What do you think about the new law where police can view our internet history?

You're kidding yourself if you don't think this is already happening.

They will have access to it. Council snooping etc.

terrorists that can cause a great deal of harm are out there merrily using WhatsApp. Just because you can blow up a bus doesn't mean you're particularly technologically au fait.

Your point is? Just because terrorists can safely communicate away from the eyes of the security services that's not a reason to ban such services

In any democracy there is a clear need for people to have some means of communication which the government can't infringe on, warrant or not.

Almost every bit of progress we've made to our political system has began as hushed tones and whispering in secret, because the government of the day would have stamped it out if they knew.

Christ, at least keep up with the news. The Home Secretary specifically said in introducing the Bill that it would "we will ban local authorities from accessing such data".

Local authority acquisition of communications data requires the approval of a magistrate and local authorities will not be able to acquire Iinternet connection records for any purpose.

If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to worry about - Axo.

No-one is suggesting banning such services, they're suggesting that the state should be able to review data from them - with approval of a judge and the Home Secretary. We can do it with telephones, we can do it with some electronic communications data - I fail to see why this should be any different.

Why? Barring things like communication with a solicitor, this has never been the case before. The state has always had the right to intercept mail, phonecalls and other means of communication if a person is suspected of a serious offence.

Talking about policies is not a criminal offence.

But with encryption you can't just "review data", because it's encrypted. That's kind of the point. And if the encryption has a government backdoor, criminals are probably going to use that backdoor as well meaning we have no privacy. Consider just how much things rely on encryption - Like banking, securing confidential medical records, protecting company trade secrets etc - Todays modern society needs secure encryption, and that means no backdoors.

Would you be happy to do online banking if you knew the encryption was backdoored for the police to have access? I wouldn't, because I'd be afraid of the ramifications when a cyber criminal decided to use the backdoor, he might empty my account and run up a lot of debt in my name. All of this because the government wants to "keep me safe"




And they still do have the right to intercept and collect as much of the encrypted data as they wish, maybe in 50 years there will be a revolutionary breakthrough and they'll be able to start decrypting some of it. They could always tap phones, but people could always talk in code on the phone if they suspected they were being monitored, and you never had to reveal what you actually meant when you were talking in code. So why should this be different?



It isn't at this point in time, who knows if it might be in future. You can talk about this being fine if you are doing nothing wrong, but the point is that I don't get to chose what wrong means, the government does. So what if I am doing something that I know isn't wrong, but they disagree and think it is wrong? I need a way of concealing my activities so that I don't get into trouble.