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EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

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• tripue 6y ago
  strange, they choose signal to communicate https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/24/21150918/european-commission-signal-encrypted-messaging https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/24/21150918/european-commiss...
  • jsiepkes 6y ago
    These things usually boil down to: You must not do as I do, you must do what I tell you to.
    • treis 6y ago
      This is silly. Governments have all sorts of things like machine guns, tanks, and battleships that (rightfully) aren't allowed for the general public.
      • AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        > Governments have all sorts of things like machine guns, tanks, and battleships that (rightfully) aren't allowed for the general public. You have listed three things which are all really the same thing. There is no objection to private ownership of motor vehicles or ships. You object to the weaponry. But we can put aside the whole right to bear arms debate in this case because there is an obvious way to distinguish it. Encryption is a purely defensive technology. It is totally illegitimate for a government to prohibit things like armor and electromagnetic shielding, even if some of them do, because these things only defend, they do not attack.
        • treis 6y ago
          Secure communication is not a purely defensive technology. It allows you to safely coordinate an attack.
          • AnthonyMouse 6y ago
            By this logic home ownership is an offensive technology because it allows you to safely coordinate an attack.
            • treis 6y ago
              And indeed it would be. Conversely, if you only used a gun to defend your self it would be a defensive technology. Seems like classifying technology as either offensive or defensive is a fool's errand. Perhaps you should try a different argument.
              • dane-pgp 6y ago
                One could maybe play silly rhetorical games like "It wasn't the gun that killed him, it was the bullet", but to say "It wasn't the gun that killed him, it was the house that the killer lived in while she thought about committing the crime" is beyond ridiculous. I feel quite comfortable classifying encrypted messaging apps in the same category as houses and chain mail, even if the US government has historically disagreed.
              • AnthonyMouse 6y ago
                > And indeed it would be. Only if that logic is sane, which it isn't. There is an difference between doing something directly and indirectly. Anything can do anything given enough indirection. There is no plausible way in which your ordinary use of encryption or body armor could directly harm anybody else. There are some immediately obvious ways that your ordinary use of a howitzer could directly harm somebody else. And the right to defend yourself using indirect offensive measures has no inherent symmetry with the right of government (or lack thereof) to prevent you from defending yourself using direct defensive measures.
      • m4rtink 6y ago
        Sadly, no one actually has any battleships these days, not even the governments... :-(
        • BlueTemplar 6y ago
          Because these days a battleship is mostly a very expensive missile practice target.
          • m4rtink 6y ago
            And there were times countries had lines of battle of these missile targets spanning the horizon - imagine that! :) Somehow these just look so much more elegant than just spamming more bombers and nukes. Maybe because they usually only caused death of the sailors crewing them and other warships in battle rather than city populations like bombers and nukes often do ? (Well, unless you live in Yarmouth or on the River Plate.)
        • jcranmer 6y ago
          We call them "destroyers" nowadays. (The Zumwalt-class destroyer displaces ~15,000 tons, which is too large to be considered a cruiser under the terms of the inter-war naval treaties, and is roughly the displacement of a 1910s-era South Carolina-class battleship).
          • m4rtink 6y ago
            Thats still less than a half of the displacement of Warspite, third of the Iowas, let alone monsters like the Yamato class. And unlike Zumwalt, all of those had working guns. ;-) On a more serious note a modern destroyer could sink any of those with long range missiles long before the batlleship could ever get into a range for a proper gun duel. Not counting modern aircraft with yet more standoof missiles or even the anti/ship ICBMs that are being talked about. Oh well, battleships were an elegant weapon for a more civilized age...
    • romanoderoma 6y ago
      Disclaimer: I've made - very minor - contributions to the 2017 proposal to enforce mandatory E2E encryption (as a technical consultant, I have no political role of any kind) How does that follow? I am as free as anybody else in the EU to use any chat software I want. This is just a proposal and ha no value in itself until it is approved and ratified by the single parliaments in the EU countries. EU is not some tirannic state, or some hegemonic super power where when the president loses the elections they refuse to leave. It's a very complex political institution, that works through official channels. the proposal is public, there will be a discussion, years of debates, they did not hide it under the carpet, it's in the open so that anyone is aware of what it entails and can react by supporting it or opposing to it. Nothing to be scared about. And if the citizen of Europe through their elected members of the EU parliament will approve it, so be it. It's the democratic process at work.
      • intricatedetail 6y ago
        They literally are proposing to kill the freedom to communicate and you say there is nothing to worry about?
