The UK’s National Crime Agency has publicly distanced itself from a poster urging parents to call police if their child has installed Kali Linux, Tor or – brace yourself – Discord. Issued by the West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit (WMROCU) via local area councils, the poster in question lists a slack handful of common infosec tools – as well as some that clearly have nothing to do with computer security.
Apart from the fact most kids will now want to go try these out, most people use the tools they do so that they are not spying on by anyone, whether government, Google, Facebook or advertisers.
Two things come to mind and clever commenters have already noted them:
1. Maybe this police entity is looking for cheap IT support?
2. Maybe it’s an attempt to relive 1984 or Nazi Germany and get family to betray their family?
It’s what you do with your car, computer, telephone, public road etc – you can’t outlaw the road, the car, the phone or computer itself. Any social network too had good and bad apples, but we can’t bring down the network for the good apples because of two or three bad apples.
See Call us immediately if your child uses Kali Linux, squawks West Mids Police
#opensource #security #technology
Maybe stick to walking the beat instead of infosec advice, eh?