Disregarding any negative consequences, their motivations are pretty transparent - there's little doubt that being able to read everyone's private messages will enable the intelligence services to better do their jobs. However, as Edward Snowden and others have already shown to us many times over the last few years, the UK government can't be trusted with this responsibility - and that this is probably the thin end of the wedge. Britain is already the closest thing that Europe has to a surveillance state, and the number of people killed in the UK by terrorism is vanishingly small - we are hundreds of times more likely to die in a car accident. Is it really worth giving up the last vestiges of our privacy for a little bit more security?

<comment><USER42> _is the duty of the Home Secretary (and the UK 's various nosey institutions - e.g. intelligence agencies, police, etc) to continuously badger us for this information - unfortunately, it's pretty much part of the job description._

On the contrary. The Home Secretary is literally the holder of the ministerial authority that is required for police and security services to use a lot of the powers they have, and is supposed to be providing oversight and ensuring that those powers are used responsibly.

Unfortunately, that means the Home Secretary spends several hours every day just looking at cases presumably involving some very nasty people. You have to wonder how _anyone_ could keep a balanced perpsective if they're doing that for 20, 30, 40 hours every week for months or years. Everyone who becomes HS in the UK turns into a severe authoritarian within a few months of taking the job, regardless of their prior political views or how reasonable they might be about other matters.

<comment><USER41> Perhaps I phrased it poorly - what I meant was that one can view the Home Secretary's requests for less privacy as a fact of life (just as death and taxes), and could consider refusing these requests as part of civic duty. You're correct, the HS usually turns somewhat authoritarian (regardless of whether it is their job to or not) - it is simply the public's duty to resist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> In the 1970s, an American president had to resign because of some bugs planted.

Now, private conversation is illegal.

I guess it leads to "ownlife".

</comment><comment><USER44> > She said it was a case of getting together "the best people who understand > the technology, who understand the necessary hashtags"

Our Government is an absolute disgrace; and unfortunately, one to which there is currently no credible, strong opposition.

(from [https://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewchampion/necessary- hashtags](https://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewchampion/necessary-hashtags))

<comment><USER45> If you are referring to the current state of the Labour party then that's irrelevant. Even when Labour were "strong" opposition, or were in power with large majorities, they have had very authoritarian positions on this kind of thing.

Labour were supporters of the recent IP Bill (it actually applied restrictions to some of the crazy powers the last Labour government gave to the police, which gives you an indication of their general position on these things). Labour have had authoritarian positions on crime and policing issues since Blair became shadow Home Secretary (1992). It has been part of their 'tough on crime' strategy of attacking the Conservatives from the right since that point and was a core part of the New Labour strategy.

The only thing a "stronger" Labour opposition would get you in this situation is a parliament even more united in support for restrictions on encryption.

<comment><USER46> It's a damn shame as a Communist myself to agree with Labour on various issues, but so vehemently disagree with them on the abstention or even outright support of spying bills.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> It's an incredibly foolish thing for a minister to suggest. She demonstrates a complete lack of understanding on the subject and has commited political seppuku. Has she never read Orwell, Huxley, seen articles about tyrannical governments or even heard about the reasons the US constitution was drawn up?

<comment> grey-area _has commited political seppuku_

Since the current prime minister supports her, I doubt it. It's an absurd position, but not without support in the current administration, just like her outspoken views on immigration.

<comment><USER35> > Since the current prime minister supports her

And, I'm sorry to say, a large chunk of the public, who have for years been force fed rubbish from politicians and the media alike about the huge terrorist threat that threatens to destroy our country (when in reality just about anything else you can think of is more of a threat than the odd crazy with a knife and car...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Poorly timed opportunism. Police have said the attacker acted alone, so he wasn't using encrypted comms to talk to anyone.

<comment><USER49> I really hate this "going dark" narrative.

They can track his purchases via his debit card, his movements via CCTV + cell tower records, intercept his emails... but there's one bit of his digital life that's inaccessible and we're "going dark?"

We are burning bright with data. More data does not necessarily mean less terrorism.

The English might be better served by posting some armed officers in high value areas. The French do this at major train stations and tourist spots like the Eiffel Tower. This doesn't stop terrorism, but vastly reduces the body count.

Frankly, I think it's laughable that countries which resisted the Nazis will let 10 people dying make them consider rolling back civil liberties.

<comment> ryan-c I posted about this on twitter this morning, and it seems appropriate to repeat it here:

For most of history, governments have not had the ability to easily monitor the communications of their citizens. Widely available, user friendly encryption tools are just returning us to normal. Well, except for the massive trail of metadata everyone now leaves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> There are a few reasons to laugh at her position.

* The UK government leads the "free world" in ignoring its own warrant process, and pursuing a "collect it all" strategy for commsec. UK citizens have no reason to trust that their government, given such access, would not abuse it. They've abused all their other access thus far.

* Privacy and Security help normal citizens and criminals alike. This is as true for a locked front door as it is for an encrypted message. We grant governments the ability to violate privacy under warrant - they may snoop, spy, enter our homes, and read our mail. We do not grant them the ability to violate security, however. They still have to pick the lock, steam the envelope, and crack the safe. These are important distinctions. We do not engineer a backdoor into all encrypted messages, for the same reason we don't mandate a government master key for all doors.

* The idea that you can legislate math out of existence is a joke.

There is one reason to cry at her position.

* They will eventually legislate this way anyway.

</comment><comment><USER51> "He sent an encrypted message from whatsapp"

Yes, and then he went and did something stupid with easily accessible tools and acted alone.

You _might_ have an argument if he was part of a coordinated attack against something but lone-wolf terrorism has always been defined as unpreventable by security services such as SIS. Once radicalised it's impossible to prevent individuals doing stupid stuff.

The only thing she has revealed his the conservative parties desire for totalitarian control. :(

<comment><USER52> > _You might have an argument if he was part of a coordinated attack_

No.

Even ignoring the erosion of privacy angle, this just doesn't work. Outlaw encryption, and only outlaws will use encryption. Provide government backdoors into the popular commercial messaging apps, and people coordinating terror attacks will just use custom, unknown, private encrypted messaging apps.

<comment><USER51> I'm going to play devils advocate here, I also dislike the erosion of privacy (enough that I even left the UK).

But you _can_ make the argument that if only outlaws use encryption then they're painting a target on their back, which leads to greater scrutiny by security services.

This is reasonably achieved by the current dragnet surveillance systems in place, along with ISP's logging everything.

I don't agree with it, of course I don't, but that's probably an angle people could take- But the angle Amber Rudd took is even more starved of sense.

It's like she didn't ask the appropriate question: "What could we have done to prevent this attack" and the follow up "If we had direct access to his phone and all of his communication information, what could we have caught" and the answer is _nothing_. He used tools commonly available to him, acted alone, probably told nobody.

Anyway, tell the bad guys you're watching the comms and they'll figure out how to talk, they're motivated and smart.

<comment><USER53> "What could we have done to prevent this attack"

Actually there is a lot they could have done to help him in his obviously troubled life but that doesn't fit with conservative ideology.

<comment><USER51> We can't help everyone. It's naïve to think we can, 100% of the time, help all people.

Even the most socially progressive system on the planet will have people slipping through the cracks- we have to be able to deal with that eventuality too.

