Would you assist law enforcement?

[1.618]

Part rant/part questions for you folks

With the introduction of the 'Snoopers Charter' in the UK and other surveillance laws around the globe, law enforcement can now ask developers and programmers to write backdoors into their products or to assist with actually hacking into people's machines, so I'm just curious

Are you a developer or coder and have you ever been approached to assist with law enforcement?

would you assist if asked?

How would you assist, would you just write code or actually hack someone? leave a backdoor in your code and just palm it off as sloppy coding if someone finds it?


Of course many people are not just going to come out and admit being involved in shafting their fellow humans and when you've put a lot of hours into a project it's understandable you won't want to see your efforts wasted by having your work kept out of the public domain, bills to pay and other life expenses can also be a incentive to accept some currency for co-operation with law enforcement.

This isn't an accusation at anyone in particular but I no longer trust linux, it sure might be more secure than windows but it's not secure, even less so now with these laws coming in. I'm actually considering just ending my broadband subscription because I personally feel technology right now is crap!!.... well actually it's people that are crap, if it's not mass produced goods that have backdoors deliberately built in and designed to fail so a company can keep it's profits rolling in, it's spiteful arrogant script kiddies who think they're superman by hacking into peoples boxes and messing them around or full on cybercriminals trying to rob you and use your identity to create mischeif, it's full on governments surveillance watching everything you do and treating you as if you're pol pot or some mass murderer on trial and every single company rolling over and complying with them.


It sucks and if you're helping govts spy on people then you suck too!!



I also think that anyone producing software/hardware should be obliged to inform the public if they have been asked to assist - we have a right to know, imo!

Do you think we have a right to know?

[jimallyn]

I have done some programming, but I have never been asked to put a back door in anything I wrote. If I were asked to, I wouldn't do it, and I would probably be fairly nasty in telling them no.

I actually have assisted law enforcement a few times in the past, like when I lived in North Carolina and a tornado went through a neighborhood near where I lived. The local ham radio operators volunteered to patrol the affected area to keep an eye out for looters and such. And my brother has assisted law enforcement, too; he's a member of the local mountain rescue team. But if he were asked to help them spy on people, I'm pretty sure he'd give them just about the same kind of answer I would.

I guess there's a law in the U.S. that prohibits libraries (and probably other entities) from telling anybody when they are asked to spy on anybody or give law enforcement information on anybody. I don't approve of it. I guess one library, when they heard about the new law, put up a sign that said, no, we have not been asked to provide information on anybody. One day the sign went missing. I assume that meant that they had been asked.

[millpond]

Here in the Empire if the cops ask you for a backdoor, you are not permitted by law to even speak of the request.
You can refuse.
And you can also get audited.
And kiddie <violates forum rules> found on your machine.

Merde happens.

[BigEasy]

With the introduction of the 'Snoopers Charter' in the UK and other surveillance laws around the globe, law enforcement can now ask developers and programmers to write backdoors into their products or to assist with actually hacking into people's machines, so I'm just curious

No need to hacking and having back doors for law enforcement tasks. It's expensive and difficult. They just knock on your door as they have done it for centuries. The rest you will tell and show them by yourself.

[Citizen229]

They do not need backdoors. They can spend the rest of their natural born lives catching idiots on facebook and twitter. I still fail to see the desire in sharing your life with the world. However they are great tools for losing your job and being arrested.

I do believe what you are refering too is the court order to make apple develop a back door to their iOS for them to use to unlock a terrorists suspects phone. It is moral to lawfully aid LEO in such cases. It is immoral to give them the "keys" for aid.

[Schultz]

millpond wrote:
Here in the Empire if the *cops* . . .

Talk like this is ignorant and adds nothing to this discussion. If someone was breaking into your house and you called the cops, would you then call them this?

[felemur]

millpond wrote:
Here in the Empire if the *cops* . . .

Talk like this is ignorant and adds nothing to this discussion. If someone was breaking into your house and you called the cops, would you then call them this?

Trust me, the NSA isn't going to respond to a break-in call at your house!

[Schultz]

That's obviously not what I meant. And the original question was about a new law in the U.K., so I don't know where you get the NSA.

[Portreve]

The ultimate end-run, or at least an attempt at an end-run around the GPL and libre-licenses in general, is to implement a FISA-like order capability in the Law. If all the major countries did that, then what is it coders are supposed to do: go move to the middle of some podunk 3rd world nation? Stop writing software altogether?

As someone who is so far removed from the world of coding that I can barely write a "Hello World" program in GW-BASIC, or even construct an HTML file, I know such a law can't affect me in that fashion. Nevertheless, it can most certainly affect me in the long term as a user of software.

I dread being in that profession in the UK, out perhaps here in the U.S. sometime in the future.

[Fred Barclay]

millpond wrote:
Here in the Empire if the spook/pigs . . .

Talk like this is ignorant and adds nothing to this discussion. If someone was breaking into your house and you called the cops, would you then call them this?

+1
(My family has a history of law enforcement so I appreciate this for multiple reasons.)

But anyways...
Am I a programmer? Yes, though not much of one. The most exposure I've gotten would be through my firejail profiles and my terminal emulator for Atom, for neither of which I did the bulk of work.

Have I ever been approached to assist law enforcement through my code? No. And I don't expect such an event would occur.

Would I add a backdoor or vulnerability if I were approached by anyone (not just law enforcement)? Absolutely not!

