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On March 25 2017 03:06 bardtown wrote:
Can't agree with that. There are plots foiled in the UK on a very frequent basis. That is testament to our intelligence services, nothing more. It is definitely not coincidental that the attacker in this case was in Luton and Birmingham.
I'll try to dig out a source on the attack being indicative of a weak IS presence in UK. I recall it being from a security spokesperson.
I'm not convinced that intelligence is the only reason why there haven't been more attacks (because they have been foiled). I'd actually find that kind of power quite distrubing!
Rather, I just think there's a general lack of appetite for becoming a terrorist in the UK.
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Perhaps its the ubiquitous British trait of complaint without any action! Those foreigners are more naturalised than we give them credit for! 
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On March 25 2017 03:13 Deleuze wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2017 03:06 bardtown wrote:
Can't agree with that. There are plots foiled in the UK on a very frequent basis. That is testament to our intelligence services, nothing more. It is definitely not coincidental that the attacker in this case was in Luton and Birmingham. I'll try to dig out a source on the attack being indicative of a weak IS presence in UK. I recall it being from a security spokesperson. I'm not convinced that intelligence is the only reason why there haven't been more attacks (because they have been foiled). I'd actually find that kind of power quite distrubing! Rather, I just think there's a general lack of appetite for becoming a terrorist in the UK.
Well, stop patting yourselves on your backs now.
So far, 4 countries in Europe have suffered (serious) attacks from Islamic terrorists: England (London subway), Spain (trains), France (numerous), Belgium (airport). Of these, two were over a decade ago, so in the last decade, it is limited to France, Belgium and the recent driver+knife that we are now talking about.
If England is so awesome, how come Germany (more populous), Italy (about as populous) and a whole host of other countries have had not one single incidence of Islamic terrorism. Maybe stop patting yourselves on your backs, and recognize that your record on Islamic terrorism is comparatively bad.
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Are you sure about Germany???
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On March 25 2017 03:48 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2017 03:13 Deleuze wrote:On March 25 2017 03:06 bardtown wrote:
Can't agree with that. There are plots foiled in the UK on a very frequent basis. That is testament to our intelligence services, nothing more. It is definitely not coincidental that the attacker in this case was in Luton and Birmingham. I'll try to dig out a source on the attack being indicative of a weak IS presence in UK. I recall it being from a security spokesperson. I'm not convinced that intelligence is the only reason why there haven't been more attacks (because they have been foiled). I'd actually find that kind of power quite distrubing! Rather, I just think there's a general lack of appetite for becoming a terrorist in the UK. Well, stop patting yourselves on your backs now. So far, 4 countries in Europe have suffered (serious) attacks from Islamic terrorists: England (London subway), Spain (trains), France (numerous), Belgium (airport). Of these, two were over a decade ago, so in the last decade, it is limited to France, Belgium and the recent driver+knife that we are now talking about. If England is so awesome, how come Germany (more populous), Italy (about as populous) and a whole host of other countries have had not one single incidence of Islamic terrorism. Maybe stop patting yourselves on your backs, and recognize that your record on Islamic terrorism is comparatively bad.
I wasn't comparing the UK with any other country.
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On March 25 2017 03:55 maybenexttime wrote:
Are you sure about Germany???
Ah no. I forgot the lorry attack on the Berlin Christmas market.
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The only country in Europe that is a comparatively high priority target is France, and they have had significantly worse outcomes. Germany is a far lower priority for terrorism, and it has had worse outcomes.
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I don't think you can blame the UK for not standing up to fascism. That's just not possible because of Churchill. However, if you want to blame the British for giving up on values, I can find you two examples.
Example 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentages_agreement
Example 2: British politicians being supportive of the Ottoman Empire when a few countries were under the Ottoman Empire's rule.
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On March 25 2017 03:57 Acrofales wrote:Ah no. I forgot the lorry attack on the Berlin Christmas market.
What about the train axe attack?
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United States43278 Posts
The British and French have a completely different colonial history in North Africa and the Middle East than Germany. The comparison doesn't make any sense. For example the Muslim population in France is predominantly French born and descended from Algerian and Moroccan immigrants. Not all Muslims have the same cultural background, not all come from the same place and not all have the same historical context.
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On March 25 2017 04:09 KwarK wrote:
The British and French have a completely different colonial history in North Africa and the Middle East than Germany. The comparison doesn't make any sense. For example the Muslim population in France is predominantly French born and descended from Algerian and Moroccan immigrants. Not all Muslims have the same cultural background, not all come from the same place and not all have the same historical context.
Exactly. And this is why national comparisons on this issue are extremely difficult.