        • notreallytrue 6y ago
          Overreacting is equally dangerous, I could argue that if they were really killing the freedom to communicate we should fight them as we would fight an enemy, possibly going to war, armed. That's not what's happening here. It might be useful to remember that our communications have never been encrypted before a few years ago and they haven't been less free. Also: encrypted communication but clear text metadata kinda defeat the purpose of encrypted communication. If I know where, when and who was involved in a call, I can easily tell that two people chatting and ending up in the same place every time both their partners phones are away from home, could be cheating If I call an ambulance at the same time and place where an accident happened but the ambulance doesn't report a second vehicle, guess who probably didn't report an accident? Privacy and secrecy are a broader subject, it's good we discuss about it, it's not good to blindly trust WhatsApp or Facebook with our data. Bad as it might be, I have more control and trust more my state than a private company on the other side of the World.
  • Kim_Bruning 6y ago
    So that's a good argument to use when you call your MEP. The EC would be hoisting themselves on their own petard indeed!
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• camgunz 6y ago
  We need to establish the use of encryption as a basic human right. I'm so tired of this cropping up every couple years.
  • scrollaway 6y ago
    First step is finding a way to educate the mainstream (including politicians) on the dangers of master keys and backdoors. It is too easy for many politicians and security agencies to think that their master keys and backdoors won't ever fall into the wrong hands, that they're careful, etc. And if you point out the problem, they'll tell you they'll be even more careful. Think about it from a non-techie perspective. I don't think most people even understand the concept that a message that goes from sender to recipient in WhatsApp can't be decrypted by Facebook, let alone by anyone else. I don't even know if there is a common analogue-world comparison you can draw, this is an utterly new concept for people who don't understand encryption.
    • cblconfederate 6y ago
      The mainstream doesn't care about human rights, they will always fall for the children/terrorism traps
    • emteycz 6y ago
      Non-techies most certainly understand what encryption is and if you describe what 'end' in the WhatsApp notice about end to end encryption means, it's very clear to them.
      • scrollaway 6y ago
        No, non-techies do not "understand what encryption is". They'll understand if you explain it to them, but if you ask someone off the street what encryption is, the closest to a correct description they may give you is "it's garbled text you can decrypt". It's hard enough to explain the easy, obvious stuff like tax brackets. You think people have a native understanding of encryption?
• yogthos 6y ago
  I was told that this only happens in authoritarian regimes like China. Turns out that while everybody was talking about China exact same things were happening here in the West. It's as if the whole focus on China was specifically designed to distract people from what's happening in their own countries.
  • jjd33 6y ago
    The US has been on Saudi and North Korea level for a while now
    • chance_state 6y ago
      Lol, what?
      • romanoderoma 6y ago
        Ehm... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/03/edward-snowden-nsa-surveillance-guardian-court-rules https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/03/edward-snowd...
        • ben_w 6y ago
          North Korea is rather a lot worse: https://insinuator.net/2015/07/redstar-os-watermarking/ https://insinuator.net/2015/07/redstar-os-watermarking/
          • notreallytrue 6y ago
            Being better than North Korea is a pretty low bar I would expect from the greatest democracy and country in the World to be in the top three, not a little bit better than those at the bottom
            • ben_w 6y ago
              My point is NK is a lot worse, not “a little bit”.
• OneGuy123 6y ago
  So to which EU politician do I send GDPR complaint to? The EU politicians have completely isolated themselves from the common folk through their bureaucratical system.
  • ben_w 6y ago
    In that regard, is any large organisation different? I tried to convince the UK government this was a terrible idea when the Investigatory Powers Act was going through. I failed to make any difference at all to any part of it, but I did learn about Select Committees while trying to find out which MP I had to try to convince given my local MP was a powerless newbie.
    • fakedang 6y ago
      With the UK, I've found (as a foreigner with voting rights previously) that it's best to build your relationship with a seniorish MP, and if that doesn't work, cough up to donate around 8-10k to the parties every year (for much more senior access). You'll pop a few eyeballs in Labour with such a donation, while the Conservatives have their own special interest groups for donors (although these usually end up as mass grilling sessions for the MPs).
      • ben_w 6y ago
        I don’t know if I should be happy to know I personally can afford to buy access to UK politicians, or embarrassed that they are so cheap, but either way that is a very interesting anecdote.
        • fakedang 6y ago
          I'd appreciate that at least the system is overt. All of the above information usually is public info. You know exactly which politician got funded by which Russian tycoon, etc.
  • intricatedetail 6y ago
    That's the biggest problem with the EU. There is no accountability and as an individual you have no recourse, even your vote does not matter
• Daniel_sk 6y ago
  I don't have a nice name for people in EU parliament that write these things, they don't really understand what encryption is. It's not a technology. You can't ban encryption. Terrorists can just use unencrypted chat and either use their own encryption or they can use predefined words and sentences that actually have a totally different meaning.
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  • tom_mellior 6y ago
    This is not from the Parliament. This is from the Council of Ministers. All shitty ideas in the EU come from there or from the Commission. These bodies are not elected and have very little, and very indirect, democratic legitimation.
    • intricatedetail 6y ago
      It is also eye opening to watch how MEP vote. This is a farce and has nothing to do with democracy. They just want to enslave and control all Europeans.
      • tom_mellior 6y ago
        You might want to provide more intricate detail about what you mean.
        • iso947 6y ago
          They push a button on a screen, which is publicly recorded as a vote for, against, abstain or not present. Nowhere near superior systems like the U.K. where members leave te room, spend a couple of hours queuing to go into one of two rooms, and then see the result later in the day.
          • dane-pgp 6y ago
• jjd33 6y ago
  But Tor is legal in EU
  • jalk 6y ago
    since when?
    • vntok 6y ago
      Since its creation.
      • jalk 6y ago
        Citation please
        • vntok 6y ago
          What do you mean, "citation please"? Things are permitted unless forbidden by law, so it's up to you to quote a EU-binding law that forbids Tor. I can't prove a negative.
          • jalk 6y ago
            Sorry man, i totallly read that as ‘illegal in the EU’
• qz2 6y ago
  I look forward to diplomatic Signal messages being leaked to the public immediately.
  • fakedang 6y ago
    Most diplomats use Whats App more than Signal.
• dalu 6y ago
  This shows that the attack was planned by the powers that be, if not planned at least not actively blocked. It was 1 guy with a weapon that the Austrian secret service was warned about. The media made it 6 people doing a huge thing, in the end it was just 1 guy with an AK47 apparently. Austrian intelligence was warned by the Slovaks about him and they let him do regardless. Just like the 9/11 stuff, they knew what was coming and they allowed it because it suited their political agenda. 1 guy shooting around doesn't justify chat apps being monitored. This is a political setup. We need to leave the EU ASAP.
  • intricatedetail 6y ago
    Once the EU starts controlling all communication it is game over. It will be worse than China.
  • lprd 6y ago
    Do you have any sources on this? I’m interested.
    • Daniel_sk 6y ago
      I am from Slovakia and yes - this idiot actually went to our capital city (near border) to a gun shop and tried to buy ammunition for his AK-47. Of course you can't buy anything if you are not a citizen and you don't have a gun permit. So he didn't buy anything, the seller contacted the police and they did a background check and found out that he was sentenced for radicalism, he tried to go to Syria to fight a war and so on. They sent an official warning in June to Austria. Austria didn't act. You will find lots of news on this. There is actually a scan of the official letter Slovakia sent with all the details floating on the internet, but it's in Slovak: https://i.imgur.com/vxCU6tN.png https://i.imgur.com/vxCU6tN.png They want to ban encryption, but they can't arrest and stop the attack based on DIRECT evidence? Please...
      • raverbashing 6y ago
        > but they can't arrest and stop the attack based on DIRECT evidence? Ah but that would require someone to actually do something, that would be too hard. And I guess for some of the "human rights" crowd, some people have all the benefit of the doubt unless they're caught in the act
• blub 6y ago
  The article makes it sound like a done deal. Is that really the case?
  • intricatedetail 6y ago
    If powers that control EU want it, it will happen. Take a look at ACTA and the regulation that has been pushed.
    • tom_mellior 6y ago
      There are several powers in conflict over "control of the EU". Parliament is often a lot more reasonable than the Commission or the Council of Ministers. They may well reject this. But it's also possible that it will have to go through the Court of Justice, which has to restore our human rights more often that it should need to.
• intricatedetail 6y ago
  The EU is slowly starting to show their true face. We probably have left at the last minute. I personally think this is an attempted assault on human rights and such ideas should be nipped in a bud and people proposing that banned from any office. My blood boils.
  • MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
    > We probably have left at the last minute. If that means you’re British: the GCHQ initiated this. Nobody is more under video surveillance than you guys. Enjoy your chat loicense.
    • intricatedetail 6y ago
      We can now vote for a party who can try to fix this. It wouldn't be possible if that was EU wide.
      • scrollaway 6y ago
        The EU certainly did not put a gun to your head and ask you to be one of the most surveilled countries in the world.
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      • alkonaut 6y ago
        Brexit was founded on the misunderstanding that it was "faceless unelected bureaucrats" that run the EU. I'd argue Britons wielded more power than most others in the EU, and that the EU parliament is quite a lot more democratic than the British one. The british are now stuck with the UK parliament without adult supervision.
        • intricatedetail 6y ago
          Can you explain how average Brit had more power?
