SleafordMod

Fair enough. I will try to read more stuff about encryption.

Apparently France may use its nukes to protect Europe, according to The Telegraph (whether they're right, I don't know). Maybe Europe together should develop a joint nuclear weapons program. Then British nukes wouldn't have to depend on US missiles anymore.

This thread is full of tankies justifying Russian imperialism yet again

Anybody who justifies Russian imperialism is not a leftist - in fact, they are actually a fascist

I think the 3% target is intended for the next parliament though. The target he wants to hit in this parliament is 2.5% from 2027 onwards.

I guess raising defence spending makes sense so that the UK can better protect itself from threats like Russia.

Fair points. That open letter is interesting. I didn't mean to be annoying with my responses, I was just giving my view.

I do think the oligarchy in the US is pretty worrying. As for encryption, I should probably learn more about it. I guess my understanding at the moment is only pretty basic.

The stasi would blush at the surveillance foreign corporations and the British government now engage in as a matter of course

My understanding is that the Stasi were very repressive - "using torture, intimidation and a vast network of informants to crush dissent". I'm not aware of the UK government using torture to crush dissent.

But spying on all of the public all of the time comes at a cost to society I would rather not pay. It quells dissent in the short and maybe mid term, but that extreme intrusion, ultimately drives otherwise moderate people into the hands of extremists

I don't think the public should be spied on all the time. But if there is some way that illegal communications (like planning murder) could be intercepted, without spying on others, that would be good.

The terrorists win when we sacrifice liberty for temporary security (or whatever that quote was)

There's a quote by Benjamin Franklin which apparently is: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety". I always thought that quote was a bit weird though, because humans do give up some form of liberty in return for safety. E.g. we give up the freedom to murder other people without legal consequences, because in return we get some safety: protection from being murdered by others.

Maybe I should read more about encryption. I was thinking maybe a company like Apple could just keep the encryption keys stored somewhere. So if needed they could decrypt particular messages. There could be big punishments, prison time, for anybody within Apple who decrypts messages without a court warrant.

I would probably argue that China is a little different to the UK, given that China is a one-party state.

Yeah maybe the UK government shouldn't be able to spy on Apple messages sent anywhere in the world. But maybe UK agencies like GCHQ should be able to get the messages of specific individuals who threaten the UK, with a court warrant, like how law enforcement has been able to bug the phones of criminals with a court warrant.

I dunno. Maybe I should educate myself more on encryption and how it all works.

I guess I think of it like bugging a phone. The technology for bugging phones has been around for a long time, but that doesn't mean the authorities are bugging everybody's phones all the time. Even if they can theoretically listen to everyone's conversations, that doesn't mean they are always listening. There would be too many conversations to listen to.

Maybe people just use what's popular. Telegram is pretty popular in some countries even though I don't think they have end-to-end encryption by default.

Anyway I guess I don't know what the answer is. Personally I would probably still use iMessage and WhatsApp even if I knew the companies behind them could potentially read my messages by decrypting them. If there's a proper system in place so that messages are only read when there's a court warrant, it's probably unlikely my boring messages to friends and family would be spied on by anybody.

Maybe I need to send more interesting messages and then I would care about the privacy of them a bit more.

Fair points. Also I guess practically big companies like Apple would never allow a situation where their encryption is compromised while encryption on smaller platforms like Signal isn't. Apple etc would spend billions lobbying so such a situation never happens.

I like the deadpan style. Yeah he's had quite a few TV shows. If people keep offering you work and you find the work pretty straightforward and you get paid, why not take it, I guess.