UK Home Office to lock child actor in box to fight encryption

[Silvanus]

I tried to come up with a more succinct/ illuminating title, but the alternatives didn't quite get to the absurdity of it.

So: most messaging services utilise end-to-end encryption, to prevent the contents of messages being easily accessible by third parties. WhatsApp, iMessage both use it. Facebook Messenger is shortly to introduce it. It is intended to protect the privacy of the users (...well, except from Facebook and Apple themselves, of course).

The UK Home Office, with an intimate interest in the invasion of privacy, is of course dead against encryption. So they have contracted the PR company M&C Saatchi, using over £500,000 of public funds, to run a PR blitz to turn public opinion against encryption.

Revealed: UK Gov't Plans Publicity Blitz to Undermine Privacy of Your Chats

The Home Office has hired a high-end ad agency to mobilize public opinion against encrypted communications — with plans that include some shockingly manipulative tactics

www.rollingstone.com

Some of the approaches M&C Saatchi have proposed so far have been... interesting to say the least. They include encouraging parents to write to Mark Zuckerberg via their Facebook statuses, and arranging for a spokesperson to arrive at Facebook's headquarters with a copy of a letter, asking to "speak to Mark".

But the best, most surreal of all is as follow (in the words of M&C Saatchi's own presentation);

"A glass box is installed in a public space. Inside the box, there are two actors; one child and one adult. Both strangers. The child sits playing on their smart phone. At the other end of the box, we see an adult sat on a chair also on their phone, typing away.

The adult occasionally looks over at the child, knowingly. Intermittently through the day, the ‘privacy glass’ will turn on and the previously transparent glass box will become opaque. Passers by won’t be able to see what’s happening inside. In other words, we create a sense of unease by hiding what the child and adult are doing online when their interaction can’t be seen."

There we have it. The Home Office intends to make the association between end-to-end encryption and the exploitation of children, by spending taxpayer money to install a glass box in a public space, containing an adult actor looking "knowingly" at a child actor.

Where's Chris Morris when you need him?

 

[tstorm823]

There we have it. The Home Office intends to make the association between end-to-end encryption and the exploitation of children, by spending taxpayer money to install a glass box in a public space, containing an adult actor looking "knowingly" at a child actor.

Where's Chris Morris when you need him?

Honestly, the analogy isn't bad for what happens online. The issue, of course, is letting a child alone in a box with a random adult who may have bad intentions, not whether you can see it happening or not. I get a good chuckle when the older generation talks about how they could just be out playing unsupervised and nobody would think twice about it, not like the kids today who are always supervised anywhere they go, and then these same adults hand a 12 year old a smart phone without a second thought.

 

[CM156]

Would get a lot more attention if the adult in the box was Prince Andrew.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Would get a lot more attention if the adult in the box was Prince Andrew.

Most people in this country are hoping for him to get locked in some sort of box anyway.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Ah, the old "if you don't let the government pry into your life, the criminals will win" argument.

 

[Leg End]

There we have it. The Home Office intends to make the association between end-to-end encryption and the exploitation of children, by spending taxpayer money to install a glass box in a public space, containing an adult actor looking "knowingly" at a child actor.

CM already beat me to the Prince Andrew joke
I give them 11 minutes ten or twenty years until they do the same argument with homes, and why everyone should live in a glass house. Think we're actually running a bit behind schedule.

Ah, the old "if you don't let the government pry into your life, the criminals will win" argument.

Same thing, aren't they?

 

[Agema]

The UK Home Office, with an intimate interest in the invasion of privacy, is of course dead against encryption. So they have contracted the PR company M&C Saatchi, using over £500,000 of public funds, to run a PR blitz to turn public opinion against encryption.

You mean the Tories are shoving another bung from the public finances at some their biggest party backers?

Quelle surpise!

 

[Trunkage]

Honestly, the analogy isn't bad for what happens online. The issue, of course, is letting a child alone in a box with a random adult who may have bad intentions, not whether you can see it happening or not. I get a good chuckle when the older generation talks about how they could just be out playing unsupervised and nobody would think twice about it, not like the kids today who are always supervised anywhere they go, and then these same adults hand a 12 year old a smart phone without a second thought.

It's one of the costs of allowing divorces to happen. Kidnapping went up dramatically in the 80s (like x8) but mainly by parents. So, playing bu yourselves did become unsafe for certain children

 

[Silvanus]

You mean the Tories are shoving another bung from the public finances at some their biggest party backers?

Quelle surpise!

Ah yes, of course, that's another aspect which shouldn't be overlooked; Saatchi & Saatchi have been heavily involved in ad campaigns for... the Conservative Party in the past. When it comes to public contracts, whether a company is the best for the job or not never even enters the discussion.