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In late 2021, Wired, the formerly libertarian magazine that now champions surveillance and censorship, called for spying on private messaging in the name of preventing harm. Encrypted messaging apps “are intentionally built for convenience and speed, for person-to-person communication as well as large group connections,” wrote Wired. “Yet it is these same conditions that have fueled abusive and illegal behavior, disinformation and hate speech, and hoaxes and scams; all to the detriment of the vast majority of their users. As early as 2018, investigative reports have explored the role that these very features played in dozens of deaths in India and Indonesia as well as elections in Nigeria and Brazil.”
The Omidyar report explicitly argued against the right to privacy in text messaging. “Privacy is essential to building trust, but it is not a singular standard for safety,” wrote Omidyar Foundation authors. “We believe online safety is the result of trustworthy technology and enlightened regulation. While the shift toward adopting end-to-end encryption has reinforced trust between users, the technological architecture that encourages scale, virality, and monetization has ultimately facilitated the rapid and large-scale spread of dangerous, distorted, and deceitful content.”
It is a shocking statement to read, especially when you realize that Omidyar, with a net worth of $9 billion, has long claimed to be a champion of free speech and privacy. He even bankrolled the online magazine, The Intercept in response to revelations by Edward Snowden that the U.S. government was illegally spying on American citizens. What is going on here? Why is the censorship industry now trying to spy on and censor our private messages?
– Michael Shellenberger
Android users (may be somewhat different on different makes of phone).
iPhone users.
Because if the Covid years have proven anything, only a crazed conspiracy theorist would believe governments would think nothing of using heightened fear to induce mass formation psychosis, thereby hugely increasing its power over every aspect of life, right?
I predict it will eventually be illegal to turn off such ‘warnings’ and phone makers will make it impossible, but then I am just a crazed conspiracy theorist 😉
Specially trained and reliable witnesses would certainly be a help. But, of course, they’re humans and thus fallible and corruptible. (Heinlein, a creature of his times, was a pretty big believer in institutions and professionalism. The past decade has largely served as a refutation of both. And even in his day, the institutions and professions were less trustworthy than we thought; it was just harder to find out when they were lying, sort of a meta-case of what I’m writing about here.)
Technology might help some, as it will probably soon be able to tell if people are lying via brain scans with high reliability. (I doubt it will be able to tell if they’re just wrong, though). And that technology offers its own set of – very troubling — problems that go way beyond this essay.
– Glenn Reynolds
Any significant public health threat from Covid was over in the early part of 2021, as my colleague and I have previously argued. However the administrative classes – politicians, MSM, ‘public health experts’ and so on – kept the charade going for another two years to serve their various agenda-driven purposes.
Now, though, most of these people have decided that it is expedient for the insanity to be over politically. As usual, the details we discuss in this article relate to the UK, but it is a similar story across the western world. So why now?
The disastrous fallout has finally begun to dawn on the same apathetic middle-class liberals who took their furlough money to enjoy an extended sabbatical at home – in the halcyon days when “lives were more important than the economy”. Apart from the most dedicated acolytes of the Covidian cult, reality can no longer be denied: The socio-economic fabric of Western society is crumbling, as was so obviously predictable, and predicted, by ourselves and others.
– John Sullivan
We are now forewarned that the British government has chosen St. George’s Day, 23rd April 2023, to trial a new ‘alert’ system by sending alerts to the phones of everyone in the UK. It seems that you have to interact with the phone to stop it blaring a siren-like noise at you, and so acknowledge this impertinence.
However, not all phones can receive these ‘alerts’. The functionality is limited:
Compatible mobile phones and other devices
Make sure your device has all the latest software updates.
Emergency alerts work on:
iPhones running iOS 14.5 or later
Android phones and tablets running Android 11 or later
If you have an earlier version of Android, you may still be able to receive alerts. To check, search your device settings for ‘emergency alerts’.
But you can turn off these alerts on your phone (if you are socially-unfriendly):
You can opt out of emergency alerts, but you should keep them switched on for your own safety.
To opt out:
Search your settings for ‘emergency alerts’.
Turn off ‘severe alerts’ and ‘extreme alerts’.
If you still get alerts, contact your device manufacturer for help.
Blimey, something the government acknowledges that it can’t help me with, is this a first?
But what, pray, is this all for?
You may get alerts about:
severe flooding
fires
extreme weather
One might hope that severe flooding and fires would be incompatible, but perhaps with the climate emergency, Mr Sunak will set the Thames on fire.
And the form of this message?
