1 yr. ago • 97%

Today The UK Parliament Undermined The Privacy, Security, And Freedom Of All Internet Users

www.eff.org Today The UK Parliament Undermined The Privacy, Security, And Freedom Of All Internet Users

The U.K. Parliament has passed the Online Safety Bill (OSB), which says it will make the U.K. “the safest place” in the world to be online. In reality, the OSB will lead to a much more censored, locked-down internet for British users. The bill could empower the government to undermine not just the.....

Today The UK Parliament Undermined The Privacy, Security, And Freedom Of All Internet Users::The U.K. Parliament has passed the Online Safety Bill (OSB), which says it will make the U.K. “the safest place” in the world to be online. In reality, the OSB will lead to a much more censored, locked-down internet for British users. The bill could empower the government to undermine not just the...

30 comments

HUGE oof. Get your grandparents out of office and put some people who know how technology works in

89
- They knew it wasn't feasible but made it law anyways and passed it to ofcom to generate the guidelines for these companies to follow.
  
  Absolutely incredible.
  
  25
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY-ar97iDws
  
  1
I thought they pushed this back a few weeks ago when they realized it wasn't plausible?

Or is it a case of 'the law is here for when it is plausible', which it never will be?

39
- You sadly are correct. All they said is the tech doesn’t exist….but we are still making this the law. Dark times…
  
  34
  
  So they've basically made a law saying we must all bow down to The Almighty Dragon when he's eventually discovered?
  
  20
The absolutely hilarious thing about this is that all of these MPs that clamoured for this bill because "Won't somebody think of the children!" are up to all sorts of terrible behaviour and a whole bunch of them are on Signal.

26
And the same day stirred up a shit storm about watering down climate commitments, surely coincidence...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-66857551

Unfortunately they are likely looking to both destroy free communication and the climate, and not just using it as a ruse... They're psychotic.

18
Why all internet users and not "just" those in the UK?

12
- A clause of the bill allows Ofcom, the British telecom regulator, to serve a notice requiring tech companies to scan their users–all of them–for child abuse content.This would affect even messages and files that are end-to-end encrypted to protect user privacy. As enacted, the OSB allows the government to force companies to build technology that can scan regardless of encryption–in other words, build a backdoor.
  
  39
  
  I am willing to bet that the overwhelming response from tech to "build a back door into every internet user's E2EE communication globally for us to use" is going to be a big fat "No". The UK market isn't big enough to be making these kinds of demands.
  
  37
- VPNs: exist
  
  At more length: the internet is incredibly complicated and interrelated. It’s actually extremely difficult to draw clear national boundaries in terms of one web service or another, and the result is honestly never going to be 100% accurate.
  
  -3
Yeah, that sounds like something they'd do.

4
- I wouldn’t worry about this too much. Today they announced they’re no longer implementing a bunch of things they just made up, like forcing people to car share, and something about demanding people to use a minimum of seven bins…
  
  Tomorrow they will probably state that they’re banning lemons, or insisting that people are only allowed to talk with a French accent when ordering pastries.
  
  4
Sorry Brits, but I think this is a good time for Lemmy and pretty much any site that cares about privacy block the entirety of the UK. 😞

-8
- Sites and services outside the UK should not comply. If UK ISPs block sites outside the UK for not complying, so be it.
  
  30
  
  Nah, I think global sites should just block access from the UK. Let's see how the politicians like it when facebook, etc, stop working.
  
  9
  
  Ultimately the problem is that extradition treaties are a thing. While it's one thing for a company to ignore a law in a country they don't "operate" in, if you provide services in that country, you are technically subject to its laws, and if they decide to force the situation you could find yourself arrested in your home country and sent to face trial or even serve a prison sentence in another country. Technically your home country could refuse to extradite you, but that has all kinds of political ramifications and so unless you're someone very powerful in your home country it's unlikely the state will step in in your favor. The safest bet is simply to block all access from a specific country, and then if pressed you can simply say "we did our best to prevent access from your country and do not provide service there, anyone accessing our service from that country is circumventing our restrictions and there's nothing we can do about that", which is probably good enough to torpedo any case against you.
  
  -1
- I'd hate to suggest that, but it'd set an example.
  
  1

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