this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
580 points (99.5% liked)

Technology

77768 readers
2250 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Developers of apps that use end-to-end encryption to protect private communications could be considered hostile actors in the UK.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 15 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Don’t y’all vote over there? Government isn’t us vs them. Government is us. Period.

[–] SaraTonin@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago

Up until basically after the last election this was essentially a two-party state. However much of a shitshow Labour is, the Tories were guaranteed to be much worse.

Also, there was a mind of unspoken assumption that human rights lawyer Keir Starmer would gradually move the party back to the left once in power, instead of spending 99% of his time trying to court the small minority of far-right voters who’d never vote Labour in a million years, which is what has actually happened.

And, unless there’s electoral reform in the next 3 years it looks like the actual far-right party will win the next election, because we’ve still got a system designed for a two-party stare in what is now really a 5-party state, meaning that Reform’s current 30% polling would see them with 100% control of the country, if the voting matched the polls.

[–] FG_3479@lemmy.world 5 points 6 hours ago

We have been voting for greedy shits larping as conservative (Conservatives) and greedy shits larping as liberal (Labour).

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 7 points 6 hours ago

Competition was always a myth anyways.

[–] yggstyle@lemmy.world 35 points 14 hours ago

Boys... When it's considered a hostle act to demand rights, ownership, and privacy... We have a problem.

I'm reminded of a particular movies speech...

[–] deathbird@mander.xyz 30 points 17 hours ago (1 children)
[–] ItsMeSpez@lemmy.world 14 points 15 hours ago

Truly. This global push towards mass surveillance is extremely alarming.

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 36 points 19 hours ago

If you don’t want your citizens to be hostile, don’t make yourself an enemy.

[–] SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 38 points 20 hours ago

Well many governments see their citizens as hostile actors, so its not really a change, is it?

[–] razen@lemmy.world 46 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

What the heck is happening with Europe in general? I thought they were better in terms of maintaining individual privacy, damm.

[–] fatboy93@lemmy.zip 37 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

That's europe, this is just UK. Brexit didn't work out in a lot of ways they planned

[–] BuckenBerry@lemmy.world 29 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I'd argue it worked exactly as intended.

The goal is to weaken the West by destabilizing our nations' and organizations they belong to. They payed so much money for it that they bought into peerage.

[–] scholar@lemmy.world 14 points 22 hours ago (3 children)
[–] razen@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

Tbh at this point I have zero faith in any country when they will just flip no one knows.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] 87Six@lemmy.zip 56 points 23 hours ago (4 children)

What the fuck happened to the UK? Is Trump president there too?

[–] unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov@lemmy.sdf.org 20 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Meta happened. UK, US, all over the world there is a correlation between the adoption of Meta's products and the corrosion of basic human rights.

[–] usernameusername@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Could you elaborate? Or maybe this is just a joke idk my brains not braining rn

To be totally clear, the UK has been a fucked up place for centuries, I don't think Meta fundamentally changed the culture.

Having said that, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc are tools that enable political influence over the population at levels that were previously unimaginable. Look into Cambridge Analytica a bit or borrow Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America by Christopher Wylie from your local library for details.

Starting as early as 2012 we have evidence that Facebook was pivotal in stoking racial tensions in Myanmar, leading to a genocide.

There's evidence that Meta was a major factor in Brexit, which more specifically relates to my claim with respect to influence in the UK.

The US election in 2016 was clearly influenced by Meta platforms, including taking Russian money to stoke racial tensions in line with the Russian Manifesto, The Foundations of Geopolitics.

I'm currently reading through Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams, which is a memoir about how these systems were conceptualized and built at Facebook, and so far I'd recommend it.

Obviously Meta isn't the only problem, Tiktok is clearly a problem of similar size and scope, and other social apps have their own challenges (X being owned by the richest man alive and actively influencing the algorithm, for example), but in many ways Meta is the OG, and blazed the trail for others.

[–] DrDickHandler@lemmy.world 30 points 21 hours ago

The right wing fascism wave is a world trend my guy. This is just the start.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 230 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (7 children)

Remember how, before the internet, intelligence agencies by default didn't know what anyone was saying to anyone else face to face or by mail, and had to actually work to find out? The country didn't fall apart. Why is the standard now that everything must be handed to them on a plate? Did they just get lazy?

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 23 points 21 hours ago

You'll love this!

I deployed an open-source chat system at work, just for convenience. Boss was concerned that it didn't do any logging and we couldn't tell who said what.

"You don't have any records of what we say verbally. What's the difference?"

"...Oh. Well, you're right."

He was coming from a legit concern. We didn't point fingers when someone screwed up, zero blame, but we needed to know exactly what happened so we could fix it.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 47 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

I'm not disagreeing with you but what would happen back then is that they simply wouldn't stop the crime.

At some point we need to decide if giving up all semblance of personal privacy is worth stopping some of that. I vote no enthusiastically. We just have to accept that some of that crime won't be stopped and law enforcement will have to work harder.

[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 22 points 1 day ago (2 children)

If our countries could stop doing things that give people a reason to commit terroristic acts, Maybe that would solve some of it and we could be more secure in our papers and possessions without unlawful interference and undue search and seizures but that’s apparently none of my business

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 9 points 20 hours ago

They don't even stop significantly more crime now... They simply invent new "crimes" and jerk each other off for keeping the streets safe from that minority eating their lunch or going for a walk.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] fartographer@lemmy.world 11 points 20 hours ago

They cut costs by firing the people doing the legwork and passed the savings along to billionaires who promised sustainable models. Now they can't hire people to do real legwork anymore because, "no one wants to work anymore for their grandparents' wage in an economy and society designed to turn people into voluntary slaves and the only way to escape is to become homeless and go off the grid, but the laws are being molded to prevent anyone from escaping the system."

I'm pretty sure that's how the old adage goes.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] khannie@lemmy.world 16 points 18 hours ago

PGP has been around since the 90's can you PLEASE shut the fuck up.

Like please.

[–] Solrac@lemmy.world 12 points 19 hours ago

Let's be hostile together then

[–] horn_e4_beaver@discuss.tchncs.de 35 points 23 hours ago

Welcome to New East Germany.

[–] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 15 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Doesn't even RCS and iMessages use E2EE?

I think most messaging apps these days have it. Allegedly even Discord (calls only, not text chat) has it.

[–] brotato@slrpnk.net 14 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I think part of this is lawmakers not understanding the gravity of what they’re suggesting. Besides, most of these apps have some sort of backdoor built-in so they can decrypt messages if required in legal proceedings. Ripping E2EE out of everything is an insane assertion to make, and would make the Internet an even more dangerous place than it already is.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] sleen@lemmy.zip 34 points 1 day ago

There needs to be a watchdog for the watchdog, because this is totally unacceptable for a official to be this out of the loop on the technology they are watching over.

If they are a professional they should have some clue as to what is going on, but instead they're listening to their fascist pals.

[–] _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works 81 points 1 day ago (10 children)

Wow, the UK sounds like an awful place.

load more comments (10 replies)
[–] x00z@lemmy.world 83 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Said proudly by the hostile actors.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] recentSlinky@lemmy.ca 37 points 1 day ago

And i think committing and/or assisting in genocides is 'hostile activity'. One of us is definitely wrong :)

[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 55 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Folks, "1984" was supposed to be a warning. Not an instruction manual, with check off items.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 21 hours ago

These guys are so fucking stupid. Security and privacy goes both ways. Either for people to use or not. If you don't want encryption, fine, your online banking doesn't work anymore

load more comments
view more: next ›