‘It ain’t half hot, Mum!‘
Not exactly:
What happens when you get an emergency alert
Your mobile phone or tablet may:
make a loud siren-like sound, even if it’s set on silent
vibrate
read out the alert
The sound and vibration will last for about 10 seconds.
An alert will include a phone number or a link to the GOV.UK website for more information.
OK, but what should I do if I get an ‘alert’?
What you need to do
When you get an alert, stop what you’re doing and follow the instructions in the alert.
But does this apply to say, surgeons in an operating theatre? This is not mentioned.
And wait, what if I am…
If you’re driving or riding when you get an alert
You should not read or otherwise respond to an emergency alert whilst driving or riding a motorcycle.
If you are driving, you should continue to drive and not respond to the noise or attempt to pick up the mobile phone and deal with the message.
Find somewhere safe and legal to stop before reading the message. If there is nowhere safe or legal to stop close by, and nobody else is in the vehicle to read the alert, tune into live radio and wait for bulletins until you can find somewhere safe and legal to stop.
It is illegal to use a hand-held device while driving or riding.
Well at least that’s clear…
What is the legal basis for the government taking this power, and why is this not explained?
And presumably, if there’s someone running amok with knives or guns, this won’t be part of the alert system, when it might actually be unexpected, unlike the weather.
I can see where this is going. It will eventually be used to warn people that Nigel Farage is making a speech locally and that they should stay indoors and not follow the event on social media.
Sorry, I was being overly cynical there, I have seen this:
If you cannot receive emergency alerts
If you do not have a compatible device, you’ll still be informed about an emergency. The emergency services have other ways to warn you when there is a threat to life.
Emergency alerts will not replace local news, radio, television or social media.
That’s good to know, I had been wondering if it would. And I am pleased to hear that I won’t be getting messages from Robert Spencer if there is a certain type of rare incident in the locality. Then again, what if there is a hippo on the loose? Is there a template alert message for that, if not, why not? Are you seriously trying to protect us? Will it sound if there is, say, an unexpected landing on a beach by persons unknown?
Around 35 years ago, the late Auberon Waugh said that people only go into politics for the pleasure of pressing switches and watching us all jump. This figure of speech has become reality.
Regular readers of this blog know that politically, the cause for liberty cuts through conventional categories. Over at Wired magazine, which in my view has tilted more Left in recent years and seems to have a lot of “green” material in it these days, it occasionally comes up with an article that is worth reading.
Here’s one on the use of AI technology to track alleged welfare cheats in Denmark. Denmark is one of those supposedly happy, social democratic, tax-and-spend places that the dimmer sort Western politicians, such as US Democrats, like to wax lyrical over. Well, take a look at this:
Denmark isn’t alone in turning to algorithms amid political pressure to crack down on welfare fraud. France adopted the technology in 2010, the Netherlands in 2013, Ireland in 2016, Spain in 2018, Poland in 2021, and Italy in 2022. But it’s the Netherlands that has provided the clearest warning against technological overreach. In 2021, a childcare benefits scandal, in which 20,000 families were wrongly accused of fraud, led to the resignation of the entire Dutch government. It came after officials interpreted small errors, such as a missing signature, as evidence of fraud, and forced welfare recipients to pay back thousands of euros they’d received as benefits payments.
Remember EU “chat control”? It’s growing, putting out roots.
The author of this Twitter thread, Matthew D Green, teaches practical cryptography at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute. You should read the whole thread, but I will single out this point as particularly scary:
Green is replying to someone with the user name f00b4r who offers as reassurance the statement that nothing will be done without a “detection order” issued by a competent authority. I have no doubt the paperwork will be in order, but that does not reassure me. Likewise, the idea that “that service providers are not liable for the content if they comply” is phrased by f00b4r as if it softens the threat, but so far as I can see it is the threat: comply or be made bankrupt.
Perhaps we had all better trust in the fact that the United Kingdom has left the European Union so none of this cannot possibly affect us. I’m sure we’ll be fine.
What I love about this new encryption law is how much easier it will be for foreign governments to spy on British citizens and enterprises now that Britain has unilaterally disarmed.
– Perry Metzger
Let me start by saying that I am no techie and I do not understand exactly what the EU are proposing with this law. Perhaps I am getting steamed up about nothing. But it sounds horrible. I first read about this topic via a link from Reddit Europe to a post from the blog of a Swedish VPN service called Mullvad. The original Swedish version first appeared as an article in the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. The English version follows: “Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU”
The European Commission is currently in the process of enacting a law called Chat control. If the law goes into effect, it will mean that all EU citizens’ communications will be monitored and listened to.
