On Sun, Mar 26, 2017 at 4:15 PM, Razer <g2s@riseup.net> wrote:
Rudd said attacks like Masood's would be easier to prevent if authorities could penetrate encrypted services after obtaining a warrant similar to the ones used to listen in on telephone calls or - in snail mail days - steam open letters and read their contents.
I saw this same claim in a story elsewhere. Apparently he sent the WhatsApp message 2 minutes before the attack started. Seems unlikely that a letter sent minutes before would be found and steamed open in time to stop the attack (unless the culprit is being actively followed). Similarly, unless they're actively watching the guy's WhatsApp (and from other reporting, it sounds like they were aware of him, but he wasn't of much interest and wasn't under surveillance), it still wouldn't have stopped the attack. 2 minutes notice is better than nothing, but it's still not a lot of time to deploy countermeasures, especially given he's unlikely to have sent details of his plan in that message. It's more likely to be a confirmation that he was about to proceed. Access is obviously more helpful in the post-mortem, and when looking for co-conspirators who might be planning another attack, but it's still a case of fucking everyone over in order to spy on a few (assuming it even stays that well constrained).
British police investigating the attack say they still believe Masood, a 52-year-old Briton, acted alone and say they have no indications that further attacks are planned.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said it may never be possible to
fully determine Masood's motives.
"That understanding may have died with him," Basu said Saturday night as police appealed for people who knew Masood or saw him to contact investigators. "Even if he acted alone in the preparation, we need to establish with absolute clarity why he did these unspeakable acts, to bring reassurance to Londoners."
So there's a reasonable chance he didn't communicate anything useful to anyone else, so there might not be much they could have detected even with access. Again, fucking everyone over to try and target a few, potentially with no gain at the end of it. -- Ben Tasker https://www.bentasker.co.uk