Why The Government Shouldn't Break WhatsApp 

Tom Scott 2 weeks ago wtf

how is this comment from 2 weeks ago, while it is just uploaded now?

Tom how is your comment already 2 weeks old?

"2 weeks ago" wtf but really was your lav mic off?

D Meijboom It wasn't uploaded now. It was *published* now. That's a difference.

They've always known it, budd. And if you use windows + chrome + google then you're extra-screwed.

You have nothing to hide.... from people who are exactly like you. You have a lot to hide from many people who are in power around the world.

awesome, i'm keeping that as a quote

@CodeBit. Briliant, noting that one down.

Ya, no reason for the government to know how much of a square you are.

What exactly is meant by “some tax” though, fairly certain they don’t really pay tax...

Terrain they pay federal taxes, property taxes, and there shareholders pay tax when they get dividends. But they get a discount on local San Francisco taxes becuase San Francisco doesn’t want them to leave

@@jacobschweiger5897 I wonder why. The Bay Area was a lot nicer before all the tech companies moved in.

@@sodiboo those companies have “ways” to get out of paying all the tax they need to pay.

@@privateryan2125 capitalism baby!

oh i like that quote! who's CGP though?

@@OriginalCreatorSama Another “educational” RU-vidr on the platform who doesn’t really seem to have a specific genre of stuff they talk about.

@@JamesMacTavish Hexagons are the bestagons

@@spoon7195 I think it was I Phone or something like that?

@@spoon7195 A video about hexagons exclusively

Your social credit score has been reduced by 50 points

To be fair, they do have stuff to hide because they do have stuff to fear. As an extreme example right off the bat, nuclear launch codes. You do NOT want those in others' hands, hell you don't even want 'em in your own citizens' hands.

@@celestialtree8602 average law abiding people have plenty to fear too, thats more to the point.

@@celestialtree8602 Security through obscurity doesn't work, you're still trusting individual humans to not press the button, that button has almost been pressed numerous times, its quite literally been a fluke from God that none of the times we nearly nuked the world ever went fall through. And that aside eventually obscurity always fails, it should never be relied upon.

@@Spartan322 the topic is more about privacy and ownership of one's information, not about effective security practices

OZZZIE

@@passatb6break communism is the best economic system on paper. It would never work in real life since people are greedy or just assholes, hence all the horrible communist dictatorships we've had.

@@passatb6break Communism literally has nothing to do with imprisoning people. It's an economic system. Yes, communist nations imprisoned a lot of people, but so have nations that are not communist. The common thread is authoritarianism, not communism, which is it's own thing.

@A China's conversion to being..... CAPITALIST!? LMAO!

@@Digalog Uhh i'm not in jail and i'm "OZZZIE"

Also, I have a bunch of completely legal stuff I definitely want to hide.

Damogen Welp, I’m convinced. Definitely only bad people need secrecy and privacy. That must be why governments so often rely on it. :P

@@greenredblue I actually think they may have been sincere in what they wrote, agreeing with you. Maybe they have a history of viewing pornography on their computer which is completely legal (+18 years, mutual consent) but may still be viewed with skepticism or disgust by friends, family, employers, etc. because it falls outside the realm of commonly "accepted" sexuality.

Paroex It’s so hard to tell in text... :( I’d hoped to split the difference by phrasing the response as a joke, but I guess I failed.

@@greenredblue Honestly the point of what Damogen wrote was obvious to me, I don't really understand how it can be understood in a different way

Having a boring life is the greatest protection against someone violating your privacy. Just don't have any secrets anyone wants to know.

@@troodon1096 Or you do it like Trump: have so many scandals that whenever a new one comes along people will be like "Ah another one. Throw it on the literal mountain of scandals and put the rug that stopped covering all of them up ages ago back over it..."

Just watch MLP and boom you got yourself a secret to keep

@@troodon1096 Too bad it is impossible to not have secrets and compromising vulnerability as a human, there is not a nation where any citizen does not continuously break the law, if those laws become more harsh and/or more surveyed over, you will find it easy to arbitrarily put people in jail.

I'm hiding lotsa sexual fetishes, and probably 90% of the population hides that they pick their noses.

