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.




--