<comment><USER53> True but at the moment we have a particularly poor record of helping people with mental illness. This guy didn't slip through the cracks, he was totally ignored along with many others who are struggling.

<comment><USER17> There's absolutely no evidence he had mental illness, and you do harm to people with mental illness when you incorrectly link violent behaviour to mental illness.

More important is his time in prison - where most UK terrorists were radicalised - and if you were saying that UK prisons don't rehabilitate I'd agree.

<comment><USER54> Is brutal violence against others not associated with mental disturbation?

<comment><USER17> Violent people are violent. They may also have mental illness, but usually it's coincidental.

In this specific case there's no suggestion he had mental illness, and it's ignorant to suggest he did.

<comment><USER54> Violent people aren't violent because they are violent. There is an underlying cause for someone to use force against another, especially when it is socially unacceptable.

Perhaps it doesn't fit under the "common" mental illnesses of depression, anxiety, etc. but it lines up well with thought disorders. A sane and well person would not jeopardize themselves, and their fellow species.

<comment><USER55> > A sane and well person would not jeopardize themselves, and their fellow > species.

Sane (by the usual definition, though it's possible you are using an unusual definition of your own) people jeopardize themselves to harm other members of the species all the time.

In fact, societies tend to have organized groups of people who are expected to do this when the targets are enemies of the group, and who are honored for it; they also not infrequently honor people who independently do it against people theor society has decided are "the enemy".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Hmm, this definitely brings up an interesting discussion I don't think HN has had before, especially something in a similar vein since Apple+San Bernardino fiasco.

Obviously privacy is something that HN holds very close to its heart. But I'm interested in what do people here have to say about the privacy features are used by terrible people to do terrible things.

And I want to share something that I think is one of the best arguments for privacy, complete privacy. I do agree with this completely: [https://moxie.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to- hide/](https://moxie.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/)

<comment><USER57> Terrorism, and crime in general is a nuisance that we have to live with. You can have a society with no crime. All you need is a super repressive totalitarian state, total transparency with citizens reporting on each others, state surveillance everywhere. It will work. But first I don't want to live in such a state. And second these totalitarian states slide invariably toward corruption and state crimes.

So we have to live with some level of crime. It doesn't mean we shouldn't be tough on criminals, but we have to accept that it is not possible in a free society to reach zero criminality.

I think the paradox is that people are reasonably relaxed with some level of criminality but are absolutely intolerant to any form of terrorism. And this intolerance is a new phenomenon. Terrorism isn't new. There isn't more terrorism in Europe than 20 or 40 years ago. In fact a few months ago I compiled the number of incidents and victims from a wikipedia page [1]:

[https://zbpublic.blob.core.windows.net/public/Deads.png](https://zbpublic.blob.core.windows.net/public/Deads.png)

[https://zbpublic.blob.core.windows.net/public/Injured.png](https://zbpublic.blob.core.windows.net/public/Injured.png)

[https://zbpublic.blob.core.windows.net/public/Incidents.png](https://zbpublic.blob.core.windows.net/public/Incidents.png)

As you can tell, the 70s and 80s were rather more brutal, with far-left, IRA and Palestinian terrorism. And our democracies resisted much better the temptation to introduce more surveillance.

Now why have we become intolerant to terrorism? There are literally tens of thousands of knife attacks every year just in London. Most don't even make it to the local news. Why would this particular incident be treated as a state affair? Terrorism is the buzz of a mosquito. In itself pretty much harmless. But most people will not sleep in a room where they can hear the buzz. I don't have a good explanation. The only thing I can think of is the 24h news cycle where the media will make a big deal of anything that can push the audience up. But that doesn't explain everything. They do the same with plane crashes, but still repeat over and over that though spectacular, plane crashes are extremely rare and flying is extremely safe. Whereas when there is a terrorist attack, the message is "this could happen to YOU!"

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Europe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Europe)

<comment><USER58> > "... total transparency with citizens reporting on each others, state > surveillance everywhere."

Like this? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIuf1V1FhpY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIuf1V1FhpY)

(Tom Scott's "Oversight" from 2013)

<comment><USER59> That gave me actual shivers. I can't believe the general populace (especially in the USA and UK) fall for this garbage. The bread and circuses must be really good. Ok maybe just circuses, I think Trump wants to cut SNAP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> It's just reverse psychology.

They have the means to break, degrade or bypass the encryption and they emit statements like these so people remain confident that they're not being spied on.

This routinely happens after leaks reveal that certain type of traffic is being targeted. In this particular case, Wikileaks.

In the past after all the PRISM collusion was revealed, all the PRISM partners started their PR campaigns showing their "commitment to privacy", and the soap opera with law enforcement agencies claiming they couldn't decrypt devices. In reality they have many tricks they have used for years now, like setting up a fake cell antenna, impersonate a phone carrier to take over a device.

<comment><USER61> precisely. I was around when only hatters and nutjobs talked about echelon, getting ridiculed on internet and the outernet, only to be proven correct decades later

people have very short memory, it seems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> How can it be acceptable to say shit like this when you have such a position within the government.

<comment><USER63> Because we've accepted it. We know the government is watching us 24/7 and no one cares. This is the new norm.

Stories like this fill me with a slight bit of hope that encryption works

<comment><USER64> I wonder how they are not even busy explaining how this could happen with all that surveillance already in place. I mean no camera jumped down the pole to stop the car...

<comment><USER53> She did admit during the interview that these incidents couldn't be completely stopped.

<comment><USER64> The point is, that they can't be stopped at all.

There is a way to suspect someone may at some point, which is what the UK security apparatus is aiming for but this kind of profiling will end up being a psychological analysis of whole groups of the population. The results won't be great for any of us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> For two decades I've been waiting for popular support for a complete or at least Clipper-chip-style encryption ban in the "free world". It always was on the other far end of the spectrum, directly oppsite questions like IV/nonce choice, PRNG initialization flaws, RSA attack vectors. I have great fear for the freedom and living standard of my kids when I read these top-level news pieces. We stand a real test and we will have to argue against hatred, fear and terrorism. Let's just hope our leaders have no-nonsense advisors as well as those that inspire such news.

</comment><comment><USER66> This is a complete nonsense. Such move would simply encourage "bad guys" to find other means of secure communication while exposing everyone else.

</comment><comment><USER67> When you take away our freedom in order to stop terrorism, then the terrorists win. This is one guy in an estate car. Amber Rudd is not a democrat if she really believes this

</comment><comment><USER68> Best ban everything that can be misused by terrorists... cars, knives, encrypted messaging.

<comment><USER69> that's the blindspot isn't it ? What's the one common thing about recent terrorist acts ? Vehicles used as weapons. Yet nobody's calling for a ban on the use of vehicles

<comment><USER70> Even one level up... Since when is a crazy individual with a knife in a car a terrorist? He's just a crazy idiot and we should call him so. If this is modern day terrorism we have nothing to be worried about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Reading all of the comments I am deeply concerned. Everyone who is opposed to this is doing 'their side' a disservice.

Comments are about how stupid, or ill informed the Home Secretary and advisors are, or that they are being blackmailed by the intelligence services. Seriously? These kinds of comments are not going to get the broader public to support your ideals.

I think you misunderstand why she (and law enforcement) believe that they should have access to the messages. If the terrorist called someone they can get a warrant for the metadata and see who he called and whether it is relevant to the investigation. If the terrorist sent an SMS they can get a warrant for it. However, if the terrorist sends a WhatsApp message what can they get? Why should a WhatsApp message be treated different from an SMS?