Saint-14 would be proud

@@damagedlykin that's such an obscure reference, I love it

Unfortunately, that's the least-worst thing that Allerdale Borough Council have done over the years. I should know, as they happen to be my local council.

Oi you av' a loicense to feed those birds there? Stop illegally feeding you naughty boy

Tbh you shouldn't feed the birds. That's how you get those birds there, and speaking of birds, I mean shits and like literally shits.

Plus u arent just gonna abandon privacy just because u arent doing anything bad

I agree with you that it's a really stupid argument, but AFAIK when the law changes, you can't be prosecuted for incidents that happened before the law was changed.

@@goodtrailer0 Not yet...

@@goodtrailer0 That is fact right now but you cannot be certain a government of the future will honor that.

@@goodtrailer0 Except it can and has changed. There's loads of cases where people are being prosecuted for what they did before a law was changed. Is that broadly an ex post facto prosecution? Yes. But they've built enough exceptions and workarounds in that in practice there's nothing stopping them. Especially if you can't afford a lawyer to do a *lot* of heavy work.

I came back here for that

Facebook is the government

As someone who doesnt keep up with almost anything related to facebook, what happened?

@@rainsseason9617 end to end encryption is still the default, I dunno what you're talking about

@@Dorumin ikr, i read the privacy policy when it happened and it's really not that bad, people like to act clever leaving when stuff like this happen

Big brother is watching

hiding things and expressing them are essentially opposites, they can't be compared like that.

Oh, didn't see you commenting that already, i posted that too, the quote is just so awesome..

If free speech is not the right to talk or not the right to talk without consequences then what it is you bootlicking moron? Right to independent thought without the ability to share that independent thought? Voltaire said, _To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you're not allowed to cricitize_ Freedom of speech is synonymous to freedom of expression. And the definition of expression is clear and plain. Anti hate-speech laws, anti-libel and anti-slander laws are forms of censorship no matter how hard you try to pretend otherwise. It's just that certain group of people collectively agreed that such censorship is desired.

Kevin Kelbie bender

What's the difference between having to hide vs not being able to express?

exurb1a Please do a video on the phrase nothing to hide nothing to fear

What a Surprise running into you here.... I Love both yours and Tom's Channel. Maybe you two should Collab? I Think it would be Awesome!!

exurb1a of course the most thought provoking and interesting content creators would find each other. i would love to see a collab x

exurb1a whoaa you are here

@exurb1a notice me senpai

Let them stay mad. They work for us; we don't work for them.

No but they can pin point words to flag up. They have no right. They're clearly inept.

Well,don't worry they can join them.

Probably. Though I am sure it's an error and the responsible has been fired.

"error" "responsible" "fired"... Sure, More like given the tax savings as a bonus

Godzilla McDolan You know that big companies aren't just made of a group of executives, it's also the janitors and office desk employees. If you over tax all big companies you hurt everyone

If you threaten to tax corporate profits, that provides the incentive for the company to invest in staff (with a similar tax burden) or capital equipment (with a lower burden). The rate of corporation tax is usually lower than top-rate income tax, so the director/owners are not incensed to pay themselves the entire profits.

Best quote in this video by far

All is discovered. Flee at once.

I think he was talking about being lynched and hunted in India if you are suspected of eating Beef.

At least he doesn't know about the illegal crawfish racing olympics

psst hey kid you want some cheeky nandos

sounds like a cool video though...

This video is pointless because backdoors that allow messages to be captured before encryption is applied already exist on all mobile devices. Its just political theater, if they want to get someones messages they can do it already.

Let me suggest an alternative title to get to trending: "The governments want to watch you have sex"

i'd like to see a source for that claim..

gernsey Wikileaks vault 7. You can go read the original CIA documents covering it right now if you have any agency of your own or you can just live in the illusion that encryption does anything for you.

It's really satisfying to not see any cuts, he's fantastic and every single video is worth watching.

Any relevant video links to this topic? I might be interested

@@mrp0001 but it remained a mystery

The USA is working on doing this right now. Shocker, the politicians are (mostly) tech-illiterate!

@@flaberpengu They are not tech-illterate, politicians know exactly why they are doing that.

Splitface2811 I know I’m a year late but could I get an update of the situation from someone that’s informed(you),I dont know about the situation and looking to learn more

Hey same questipn as the other guy, can ya fill me in on this cause i have no clue but want to

I am sorry, but I disagree. not with what you said. by the matter of fact people in charge are pragmatic. they want the power to abuse if necessary, they are not truly comprised with the population needs. also many politicians wants to enforce the limits to understand what they need to do to escape from the police.

I did, can't hear anything though. I must be old :(

Same. Me too. :(

Same. Me too. :(

It's deafening, I have a headache now, mom can't hear a thing

Me. I could hear it, but initially my brain blocked it out. It sounded like a slight ringing in my ear.

How do you apply that to this video?

@@TimorDa needle = potential criminal hay = group of people allowed to be spied on to find him more people looking for the needle = higher funding and time for investigators that how I see it

@@RogerNbr i dont see how hay is making the process of finding the needle any easier unlike the people allowed (by a smaller margin than the public)

Add more needles ✅

Either Burn down the haystack or use a magnet

makemylogic RU-vid don't want that to happen

Joewhyman lmao RU-vid doesn't handpick videos for demonetization unless they violate the monetization ToS. It's not opinion-based. It's just their rules. But you are right, this *should* be monetized.

It's sad how nearly all of the videos on the "trending" tab are for entertainment, instead of education. :/

leeisateam yeah there is one or two videos on trending that are educational but its in a way that is for entertaiment This type of video is really interesting but not entertaining for everyone but i agree with you that there should be more educational videos that goes on trending

"entertainment *instead of* education"? The whole point is that education should be entertaining not only because people will want to learn but also if you're interested in something, the information will stick much more easily. Entertaining education is more efficient, the same amount of time spent learning, but more things learned and the time it takes to forget it is longer.

I believe messages are not encrypted when backed up to google drive or icloud, rather than Facebook servers.

@@sf8262 You're 100% correct!

@@aperture0 Yo when you gonna purify corona ?

@@bigkoi1015 I'm trying. I'm using my powers in the form of vaccine. You gotta wait

Their own terms state: "We can't see your personal messages or hear your calls, and neither can Facebook: Neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can read your messages or hear your calls with your friends, family, and co-workers on WhatsApp. Whatever you share, it stays between you." While I assume the decryption keys must be stored somewhere, so they can push them to a new device you add to your account, there would be no good reason to store backups unencrypted and in fact it would be hugely complicated as each user has a different decryption key so a single users chat log could have tens or hundreds of different keys needed to read it back.

Darz K. This more comical than insightful.

Darkwell0071 Not really? Privacy is similar to freedom in that both allow people to act in ways that they otherwise couldn’t, whether due to governmental oppression or social stigma. Do people abuse privacy? Sure, but people arguably abuse freedom all the time too. The reason why, say, the Westboro Baptist Church even exists is because of free speech protecting them. Yet no one explicitly calls for bans on free speech. Bans on privacy under the reason that terrorists have privacy is dishonest at best and malicious at worst. Privacy is simply inward freedom, while free speech is outward freedom.

the fact that the comment u said is right above this is awesome

It always baffles me that people quote someone who deliberately broke the privacy of government employees about the importance of privacy

Given historical precedent, I'd say theres an approximately 1.0 chance.

Approximately. To within 0.0% error.

Well, there is indeed a pretty huge probability of that happening in the 100> years to follow, that's for sure. This is one of the less fortunate things that may occur. Nevertheless, I would be blissful to see Bitcoin actually replacing traditional, centralised currency, and thus creating a worldwide, decentralised currency for everyone to use freely.

The surveillance state already exists, this would "just" be destroying the last shred of resistance against it, encryption.

Already have a surveillance stae, bud.

Telepromter

if youre interested enough in something, you dont need to write a script or practice. imagine talking to a friend about your hobbies and past-times, except its about obscure locations and topics, and also your friend is actually a camera that is recording a video for hundreds of thousands of people to see, at a minimum.

@@arf101088 That's true, but the best speeches have usually be planned because you realise how to explain the concept better as you go, and especially remember details such as the introduction and conclusion to get the point across better.

@@arf101088 Even when talking to a friend, people inevitably trip over their words a bit no matter how passionate they are on the topic. A pause to think, a verbal backspace, we're always stumbling a little bit when speaking off the cuff and our brains just unconsciously filter it out in conversation.

The politicians here understand the technology perfectly, or certainly their advisers in the civil service do. It's just that, well, the government will never entertain an argument that posits the government can have too much power.

Too right. We need someone in power who has the necessary hashtags, and who knows this 4chan character personally.

AlphaMikeOmega Hey that's in civ 5... incase you also heard it from civ 5

And Conservatives are definitely never going to entertain an argument that prevents them from exploiting fear of terrorism and general "bad guys" for electoral advantages. Being reasonable on privacy is directly contrary to being Chicken Little about security.

That is true about almost all areas of public policy though: economics, environmental science, health care, education, flying aircraft, building bridges, etc. Even though they lack the professional knowledge, they have to decide the laws that govern all of these realms. They should take the effort to learn about these subjects, but no politician could be an expert in all areas of policy.

Godzilla McDolan I hereby support your support for his nomination by giving you a like.

I hereby support your support for his support for Tom Scott's nomination by giving you a like.

*for the position of

Olan Kenny Black Premium sillicone... cantquiteremember...

Ouch

*whoosh*

Simon WoodburyForget That's exactly the point. If the unintentional "backdoor" are already hard to catch, an extra intentional backdoor will make the situation ever worse. Not to mention the "backdoor" itself is ALSO a feature, hence it will have it's own bugs. And, the reason no hashing algorithm has ever been proven to be secured is because the natural of software testing: You can NEVER prove a software is bug free, EVER. How ever many test case(s) you can provide there is ALWAYS more test cases to be tested.

memk do you hear that whistle?

Kurzgesagt*

Someone add a link pls

Actually “Safe and Sorry”

When I hear that old line (invariably from a boomer), I simply ask them "cool, can I film you going number two?" The answer, of course, is always "no". That usually helps them understand why privacy is necessary and important - even for themselves and people like them.

@@SamTheEnglishTeacher Sorry, am learning English as a second language, could you tell me what "going number two" means?

The thing is a future gouvernement you don't trust could just as easily pass that law and abuse it than just start abusing it if it already existed

@@clementm5417 It is much harder for a bad intentioned government to pass a bad law then it is for a good intentioned government to pass a bad law. The well intentioned government might not face nearly as much backlash, and it might pass by unnoticed, while the ill-intentioned government will be criticised for it's every move. Therefore, we must treat every single government as though they are always attempting to become Nazi Germany, or Imperial Japan, even if they only ever have the best intentions. Because you cannot trust someone who has more power then you, to act in your best interest.

Me too. Epic line. I shall remember it.

cgarzs Indeed. That is a very helpful line in making nearly any point about government invasion of privacy. Very well said.

Well, I like asking "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" folks for their internet banking password for just 15 minutes. I pinky-promise I won't do anything they wouldn't with it.

Snuff - Terry Pratchett

Love a bit of Discworld. Great

True

mopedmarathon Ouch! Literally. I’ve been laughing out loud all by myself for about 2 minutes. Not at any perceived cruelty or misogyny, those just aren’t me. But just the pure comic strength of your post. Are you a professional comic? Very damned funny.

@@artysanmobile You high?

iFlashie Ummm... not at the moment

You also have a backdoor...

You should work in comedy.

This guy should play Shakespeare! He's got the voice.

Your privacy is everything and should never be sold out to anyone especially the government.

encryptlake games. What if the government would need to know when an attack was gonna take place

@@iagreewithyou7894 They usually do, but don't have the manpower to react appropriately. Just like Tom says in the video, the government was warned about the Manchester bomber 5 times, so they knew, but they didn't act accordingly. And there is the argument that privacy is more valuable than safety. Especially since no one person can know every law of the country they're in, so there is a very high probability that everyone is breaking a law all the time, without even knowing about it. Giving up privacy so that everyone that breaks the law can get caught is simply impossible, especially since every member of government is probably also breaking laws that they don't know about.

