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I'm Hungarian. This bullshit is actively being reverted. Originally there was a plan to put encryption app users in jail for up to two years. But not all comm
by pestaa 11y ago
I'm Hungarian. This bullshit is actively being reverted.
Originally there was a plan to put encryption app users in jail for up to two years.
But not all communication apps would be treated equal: mainstream applications already using encryption, such as Skype or Viber, would be perfectly okay. Only using those applications specifically written to encrypt communication, primarily CryptTalk, would have been punishable.
Edit: Our speculation is that this is the same strategy seen with the internet tax. Spreading FUD and stealing state wealth while everybody runs in circles.
Edit 2: They did ban using CryptTalk and similar products (all communication services with encryption as their main selling point). No information on how they plan to enforce this decision: their only tool is to ask mobile app stores nicely to hide these apps from plain sight.
- Vivtek 11y agoSpeculation? Ha. But Fidesz does this with everything. I mean, look at the tobacco sales permit thing. It's just that threatening the Internet threatens one of the few industries where Hungary is actually making good money, so there's some pushback.
- JustSomeNobody 11y agoThis should give everyone pause when choosing to use Skype.
- mhurron 11y agoPretty sure Microsoft never advertised Skype as something they couldn't intercept, so you probably shouldn't have been using it for anything you wouldn't say over the phone line in the first place.
- mtgx 11y agoI don't think it did, but when Microsoft bought it, Skype was still considered "hard to eavesdrop" due to its P2P architecture. Microsoft left everyone to believe that it's still secure even after it centralized its nodes and would constantly refuse to respond to questions about whether Skype can be intercepted. I remember at one point about 50 civil liberties groups sent an open letter to Microsoft about it, and it refused to answer it then, too. I also remember that some people were noticing that their https links would get blocked on Skype, which also meant Microsoft can MITM the Skype chats between users and it was no longer P2P (if I remember correctly Microsoft also tried to hide the fact that Skype was no longer P2P for quite a while, again leaving people to believe their chats could not be intercepted). Microsoft also killed TOM-Skype in China, which was specifically designed to allow interception and censorship that bypassed Skype's P2P architecture. At the time, everyone who was paying attention knew that this meant Skype could now be intercepted everywhere, otherwise Microsoft wouldn't have deprecated TOM-Skype for China. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/01/24/skype_urged_to_come_clean_on_eavesdropping_capabilities_and_policies_in.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/01/24/skype_urg... https://en.greatfire.org/blog/2013/nov/tom-skype-dead-long-live-microsoft-surveillance https://en.greatfire.org/blog/2013/nov/tom-skype-dead-long-l...
- mhurron 11y agoMy point is more without explicitly saying so and explaining how, you shouldn't have been assuming it was any more secure. Even when it was P2P, it was assumed it was hard to eavesdrop, it was never proven to be.