In the US we have tech companies complying with sketchy DHS subpoenas that don’t require warrants. We have DoJ targeting political enemies. We have FISA mass surveillance.
It’s naive to think politically motivated surveillance can’t happen in the UK and elsewhere. Or to assume that only the “right people” will be the ones able to break encryption.
Maybe I’m naive: I can believe the e2e encryption happens, but it takes a lot of faith to believe there’s no front-end telemetry that would render that ineffective.
> In the US we have tech companies complying with sketchy DHS subpoenas that don’t require warrants. We have DoJ targeting political enemies. We have FISA mass surveillance.
You also have a president who has just said he will "report" a journalist to the FCC for "rebuke or punishment".
I regret to inform people that fear over people cracking your encryption is quite niche, at this point; you have a looming fascist regime and should be more afraid of the $5 wrench.
Destruction of potential evidence of a crime is a crime. Obviously here there is nuance and the courts can determine if this is the right interpretation or not. If he had compromising information and he reasonable suspicion he’d be asked to unlock his phone he should have “wiped” it way before he got to the border.
Yes, they would have to prove that there was incriminating data on the phone. However, destroying potential evidence before there is suspicion of a crime is also a crime if done with intent to undermine a future investigation.
It's quite unadvisable to destroy data in front of any sort of law enforcement. Last ditch effort? Sure, you better your odds but it's not ideal. If you have evidence of a crime, you know, wipe it way before you need to hand things over for examination and be in the position of having to destroy data as they knock on your door.
You keep saying "potential evidence." What does that even mean? If I factory reset my phone right now, am I guilty of destroying "potential evidence?" Do you have "potential evidence" on any of your devices? Let's not make up phrases to help justify what they were doing. There was either an actual crime committed, and wiping the phone destroyed real evidence. Or there was not. You can't just consider all data everywhere to be "potential evidence" while you look around for some kind of crime that it's evidence of.
It's the government, I'm sure the wrench will cost $50,000 and some oligarch will be taking 99% of that as a back hander.
[−]Eddy_Viscosity2 · 2026-08-30 Sun 14:12 UTC ·
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> It’s naive to think politically motivated surveillance can’t happen in the UK and elsewhere.
It's naive to think it isn't already happening in the UK and elsewhere and has for a long time. The only thing technology is changing is to increase the depth and scope of what they surveil.
Technology has the scale. The billionaire giants have unprecedented amounts of data -- Soviet Russia, Nazi germany, they'd have loved this level of insight.
But worse that that, they have a population that thinks its fine as long as it's not the government, its just the free market doing its thing, and it's all about freedom for the most powerful
It’s naive to think politically motivated surveillance can’t happen in the UK and elsewhere. Or to assume that only the “right people” will be the ones able to break encryption.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_analysis
but message E2EE is generally not designed to solve that. Other layers of the stack would probably have to get involved.
You also have a president who has just said he will "report" a journalist to the FCC for "rebuke or punishment".
I regret to inform people that fear over people cracking your encryption is quite niche, at this point; you have a looming fascist regime and should be more afraid of the $5 wrench.
Ref for anyone looking: https://xkcd.com/538/
Destruction of potential evidence of a crime is a crime. Obviously here there is nuance and the courts can determine if this is the right interpretation or not. If he had compromising information and he reasonable suspicion he’d be asked to unlock his phone he should have “wiped” it way before he got to the border.
They'd have to prove there was evidence.
It's quite unadvisable to destroy data in front of any sort of law enforcement. Last ditch effort? Sure, you better your odds but it's not ideal. If you have evidence of a crime, you know, wipe it way before you need to hand things over for examination and be in the position of having to destroy data as they knock on your door.
If it was evidence, what was the crime?
It's naive to think it isn't already happening in the UK and elsewhere and has for a long time. The only thing technology is changing is to increase the depth and scope of what they surveil.
But worse that that, they have a population that thinks its fine as long as it's not the government, its just the free market doing its thing, and it's all about freedom for the most powerful