336
submitted 1 year ago by Raisin8659@monyet.cc to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

Summary

The UK Parliament has passed the Online Safety Bill (OSB), claiming it will enhance online safety but actually leading to increased censorship and surveillance. The bill grants the government the authority to compel tech companies to scan all user data, including encrypted messages, to detect child abuse content, effectively creating a backdoor. This jeopardizes privacy and security for everyone. The bill also mandates the removal of content deemed inappropriate for children, potentially resulting in politicized censorship decisions. Age-verification systems may infringe on anonymity and free speech. The implications of how these powers will be used are a cause for concern, with the possibility that encrypted services may withdraw from the UK if their users' security is compromised.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 83 points 1 year ago

They won't need to. Signal, WhatsApp, Session and iMessage (Apple) have already said they'll withdraw their products from the UK market. Meta are making similar noises regarding Facebook Messenger.

[-] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago

Not if all of 5 eyes rush through similar legislation in the next year. Then big tech will cave.

[-] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 1 year ago

The current state of the legislation is this: the gvmt started out by saying "you must do this", then when it finally sunk in that it wasn't technically possible right now, they then said "OK, we get its not possible right now. As soon as it is, you must do this."

Some people have said 'no problem, its never going to be possible to break encryption'. This is not accurate. When quantum processing becomes a reality, which is realistically not too far away now, encryption will be trivial to crack. That's the point the rest of the world need to worry because you're right, every other gvmt in the world will follow the UK's lead.

[-] rutrum@lm.paradisus.day 12 points 1 year ago

On the tangent of quantum factorization, I feel like a reality of modern encryption at risk is still very slim. At least if the wiki article is anything to go by. I think we are sooner to have backdoors in encryption algorithms than we are quantum messing everything up.

[-] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago
[-] kitonthenet@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago
[-] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago

This is very good news, I've never been more happy to be wrong.

[-] Syntha@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Most applications, like your internet traffic, aren't using public key encryption.

[-] jaybone@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Doesn’t an https website use a public key?

load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments (11 replies)
load more comments (13 replies)
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
336 points (99.1% liked)

Privacy

31974 readers
216 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

Chat rooms

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS