Police to get tough on internet trolls.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

If the predictions about Truss come to fruition, I can see it being delayed again..

We can only hope so.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Paul

Good, no one should be spying on my conversations, or yours, or anyone elses.

It's a difficult balancing act to get right between the privacy of the individual and measures to protect children from harm by predators.

I do have sympathy for the point made by Jaymoss in that Governments like to use emotive issues like paedophilia, terrorism etc in order to justify snooping into our lives. I doubt that they would routinely snoop on us all, just those suspected of or accused of inappropriately contacting vulnerable members of society.

Having said that, didn't it come out that more detailed records had been kept about our online activity?

IIRC they said that they were only recording dates/times etc of online/phone activity, but had actually been keeping records of phone conversations, emails etc. I could be wrong though as my memory is failing. Does anyone remember this?

I suppose the best thing to do is to assume that any posts, texts, conversations etc will be recorded and may be used against you in the future.

This could be the reason why the authorities dislike end to end encryption, though you'd think that they'd be able to circumvent this. I have read that they can circumvent password protection, maybe encryption is more secure? I really don't know.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

It's a difficult balancing act to get right between the privacy of the individual and measures to protect children from harm by predators.

There is nothing difficult about it, dont spy on private conversations. Simple.
"Protection" is just an lame excuse for Big Brother [Governments] to spy on you, or control you.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

I have read that they can circumvent password protection

You should not believe everything you read.
You cannot just "circumvent password protection".
Sure, it might look good, and work, in movies, not in real life.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Paul

There is nothing difficult about it, dont spy on private conversations. Simple.
"Protection" is just an lame excuse for Big Brother [Governments] to spy on you, or control you.

You should not believe everything you read.
You cannot just "circumvent password protection".
Sure, it might look good, and work, in movies, not in real life.

Well, hackers manage to do it, so I can believe that Governments/the police with all their sophisticated technology might be able to do it.

Isn't there a system (Brute force?) where an account is presented with password after password until it gets it right?

There again, a lot of sites block access after 3 attempts, presumably to prevent this.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Well, hackers manage to do it, so I can believe that Governments/the police with all their sophisticated technology might be able to do it.

Isn't there a system (Brute force?) where an account is presented with password after password until it gets it right?

Brute force is not circumventing passwords, its a guessing game to find the actual password.

"Hacking" is a way to break into a backend system, not really circumventing the actual password.

If you think of your hourse, and locked front door, for which you have the key, then brute force is someone trying keys until they find one identical to yours. Hacking is someone smashing the kitchen window to break in.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Well, hackers manage to do it, so I can believe that Governments/the police with all their sophisticated technology might be able to do it.

Isn't there a system (Brute force?) where an account is presented with password after password until it gets it right?

There again, a lot of sites block access after 3 attempts, presumably to prevent this.

They have to get around my VPN first, Then as i have lastpass that changes my passwords for me so they will have to keep up with that. As far as messaging goes most of the apps i use have end to end encryption. They would have to expend a lot of time to keep reading my massages. Now think of the resources required to read millions and millions of end to end encrypted messages every day over all the different apps and vpn's used by people every day.

To be honest i think they say one thing in public and another in reality

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Sirius

They have to get around my VPN first, Then as i have lastpass that changes my passwords for me so they will have to keep up with that. As far as messaging goes most of the apps i use have end to end encryption. They would have to expend a lot of time to keep reading my massages. Now think of the resources required to read millions and millions of end to end encrypted messages every day over all the different apps and vpn's used by people every day.

To be honest i think they say one thing in public and another in reality

That's good if it regularly changes passwords on it's own, I never knew that this was possible.

I don't think that they will read any of the data collected, just when certain users are suspected of terrorism, grooming children etc.

[RichardCoulter]

Delays to online safety bill will endanger young people, says Molly Russell’s father

https://amp.theguardian.com/technolo...russell-father

In his opinion ..

[RichardCoulter]

Her father looked broken when interviewed after losing his young daughter to suicide. I imagine he doesn't want any other parent to go through the same thing.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

I imagine he doesn't want any other parent to go through the same thing.

No doubt, but Im afraid his obsession with blaming Social Media wont help, nor will the "Online Safety Bill" do much (in that respect). Its a totally misguided, heavy handed set of laws that wont achive the stated objective, but will cause massive issues for hundreds of thousands of sites that are totally harmless. I dont really know how many more times you have to be told this before it sinks in.

[peanut]

When I first heard this story I thought '14 year old' - where were the parents?

I thought back to the 'Archie Battersbee' debacle, with TikTok being the blame, but something wasn't quite right there and TikTok wasn't the blame regardless of what the media stated. There's always a lot more to the story than what the media says.

But children at that age with depression / mental illness is a problem. When I was at that age there was no such thing. All I cared about was going out with friends and having the time of my life basically.

Something does needs to change. In just 2 decades, there's now a lack of discipline, lack of role models, shite parenting, easy access to porn and normalizing extremes, social media, lack of childhood as a whole, education and the need to excel or you're a failure, and not forgetting the state of this country as a whole, it is now a lot different than the 70/80/90s it must put a lot of pressure on young teens. I could go on & on. But blaming social media doesn't cut it for me. It could be restricted or supervised more for the underaged etc but who's responsibility is that?

[RichardCoulter]

Turkey proposes imprisonment for those posting disinformation or fake news;

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle...ey-2022-10-13/

[RichardCoulter]

One particularly distasteful type of troll is the 'Disaster Troll'. These people home in on people who have been or are going through a terrible time in their lives.

Victims range from people fundraising for cancer charities who have cancer themselves being called liars & fraudsters (she has since died of her condition) to people injured in the Manchester terrorist attack being called liars and being told that they are professional actors. One troll even traced someones home address to spy on them to check if they were disabled after the attack as they had claimed. I believe the woman who was spied on is to now take legal action.

Panorama gave an insight into what's going on earlier:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001ds10

Radio 4 currently has a series devoted to the subject at 9:45 (repeated at 00:30).

All episodes broadcast thus far are available here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00...0and%20threats.

Text version of the above…

The UK terror survivors tracked down by ‘disaster trolls’

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63412651