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• raverbashing 6y ago
  So before discussing this I suggest people read the article because the title is misleading This is (from what I understand) not about a blanket ban on encryption, but the possibility to allow wiretapping on certain E2E comms. Also relevant is this recent decision by the ECJ https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/06/ecj-limits-government-spying-on-citizens-mobile-and-internet-data-.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/06/ecj-limits-government-spying... (Naturally this is worrying and I think the main issue with security lies on lack of border control and liberal asylum policies, but that's MHO)
  • garmaine 6y ago
    In order to support wiretapping it must not be a truly encrypted channel. It is a back door blanket ban.
  • GhostVII 6y ago
    If you can have wiretapping you don't have E2E encryption. So I think this would be a ban on E2E encryption, not on encryption in general of course but I think that should be self evident.
    • raverbashing 6y ago
      If you're not the subject of the wiretapping, your connection will continue to use E2E, it's not complicated. Yes, wiretapped connections are not E2E while they're being monitored, obviously
      • Toutouxc 6y ago
        Soo, how do you handle this on the client? If wiretapped, then dummy_encrypt(message) else encrypt(message) ? Or will they just dummy_encrypt anything and read the stuff that's "wiretapped" at the moment? Because that sounds way more probable.
      • noir_lord 6y ago
        If it's E2E except when it's not then it's simply not. How do you assure that the people flipping the toggle are the 'good' guys. Given the way five eyes (and similar groups) have behaved particularly.
• eivarv 6y ago
  I'm sick and tired of seeing tech-illiterate decision makers on both international levels attempt to thwart our right to privacy. Does anyone know what we or I can do (in this case specifically) to help fight this idiocy?
  • TheRealPomax 6y ago
    Yeah: run for office, win, and then effect policy change. But almost no one's willing to actually do that. They just want easy outs like "contacting your MP" or "donating to an org that says they'll try to fix it".
    • eivarv 6y ago
      I mean, I organize petitions, write op-eds (incl. in major national papers), contribute to OSS, have back-and-forths with major decision makers in public, etc. ... But I don't seem to reach through. I'd be willing to do volunteer work or start an organization, but can't really run for office as I have another career. Besides: I don't know what party would have me, because it seems to me that the politicians don't understand the arguments nor the premise – they're no tech-experts, after all (which is part of the problem, I suspect).
      • intricatedetail 6y ago
        They don't work for public good. You would have to convince them how encryption could make their businesses more money than the ban.
    • m4rtink 6y ago
      It can be done - an ex-coleague of mine got elected to the European Parliament last time - ot took two tries but wprled out & he is doing a good job there as far as I can tell. It's hardky an insurmountable barrier.
    • iso947 6y ago
      The most successful British politician in the last 100 years never got elected - he was defeated 7 times, once by a dolphin. On a more recent example a footballer has managed to affect meaningful change and government u turns time and time again. Charisma and making the population care about your cause is how you do it.
• euthrow439 6y ago
  I'm in my early 40s. Up until I was ~35 I was very strongly against this, sort of like most you. Now I feel the EU in general (some member states a lot worse than others) has backed itself into a corner because of the utterly failed integration efforts, union-wide. I live in a EU nation that has seen a very high rise in violent (and sometimes frankly horrible) crime over the past decade. As a dad of a 1-year old daughter I unfortunately find my self welcoming this proposal. The criminals are doing laps around the police because of these apps. :/
  • maxekman 6y ago
    To give up the freedom for the majority to battle a tiny minority of (potentially) bad actors seems like a really bad deal to me.
  • MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
    Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. B. Franklin, 1756 Yet here we are in 2020.
  • GhostVII 6y ago
    What makes you think that this will reduce violent crime in any meaningful way? The guy who mugs you isn't going to go on Messenger and send out a quick "brb gonna mug someone" message. And they definitely won't if they know the government is listening. And regardless, we trade freedoms for risk of death all the time. We would have far less crime if no one was allowed to leave their house without an ankle monitor and a body cam, but that would be a violation of people freedoms.
    • Toutouxc 6y ago
      I don't think he's talking about the guy who mugs him. More like about the guy who mows down a crowd with an automatic weapon, the guy who drives a truck through the center of a Christmas market or the guy who blows up a metro station. That kind of people.
      • 6y ago
• mantenpanther 6y ago
  This makes me sad and somewhat angry. How does mass spying help in cases like the Vienna attack? If the authorities had done their work as I would expect as citizen and tax payer (the government already admitted massive failures, basically they clearly failed to act on existing intelligence) this would not have happened. I also think this could spawn lots of Signal-like, self hostable chat-server solutions that will be much harder to spy on. So this could be a shoot in the foot.
  • BlueTemplar 6y ago
    We already have those, see Matrix statement in this thread for instance.
• Arathorn 6y ago
  https://matrix.org/blog/2020/10/19/combating-abuse-in-matrix-without-backdoors https://matrix.org/blog/2020/10/19/combating-abuse-in-matrix... is our attempt at Matrix to spell out what a catastrophic idea it is to backdoor end-to-end encryption (and to provide an alternative proposal in the form of using decentralised reputation to mitigate abuse. We're kicking decentralised reputation work off in earnest tomorrow, so watch this space to see how it goes). I guess we'll be weighing in on the EU proposal as well as the 7-eyes one.
