Nixintel

@thomasforth I know it's polemical, but it's a gross oversimplification so as to be quite unhelpful IMHO.

@nixintel Lots happened. And my argument in that piece is that it was the retention of key points of Thatcherism that led to much of our national underperformance. And I give lots of examples of, mostly Tory governments, doing exactly that. And I hope Andy now continues.

Thatcher's legacy is Britain's economy being the weakest of our neighbours and our country close to separation. I'm not sure Burnham's plan to undo her worst excesses is great, but at least he's diagnosed the problem, and has some good ideas. tomforth.co.uk/recoveringfrom…

@thomasforth And the 34 years between Thatcher leaving office and that data?? Did nothing happen in the meantime?

@nixintel "weakest economy of our neighbours" is just data. "close to separation" is arguable. I do think all three of our devolved nations being led by parties who wish to leave the UK is very concerning. As are polls showing the majority of working age Scots would vote to leave.

Allow me to explain the core problem with the #EU #ageVerification concept. They're trying to solve an ontological problem with cryptography; something which is logically & demonstrably impossible. They're conflating a cryptographic, epistemic claim "this credential belongs to someone over 18" with the ontological "this person is over 18". Even perfect Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) do not bridge the gap between digital assertions and physical reality. There's not a cryptographic protocol on earth that does. The entire theatrical process establishes provenance. Provenance is not truth. I call it as escalation path precisely because this logical divide cannot be solved with code. It's not a technical problem. The developers have been tasked with solving the unsolvable. The question is simple: How old is ______________? How can you possibly answer that without vital context; the person's identity? So what's next in the global push for age verification? #ID checkpoints everywhere, real-time video/audio, geolocation, outlawed & undermined cryptography - traceability from end to end... to "protect the children" No #privacy, no rights... and no say in the matter. We're sleep walking into the abyss. Wake up.

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📢New FSU Survey: The ONLINE SAFETY ACT: ONE YEAR ON A year on from the Orwellian rules contained in the Online Safety Act coming into force — including age checks and restrictions on content alleged to be harmful to under-18s — the Free Speech Union wants to hear from you. We are asking what, if anything, has changed in how you experience free speech on social media: what gets removed, restricted or quietly suppressed, and how that shapes what people feel able to say. The survey takes between five and ten minutes to complete, and we would be incredibly grateful if you could take part. Your responses will help us strengthen our evidence base as we continue the fight for free expression online. Take the survey below👇

The entirety of British politics is now MPs demanding online censorship when something bad happens. It is terrifying. We're heading in the same direction as France and the rest of the EU when it comes to government control and monitoring of political discussion online.

Summary of the Finnish Podcast Episode (Puheenaihe 570: "EU ja CSAM: 'Isoveli valvoo sinua'" with Peter Sund) This is a long-form discussion between host Rami Kurimo and guest Peter Sund (CEO of Kyberala ry, a Finnish cybersecurity industry advocacy group). The core topic is the EU's proposed CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) regulation, often called "Chat Control." They criticize it as a Trojan horse that undermines digital privacy and encryption under the guise of protecting children, while arguing it is ineffective, dangerous, and risks broader surveillance. The tone is critical of EU overreach, emphasizing Finnish/European values of freedom and trust. **Background and Guest Introduction** • Peter Sund's expertise: Background in security (private sector, government, international orgs like UN/EU), now leading cybersecurity industry advocacy in Finland. • Kyberala ry represents companies, researchers, and professionals in cyber defense, promoting better digital security for society. **The EU CSAM/Chat Control Proposal** • Core Problem It Claims to Solve: Online child sexual exploitation, including production/sharing of abuse material and grooming. • Noble Intent vs. Reality: The goal (protecting children) is good, but the proposal is a "Trojan horse" with hidden risks. It's driven by the EU Commission's internal security department, ignoring broader digital rights, privacy, and technical realities. • Key Features Criticized: • Mandatory scanning/monitoring of private messages in apps (WhatsApp, Signal, Messenger, etc.). • Client-side scanning before encryption (or weakening encryption with backdoors). • Applies to personal and business communications. • Automated detection of known illegal content, with human review for flags. • Service providers (tech companies) must implement surveillance components. **Privacy and Encryption Concerns** • Compares it to opening private letters before sealing them. • Undermines fundamental rights like communication secrecy (protected in Finnish/EU constitutions). • Risks mass surveillance without individualized suspicion — a shift from rule-of-law principles. • Weakening encryption creates backdoors exploitable by criminals, hackers, and authoritarian states. • Parallels to China's WeChat (total surveillance) and concerns about becoming a "digital police state." **Technical and Practical Problems** • Scale: Billions of daily messages make it impractical; false positives/negatives are inevitable. • AI/algorithms are unreliable for nuanced content and easy to evade. • Does not effectively stop new material or real-time grooming. • Businesses and small/open-source apps would struggle or be forced into compliance. • Creates a massive honeypot for hackers (the surveillance component itself becomes a prime target). **Broader Societal and Political Risks** • Trust in Institutions: Finland's high-trust society could erode; examples of past abuses (e.g., police overreach cases). **Alternatives and Better Approaches** • Focus on prevention: Better platform design (easy reporting, age verification, parental controls, safe defaults). • Targeted law enforcement (e.g., undercover operations/grooming stings, as used for other crimes). • Education, international cooperation, and disrupting dark web distribution. • Avoid blanket surveillance; prioritize effective, proportionate tools with oversight. • Digital identity solutions and user empowerment without backdoors. **Closing Themes** • Emphasizes balancing security with liberty; strong encryption protects everyone (including against real threats). • Calls for evidence-based policy with proper impact assessments. • Warns that good intentions can pave the road to worse outcomes if technical/privacy risks are ignored. The episode promotes skepticism toward the current proposal while supporting genuine child protection. It stresses that cybersecurity professionals oppose it because it weakens digital safety.