That is what we as the tech community need to explain, why backdoors, weak encryption, and escrow are not a solution.

I value my privacy. I want my messages to be secure. But if the tech community keep acting like most of the comments on this, we will lose.

</comment><comment><USER72> So when they discover that he wrote and sent actual letters, will they then demand access to open our mail?

Also: Will breaking encryption stop a man grabbing a knife and jumping into his car? No.

<comment><USER73> > So when they discover that he wrote and sent actual letters, will they then > demand access to open our mail?

Except, like, with a warrant, they can already open our mail. That's a pre- existing power.

The difference is under the current legislation a warrant doesn't get them the ability to read WhatsApp conversations; that's the point of contention here, and the difference with the above is perceived to be the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> If the govt. was to force WhatsApp's hand, I'm sure we'd see democracy in action if they prevented everyone using the app for 24 hours, replacing the facility to message with a note telling users to contact their local MP (with clickable email / phone numbers - and maybe links to the ORG).

<comment><USER75> Or even just put a banner at the top of the app.

<comment><USER76> And then suddenly Facebook find themselves legally responsible for the things published on their platform, perhaps. They're not going to stand up to the government, they're in too weak a position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> By the same logic if we ban freedom of speech terrorism won't be able to speak with each other.

Seriously who voted these idiots.

</comment><comment><USER78> Well, she could start herself publishing all her emails, how can we know she isn't a covert terrorist?

</comment><comment><USER79> Even though the article mentions specifically about UK, there are many in the US who hold the same belief. If you want to ban encryption because terrorists might misuse it, what about Guns? Then it is a matter of "freedom".

</comment><comment><USER80> Dear minister, can I whisper in my wife's ear while having sex or do I have to get permission from government?

<comment><USER69> can I talk to myself using my inner monologue please ?

<comment><USER81> only if it involves something deemed legal by the Thought Police and the Party.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> Smartness should be banmed. They are too much of a problem! Everyday disruption disruption disruption...

Evolution should be banned too and all those books about biology or astronomy. God made it all!

</comment><comment><USER83> I morbidly curious how many terrorist attacks we are away from actual laws that will attempt to outlaw encryption as used by WhatsApp (even if it wouldn't make sense to do that). Resistance against such measures outside of the tech scene would probably be low. The "I've got nothing to hide" mentality is actually quite widespread among the population, so I don't even think it would be a risky move politically.

</comment><comment><USER84> I assume someone has already brought this up, but it is late and I can't read through 300 comments. From what I recall and have read, this individual has been on the radar of the security services since 2010 and so was a known potential threat. With a history of violence and criminal behavior. Yet effective monitoring of such individuals WAS NOT DONE and apparently isn't. Instead, there is this post-hoc demand that all of the public must give up their right to privacy because the idea of 'pre-crime' prevention is actually viable...

complete and utter bollocks.

So a blanket violation of law abiding citizens rights is more important than actually keeping tabs on known threats more closely and effectively. Pedophiles are viewed with less disdain than terrorists it seems. And the threat of terrorism is trumpeted to the heavens while pedophilia is apparently more rampant is UK society...

It is quite illogical that law abiding people suddenly snap and decide to drive their cars into groups of tourists. How prevalent are the actual potential terrorists - i.e. those with a history of violence, trouble with the law, radicalization, etc? If I knew those stats, then I personally would be better able to judge the claims of the authorities. But I don't have those stats and so the logical assumption is that their claims are exaggerated shite designed to drum up fear and etc etc. Meanwhile idiotic claims that all encryption must be banned or tapped, even for law abiding businesses (does no one remember Cameron's proposals?) are floated... nothing but Band-aids all the way down.

I could move back to America, but at this point, that is like jumping out of the frying pan. I really need to learn a second language, preferably Mongolian.

</comment><comment><USER85> How difficult would it be for these so called terrorists to develop their own end to end encrypted app? Perhaps something masquerading as something common like any port under 1000? It is feasible that the elimination of whatsapp/telegram/signal encryption would just lead to a way more complicated encryption system developed internally to these organisations.

<comment><USER86> Not that difficult, but it'd almost certainly have major security flaws that GHCQ and the NSA could exploit, because homebrew end-to-end encryption tends to. The bigger problem is that merely using an Isis-branded chat application is the equivalent of sending a text message to the security services saying "hello, I'm a potential terrorist, please pay special attention to my every movement". Even the Tor project hasn't _actually_ managed to reliably disguise their protocol as something else, and they have a bunch of smart people working on it with the advantage that countries tend to reveal the fact they've been detected through blocking rather than just quietly monitoring the people using it and rounding them up the moment they try something.

<comment><USER87> I generally agree, but intelligence groups have to first find the signal they want to monitor. Modern steganography techniques coupled with the free randomness you get from the physical world gives you much to work with. And that's assuming common tech will be used.

Also, designing a secure general purpose messaging system is much harder that designing a system tailored for a specific use case.

Banning encryption by law is like demanding, loudly, that people not talk behind your back. Some will listen, and some will not. Only legitimate users and use cases will suffer.

<comment><USER88> Well, ISPs could implement a whitelist of communication methods. Maybe all content would have to be signed by a whitelist of apps before it's allowed through the network. Images would have to be signed by the camera app, so no steganography would be possible.

From a business perspective it would be like going back to before the internet, but many of the services we associate with the internet like Facebook, Netflix etc. would survive.

<comment><USER87> What about using latency or throughput as a signal? What about tunneling data over seemingly normal pictures taken by said camera app? What about switching the "User Available online" indicators at a seemingly natural rate? What about _all three_ at the same time?

I assure you, steganography will always be possible. The only think a ban on encryption would do is hurt (badly) society, personal privacy, and those who want to follow the law.

<comment><USER88> Sure, it would be a bit of a whack-a-mole, but in the end sending concealed messages would become extremely difficult.

It's technically impossible to do perfectly, but as we all know, perfect is the enemy of good enough ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> How about they look into their business partner Saudi Arabia first? It sounds like as if they let this country poison the minds of mentally ill people in hope the attacks they carry on could be used as an excuse to expand control of the society. Use of this tragedy to do just that is simply disgusting and put in question what government is actually doing.

</comment><comment><USER89> How would that have prevented anything? As if they'd have responded within 2 minutes to some guy sending weird messages.

<comment><USER86> The message he sent right before the attack will likely not have been his first communication about it. There's been a pattern of Isis operatives abroad guiding and supporting terrorists in detail via end-to-end encrypted messaging for weeks or months, right up until the moment they attack: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/world/asia/isis- messaging...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/world/asia/isis-messaging- app-terror-plot.html) Presumably the British police are assuming that this is like those previous attacks, but they haven't managed to obtain the actual message contents after the fact this time around for some reason.

<comment><USER35> Come on. If this was really ISIS, then we plainly have nothing to fear.

My bet is that he's just a random crazy, but of course these days it suits the political narrative to brand such people 'terrorists' to stoke public fear

<comment><USER17> Stop tossing out mental health as a reason. There's nothing to say he had mental illness, and you cause harm to people with mental illness when you incorrectly link violence to mental illness.

<comment><USER35> I used the word 'crazy', rather than mentioning mental health issues. 'Crazy' does not just refer to people with mental health issues, if refers to irrational acts.

