The UK government has admitted that the technology needed to securely scan encrypted messages sent on Signal and WhatsApp doesn’t exist, weakening its controversial Online Safety Bill.

Although the UK government has said that it now won’t force unproven technology on tech companies, […] the controversial clauses remain within the legislation, which is still likely to pass into law.

the continued existence of the powers within the law means encryption-breaking surveillance could still be introduced in the future.

So all ‘until it’s technically feasible’ means is opening the door to scanning in future rather than scanning today. It’s not a change

The implications of the British government backing down, even partially, will reverberate far beyond the UK

“It’s huge in terms of arresting the type of permissive international precedent that this would set […]. The UK was the first jurisdiction to be pushing this kind of mass surveillance. It stops that momentum. And that’s huge for the world.”

    • Saki@monero.townOPMEnglish
      5·
      10 months ago

      Yup, the US. Actually, no anti-cryptography anywhere, please. Didn’t we already do this like 20 years ago? As in, the “Cryptography is a weapon, which you can’t freely export, so you can’t download Netscape from the US” nonsense.

      It’s slightly humiliating that, unlike the Tor Project, the EFF does not accept Monero donations while they do accept Zcash for some reason. BTC, ETH are of course accepted.

      In case someone does Monero-to-other-coin at Trocador for whatever reason, consider using the affiliate link on the front page https://monero.town/ which is supposed to help Monero.town a bit (your rate shouldn’t change at all).

      • VolunTerry@monero.townEnglish
        3·
        10 months ago

        Yep, such a shame they don’t accept XMR. I was not aware of the Trocador affiliate link, so thanks for sharing.

        • Saki@monero.townOPMEnglish
          2·
          10 months ago

          Maybe we better act rather than complaining here.

          How many of us would make xmr donations to EFF, were that possible? We can email them asking, “Could you accept Monero? At least N of us in Monero.town (Lemmy) can make donations, but only if you accept Monero.” “Also, could you tell us why you accept Zcach but not Monero? Monero is now at least the 2nd most popular crypto actually used; many open-source devs accept xmr, or xmr & btc. Why not you? What is your stance against Monero?”

          The bigger N, the more convincing, the more motivating them.

      • shortwavesurfer@monero.townEnglish
        31·
        10 months ago

        That link should be on the sidebar if its not already.

        Edit:nvm, it already is. I will start using it for my monthly USDC -> Monero swaps.

    • Saki@monero.townOPMEnglish
      2·
      10 months ago

      Fedi (at least Mastodon) private messages are not yet even e2e to begin with. PGP can be a solution, except ~20 years ago, there was also a complicated situation about it. Also, iirc there was a “key escrow” debate, which seems to have been essentially the same problem (the user is required to provide a backdoor to the gov).