Comment by celsoazevedo

Comment by celsoazevedo 21 hours ago

2 replies

Could be, but considering that you have some police/government departments/public entities using this provider, it wouldn't be wise to leak their own data to everyone in the open like this.

On a side note, it's not the first time I've read a comment like the one you left above here on HN. As someone that lives in the UK, there seems to be a disconnection between what you guys write and what I see and experience daily. You make it look like no one can say anything or that this is a war zone... Don't take this the wrong way, but I recommend checking other news sources too because your view of the UK seems to be a bit "distorted".

anonymousiam 16 hours ago

The strategy is a bit more complex than you assume. The "accidental" leak of information in this case will now be "fixed" because a researcher discovered and disclosed it. Plausible deniability is maintained. It's unlikely that any "bad actors" were tracking police/government entities with this exploit, because if they had been, their own communications would have revealed their activity to the surveillance state, and they would have been subject to raid and arrest.

What you see and experience daily is probably not much different than your average citizen of the P.R.C. They're also happy to go about their daily lives living in a surveillance state, with lower crime rates than yours, and similar unchecked governmental powers.

  • immibis 7 hours ago

    But in the PRC it's illegal to say you don't like the government, while in the UK it's illegal to say you're going to blow up a mosque because Muslims are rats.

    Yes, in every country (including the USA) (excluding North Korea because it doesn't have social media) it's possible to get arrested based on a social media post. However, that's overly reductive. Has anyone paid attention to which posts get people arrested? No, because that wouldn't make the UK look nearly as evil as the people saying this stuff want it to look.