  • resynth1943 6y ago
    You have my full support, Matthew :-) I'll be keeping an eye on it, too.
  • part1of2 6y ago
    What about proposing encryption as an EU human right? Has that been attempted?
    • feanaro 6y ago
      I don't know whether this has been tried before, but it is definitely the right move. The governments should be busy fighting and trying to shut down our proposals and not the other way around.
      • gcpwnd 6y ago
        Without public pressure it is not going to happen. German politicians have been positive towards this move recently (althought without mentioning it is already in progress). Sadly politics think it is the easiest solution to counter torrorism.
        • feanaro 6y ago
          Public pressure rarely materialises spontaneously, out of a vacuum. For it to materialize, someone has to rally for it. A manifesto needs to be written, the goals written down and elaborated. It has to be pushed into the media. It's not easy, but it's the only thing that will work.
• deleted 6y ago
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• MayeulC 6y ago
  Google translate (more info in English -- the note itself -- is linked in the article as [PDF], link at the bottom): The terrorist attack is followed by an EU ban on encryption In the EU Council of Ministers, a resolution was made ready within five days, obliging platform operators such as WhatsApp, Signal and Co to create master keys for monitoring E2E-encrypted chats and messages. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter From Erich Moechel The terrorist attack in Vienna is used in the EU Council of Ministers to enforce a ban on secure encryption for services such as WhatsApp, Signal and many others in the rapid-boiling process. This emerges from an internal document dated November 6th from the German Council Presidency to the delegations of the member states in the Council, which ORF.at has received. This should now be understood under the "further steps against terrorism" that French President Emmanuel Macron wants to discuss with Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) in a video conference at the beginning of the week. The resolution has already been agreed to such an extent that it can be passed in the video conference of the interior and justice ministers at the beginning of December without further discussion. text <<picture: screenshot of a note from "presidency" to "delegations". Higlighted portion is "Draft Council Resolution on encryption - Security trough encryption and security despite encryption">> On the right are the council working groups to which this text was sent, the first revised version of which was apparently ready on Friday. As is customary in the Council of Ministers, the document was classified as a "limit". As for this reason it is nowhere available to the public apart from the Council, it is made available here. [PDF] The final trialogue negotiations on the regulation against terrorism are currently underway in Brussels. The sticking point here are the planned upload filters for relevant videos . Analogies to data retention Macron's visit, originally planned for the beginning of next week, turned into a video conference “to fight Islamist terrorism” due to the pandemic. In addition, the EU Council President Charles Michel is due to visit Vienna on Monday, who will also hold talks with Chancellor Kurz. In addition, European Minister Karoline Edtstadler (ÖVP) welcomes the French Secretary of State for Europe, Clement Beaune, to the Federal Chancellery. Of course, it is not just about expressing condolences. In the meantime it is becoming increasingly clear that apparently hair-raising investigative errors in the BVT made the attack possible in the first place and not a lack of digital surveillance powers. However, whether there is any such connection to the act is irrelevant. In Brussels, such an occasion has been abused for 25 years with disdainful regularity to implement surveillance projects that have long been planned. In this way, the data retention, which had been controversial in the EU for five years after the train attacks in Madrid (2004) and London by Islamists (2005), was channeled through the Council of Ministers and Parliament. text <<picture: screenshot from the note pdf: Protecting the privacy and security of communications through encryption and at the same time upholding the possibility for competent authorities in the area of security and criminal justice to lawfully access relevant data for legitimate, clearly defined purposes infighting serious and/or organized crimes and terrorism, including in the digital world, are extremely important. Any actions taken have to balance these interests carefully.>> The latest changes (bold and underlined) show which formulations were complained about in the text by individual member states. “Terrorism” and an inconspicuous change in the wording were added last. Instead of the usual “law enforcement” in all documents since 1995, the term “competent authorities” is now consistently used. Who is meant by this is below. Farewell without further discussion According to the document - any final objections are requested - this resolution of the Council of Ministers is not only almost completely formulated. It has apparently already been voted on in the Council. On November 19, it is to be adopted by the Council Working Group on Cooperation in the National Security Sector (COSI), and on 25th it is planned to be presented to the Council of Permanent Representatives of the EU Member States (COREPER). There, the council resolution already has the status of an I-item, so it can pass without further discussion. The decision will then be celebrated in a virtual meeting of the Council of Interior and Justice Ministers planned for the beginning of December. What will follow is clear, namely an order from the Council of Ministers to