To expand on my point, some of these small-scale 'terrorist' attacks show very little evidence of being coherently planned, and it's difficult to believe that an organised terrorist group is behind them. It seems more likely that some of these acts were performed by people acting alone, or vulnerable people provoked to it - and yes, some of these people may well be mentally ill; that hardly means they cannot be capable of violence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> Some people will simply refuse to let all and sundry (we have no idea as to who reads and acts on intercepted emails) to read private emails and they will therefore turn to steganography or one time pads with a seemingly ambiguous pre-arranged code. Good luck with reading the latter or even thinking it has a hidden message.

</comment><comment><USER91> Isnt it weird that drasticly restrictive all encompassing rules are hastily pushed _after_ attacks? Blanket Decryption of messages, and other privacy suppression rules will make intelligence agencies into super powers with too much control at a very reduced cost (less messy assassinations, or physical threats needed)

<comment><USER18> That's the perfect time to hastily push them through!

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> So a statement that he acted alone by the met police is bing utterly ignored. Ironically no mention of banning 4x4 cars and that frankly puts this whole situation into perspective - government ignorance of encryption, once again.

<comment><USER18> If we could bundle a 4WD car ban in with the new legislation, I might actually change my mind about the massive loss of basic freedoms. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> One reason it's good that governments cannot force WhatsApp to disable end-to- end encryption is that different governments have different definitions of nefarious activity. While the British Government could arguably use a backdoor to stop terrorist attacks, what would stop Pakistan or Saudi Arabia from using the same back door to enforce blasphemy laws? The issue is the same: should a private company help law enforcement by disabling encryption?

It's nice to know WhatsApp can help people break the law in places where the law itself is immoral.

</comment><comment><USER94> what if the guy read a book and agreed with it because he was an sad angry teenager with no life

<comment><USER95> Then the obvious answer is to ban books, right?

Right?

<comment><USER96> This is a thing in France.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> _" Home Secretary Amber Rudd told Sky News it was "completely unacceptable" that police and security services had not been able to crack the heavily encrypted service."_

This is great news, actually. It means that WhatsApp's encryption works, and stonewalls the efforts of state actors (or at least, hers) to break it.

That said, we don't know if she's lying about this, or not.

</comment><comment><USER98> They don't need to touch encryption in any way. It's way simpler to subvert the endpoints, as most people use closed-source operating systems such as iOS and Android which offer closed-source applications.

All they need to do is to pressure Apple and Google to keep some backdoors open, which is more than realistic, as Snowden's revelations have shown a couple of years ago.

<comment><USER81> Even better, why not introduce backdoors at the hardware level?

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> Shameful way to capitalize on the recent Westminster attack. See Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" for more.

</comment><comment><USER100> Looking away from the fact that what they want isn't actually achievable, what does the UK risk by beginning to go down this road? What consequences could this potentially have for their domestic tech sector?

My intuition says that they stand to lose more than they could possibly gain, but I'm curious to hear a more knowledgeable perspective.

</comment><comment><USER101> Thought-experimentally: could we potentially be able to scan message databases for the _absence_ of certain phrases, using something like [1], but in a probabilistic manner akin to that of a Bloom filter? This would ensure that law enforcement would be able to flag certain keywords with a nonzero (and nontrivial) false-positive rate. That way, repeated flags end up identifying potentially interesting members of society, _without proof_ and with data inadmissible as reliable evidence in a court of law.

Of course, one runs the risk of the existence of false positives being forgotten, TLA/government pressure to reduce the false positive rate, and so on. But I think this is a slightly interesting way to (partially) preserve privacy while satisfying lawmakers who demand that there be some way for them to listen in on (what should ideally be completely private) data. (This is, of course, only possible once one drops the axiom of privacy being an absolute right: I don't personally support doing this at all.)

[1]: [https://crypto.stanford.edu/portia/papers/HardNDB.pdf](https://crypto.stanford.edu/portia/papers/HardNDB.pdf)

<comment><USER59> Theoretically, I'm sure some crafty solution like that exists, but then that is no longer true end-to-end encryption. It's 'leaky' E2E, which in the eyes of most crypto enthusiasts, is practically worse than open channel, because it gives a false sense of security.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> In these digital always online times; its like claiming no one should be allowed to have a private conversation.

</comment><comment><USER103> I wonder how she felt about private communication during her directorships in off shore tax havens?

</comment><comment><USER104> In a similar vein, to prevent corruption and bribery we should require Ms. Rudd et al to post all email exchanges (official or otherwise) they engage in publicly, along with their bank statements.

After all, we can't allow corrupt politicians ANYWHERE TO HIDE. ;)

</comment><comment><USER105> It's going to be a total clusterf*ck when the UK leaves the EU and starts introducing draconian intelligence gathering laws that go further than the EU regulations permit. Think Privacy Shield style problems but much worse...

</comment><comment><USER106> The relevant discussion is here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yIPuHsB8q8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yIPuHsB8q8)

</comment><comment><USER107> I assume that the UK government has been doing these extremely pro- surveillance, anti-encryption, and anti-porn stances because they detect sufficient support from the UK population?

</comment><comment><USER98> On BBC: [http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39396578](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39396578)

</comment><comment><USER108> Theresa May is just using the tragic deaths of some innocents to push her own political agenda. Pathetic political games at their worst.

</comment><comment><USER109> Is it technically feasible to have a back door and still be `end to end` encrypted ?

<comment><USER110> Yes, this was revealed by the recent agency leaks. Cracking end to end encryption is still extremely difficult (currently impossible?). It's much easier to get root on a target's phone and run a keylogger or break into the app. The messages are still end-end encrypted, but you can sniff them before they're sent and after they're received since they're shown to the user in plaintext.

<comment><USER111> But then the side channel (pre enc info) is also sent, using different encryption? Otherwise, just as broken.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER112> First global warming deniers then mathematics deniers. Where do we go from here?

</comment><comment><USER113> Messaging services without encryption is unacceptable - <USER2>

</comment><comment><USER114> > "That is my view - it is completely unacceptable, there should be no place > for terrorists to hide."

I am sure a ban on encryption would work.

Hey, guys, I just had a great idea. Let's ban bombs, knifes, and driving into people. That would fix the terrorism problem. Once it is illegal, no terrorist would dare do it!!!

I'm wondering why Churchill didn't think to ban the Enigma machine. If only England was led by smart people like the British interior minister...

<comment><USER115> The difference is that it's relatively easy to detect when people use encrypted communication. You can just arrest them. It's not so easy to detect whether someone is planning to drive into people.

<comment><USER116> Compare like with like. It's plenty easy to detect whether someone is driving. Whether they're planning to drive into people has the same level of difficulty as whether their encrypted communications are about terrorist activity, so shouldn't we ban cars? And buses and planes and anything else with wheels or an engine?

If we banned planes that would certainly have prevented 9/11\. What better argument could there be?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER117> as usual she has no idea.

</comment><comment><USER118> If I have to choose one from end-to-end encryption and security, I will choose security. I don't mind my WhatsApp chats are scanned by police's software, if it can reduce terrorism. Of course, we need to make sure it is used for anti- terrorism only.

Update: One solution of 'make sure' is the source code of the monitoring software must be reviewed by independent and trusted software engineers/experts.