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On March 25 2017 04:16 Deleuze wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2017 04:09 KwarK wrote:
The British and French have a completely different colonial history in North Africa and the Middle East than Germany. The comparison doesn't make any sense. For example the Muslim population in France is predominantly French born and descended from Algerian and Moroccan immigrants. Not all Muslims have the same cultural background, not all come from the same place and not all have the same historical context. Exactly. And this is why national comparisons on this issue are extremely difficult.
Which is fine. But it also means that patting yourself on the back because there have been "so few attacks" is nonsensical. So few as compared to what?
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I wouldn't say I was patting myself on the back...
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Douglas Carswell quitting UKIP to become independent MP for Clacton
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39393213
There goes UKIP's last shred of credibility. Carswell is a good politician. Hope he'll be able to push through more of the reforms he wants after we leave the EU.
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The struggle between governments and privacy protection on apps that have a global reach is going dominate tech going forward. The nature of computer security makes a backdoor a terrible idea. But private, portable, anonymous communication that is completely immune to government requests/orders for access is a pretty terrible idea too.
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On March 28 2017 00:18 Plansix wrote:
But private, portable, anonymous communication that is completely immune to government requests/orders for access is a pretty terrible idea too.
I don't see why.
Programs like Signal and WhatsApp are just time savers, for convenience really. Anybody can invent an encryption scheme that's impossible for any person or government to crack.
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On March 28 2017 00:23 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2017 00:18 Plansix wrote:
But private, portable, anonymous communication that is completely immune to government requests/orders for access is a pretty terrible idea too. I don't see why. Programs like Signal and WhatsApp are just time savers, for convenience really. Anybody can invent an encryption scheme that's impossible for any person or government to crack.
Agreed. I think WhatsApp/Facebook/etc. should work with authorities to allow things like wiretaps in their services (this could be done by targeted removing of the encryption scheme, or switching the encryption key with a dud, which the user *should* not know was happening. The same as with telephone calls. If we had known that instead of sending a whatsapp, we knew that he had made a phone call, we'd have the metadata: who he phoned and for how long, but not the content. However, if you have evidenced suspicions of someone beforehand, you can get a wiretap, and thus get the content of that conversation.
And just as criminals can find laborious ways to speak in codes and thus circumvent wiretaps, they can find laborious ways to circumvent the equivalent on whatever chat service is used.
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On March 28 2017 00:23 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2017 00:18 Plansix wrote:
But private, portable, anonymous communication that is completely immune to government requests/orders for access is a pretty terrible idea too. I don't see why. Programs like Signal and WhatsApp are just time savers, for convenience really. Anybody can invent an encryption scheme that's impossible for any person or government to crack.
Software is still an artifice created by humans. Until now, most software has been pretty harmless in general and not provided citizens with anything that was beyond the government’s ability to deal with. In the 1990 and 2000, encryption’s reach was limited, since the internet was not totally mass market at that point. But that limit might have been reached with mass market, democratized release of a programs that can be installed on every phone and communicate with anyone.
I don’t think private communication is bad or something people shouldn’t have. I think it is a product people should be able to get. I’m not convinced it should be a free app that can be downloaded onto every phone, with global reach.
This isn’t a problem with tech, but a problem with tech being created for a global market. The one size fits all design of this software is something the tech industry became used to. Over time, governments have seen the flaws with that level open market.
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On March 28 2017 00:30 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2017 00:23 LightSpectra wrote:On March 28 2017 00:18 Plansix wrote:
But private, portable, anonymous communication that is completely immune to government requests/orders for access is a pretty terrible idea too. I don't see why. Programs like Signal and WhatsApp are just time savers, for convenience really. Anybody can invent an encryption scheme that's impossible for any person or government to crack. Agreed. I think WhatsApp/Facebook/etc. should work with authorities to allow things like wiretaps in their services (this could be done by targeted removing of the encryption scheme, or switching the encryption key with a dud, which the user *should* not know was happening.
That's functionally a backdoor and is terrible for all of the same reasons.
Any communication app that does not warn you when the contact's public key has been altered is just as worthless as an unencrypted one.
On March 28 2017 00:34 Plansix wrote:
don’t think private communication is bad or something people shouldn’t have. I think it is a product people should be able to get. I’m not convinced it should be a free app that can be downloaded onto every phone, with global reach.
So what's your argument, privacy shouldn't be democratized but a privilege of the few?
Like I said, any person, even a stupid person, can invent an encrypted communication protocol that is unbreakable by any person or government. Programs like WhatsApp are just saving time. If they get backdoored, bad people will revert back to word salad, but regular people will have to suffer from unwarranted surveillance.
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EPT