Now I want to point out that I have no problem assisting law enforcement as an ordinary user through my code. Would they like to use a programme I wrote? They're welcome to it, with my compliments. I see nothing immoral about aiding those in law enforcement - in fact, especially for our men and women who do some of the hardest work (the cops on the streets), it would be an honor to aid them. But at the same time, I'm convinced it would be immoral for me to purposely introduce a vulnerability in my code for any reason whatsoever, and I would not do so. Not because I have an agenda against the government or any of the other motivations we open-source people are sometimes accused of, but simply because I would be betraying my users who have trusted me and my code.
Besides, a backdoor isn't selective. It doesn't say, "Oh, you're the NSA, you can tunnel in... oh, you're a hacker, you can't." A backdoor is there and can be exploited by anyone, and given enough time it will be found and exploited.

[1.618]

I see nothing immoral about aiding those in law enforcement - in fact, especially for our men and women who do some of the hardest work (the cops on the streets), it would be an honor to aid them

I totally agree, there's nothing immoral in assisting with keeping the world a safe place and we should value the effort made by the police. if they were not there then we would have chaos all over.

[MintBean]

I would assist if I considered it moral. I do not consider spying on the general public moral.

[chrisuk]

I won't answer the question posed by the OP, as there's too many unknowns to make a judgement...too many variables that would influence my answer (Would I help prevent a terrorist attack? Would I help incriminate an innocent but anti-establishment family member? etc Two opposite responses to the original question).

But one observation I'd like to share. I've noticed that more and more, it's those enforcing the Law that are seen as (and often treated like) the enemy. Whereas those that actually make the Laws are re-elected each time the electorate is given a vote. This doesn't just apply to the UK; the US Congress has plenty of Representatives that have served for years. I'm uncertain why this is, but it's definitely not the way to change things... and it's not fair to those we rely on to keep us safe 24/7 - and that's not the Politicians we re-elect, it's Law Enforcement/NSA/CIA/MI5/MI6 etc.

[Citizen229]

But one observation I'd like to share. I've noticed that more and more, it's those enforcing the Law that are seen as (and often treated like) the enemy. Whereas those that actually make the Laws are re-elected each time the electorate is given a vote. This doesn't just apply to the UK; the US Congress has plenty of Representatives that have served for years. I'm uncertain why this is, but it's definitely not the way to change things... and it's not fair to those we rely on to keep us safe 24/7 - and that's not the Politicians we re-elect, it's Law Enforcement/NSA/CIA/MI5/MI6 etc.

I had a really good post and felt compelled to put a disclaimer at the end.... so I deleted it.

Second one deleted , same reason.

The world is changing slowly. It is scaring the ever living crap out of people. When people get scared chaos ensues. No better example of this is the daily craziness force fed by American Media.

Your statement is true for the past, but that has been changing the last 8 years in the US. Its happening just slowly. Kind of like Brexit is happening, its going to happen, just slowly. The last US President that took on the established government was JFK. He took on the banks and printed USD backed by silver. His "Secret Societies" speech ( youtube that speech you will be"like OMG")vaguely touched on the shadow government of the NSA/CIA. And we all know what happened to him right?

Are we turning in a better direction, I do not know. All I know is the road we were going down, history shows bad things happen. Mankind has a freedom/control cycle it goes through. Sadly the tech industry( as a whole) thus far has accelerated the control portion. Which means we are due for major events to flip us back to freedom and prosperity. Tech is now the controlling factor of this cycle because we have accepted it so much in our lives. If we did not have moral programmers like the linux initiative and Apples resistance to federal judges, we most likely would have hit rock bottom already. We are in an era where a programmer can assist or resist as much as a person with a rifle can. The tools mean something, the person wielding the tools means more.

[Try'n 2 Learn]

it is an interesting question. it asks alot of questions about philosophical & political practices mainly. so for that purpose, can a person arrive at a "correct" answer?

i think there are enormous amounts of humans that will believe, and do whatever is asked of them, if there is a paycheck involved. in fact, i think that is status quo every nano-second of the day somewhere.

in the end, i can't truly influence you as an individual, by answering that question. i am not that foolish, nor do i believe you would take me for a fool.

however, i will leave you with this thought, a chinese proverb as i understand it. i believe it has a gender distinction that i will omit & amend.

"if you give a fish to a person, that person eats for a day. if you teach that person to fish, said person eats for a lifetime"

[jimallyn]

"if you give a fish to a person, that person eats for a day. if you teach that person to fish, said person eats for a lifetime"

I have seen this one a little different, and attributed to Karl Marx, although I'm not sure that it actually comes from Marx:

Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.

[Try'n 2 Learn]

"if you give a fish to a person, that person eats for a day. if you teach that person to fish, said person eats for a lifetime"

I have seen this one a little different, and attributed to Karl Marx, although I'm not sure that it actually comes from Marx:

Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.

[TooMuchTime]

Are you a developer or coder and have you ever been approached to assist with law enforcement?

Yes I write code. No I have never been approached to assist law enforcement.

Would you assist if asked?

No. About a year ago, I wrote an automated spreadsheet for work where I logged the number and page count of outgoing electronic faxes. I was asked if there was a way to log the employee's name for each outgoing fax. There was, but I said there wasn't. Since I was parsing MY email of electronic notifications I said that all I could get was the date and the number of pages. That was accepted and the conversation never went any further. I'll be damned if my code was going to be used to pit one of my teammate's productivity against another. F that.

How would you assist, would you just write code or actually hack someone? Leave a backdoor in your code and just palm it off as sloppy coding if someone finds it?

Personally, if I had to assist due to some type of coercion, I would write the back-door code and also write some code that would inform the user they were being spied upon. Maybe when they held down a set of keys when clicking on some support hyper-link. Something that would be overlooked in QA. If law enforcement wants information about someone, they can do their own damn investigations and get a legitimate 4th amendment warrant. That's the reason the 4th amendment was written anyway.