Thread by @ciaranmartinoxf

.@troyhunt is bang on: if this first para in @Telegraph article on UK Gov’t encryption policy is accurate, then the policy is insane.

But is it accurate?

I don’t think it is.

I’m not saying it’s a good or bad policy. But it’s not an announcement to hack Facebook.

A 🧵 1/15

https://twitter.com/troyhunt/status/1435561427171901445

The @Telegraph story is based on an article by Home Secretary @pritipatel.

It’s in three parts.

(A) the usual anti e2e rhetoric about its impact on child abuse investigations.

(B) a somewhat surprising statement of principle

(C) one specific new policy announcement. 2/15

I’ll spare you (a): it’s all been said before. But the stuff about the policy principle is, to me, surprising.

The Home Sec is clear she wants to find solutions WITHIN the parameters of e2e.

Not once does she mention setting it aside or banning e2e.

Bear with me 3/15

Below are two screenshots of some of @pritipatel’s words in two different @Telegraph articles reporting on it.

Here the actual specific announcement is clear on both policy principle & specifics…4/15

So the policy principle is not to ban e2e. It’s that tech companies should be able to implement e2e in ways that don’t impact on child protection.

Many will say that’s impossible, and undesirable even if possible. But its what she says, not ban e2e or hack Facebook 5/15

Moving on to (C), the specific, new & slightly weird policy announcement is a “safety tech challenge fund” of up to £85K per successful entry to find ways of making this principle a practical reality 6/15

The idea seems to place a lot of weight on Apple’s now paused plan to use device based detection for CSAM (that is what Ms Patel’s reference to “just one company” above refers to, and here’s more below) 7/15

You might say therein lies the rub: there’s lots of scepticism about Apple’s plans & the company have put them on hold.

But here the UK gov’t is essentially citing them as proof of concept 8/15

And many will no doubt go further & say Ms Patel has launched to tech equivalent of a fund to develop alchemy; that the task is scientifically impossible 9/15

But accuracy & fairness demands that this isn’t reported as a policy to crack e2e, because it isn’t.

Because it’s a policy to keep e2e but not reduce law enforcement access, the more justified criticism is that it is announcing a search for a solution that cannot exist 10/15

The onus is now on those who say such a solution can exist to prove it & prove those sceptics wrong.

Today’s announcement offers a five figure reward for so doing. I suspect if (huge ‘if’) someone succeeds they’ll make an awful lot more money than that 11/15

For me, the first line of the article rightly picked up by @troyhunt tells us more about the problems of accurate reporting of the encryption issue that it does about the wisdom/malevolence of UK gov’t policy (time will tell on that) 12/15

There is simply no way this should have been reported as the launch of “worldwide hunt for tech wizards to crack Facebook's encryption” because it isn’t. It might prove to be a bad policy but it’s not a worldwide hunt to hack Facebook 13/15

It’s another example of political messaging not getting the tech right & reporting of it hamming that up. It evokes memories of Mr Cameron’s non-existent plan to “ban encryption”, based on a few remarks which were very poorly worded but nothing more 14/15

google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.…

The debate is heated enough without things that aren’t correct being thrown in.

This fund idea looks like a long shot, to put it kindly.

The UK Gov’t could well go after e2e. I hope not.

But it hasn’t yet, so let’s not say it has.

Huge thanks to @troyhunt for flagging 15/END