My dear I fear they already have.

This comment isn't a dogwhistle, it's a dogfoghorn

@@GreatKnightJ For what?

Think about it what would improve their image more per unit of effort reqiured.

That clickbait... or watchbait? How do you call it?

Suspense.

Frankly it doesn't even sound like a remotely reasonable idea to anyone who's lived in an oppressive regime, not that West Europeans would know that.

In five seconds i came up with three western European nations that did live under oppressive regimes during the last half century. Never mind that, i am sure you just wrote hastily. The problem is the thinking that the government will always be targeting someone else or "I do not care about politics" until the government "invites" you and your family to mass "support" rallies or the police come to your home because your kid uploaded a video of him and friends singing " i am so happy" on a rooftop.

Not clickbait, but video intro bait for you to watch the whole video..xd

jokes on you my earbuds are so crappy they can't even play this frequencies

@@bananya6020 _cries in good earbuds_

after 7 minutes of listening I don't hear it

it hurts so much

@@nyunno it helps a bit if you listen at a much lower volume without earbuds I hope this helps

HA!

Wiretap play despacito.

@@harleybaker 😂

Wiretap = RU-vid (Alpha bet, Inc.)

Sucks, doesn’t it? Wish they’d take more action on the people they’re apparently keeping tabs on, rather than nosing on what every single civilian is doing.

Is that law still going? Just curious

@@EddieB-ready How often do laws get removed from the books?

Penal colony penalizes people? Say it isnt so

fr?

Finally a cause I can support

Yes👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

😂😂😂😂😂

That's me

This comment isn't related to the video.

stupidAgeverificatio Meta-discussion is still better than what happens on other channels, right?

Max Baard look at me!

Max Baard it was the thought that counted. :)

Max Baard Not even close. You must only watch 10 YT channels

That made me think of communism. A society where everybody shares everything they have with everyone sounds great, but i suppose its just never been done in a good fashion

Preach+

Facebook isn't encrypted, so your point is tangential at best.

If you have any friends in Facebook, who may have ever posted something about you, that alone gives a lot of information about you. Not to mention Google and other such services.

Yeah, Facebook keeps a ghost profile for you even if you've never made an account for yourself. If family or friends ever talk about you, they log it. You could literally never even use the Internet, but if your mom talks about you all the time, there's nothing you can do about it.

I refused to be on facebook on the grounds that I don't like to give out my actual name. It's none of their business.

you should never underestimate the predictability of stupidity

true but I don't think we should be scared of the stupid terrorists, I think it's the clever one who DONT use messengers that we should be more focused on.

Ironically its more concerning when a group of people that were talking alot on social media etc suddenly all limit their interaction online, that's when you get concerned.

I agree with you. Terrorism is a huge scapegoat used for another agenda. This other agenda is what we should truly fear. Terrorism is an illogical fear, especially when your chances of dying by almost anything else is much much higher.

They could communicate using sarcastic comments under some slightly related RU-vid video and nobody would suspect a thing. P.S. Message received.

Took you long enough. He has quit making more videos but you can watch all the old ones.

peter zieger thank god someone said it

My ears are apparently dead.

@@ricebeansrockroll882 maybe you're just old enough that you can't hear that frequency anymore

Wait y'all can hear the sounds? I can't hear the computers

Harris Z Why do you have to worry with what everyone else is watching?

Rigille Scherrer Borges Menezes Because videos like these could help prevent moronic laws from being passed if they were being shared enough.

Harris Z saw one of Tom's videos on trending last week.

What's interesting to realize is that we used to criticize TV for pushing this content... but disruptive media like youtube do the exact same thing. One can ask if the media is the problem or if it is that people's interests do not match what they declare to watch. For example, we have a TV channel in France called "Arte", which shows a lot of art, and documentaries. It is very often mentioned in "what do you prefer watching" polls, but their viewership numbers shows a very different story.