the EU Commission to draw up a draft regulation, which will then go through the usual procedure by Parliament and the Council. In view of the apparent unanimity, however, it would be possible in the Council of Ministers to implement the planned regulation in its core even without the involvement of Parliament. That has already been done in connection with surveillance. For example, the famous decision in the Council's Fisheries Committee of 1995 to monitor the then new GSM networks was carried through as an A-Item (decided matter), of which the EU Parliament only became aware after it came into force in 1996. text <<picture, highlighted text it "Enable law enforcement access to content in a readable and usable format where an authorization is lawfully issues>> This passage looks confusingly similar to the EU Council of Ministers decision, but does not come from Europe. Rather, it can be found in a resolution by the interior and justice ministers from the “Five Eyes” states, dated October 11th. In addition to Europol and various European services, the espionage alliance is one of the driving forces behind the current resolution of the Council of Ministers. Driving forces in the background The presentation of the “moderate suggestions” by the GCHQ for duplicate keys at the end of 2018 was still met with heavy criticism France has been promoting the action against secure encryption on platforms such as WhatsApp, originally initiated by Great Britain, throughout the year at EU level. The ground for this has been prepared since 2015 in a whole series of campaigns that were run alternately by Europol and FBI or the services of the “Five Eyes” espionage alliance and the responsible ministers. It was only at the beginning of October that the interior ministers of these five countries - Great Britain, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada - asked the Internet companies again to equip their IT networks with back doors for law enforcement officers. They were seconded by their counterparts in Japan and India. Why the secret service alliance has so conspicuously worried about the unfortunate prosecutors for years is actually self-explanatory. They are the remaining “Competent Authorities” that will also be granted access. "Competent Authorities" send their regards According to further information available from ORF.at, the monitoring method “Exceptional Access” should be selected, which is already indirectly evident from this non-technical resolution text. The one from the British “National Cyber Security Center” (NCSC) was selected from eight possible model proposals, all of which stem from technical scenarios from various secret services. The NCSC is a division of the British military intelligence service GCHQ. Platform operators such as WhatsApp, Signal and Co, who all use E2E encryption, are to be obliged to create and store additional master keys. Sketches from documents <<picture: graph showing messages transiting on an "ESP server" before reaching the target device>> Here a duplicate key for third parties is smuggled into the encryption process of two chat participants, it is the "Exceptional Access" method of the GCHQ. Like all other variants contained in this document, this has nothing to do with secure encryption, it is simply different types of "man-in-the-middle" attacks on secure communication. The study was carried out on behalf of the German Council Presidency and published in August by the specialist magazine Politico . These are the “competent authorities”: GCHQ, DGSE, BND, etc. whose vacuum cleaner methods on the glass fibers bring in less and less processable data due to increasing transport encryption. In order to avert this threatening data poverty, general keys have now been requested and it looks like this will also be approved in the council. Then the BVT, which does not even manage to eliminate a terrorist who is served twice on a silver platter by two other services, will not be able to investigate in future even in chat histories for weeks. Published on 11/08/2020 [PDF]: https://files.orf.at/vietnam2/files/fm4/202045/783284_fh_st12143-re01en20_783284.pdf https://files.orf.at/vietnam2/files/fm4/202045/783284_fh_st1...
• solarkraft 6y ago
  What will keep being allowed under this? Running your own service? Using a p2p service?
• chimen 6y ago
  Always a terrorist. This is starting to sound like a well known recipe for pushing new laws of this sort.
  • dalu 6y ago
    If terrorism doesn't work there's always child pornography.
• botto 6y ago
  Ultimately the problem with any idea like this is that encryption is as basic as mathematics and trying to ban it will only harm everyday people and the dumb criminal. The criminals that want to stay hidden will continue to do so because you will always find open source projects that provides encryption.
  • stonepresto 6y ago
    Not to mention those same bad actors will gladly risk going after those keys. Given the track record of government organizations' secure storage of data, I think it's likely they would succeed.
  • auganov 6y ago
    It wouldn't be an encryption ban, but a ban on operating a platform that enables E2EE messaging. Similarly in most places you already cannot be an ISP or VPN provider without following some reporting requirements. And there's no simple way for criminals to get mainstream quality networking services that don't follow regulations. I don't agree with the ban, but I do think it would certainly hurt many classes criminals. I'd say it's generally a pretty bad strategy to oppose such policies by denying the supposed effect on criminals. All kinds of freedoms benefit some criminals.
    • intricatedetail 6y ago
      You cannot ban it unless you start deep inspection of people conversations. You can easily sneak public keys disguised as regular conversation and then encrypt messages offline and disguise as well.
