Comment by lozenge
1 day ago
That actually shows they understand and care because they don't want the law to apply to them. They don't care about its effects on other people.
1 day ago
That actually shows they understand and care because they don't want the law to apply to them. They don't care about its effects on other people.
No, it shows they're thinking of computers like they think of police officers.
Computer literacy 101: to err is human, to really foul up requires a computer.
They don't understand that by requiring the capability for going after domestic criminals, they've given a huge gift to their international adversaries' intelligence agencies. (And given this is about a computer vulnerability, "international adversaries" includes terrorists, and possibly disgruntled teenagers, not just governments).
They understand. Signal Foundation's president, Meredith Whittaker, among many other tech leaders, have made it abundantly clear to both the UK and the EU.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/21/meredith-whittaker-reaffir...
If politicians don't understand after such campaigning, it's a choice in willful ignorance, not bad computer literacy.
I personally campaigned at the time the law was being debated. Met my local MP, even.
If I'd known about the idea of "inferential gap" at the time, my own effort might not have been completely ignored… though probably still wouldn't have changed the end result as I still don't know how to show lawmakers that their model of how computers and software functions has led to a law that exposed them, personally, to hostile actors.
How even do you explain to people with zero computer lessons that adding a new access mechanism increases the attack surface and makes hacking easier?
The politicians seem to see computers as magic boxes, presumably in much the same way and for much the same reason that I see Westminster debates and PMQs as 650 people who never grew out of tipsy university debating society life.
(And regardless of if it is fair for me to see them that way, that makes it hard to find the right combination of words to change their minds).
2 replies →
I think it could be for both reasons