@Kyle Sutton Trending should be exactly that. Trending. If you're pushing a video that isn't trending, then it's not trending. I mean, I'm all for having a "cool videos" or "interesting stuff" videos category (that stuff like this is in) right at the top, that's shown to people pretty often. But if you're going to call it trending, then it needs to be what's actually trending. (God forbid that words should actually mean something, and that you get what it actually says you get instead of something else.)

@Kimmy Anfo not only true, but very easy to see. Pad a 0 to your favourite secure encryption scheme, and it will still be secure according to whatever definition you are using. Indistinguishability-style security definitions do not imply pseudorandomness. Read the reference I've given.

And with the existing crisis and the masks you can see that this quote doesn't need to be accurate in any context.

But there's always a tradeoff and it can't be avoided; complete security is impossible without curtailing freedom, and complete freedom is impossible without compromising security. At some point a society has to decide where to draw the lines but no matter where you draw that line, you can't have more of one without having less of the other.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

@@troodon1096 "At some point a society has to decide where to draw the lines but no matter where you draw that line, you can't have more of one without having less of the other." Not really, societies weren't based on ensuring security, they were based on intimidating external threats away, that's all governments do, there is no amount of security that a society or government can provide because security in life, in society, and in government is entirely fabricated in order to provide an illusion of safety. People lie about this fact and say things like this thinking it means something it doesn't. The founders of the US recognized this and they gave liberty instead as a recognition that only under God is any safety found. Even the most gnostic of the founders still saw this point hence why they designed the system the way they did. Generally they only disagreed to which manner the government would abuse the authority they gave it, like that's the arguments common between Hamilton and Jefferson. (which they both held valid points) There is also no case that you can demonstrate where a preventative job of the government was more effective then a punitive job in dealing with criminals because for every crime the preventative government takes upon itself, there are hundreds of thousands it misses and just as many it inflicts on innocent civilians. If one innocent person gets caught in the cross-fire of justice, the system has objectively failed. That's Blackstone's Formulation pivoted around innocence. Not to mention performing thought-crime has never worked and projecting criminals is anti-justice because justice can not be committed on the lack of a crime. Regardless, we know for a fact that there is no security that can be ensured, and we know for a fact liberty can be ensured, and we also know more liberty presents higher individual security, thus liberty ensures more security for the individual, not less. (this is why freer markets have less government corruption into the market and why gun statistics in the US demonstrate a higher use of defensive use of guns saving lives then taken even when including suicides)

JakeTheHammer I wouldn't go so far as to say that the massive amount of government surveillance hasn't stopped any terrorists, but I agree that privacy is a right, and in some cases, I think that the government needs less power.

The problem is privacy is vague. It's well enough to discuss this strictly in terms of encryption, but what about digging through your trash, paying your neighbors to keep tabs on you, or monitoring your credit reports? All Tom has addressed is the means, not the actual meat of maintaining privacy.

they have stopped loads of 'em, but would you wanna hear, that every odd day they stopped another psycho? no, offcourse not. the problem here is a 1 liner: the bad guys only have to get it right once, we have to get it right *every* time

peopel who are willing to sacrifice their freedom for security should just go home and crawl under their beds. infringing on the rights of the many in order to fight the few who do wrong, is not ethically sound in any scenario.

Privacy doesn't work in not homogenous society. Import people from the Third World, don't read their conversations and then be surprised when one of these people blows up 20-30 of your countrymen at a concert.

That wasn't a backdoor. A backdoor is placed purposefully. The recent security flaw was an oversight in the Windows code. Also not every backdoor gives you full access to everything. It could be read-only for example. Still I agree with the statements, that Tom made about backdoors being a bad idea.

That was fixed ages ago last year as I recall reading, it was simply that people in these organizations didn't update their software

levitikan That wasn't a backdoor

Christopher Parsons the major security flaw used in WannaCry was fixed 1-2 months before the ransomeware spread, but since many computers do not get updated, especially in absolute critical situations (at hospitals for example) it spread like wildfire

levitikan what's a hospital server

Yooooo. It does.

@Mohamed Hassan elon made a life size wireless version

@@woahrajveer hold up

Atari ST, you can probably find them on eBay and, iirc, you can convert them to serial to use on a PC or Mac!

Love that car