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punishing an intermediary would stop people being nasty to each
other.
Any new regulations around
Any new regulations around controlling abusive or harmful
behaviours online must start with changing user's behaviours. If
there is no attempt to change behaviour, then abusive people will
simply work around the controls and continue to abuse.
** CONSTODO Investigation support
In response to the live-streaming of that horrific shooting dead of
more than 50 people in New Zealand earlier this year, that country
has proscribed the video recorded by that white supremacist
terrorist as "objectionable", making it a criminal offence to share
it[fn:banNotice:https://www.classificationoffice.govt.nz/news/latest-news/christchurch-attacks-press-releases/#christchurch-attack-video-footage-and-document-has-been-banned-in-nz-what-this-means-for-you].
While one can understand the thinking that sharing the material
could only be done by people who support the atrocity, this is not
necessarily true. Other reasons to share the video or portions of
it might include
- to appeal for help in finding someone caught up in the masssacre
- Legitimate news reporting of such an event.
- to help investigate the shooting and its circumstances
- training for law enforcement or terrorism- or disaster-response
personnel.
However, if the law says that no form of sharing is permitted, then
none of the entirely legitimate purposes would be possible, and the
world would be that bit less safe as a result.
** CONSTODO Encrypted services
Some believe that if end-to-end encryption services that prevent
security services from accessing material were banned or
controlled, there would be less abusive behaviour online. This is
not true, nor is it a good public policy.
Encryption is just mathematics, and it knows neither whether its
use is for ill or good. However, when you consider the extent to
which encryption is being used -- every website that uses =https=
as part of its address encrypts the traffic between itself and its
users, and that is nearly every website around the world -- the
good uses vastly outnumber the bad uses. If people are forced to
use an encryption system that has been modified to make it easy for
security services to gain access to the messages, it means that all
the good, innocent uses of encryption are at risk. Recent news that
Russian spies managed to infiltrate the
FBI[fn:Oath:https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-russia-carried-out-a-stunning-breach-of-fbi-communications-system-escalating-the-spy-game-on-us-soil-090024212.html
(Please note that to access this story the user has to agree to
many hundreds of forms tracking or spend many up to an hour
examining those forms and disabling each one individually. It is
recommended that this story be access using "Incognito" or "Private
Browsing" mode in order to be protected against tracking).],
highlights how unreliable are assurances from security services
that they can keep secrets such as the keys to all encryption safe
from harm.
All it takes is one determined intruder, and all the good uses of
encryption are put at risk in order to safe money and effort on
investigating illegal activities.
I have written a number of articles on this matter providing more
details:
- [[http://www.gibiris.org/eo-blog/posts/2015/03/12_the-value-of-encryption.html][The value of encryption]]
- [[http://www.gibiris.org/eo-blog/posts/2015/03/18_how-can-encryption-be-regulated.html][How can encryption be regulated]]
- [[http://www.gibiris.org/eo-blog/posts/2018/08/21_you-cant-stop-people-from-using-encryption.html][You just can't stop people from using encryption, so stop trying]]
- [[http://www.gibiris.org/eo-blog/posts/2018/08/22_stop-people-from-using-encryption-postscript.html][Post-script on why you should stop trying to stop people from
using encryption]]
- [[http://www.gibiris.org/eo-blog/posts/2018/09/04_some-questions-5-eyes-countries-what-can-they-do.html][Some questions for the "5 Eyes" countries on what they think they
can do]]
* CONSTODO Answers to consultation questions
The follows are some answers to the questions posed in the call for
submissions.