The U.K. Parliament is pushing ahead with a sprawling internet regulation bill that will, among other things, undermine the privacy of people around the world. The Online Safety Bill, now at the final stage before passage in the House of Lords, gives the British government the ability to force backdoors into messaging services, which will destroy end-to-end encryption. No amendments have been accepted that would mitigate the bill’s most dangerous elements. If it passes, the Online Safety Bill will be a huge step backwards for global privacy, and democracy itself.
  • kool_newt@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    What if I wrote a script and shared it that allowed me to have a chat like experience but worked by sending each other SSH commands? Would that script be illegal? Will they make SSH illegal or force backdoors in it?

    • thejml@lemm.ee
      01·
      1 year ago

      VPN will encrypt your communications between your local PC/phone/device and the VPN server you connect to. After that, the data packet transits just as if you’re anywhere else. So if they can crack that encryption, your data is still open. They might not know where the packet came from, but if you are talking PII, that’s not really important. (Does it really matter what IP you had when you tell them your health history and name? Or full banking info?)

  • ghost_laptop@lemmy.ml
    02·
    1 year ago

    How is a country going to end encryption worldwide? The West okay, bu what jurisdiction do they have over me?

    • happyhippo@feddit.it
      1·
      1 year ago

      That’s what I also fail to grasp.

      If things get serious and for example the WhatsApp, Telegram and Signals of the world have to disable e2ee to keep operating in the UK, I guess they could just leave that market before compromising data privacy of their users worldwide.

      I don’t see this “ending encryption worldwide” thingy happening, at all.

      But they could dig themselves a deeper hole after Brexit, that’s definitely possible and wouldn’t surprise me a bit.

      • ghost_laptop@lemmy.ml
        03·
        1 year ago

        Or ship specific versions of their software for the UK, as it is done with other software in other countries with restrictions.

        • perezoso@lemmy.ml
          1·
          1 year ago

          A lot of them have already said they’d withdraw (facetime, iMessage, signal, WhatsApp included).