PS. Downvoting my post doesn't solve any problem. If you have any better idea, welcome to post it out. Thanks

<comment><USER56> > Of course, we need to make sure it is used for anti-terrorism only.

See that's the problem everyone is talking about. The thing, is, turns out you can't. That's was the ENTIRE point of the Snowden revelations.

No sane person is okay with terrorism, but at what point are you going to stop relinquishing your rights?

First, texts with Whatsapp. Then your phone calls. Then your bags and notes when you go through airport security. Then bugs in your house. All of these will help curb terrorism. But where will you stop? Will you lose all your private life in the name of law?

<comment><USER118> One solution in my mind is the source code of the monitoring software must be reviewed by independent and trusted software engineers/experts.

<comment><USER56> That's a perfect solution actually. But sadly, we aren't there just yet. There are nuances with these things that software can't (yet) pickup.

So humans have to do it till then. We were maybe born too early. But I think it makes things interesting.

That means there are still problems for you and me to solve.

<comment><USER119> Actually it's a horrible non-solution.

Assuming these experts are perfect and infallible (a bad assumption), then what does it prove?

That only an authorized government agent can have access?

Can you not think of any problem with that whatsoever?

<comment><USER56> I actually didn't suggest a complete solution. You seem to judge the proposition without any further questions.

I said the monitoring software having access to the data was a solution. But you're probably thinking of a case where there is a master encryption key which we just hand to the government. But have you thought of a solution where we _can_ be sure of the access that the software will have?

Something like a infallible way we can choose only the software can view the data. Sure, you're quick to dismiss it because it doesn't exist. That's why I said it _didn 't exist_

There needn't be centralized way of communication you're thinking of now. It can be public software that people can choose to run.

> Assuming these experts are perfect and infallible

Well, you can have the same skepticism for the end-to-end encrypted software _you_ use. How can you assume that it isn't broken?

<comment><USER119> >I actually didn't suggest a complete solution.

Nobody is saying you did. You yourself said "that is a perfect solution actually" in response to vinceyuan, who had a one-liner comment about "the source code of the monitoring software must be reviewed by independent and trusted software engineers/experts."

Maybe we are interpreting this in different ways.

How do you envision this "solution" working? It is a bit vaguely specified.

Who is doing the monitoring? What or who is being monitored? For example are we talking about monitoring the authorities to see if their access is done properly? Or are we talking about something / someone monitoring communications, on behalf of the authorities? Not sure what you had in mind. Can you explain how what you called "perfect" might work, were it to be developed at some point in the future?

I'll say up front that I'm skeptical, but let's see if we are even talking about the same thing. As long as you're being super vague, you don't have a solution at all.

And if you're just saying: there's no solution now but maybe one can be developed, fine (I believe you're wrong) but please clarify how you think it might work.

<comment><USER56> > That means there are still problems for you and me to solve.

This was my last sentence. With which I tried to say that we have to still solve the problem and come up with the solution. My comment "that's a perfect solution" was about the answer "software that can effectively monitor communications with proper privacy" to the question about properly reconciling privacy and security, in a situation where the people are okay with their communications being monitored.

But are you are expecting a answer to the question, "How will the software work?" from me.

I have no clue as so how it'll exactly work. But since you're so interested, I'll take a stab:

> Who is doing the monitoring?

The software. No humans will ever see the raw communications which haven't been flagged. Now this is obviously the tricky part. This is not a backdoored system with a magic decryption key. What I had in mind was a software possibly in-built with the communications protocol, which will, with near perfect accuracy flag suspicious communications. This is will need a leap of tech in Machine learning with NLP.

> What or who is being monitored?

All the communications (through the node) are being monitored.

> For example are we talking about monitoring the authorities to see if their > access is done properly?

'They' have _no_ access. Only the software does. How that is done is up to the "engineers/experts" to figure out. This will obviously need a change in communications architecture. When it comes to properly securing the physical part (the servers), I'm sure something can be figured out there.

> As long as you're being super vague, you don't have a solution at all.

See my first line in this comment. I don't have a solution, but I do believe that a solution exists to a problem. They're very different things.

As an analogy, in mathematics, that's similar to me saying the problem is solvable, but you're talking about the actual solution.

And sure, this is a 'perfect' solution where monitoring communications is even a possibility. I don't even support that possibility. The first comment I replied to does, which said:

"If I have to choose one from end-to-end encryption and security, I will choose security. I don't mind my WhatsApp chats are scanned by police's software, if it can reduce terrorism. Of course, we need to make sure it is used for anti-terrorism only."

So in the first place, monitoring is something that will be done. Now in that scenario, there's a solution (In retrospect, I don't think I should've said perfect).

I don't think you are going to be happy with this solution. I don't expect everyone to be. I probably will be, because while I want privacy, I'm amenable to a solution I can trust in a situation where there _has_ to be some kind of monitoring.

Since we live in a democracy (I hope you don't live in an oppressive monarchy), it can happen when the majority of the people (senators, actually, because it is a Republic) agree with a situation when monitoring is okay.

Your opinion or my opinion is not enough to change everyone else's opinions. So we might have to learn to live with it.

<comment><USER119> We live in a world, not a democracy. There are many different countries, with many different systems.

Any proposed solution has to deal with that reality, not with the little bubble of one democracy which may arguably in the questionable opinions of some subset of people have a good government.

The reality includes police states where the police are truly evil.

It also includes police states where the software is written by truly evil people, to do evil things, with evil experts overseeing it all and approving evil behavior in the software they are checking.

Please tell me how you can be confident that there can be a solution that addresses this reality while protecting the privacy of users. Sometimes all the user wants to do is send a message to their boyfriend, without getting thrown off a building, burned, flogged, or killed, possibly having several generations of your family killed as well (see North Korea).

The system has to work for this reality. I'm pretty sure that simply drawing a line and fully protecting the privacy of users' messages, full stop, is a better solution than whatever you and your senators will come up with.

And yes, the security of a crypto system can be verified. If it's designed to be secure. Not if it's designed to be monitored. Even if the experts are perfect angels and absolutely competent, if there is a way to monitor, hackers will find a way to get access to it.

>When it comes to properly securing the physical part (the servers), I'm sure something can be figured out there.

You're dreaming. Remember, the authorities will have full power over that system, and even in countries where the authorities are not evil, the authorities as a rule are inevitably corruptible if not corrupt. This isn't just cynicism, it's reality. Look around.

<comment><USER56> > And yes, the security of a crypto system can be verified. If it's designed > to be secure.

Theoretical security and actual security are two very different things. Once is mathematical which can be verified by equations. Other deals with software and imperfect developers. Software can't be verified for perfect security in a deterministic way, no matter how hard you try. Vulnerabilities pop up all the time. Your expectation that theoretical security translates to real world security is something I believe you need to think about again.

>Not if it's designed to be monitored. Even if the experts are perfect angels and absolutely competent, if there is a way to monitor, hackers will find a way to get access to it.

You seem to miss the part where I said a new protocol, not something which is modified, or backdoored. I'm surprised at you being so sure about the failure of a non-existent protocol. Do you have anything to back up your claim that any such protocol wouldn't work? Remember, it doesn't exist yet.

I honestly didn't find most of your post very coherent. There is no avenue for free speech in North Korea and other authoritarian regimes so it is a waste of time talking about working around the existing government for privacy and free speech rights. The only place where the masses can bring about change is in a democracy.