@peterrhague Sounds like a Comms/IT failure? bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

Somethings happening and they won’t say what, nothing on local BBC news. Somewhat concerning

YouTube has just taken down the political discussion clip about the EU's Chat Control, and the video is no longer viewable in the EU. This has been confirmed by several parties. The video is still available outside the EU. @puheenaihefi podcast is a Finnish current affairs program with 60k subscribers. In this episode, Peter Sund, CEO of the Finnish Information Security Cluster (Kyberala ry) offered pointed criticism of the EU's new Chat Control directive, which was enacted under questionable circumstances. Because the media is in Finnish, it is highly likely the censorship request came from a Finnish government official or a related party. This makes it troublesome. Because the Finnish constitution §12 guarantees freedom of expression. Preventing political publications is a criminal offence: Abuse of Official Position, punishable by a fine or imprisonment for up to two years. You can listen to this episode on Apple Music and Spotify. Spotify link open.spotify.com/episode/51Etz1… Dysfunctional YouTube link youtube.com/watch?v=dGaQCc…

If you want to restore speech in Britain, you need to not only go after the most-misused statutes. You have to impliedly repeal a ton of bad case law and put up barriers around censorial state norms. You can't do that by just repealing things. You must also build.

Die Chatkontrolle kommt. Kein guter Tag für Freiheit & Bürgerrechte…

So, while Martin called out the illegal fast tracking of Chatcontrol to the EU president, they cut his mic off 60 seconds into the explanation.

🚨L'Union européenne veut accéder à TOUS vos messages privés. Et elle se sert de vos enfants pour y parvenir. 👉Aujourd'hui, je vote CONTRE un texte qui pose la première pierre de Chat Control. Par ce projet, Bruxelles veut imposer aux messageries, comme WhatsApp ou Telegram, de scanner vos conversations privées « pour lutter contre la pédocriminalité ». Aucun juge, aucun contrôle préalable. Ils ont trouvé une nouvelle manière d'étendre leur contrôle : culpabiliser ceux qui refuseront cette intrusion en prétendant qu'ils ne veulent pas protéger les enfants. Et pourtant... Regardez la méthode : cela fait des mois que l'UE insiste. Un texte quasiment identique a été rejeté il y a trois mois. L'UE essaye-t-elle de le faire passer en force ? Regardez la logique dans laquelle s'inscrit ce texte. Elle progresse, brique par brique : vérification d'âge et fin de l'anonymat en ligne, euro numérique qui permettrait de tracer, voire de bloquer chacune de nos transactions. Chaque fois une bonne raison : les ingérences étrangères, l'intérêt des enfants, les « valeurs européennes ». Et chaque fois le même résultat : disparition de la vie privée, moins de liberté, plus de contrôle. Comptez sur moi pour vous défendre.

Because it is highly authoritarian. Pre-emptive monitoring of all citizen devices with no mandate or oversight is grossly illiberal. It is the type of measure we would expect from the defunct communist regimes of the Soviet era, not western democracies with a tradition of liberty. It's also naive to believe that chat control will be limited to child protection once implemented. The temptation to control and censor is just too great. European citizens lack adequate protection from such overreach. It is also all too predictable from @FrenchResponse. Only a short time ago the account began using wit and humour to tackle foreign disinformation, but it has already become just another state spokesperson that deliberately misframes real concerns to stifle legitimate criticism of their own dreadful policies.

@bettersafetynet This is so cool!

🔴Social media ban is FAILING in Australia According to new research by leading medical journal, The BMJ: 🔹Over 85% of under-16s are still on social media sites despite a ban 🔹66% of children using social media have been exposed to ID checks including intrusive methods like uploading selfies The evidence is on the table - a social media ban will fail to keep children safer online. Instead it would force Orwellian ID gateways to the internet, population-wide surveillance and a chokehold on everyone’s internet access. Read⤵️ news.sky.com/story/worrying…

🚨 They are bringing back #ChatControl 🚨 Metsola doesn't understand that no means no. Discussion is scheduled for Monday, so act now: fightchatcontrol.eu #No2Surveillance #Privacy #Security

the folks who claim they are constitutionally incapable of being on time somehow never end up 30 minutes *early* to an appointment. it only goes one way!

being late is inherently disrespectful and thus, almost by definition, a moral failing

When we first discovered the Strava open-source vulnerability some years ago, we would upload spoofed 50-centimeter GPS vectors on the doorsteps of loads of sensitive buildings, and it would just give us clear names of everyone who walked in and out with one of those watches