This text was originally published as a debate article in the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet and it calls on Swedish politicians to vote against the law proposal. In order for the law to not become reality, more countries need to vote against it. Therefore, we encourage journalists and citizens in all EU countries to question their governments and urge them to vote no.
Right now, the EU Commission is intensely working on a legislative proposal that would monitor and audit the communication of all European Union citizens. The regulation is called Chat Control, and it really does include all types of communication. This means that all of your phone calls, video calls, text messages, every single line that you write in all kinds of messaging apps (including encrypted services), your e-mails — yes, all of this — can be filtered out in real time and flagged for a more in-depth review. This also applies to images and videos saved in cloud services. Basically, everything you do with your smartphone. In other words, your personal life will be fully exposed to government scrutiny. So, why is it that almost no one is talking about this?
The previous day the same Mullvad blog had warned that an unintended consequence of the bill might have been to ban all open source operating systems, although an update says that “Open source OSes might be saved from being covered depending on the interpretation of EU regulation 2019/1150 2.2.c.” Well, that certainly puts my mind at rest.
What is the 77th Brigade for? According to its own website, the mission of this unit of the British Army is to CHALLENGE THE DIFFICULTIES OF MODERN WARFARE. Despite the capital letters I do not feel hugely better informed. It continues,
We are a combined Regular and Army Reserve unit. Our aim is to challenge the difficulties of modern warfare using non-lethal engagement and legitimate non-military levers as a means to adapt behaviours of the opposing forces and adversaries.
Um, okay. I would not want the difficulties of modern warfare to go unchallenged. I would even be up for them challenging the easy bits of modern warfare while they’re at it. However, before I give my wholehearted support to “adapting behaviours of the opposing forces” I would like to know what adapting-without-a-to means in normal English. Is it us changing them or them changing us? The question is pertinent because according to a whistleblower who contacted the civil liberties organisation Big Brother Watch, the last part of the line about the target of the British Army’s behavioural adaptation squad being “opposing forces and adversaries” seems to have been quietly dropped.
This link allows you to download a Big Brother Watch report called Ministry of Truth: the secretive government units spying on your speech.
The key findings are:
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, Conservative MPs David Davis and Chris Green, high profile academics from the University of Oxford and University College London, and journalists including Peter Hitchens and Julia Hartley-Brewer, all had comments critical of the government analysed by anti-misinformation units.
Targeted speech included public criticism of the government’s pandemic response – particularly lockdown modelling and vaccine passports – as well as journalists’ criticism of the withdrawal from Afghanistan and MPs’ criticism of NATO
Soldiers from the Army’s 77th Brigade, tasked with “non-lethal psychological warfare”, collected tweets from British citizens posting about Covid-19 and passed them to central government – despite claiming operations were directed strictly overseas
A counter-misinformation unit pressured the Dept. of Health to attack newspapers for publishing articles analysing Covid-19 modelling that it feared would undermine compliance with pandemic restrictions.
MPs and journalists were featured in “vaccine hesitancy reports” for opposing vaccine passports
Contractors paid over £1m to trawl social media for perceived terms of service violations on selected topics and pass them to government officials
Counter-disinformation units use special relationships with social media companies to recommend content be removed
Front organisations aimed at minority communities were set up to spread government propaganda in the UK
BBW have provided a jolly little template that allows you exercise your legal right to find out if you personally were having your social media posts monitored. However that does seem to involve giving the government the real name behind your twitter handle, which in the circumstances…
“How a personal trainer’s smart watch caused 15 armed police officers to turn up to his Sydney gym while he was teaching a client” – Daily Mail.
Apparently, Jaime Alleyne, who is a a Muay Thai and boxing trainer, called out “one, one, two” followed by “good shot” to a client he was sparring with. He was not wearing his smart watch but it was still active – and 112 is one of the Australian emergency phone numbers. Mr Alleyne said, “Next minute about 15 officers including undercovers showed up, with several ambulances parked out the front, and that’s when I started bricking myself.”
He would have had no need to fear an over-zealous response from the UK emergency services. They would still be waiting for a risk assessment.
“But fully mature people still have a sense of their own privacy, they keep to themselves what is properly kept to oneself. Privacy isn’t some relic of the pre-tech past, as I said once, it is connected to personhood. It has to do with intimate things—the inner workings of your head and heart, of your soul. You don’t just give those things away. Your deepest thoughts and experiences are yours, held by you; they are part of your history. They are part of your dignity. You share them as a mark of trust. This is true intimacy, not phony intimacy but the real thing. If you tell all the strangers your secrets what do you tell your intimates?”
– Peggy Noonan, WSJ ($)
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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