>not with the little bubble of one democracy

Last time I checked, most countries are democratic. Please show me the case where democratic countries vastly differ in how their government is organized.

> The reality includes police states where the police are truly evil.

Again, I talked about a democracy since we really can't do anything to help them with encryption and code. If there are no rights, strong encryption doesn't really matter. Look up rubber-hose cryptanalysis.

> The system has to work for this reality. I'm pretty sure that simply drawing > a line and fully protecting the privacy of users' messages, full stop, is a > better solution than whatever you and your senators will come up with.

It is of course is a better solution for individual privacy, I thought I talked about this at the end of my last comment. I don't have much control over my senators.

>>>When it comes to properly securing the physical part (the servers), I'm sure something can be figured out there.

>You're dreaming. Remember, the authorities will have full power over that system, and even in countries where the authorities are not evil, the authorities as a rule are inevitably corruptible if not corrupt. This isn't just cynicism, it's reality. Look around.

Full power? I don't believe you have understood what I said.

At this point it feels like you're arguing for the sake of an argument.

<comment><USER119> Looking forward to learning more about this new perfect future protocol that you think will solve the problems.

/s</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


CIA Releases Additional Files Recovered in Raid on Usama Bin Ladin's Compound - <AUTHOR> https://www.cia.gov/news-information/press-releases-statements/2017-press-releases-statements/cia-releases-additional-files-recovered-in-ubl-compound-raid.html <comment><USER2> Interesting stuff, several movies, and songs.. One of the copyright holders should go and sue CIA for violating DMCA :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Apparently it includes "Charlie Bit My Finger." And a lot of random stuff [https://gizmodo.com/the-42-weirdest-movies-on-osama-bin- lade...](https://gizmodo.com/the-42-weirdest-movies-on-osama-bin-ladens- computer-1820046327)

<comment><USER4> It's almost like he was a human being instead of Satan brought to Earth like our propaganda suggests.

<comment><USER5> Well, he was a human being responsible for an attack which killed about 3,000 people and wounded 6,000. It's not entirely unreasonable to demonize him.

<comment><USER6> For comparison you could look at the casualties numbers for things like the unsanctioned US invasion of Iraq. And then consider if the people responsible for that are as villified.

<comment><USER7> Without defending the war in Iraq (afterall what good has it done?) this really is a false equivalence and we probably don't realise how good we have it, and how much worse it could be - namely if some one like UBL was the ruler of the worlds largest superpower how many people would be killed and oppressed.

You may pine for an ideal of no unjust/unfair deaths in the world, but the reality is the number caused is in some way proportional to the power wielded. The assessment of the morality of the US should take this into consideration. That is to say there is an implicit negative opportunity cost (? opportunity benefit) to existing power. This is perhaps the opposite to the way most overly moralising critics view things (if only _I_ had the power to change the world). Afterall perhaps the biggest lesson of Iraq must be that just getting rid of power based on simplistic moralising is not a good idea. Careful what you wish for.

<comment><USER6> UBL probably did what he did _because_ they are not a superpower, but were tortured by one.

Look into the history of the middle east maybe?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of the videos from the list is a short animation action movie:

"Pigeon: Impossible (2009)"

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1423419/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1423419/)

Available on Youtube:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEjUAnPc2VA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEjUAnPc2VA)

It's about the agent who carries the president's "Nuclear Football"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football)

and his interaction with a pigeon who wants agent's doughnut.

<comment><USER9> I'm pretty sure that's a bagel, not a donut.

<comment><USER8> Having watched, I fully agree. I guess it has to be, to be heavy enough to press THE button. And the pigeon would probably prefer it?

<comment><USER10> Nobody eats bagels like that through, they slice em in half and either butter, jelly, or cream cheese each half. I've never seen anyone walking around just munching on a full bagel like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> An FOIA was raised to get details of his porn stash as well but that was refused: [http://uk.businessinsider.com/cia-osama-bin-laden- porn-2017-...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/cia-osama-bin-laden-porn-2017-9)

</comment><comment><USER12> Lots of videogame warez and soft porn games.

</comment><comment><USER13> Direct link: [https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad- compound/index.html](https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad- compound/index.html)

<comment><USER14> Access denied.

<comment><USER15> Works for me?

<comment><USER16> [https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad- compound/Documents.20...](https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad- compound/Documents.20171021.hash_index.txt)

> Access Denied

NOTE: The access denied message contains a unique string that changes when you hit refresh.

NOTE: At 1 Nov 2017 18:19:43 UTC, archive.is was able to save a copy of the OP. Now, it can't due to a 301 redirect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> No mentioning of straightened proofs of 9/11 plot...

</comment><comment><USER18> _Prior to accessing this file collection, please understand that this material was seized from a terrorist organization. While the files underwent interagency review, there is no absolute guarantee that all malware has been removed._

The CIA cannot guarantee that files they have spent 6 years poring through are free off malware? Wonder why anyone will download these documents after this.

<comment><USER19> Probably just legalese in case anything happened. I bet CIA lawyers are the most paranoid people on the planet.

<comment><USER20> Or in case someone finds the malware they injected into it.

</tinfoil hat>

<comment><USER21> That seems like a pretty obvious play, IMO. I'd be surprised if they didn't.

<comment><USER22> Don't be ridiculous. Any reasonable and representative democracy like ours would not be a government interested in subverting the privacy and rights of its own people. /s

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> WOW, spelling mistake on CIA's website. Usama instead of Osama.

<comment><USER24> [https://www.quora.com/Is-bin-Ladens-first-name-Osama-or- Usam...](https://www.quora.com/Is-bin-Ladens-first-name-Osama-or-Usama-What- is-the-significance-if-any-between-it-starting-with-an-O-and-a-U)</comment></comment>


Why are introspective verbs used for data in programming? - <AUTHOR>

Why are verbs like "be", "believe", "understand", "sense", and so on rarely seen in source code? When they are seen, why are they usually names of variables and not names of functions, as would befit a verb? <comment><USER2> Just guessing / offering personal opinion... such words would rarely make sense in source code.

What would a function called "believe" do?

I can imagine such function names in, say, artificial intelligence projects, but even there used (probably) in a loose way. I suspect few web applications or iPhone games or flight control programs would be doing any "believing", real or imaginary.

Of the words you suggested, "sense" seems most likely to appear in real use, as robotic software and such may be literally accessing sensors.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also, the last thing we need is more confusing language that gets in the way of absolute beginners realizing there's no ghost/consciousness/intentionality in the machine.

Indeed, unless you were doing, say, work on some scientific survey about people's beliefs, or whether school children understood a passage, or a game where these are literally mechanics, or something like that, i'd even be loathe to suggest ever seeing those as either function names or as variable names.

Its bad programming style 101 to give your variables/functions names that have some kind of cognitive connection/bias in people's minds apart from the function they actually serve in the code, and those are some pretty loaded words in most cultures...

</comment><comment><USER4> The verbs aren't choosen at random. They are almost all a write-word (write, set, create, put, save, update, dump, clear, reset, print, append, ...) or a read-word (read, get, ensure, load, check, ...). But the verbs you list doesn't fall into either category. Think of what it would mean to command someone to "believe!" it doesn't make sense (to a non-sentient entity anyways!). "print!" otoh, is perfectly understandable.</comment>


Damien Katz: What Sucks About Erlang - <AUTHOR> http://damienkatz.net/2008/03/what_sucks_abou.html <comment><USER2> Why write this:

      f(X) ->
        X1 = foo(X),
        X2 = fab(X1),
        X3 = bar(X2),
        baz(X3).