      • auganov 6y ago
        And I'm sure the government doesn't expect a perfect ban. By going after platforms you'll take the ability to engage in secure E2EE messaging away from a large part of the population. E2EE messaging that required coordination was already possible for decades and the governments didn't mind that as much. Users that send too many encrypted blobs can simply be banned by platforms as suspicious (and I wouldn't be surprised if that's happening already). Exchanging files is easiest to detect by centralized platforms and hardest to do efficiently with good delivery assurances in reasonably anonymous decentralized systems.
• surfsvammel 6y ago
  What can someone like me do to help? Someone who know little about politics or policy, who k ow little about encryption, but who is concerned about the development? I live in the EU but I am not even sure who my representatives are to whom I could raise my concern. Where in the EU is this being worked on?
  • qayxc 6y ago
    You can look up who won in the last EU election in your country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_European_Parliament_(2019–2024) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_European_Parlia... Just drop them a letter or call their office (both works fine).
    • m4rtink 6y ago
      They are actually quite responsive when ypu write them! While it was not enough in the end to stop it I had a 50% response rate when I wrote to the Czech representatives in the european parliament due to the article 13 last year.
      • intricatedetail 6y ago
        Didn't Article 13 pass?
        • m4rtink 6y ago
          Sadly it did. But most of the Czech MPs voted against it & some looked rather knowledgeable about it from their replies.
• temp667 6y ago
  Great - after the cookie wall nightmares from the EU we get this. Good to see the EU continuing to innovate.
• jug 6y ago
  How is this going to be enforced? The easy thing to do is to ban chat apps offering encryption. But the consequences are much greater. For example, do they need to ban Tor or I2P as well, even SSH? Unencrypted applications will gain encryption and sometimes even anonymization if encapsulated within these. What about abusing legal services using encryption for chat like purposes? All they need to do is to offer collaboration features on shared data?
  • SoylentOrange 6y ago
    In the same way they are stopped now: infiltration, investigation, and waiting for them to make a mistake
  • intricatedetail 6y ago
    I imagine that human language will evolve to facilitate key exchange and encryption as you speak
    • m4rtink 6y ago
      This even has a SF book written about it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradyzja https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradyzja A writer from Earth visits a space station in another solar system called "Paradise". The space station is ruled by a tatalitary regime on the grounds of safety of the inhabitants as the plannet they originally went to settle truned out to be uninhabitable. As a results the space station inhabitants live in cramped conditions in rooms with glass walls with no privacy and a computer system analyses their every word for signs of dissent. If some digression is detected, the system automatically lowers social score of the ofeending person. Lower score means less priviledges and a shitty job and the lowest score means forced labor in dangerous mines on the planet surface "for the good of all". Sometimes people survive that and come back though. So what have ortinary citizens devised to combat this opressive nightmare ? Steganographic peoetry! It even has its own page on the Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koalang https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koalang Due to the shear amount of material the spzing is done bz computers, so people speak a combonation of metaphors and poetry in a way that can convey meaning to the other party but not to the machine listening in. Its not that easy though, as the spy system is self learning, so one has to continually adjust and not repeate the same methapors ot the computer might get the meaning. Still the question is - why are they doing this ? Its almost as if the opressive regime ruling the station was not telling the truth and was working hard to cover something very fundametal up about the Paradise station... We had this book on our highschool reading list and it left quite an impression.
• toxik 6y ago
  My serious question is this: how do we stop terrorism and criminals when they have access to military grade encryption technology? It seems like there is a lot of ideological push for freedom, but as criminal activity moves to the virtual world, have we not created a problem for ourselves?
  • dalu 6y ago
    If you let fear be your guide you would never even leave the house. Don't do bad things and there won't be terrorists. Attack other countries, incite wars and you'll have them. It's simple. Don't be a douche and no one will slap your face.
    • toxik 6y ago
      That seems like such a gross oversimplification I don’t even know where to start. There will always be those in society who want to do harm for one reason or another, utopia does not exist. These people are what we call criminals.
      • dalu 6y ago
        Most criminals are criminals because of the circumstances. Circumstances can be improved but they'd rather spend 5.5 billion (the one after the million) € on Eurofighters than make away with poverty. We could go back and forth and it would change nothing at all because no one from the EC will see it and as an EU citizen I can't change the resolution, because the EP can't do anything about it. And just because there are "criminals" doesn't mean that I have to live behind steel bars in my house and let every letter be seen by some policeman before I read it. We're also not talking about criminals, we're talking about some guy who's country was attacked, maybe his family killed. Who knows what his motives were? I don't. US, EU, Russia, Turkey all waged a proxy war in Syria. If not for that war maybe he would not had done what he did. If not for 9/11 there would be no ISIS. Why does the US have to plunder other countries? Instigate wars in other countries? If anything we should send to refugees to the US because they're to blame for it all.
• oneplane 6y ago
  This would never work, just like anti-piracy: - People following the rules would be hurt by it - People not following the rules will continue as-is and not care
• hartator 6y ago
  We have to find these covid deniers wherever they are hiding right?
