Skip to main content

Government must have power to spy on Whatsapp users' messages, Home Secretary Amber Rudd demands | The Independent

xxx

"Whatsapp must allow security services to access users’ messages in the wake of the Westminster terror attack, Home Secretary Amber Rudd has demanded.

Ms Rudd said it was ‘unacceptable’ that the security services were unable to see messages sent by terrorists."

Government must have power to spy on Whatsapp users' messages, Home Secretary Amber Rudd demands | The Independent

The flaw with this argument is, of course, that if there is a backdoor in WhatsApp so that police can read terrorists messages, then the terrorists will be able to use the same backdoor to read the message between law enforcement, MPs and everybody else.

xxx

"A police officer has been jailed today after she accessed the police national computer database to help a friend who was once suspected of involvement in Britain's biggest ever cash robbery. "

Police officer jailed after using her force computer to help a criminal suspect in Britain's biggest cash robbery | Daily Mail Online

xxx

xxx

"Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), which inspects Britain's police forces, has reported on several cases of misuse of the Police National Computer (PNC) by non-police organisations."

Non-police orgs merrily accessed PNC without authority, says HMIC • The Register

xxx

xxx

"A woman who got a job at Hammersmith Police station so she could track a witness whose evidence helped convict her gangster boyfriend of murder has been jailed."

Murderer's girlfriend who got job at Hammersmith Police Station to access secret files on key witness is jailed - Get West London

xxx

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

There is no excuse for not taking cards

So we went to the pub. For lunch. Seven of us. Say £20 per head. £100+ quid. Say £50 quid gross for the pub. Colleague goes to order food and drinks and pay at the bar. Apologetic barmaid comes over to explain that their “card machine” is down, so she can only accept cash. Under normal circumstances I would have simply walked out, feeling it wholly inappropriate to reward such a poorly managed establishment and, as a functioning actor in a capitalist economy, done my duty to depress their lunchtime takings. Here’s what we wanted to say: This is absurd. This is 2016 not 1916. Your card machine is down? Well, so what! Are you seriously telling me that mein host has no mobile phone number capable of registering for PingIt or PayM? That none of the staff or the pub itself have a PayPal account that I can send the money to? That neither the owners nor managers not contingency planners thought to tuck an iZettle behind the bar to use when the clunky and expensive GPRS terminal fails for o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Financial Cryptography: Corda Day - a new force

Forum friend Ian Grigg, who I always take very seriously indeed on any such topic, wrote about Corda on his blog and concluded with a powerful statement. Bitcoin told the users it wanted an unstoppable currency - sure, works for a small group but not for the mass market. Ethereum told their users they need an unstoppable machine - which worked how spectacularly with the DAO? Not. What. We. Wanted. Corda is the only game in town because it's the only one that asked the users. It's that simple. From Financial Cryptography: Corda Day - a new force xxx It seems to me, however, what Ian is pointing to as the greatest strength of their approach is also the greatest weakness. A staple feature of unimaginative management consultants presentations about innovation is some variation on the statement by Henry Ford that if you had asked users what they wanted, they would have asked for faster horses coupled with some variation on the statement by Steve jobs that it was pointless ask...
Post a Comment
Read more

We could fix mobile security, you know. We don't, but we could

Earlier in the week I blogged about mobile banking security , and I said that in design terms it is best to assume that the internet is in the hands of your enemies. In case you think I was exaggerating… The thieves also provided “free” wireless connections in public places to secretly mine users’ personal information. From Gone in minutes: Chinese cybertheft gangs mine smartphones for bank card data | South China Morning Post Personally, I always use an SSL VPN when connected by wifi (even at home!) but I doubt that most people would ever go to this trouble or take the time to configure a VPN and such like. Anyway, the point is that the internet isn’t secure. And actually SMS isn’t much better, which is why it shouldn’t really be used for securing anything as important as home banking. The report also described how gangs stole mobile security codes – which banks automatically send to card holders’ registered mobile phones to verify online transactions – by using either a Trojan...
Post a Comment
Read more