When you can write this? (I assume this is legal)

      f(X) ->
        baz(bar(fab(foo(X)))).

<comment><USER3> I think this is just toy-example syndrome. In my experience the real-world example looks more like this:

      f(X) ->
        X1 = foo(X, "Blah blah blah", true, :definitely, :ack),
        X2 = fab(X1, X, sizeof(X), X-1, bar(X, "martini"), :with_bells_on, :pdq),
        X3 = bar(X2, "fim tim lim bim whim bim bus stop"),
        baz(X3).

Try chaining _that_ and see how readable it is.

<comment><USER2> Touché.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I also dislike =:= for equals (and I forgot the difference to ==, it wasn't clearly understandable for me from the book). =:= is hard to type, why not just use === like Javascript?

</comment><comment><USER5> There's a thought I've had in the back of my mind for quite some time but it seems so obvious that I think there must be a glaring flaw I'm not seeing otherwise it would already have been done extensively:

Whenever a language has a burdensome and rigid syntax, isn't there almost necessarily a way to make a good s-expression syntax to substitute it? You'd get macros free!

<comment><USER6> Aren't all languages sexps at the parse tree level? Lisp is basically a language without the syntactic top layer.

<comment><USER7> You could go further and say that all languages are lists of characters and wish for a language without the lexical top layer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You basically shouldn't be using 'if' in Erlang - it's very rare that a pattern match wouldn't be a better option.

That said, I agree with him:

<http://journal.dedasys.com/articles/2007/09/22/erlang>

</comment><comment> a-priori Most of those are minor nit-picks, but I do agree with him about string handling. Strings should be tagged. "dog" should be equal to {string, [100, 111, 103]} or something.</comment>


Al Gore: 'The rich have subverted all reason' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/30/al-gore-interview-our-crumbling-planet-the-rich-have-subverted-all-reason-al-gore <comment><USER2> "Our democracy has been hacked." is something that resonates with me very well. A select group of people have mastered media manipulation and are now acting as puppeteers while we are all in a state of confusion, no longer able to discern truth from disinformation. It is not classic censorship that worries me anymore. It is this constant bombardment with questionable data that we need to figure out how to battle, as it is our biggest enemy now. We need some way to get out of the disinformation bubble and be able to see the real picture.

BTW this article reminded me of a great show[1] that Last Week Tonight did, about how local news outlets in US are used to manipulate the masses.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc)

<comment><USER3> > questionable data that we need to figure out how to battle

The reality of the situation seems obvious to me, even if the edges are not clearly defined. I don't think it's very difficult to work out what is going on (with climate change etc.)

To me this is not about people getting access to good data, or being otherwise properly educated. It's about people identifying with "their group", and attacking the "others". And such battle lines are fought around various _issues_ and _language_ , and _labels_. But it's not actually about those issues or language or labels. It's about _self_ and _other_. My people, and those other people. So this is what needs to be healed, this separative egoness.

<comment><USER4> This resonate strongly with me but there doesn't seem to be any political platform that has been promoting this theory in the last 20 years. The left focus has been on promoting the distinction and multitude of groups and the strengthening of self-identity that members has towards such groupings. The right is in return focusing the distinction between self and other, making the combination of left and right a special volatile mix in current political environment.

Sadly the group that has changed in this formula is the left. They used to (ie, 30-40 years ago) spend a lot of focusing on eliminating and underplay difference between groups. Today I often see the modern left making fun of those times as naive experiment.

<comment><USER5> Can you give some examples of when and how the Left is doing this?

From what I can tell, in general the left of the US is constantly making an attempt to be all inclusive. I'd agree that there hasn't been enough work to help people see that they have common cause with people who look different and live in different places. That's really whats needed, but it's never been clear to me how to help someone who is severely bigoted to understand that their views are born of ignorance.

From what I can tell, the Right uses positions to drive wedges between people, such that someone can literally hate something which is clearly benefiting them personally because they have turned the issue into an Us vs Them argument. The only thing I see the Left consistently use as a wedge issue is class and money... Whereas the Right uses every possible thing they can come up with to convince people that follow them that they should all be afraid of what the Left is going to "take" from them.

<comment><USER6> I think the left is not inclusive enough. Though perhaps a better way to describe it is that the left is increasingly unwelcoming, remarkably to the people whose votes we need. As an extremely liberal person who also happens to be from the south, I am horrified by my Facebook feed where everyday posts by liberal friends proudly mock conservatives as being stupid or bigoted. Being from the south, I know many conservative people with great hearts. These are the people we are trying to convince to join our side, and we are shitting all over them.

In these articles, one can sense a true disdain for many conservative points of view on topics like abortion, the role of religion in our society, and gun control. It is rare to find articles that I would feel comfortable sharing with conservative friends or family, as their tone is so contemptuous of conservatives. If it were not for the acerbic tone, many of these articles might become powerful tools of persuasion. But I guess it is just too much fun to taunt the "basket of deplorables."

To quote an article that nicely summarizes a Lincoln speech:

> When Abraham Lincoln was 33 years old, he gave a speech inside a > Presbyterian church to a temperance society. His message: The assembled > ought to be nicer to drinkers and sellers of alcohol, rather than shunning > them, or denouncing them as moral pestilences. Indeed, they ought to use > "kindly persuasion," even if a man's drunkenness had caused misery to his > wife, or left his children hungry and naked with want.

> For people are never less likely to change, to convert to new ways of > thinking or acting, than when it means joining the ranks of their > denouncers.

> To expect otherwise, "to have expected them not to meet denunciation with > denunciation ... and anathema with anathema, was to expect a reversal of > human nature," Lincoln explained.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/why- can...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/why-cant-the- left-win/522102/)

<comment><USER7> It's hard when some conservatives ARE stupid... I was sad at the Death of Chester Bennington...and one of my old friends...and my wife's best friends' husband -- said to me, "You know the Clinton's Killed him, right?"... and I'm like...okay give me concrete evidence, and he's can only give clear conspiracy theory sites, and I'm like... look here's what snopes says..and he's like...telling me Snopes is FAKE News and crap... as opposed to his sources which are all true...

I literally bloodied my head face-desking after the exchange...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Global warming is just the tip of the iceberg (sorry). Seriously though, there are so many ways in which humanity is making the world immeasurably worse and in which our current models of organisation cannot be sustained, and global warming is only one of them. Take for example modern agriculture: we are forced to pour huge amounts of artificial (i.e. not animal manure) fertiliser onto the soil in order to produce enough to feed ourselves. The fertiliser is required due to the extreme pressure we put on the soil i.e. monoculture, expecting a full crop every year, with no fallow periods for recovery. This fertiliser has in some cases to be mined, obviously at some expense in energy terms, from non-renewable resources. The production and usage of the fertiliser consumes large amounts of currently, predominantly, fossil fuels. The fertiliser runs off the soil into the ocean, disrupting the natural balance, with negative side effects on sea life, itself on which many coastal dwelling people depend for food or livelihood. When was the last time you saw this issue discussed in the media?

