The thing is, it _is_ controversial. At least amongst the general public.

Obviously not in somewhere like Hacker News where there’s a clear consensus, but if you asked a random sample of the UK population “should law enforcement be allowed to compel tech companies to hand over all DMs of confirmed paedophiles?”, I’d bet very good money the majority would say “yes”.

The notion that “Big Tech” can absolve themselves of the responsibility to help law enforcement find child abusers by saying “it’s all encrypted, not my problem”, does not sit well with a large sector of the population.

Whether it’s good or bad is an ultimately political question, and both sides of the debate tend to talk past each other on this topic, but it’s undeniably a controversial point within the broader population.

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kristianc 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Sure, but it comes down to framing.

If you asked 'Would you support weakening encryption in messaging apps if it helped catch some criminals, even though it could make it easier for hackers to read your messages and steal your passwords, bank details, or personal photos?' I'd bet a large proportion of the general population would say no.

But that side never gets explored, or there's an assumption that there's some way of only letting the good guys access the information.

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gzread 6 hours ago | parent [-]

We are technologists here. There is no technology that can determine if somebody is a pedophile. We can't make a system that exposes the data of pedophiles but is secure for everyone else. We think it has to be all or nothing.

But other people are not technologists. Lawyers think the law is robust enough to determine if someone is a pedophile and only issue warrants for pedophile's data and simultaneously punish anyone who leaks the data of non-pedophiles. Most of the public also believe the police and the law can do that.

When the law is set up to do that, always gets abused eventually, after a time of not getting abused. The public gets outraged and the responsible person gets a slap on the wrist, and the abuse is normalized. In other words, lawyers are wrong and it doesn't work - by our standards. That doesn't stop them thinking it does. Our definition of "you can't do that" is "it's impossible to do that." Their definition of "you can't do that" is "you can do that, but if the police find out, you will go to jail."

	▲	kristianc 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		In an ideal world it would work something like that. In reality in the UK the pattern more often is: 1. New power introduced after crisis or scandal, justified as exceptional and targeted 2. Enforcement is patchy or politically difficult. Police either lack resources or big tech platforms don't want to or can't play ball 3. Failure or abuse case becomes public and reported in chattering classes tabloid press 4. Response is not "use existing powers better" but expand powers, broaden scope, lower initial 'targeted' thresholds 5. Cycle repeats Issue is compounded because you have politicians who will either not understand things or pretend not to understand things.