I think the major concern is the idea of the government backdoor, any company that implements such a thing is adding a serious weakness to their product. I’m sure the major companies will probably find some other way to contain it to the UK (or leave the UK entirely), but some will opt for the backdoor to cut costs.
Comment on The U.K. Government Is Very Close To Eroding Encryption Worldwide
troyunrau@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I read the article, and it’s hard to see how this would have worldwide effects. If anything, the companies with customers in the UK will: disable E2EE for chats with UK parties (likely warning the parties); leave the UK market rather than weaken their brand; or create a secondary product just for the UK. Consumers will continue to find workarounds provided the phones and computers are not fully controlled by the government.
The fact that the government would have to force client side scanning software onto phones and computers is probably the death knell of the UK tech industry. Either that, or so many exceptions will need to be added that the legislation would be ineffective. Can you imagine a Linux hacker recompiling their own kernel and then getting thrown in jail because they didn’t enable the government scanning module?
rhombus@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
AnonTwo@kbin.social 1 year ago
I'd imagine any company who needs their encryption to be taken seriously will openly remove encryption or the product entirely in the UK only.
Since otherwise all their customers would assume they added backdoors and compromised security....
RagingNerdoholic@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
You’re probably right, but the problem is the political precident that’s set. Once a major western government codifies this into law, it becomes a little bit easier and more self-justifiable for other world governments to follow suit.
Every relevant player here needs to be swift and unequivocal about pulling out of the UK if this becomes law. It’s needs to result in a PR disaster and loss of power for the UK government so the world can see what bafoons they are.
The tech industry has an ethical responsibility to unequivocally reject this.
rockSlayer@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The reason it will impact security worldwide is that the UK is part of the “14 eyes” alliance, an alliance used to spy on citizens. Any encrypted data going to or through the UK will need to have this backdoor, exposing all encrypted traffic to this vulnerability while also sharing that data with foreign governments. Edward Snowden exposed that the US government was paying the UK government to spy on US citizens for the data. This is what will happen in the UK, but for people around the globe.
pfannkuchen_gesicht@lemmy.one 1 year ago
They’re up to 14 now? When did that happen? They used to be just 5.
rockSlayer@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The 5 eyes still exist, they’re like the “inner circle” of eroding privacy. I think it’s no longer useful to just refer to the 5 eyes, because data about our personal life is shared with far more than even 14 governments
eleitl@lemmy.world 1 year ago
VPN tunnels don’t magically become transparent when packets pass UK fiber and routers. And legislation doesn’t translate well into which software people are allowed to run, for endpoints in UK. They can try to become North Korea of course, good luck with that.