Sometimes I think that the focus on global warming is negative in that it is far easier for those that stand to lose from wider conciousness about environmental issues, i.e. the usual big business concerns, to counter a single topic than it would be for them to deny the general trend of ongoing worsening and destruction of our natural environment in general. The fact is that western lifestyles cannot be achieved by the whole population of the world without consequent massive pressure on resources. Rather than worrying ourselves solely about global warming I think we would do far better to start reducing consumption, reversing population growth to the point that the world's population starts to decline, and putting efficiency at the heart of humanity's scientific and business endeavours. The chances of this happening? I'd say pretty much zero, because modern capitalism preaches at the altar of inexorable GDP growth, and the rich and powerful aren't going to give up without a fight.

<comment><USER9> Yes, we have problems.

But I would prefer an argumentation that does not place the 'artificiality' of modern farming at the fulcrum as there is no 'natural' farming. All farming is artificial - an artifact of human culture. Farming is a thousands of years old biohack, of whose output we've improved over millenias. Using nitrogen fertilizer generated through Haber process to increase crop yelds is not in any way less 'natural' than manure.

Trace chemicals from e.g. pesticides that leak to all sorts of foodchains, including those where human partake - now, that's an issue.

It's also not very effective to speak of the general consumption of western lifestyle. We can't fix 'western lifestyle'. But, we can fix specific problems, one at a time. The problem needs some metric and the solution needs some predetermined metric to follow.

So, what's the first thing you would _specifically_ fix?

<comment><USER10> Desertification of crop lands? Increasing pesticide use coupled with decreasing benefit? Depletion of groundwater tables because of land usage that encourages run-off? Substituting fertilizer made from non-renewable resources for a self sustaining form of agriculture?

Destruction of local habits for mono-culture crop development? Destroying complex ecosystems that are perfectly capable of supporting rich crops for humans and replacing them with mono-culture crops like soy/corn/sugarbeets that absolutely fuck the topsoil, deplete nutrients, and fail to support basically any animal life?

I'm not OP, but our current agricultural practices that came out of the world wars with cheap and easy access to "Chemicals" is absolutely a problem. Not because the chemicals are artificial (although that doesn't help with regards to price) but because we're using them in ways that don't create a renewing system. We're literally destroying our sources of water and topsoil to grow corn no one needs.

<comment><USER8> Thank you, better than I put it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance." -Neil Postman

This isn't going to get better as AI bots improve their ability to sound human and steer the conversation.

I'm kind of at a loss for a solution to this, aside from trusting only well- established media outlets, but that has its own drawbacks.

</comment><comment><USER12> Isn't Al Gore rich though? I'm bothered when the elite speak of others as if they're not part of that 1%.

<comment><USER13> How did he get so rich from a government salary?

<comment><USER14> He sold a large stake in a TV network that he was involved with after leaving office:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_TV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_TV)

And it isn't like Congress is poorly compensated. Currently Senators are paid $174,000 a year.

<comment><USER15> That sounds on the low end for mid-to-late career lawyers, doctors, and businessmen in the DC area.

Of course, the power and fame is seductive, so paying below market rate makes a lot of sense.

<comment><USER16> But, most congress people are already wealthy: the average senator has a net worth of $14 million, and the average representative in the house has a net worth of nearly $7 million [0]. There are of course outliers, with some having hundreds of millions and some having negative net worth.

[0] [https://ballotpedia.org/Net_worth_of_United_States_Senators_...](https://ballotpedia.org/Net_worth_of_United_States_Senators_and_Representatives)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm generally against generalizations ("the rich have subverted ...") as it leads to witchhunt and lynching of the wrong people. However, he convinced me that a wrong balance of powers is keeping us too much in the "status quo" of runaway pollution, using misinformation, and is slowing us down in the fight against massive destruction.

But what can we do?

For example, in French politics, there isn't a single person who proposes the right things against climate change. Melanchon comes to my mind, he has a half program against global warming but does hate speech against the 50% richer of the nation (and in France, that mean earning >2000€ pm). And that doesn't even guarantee getting the global warming solved... Macron won't solve much either, unless he digs in the debt, which isn't better for my children. Either way, we're stuck.

<comment><USER18> I don't suspect that you read the article past the headline otherwise you would have come across this section.

"I mean that those with access to large amounts of money and raw power," says Gore, "have been able to subvert all reason and fact in collective decision making. The Koch brothers are the largest funders of climate change denial. And ExxonMobil claims it has stopped, but it really hasn't. It has given a quarter of a billion dollars in donations to climate denial groups. It's clear they are trying to cripple our ability to respond to this existential threat."

Gore (and Melonchon for that matter too) aren't referring to the "upper 50%", it's not even the 1% mantra of Occupy Wall St, it's an astoundingly small fraction that have this access to lobbying power and campaign funds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I appreciate what he's trying to do here, but Al Gore isn't exactly impoverished.

</comment><comment><USER20> How could the rich subvert anything when they control the media/government/wealth/power? Hell they control "reason".

Also, I'm startikng to get a bit disillusioned by the amount of guardian, nytimes, bbc, etc articles here.

I hope HN doesn't turn into reddit.

</comment><comment><USER21> Usually Mr. Gore visits places where he gives these speeches (as well as his no less entertaining presentations on climate change and how save the environment by limiting consumption) by means of his private jet.

So, not impressed. Next!

<comment><USER22> If any change is going to be made it's going to come through revolution (a la France) or through someone in the top 1% changing things from the top down (a la slavery). The fact that he gets around on a private jet is neither here nor there - we can live with hypocrisy. What we cannot live with is inaction.

<comment><USER21> I don't know who are "we" that you are speaking about, but I absolutely can't live with hypocrisy. And large-scale social changes are inevitable anyway -- universal basic income is economically impossible, and transition to post-job economy is nearby.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The very last line of the article explains it all; this is to promote his soon to be release movie. As always, it's about the money.

<comment><USER24> Most of people's actions have personal gain (be it money, power, recognition, sense of worth, etc...) as their main motive.

But it does not make them necessarily wrong or worthless to others.

<comment><USER23> True, but I would appreciate a little integrity/honesty. He flies all over the world, multiple times in a short time span, and then makes his money "complaining" that we are using fossil fuels, when he could have just as easily been there via a teleconference. I don't mind people that walk the talk, but Al Gore avoids that.

<comment><USER25> This is called "tu quoque"[0] or appeal to hypocrisy.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque)

<comment><USER15> In this case, the pitch is for sacrifice and discipline. It undermines his argument if he's somehow exempt from the plan.

As in, if even a rich, educated, and passionate Al Gore cannot actually reduce his carbon footprint, is it even doable for India and China?

<comment><USER26> Al Gore can't personally build a skyscraper, but India and China seem to have no trouble doing that. In fact, you could probably list billions of things that individuals cannot effectively do that large organizations can do.

And even if he reduces his carbon footprint to nothing, all the does is shut him up and temporarily reduce carbon emissions insignificantly. It does nothing to curb industrial processes where the bulk of carbon emissions occur.

And you'll note that hypocrisy is not actually a logic fallacy. A war general has just as much reason to be listened to when he campaigns for peace as a pacifist; because peace stands on its own merit.

EDIT: This isn't even hypocrisy, though. Al Gore isn't asking each individual to fix their own carbon footprint. He's asking institutions to do so. And institutions can do things individuals cannot (due to networking and economic effects), as evidenced by that being the whole reason institutions are formed.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>