All Tories Are Cunts thread

[Keith Houchen]

The car crash has been happening for 13 years m8 HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

[Edgehead]

Or the headline "Helen Whately turns up for work."

[Loki]

The government is suing the enquiry that IT SET UP because it doesn’t want to hand over WhatsApp messages that it swears have nothing to do with Covid, honest guv.

 Open, honest government.

[David]

Isn't the WhatsApp messages thing a bit close to the line really? I mean, I know they're government officials and all that, but aren't they entitled to any privacy? I know I wouldn't be handing over my phone or WhatsApp comms to anyone. 

[LCJ]

They clearly have something to hide.

[Loki]

1 hour ago, David said:

Isn't the WhatsApp messages thing a bit close to the line really? I mean, I know they're government officials and all that, but aren't they entitled to any privacy? I know I wouldn't be handing over my phone or WhatsApp comms to anyone. 

They shouldn't be doing official government work on the same chats as their private conversations.  Ideally they shouldn't have been going government work on WhatsApp at all - I believe they were repeatedly told NOT to do that, but they did any so now it's germane to the enquiry.

Otherwise, WhatsApp becomes a de facto way round the Freedom of Information Act - just do all correspondance on there, sorry UK public!

Edited June 1, 2023 by Loki

[FLips]

1 hour ago, David said:

Isn't the WhatsApp messages thing a bit close to the line really? I mean, I know they're government officials and all that, but aren't they entitled to any privacy? I know I wouldn't be handing over my phone or WhatsApp comms to anyone. 

God fucking help the poor soul that would have to trawl through your endless gobshiting.

Edited June 1, 2023 by FelatioLips

[David]

8 minutes ago, Loki said:

They shouldn't be doing official government work on the same chats as their private conversations.  Ideally they shouldn't have been going government work on WhatsApp at all - I believe they were repeatedly told NOT to do that, but they did any so now it's germane to the enquiry.

Otherwise, WhatsApp becomes a de facto way round the Freedom of Information Act - just do all correspondance on there, sorry UK public!

Oh, I agree. They shouldn't be doing any official work business on WhatsApp, but there's none of us who don't have WhatsApp chats that involve work, which is where the difference is I think. 

How do we decide which conversations are official work conversations, and which are just the usual gossipy shite that most workplaces have? It's a very grey area, and there needs to be something put in place to deal with that kind of situation. What that would be I have no idea.

7 minutes ago, FelatioLips said:

God fucking help the poor soul that would have to trawl through your endless gobshiting.

No one was talking to you, so sit down and shut the fuck up. 

[FLips]

3 minutes ago, David said:

No one was talking to you, so sit down and shut the fuck up. 

This must be the shortest conversation you’ve had on here so I’ll count myself lucky and bow out while I have the chance.

[Hannibal Scorch]

3 hours ago, David said:

Isn't the WhatsApp messages thing a bit close to the line really? I mean, I know they're government officials and all that, but aren't they entitled to any privacy? I know I wouldn't be handing over my phone or WhatsApp comms to anyone. 

Work phones vs public phones. 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65776560

I hadn't seen David's post until Scorchy quoted it but the above linked story explains why it's important to have the WhatsApp messages. Not having them would be like doing a report on this place and not having access to threads about having shit. 

[Jazzy G]

Presumably the long game here is that they're trying to get Whatsapp banned or at least pass some law relating to the end to end encryption and privacy in order to be able to snoop on what people are doing. They'll claim it's for "national security"

[LaGoosh]

14 hours ago, David said:

How do we decide which conversations are official work conversations, and which are just the usual gossipy shite that most workplaces have? It's a very grey area

No it's not. If it's a conversation with people you work with about people you work with or work itself then it's an official work conversation. 

Edited June 2, 2023 by LaGoosh

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

24 minutes ago, jazzygeofferz said:

Presumably the long game here is that they're trying to get Whatsapp banned or at least pass some law relating to the end to end encryption and privacy in order to be able to snoop on what people are doing. They'll claim it's for "national security"

There is already a move towards this which I think is in the online harms bill that they want to bring in at some point. Meta have already said they won't weaken the encryption and that should that law be passed they will block WhatsApp from the UK. 

I don't know how secure WhatsApp is, but if it is secure then I don't have a problem with the government working on it, but that when it comes to any sort of investigation it is included in evidence. WhatsApp isn't the problem here, it's the Tories wanting to hide it. 

[Loki]

On 6/2/2023 at 12:20 PM, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

I don't know how secure WhatsApp is

It depends how you use it!

The actual sending of messages is incredibly secure - it's end-to-end encryption which means that the messages is encoded as it leaves one phone, and decoded at the other phone using a unique key that only exists on that phone.  So it's impossible to intercept the messages in mid transit (for example over wifi, or at an ISP, or in Cornwall where the government literally taps the internet coming in on the cable and can scan every byte).

However once it arrives at your phone, it's not really secure at all.  You can take a screenshot, you can back the conversation up onto iCloud or similar, you can copy/paste the message into another conversation. 

Ironically, the secure bits are also kind of what makes it shit for government use - every bit of government correspondance needs to be saved so that it can be audited or scrutinised at a later date.  So the government has secure email, secure videoconferencing etc that is auditable as it's all saved centrally.  But everyone in this government is lazy, and use WhatsApp instead, which I imagine is one of the reasons the Civil Service hate them all so much.

If the government want to govern via Messaging service, they need one that blocks screenshotting, and automatically saves conversations centrally.  But then it wouldn't have end-to-end encryption!