• PIKAL 6y ago
  The brexit crowd is probably feeling vindicated.
  • fakedang 6y ago
    I'm not a Brexiteer (never was either), but frankly I'm disgusted at the EU for this. People elsewhere on this thread keep bringing up Priti Patel and how she's much worse than an encryption ban, but she's a useless wench who won't be able to do shit, and at least we can kick her out of Cabinet, unlike the faceless super-bureaucracy of the EU.
  • AnssiH 6y ago
    Personally, I think this proposal does not mean much unless it actually passes parliament, which I find very unlikely (if it actually bans encryption like the title suggests, that is).
  • nullifidian 6y ago
    It's not like Britain is any better than the EU in how it treats encryption. I remember them demanding private keys from Whatsapp. Though I agree it's much easier to lobby for change in a single country than to lobby change in a democratically deficient structure like the EU, where you first have to change local governments in EU countries, which in turn have to change eurocomissars, who will propose new legislation to the European parliament, where you too have to have the majority on your side.
  • switch007 6y ago
    Perhaps. Feeling is different to being, however. If the latest abuses of secondary legislation in the name of coronavirus and our government’s general disregard for the law doesn’t scare the sovereign types, I’m not sure what will
• Kim_Bruning 6y ago
  This is the reminder to call your MEP and tell them what a bad idea this is! The few times I've called, they do have people who pick up the phone and listen to you. It's actually quite cool. Have your story ready, and remember to be polite. (If only because a lot of MEPs really do deserve our respect.) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/home https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/home
  • learnstats2 6y ago
    The EU Parliament, which votes on proposals but does not write them, defended the right of encryption prior to the most recent election, and it was news that it hoped to enshrine end-to-end encryption as a Fundamental Right of the European Union. e.g. https://www.cnet.com/news/encryption-and-fighting-terror-have-the-uk-and-eu-at-odds/ https://www.cnet.com/news/encryption-and-fighting-terror-hav... This might change, but there is hope that they will continue with this position. Since you're likely to have multiple MEP representatives from different parliamentary groups (and different national parties), it's worth getting in touch with each of your representatives by party to make your point clear. Some groups and parties will be more sympathetic than others but all will benefit from hearing this - and phone is more compelling than e-mail. (I'm still trying to find a previous similar vote that might be enlightening on what you can expect.)
• kleiba 6y ago
  For someone currently living in Germany, I'd say that protection against government surveillance is one of the main arguments for encrypted conversations between citizens.
• BMSmnqXAE4yfe1 6y ago
  And of course, government officials will be exempt from that backdoor. I would like to see CIA agreeing that FBI has "lawful" backdoor access to all their secrets.
• MayeulC 6y ago
  This is madness. Oh, of course, it's much easier to put a wrench into some gears to show that you are actually working at "solving the terrorism problem" than shaving the yaks, but that machine is actually important for other things. We live in a dangerous world. We cannot control everything. I don't mind a slight risk of terrorist attack on myself or my family (caveat lector: I am young), if that means greater freedom. In my book this is the first step towards authoritarianism: ensure that the state survives at all costs. And being able to spy on the whole population to track outlaws and dissidents is part of this. There is an invisible barrier between what's legal and what's not. Crossing it isn't hard, look at extinction rebellion and other civil disobedience protestors. Yet, on the other side, your trusted options are very limited, and encryption is one of those. I'd argue that letting citizens communicate and organize privately is a vital component of democracy, even allowing citizens to seize control of the state if they deem it necessary. More so than U.S.A.'s "Second amendment", encryption is an arm citizens should legally be able to bear. Now, it is obviously hypocritical to offer such a thing, as politicians certainly wouldn't want their texts to be snooped on, would they? Any bill that requests backdoors should request them from everyone. And don't get me started on how governments recommend their own to use Matrix and Signal, the very apps they aim to backdoor, because they are secure. You can't both have your cake and eat it, too. A useful thing to explain encryption backdoors is the TSA master keys: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12177079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12177079 Their very existence made locks less secure (possibility of a key leak), and those are worthless against thieves now that master keys have leaked (you can 3D print them).
  • nix23 6y ago
    >We live in a dangerous world. No we don't, but that's what the Politicians try to implement in our brains.
    • modzu 6y ago
      exactly; the terror... stop being afraid and we avoid the collective need to sell our souls and those of our children for the protection of the state
• pjc50 6y ago
  Relevant European activist group: https://edri.org/ https://edri.org/
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• ceilingcorner 6y ago
  The EU has done a fantastic job painting themselves as defenders of human rights. Don’t fall for it. Democratic governments are representatives of the people and proposals like this only further entrench the political ruling class.
  • cblconfederate 6y ago
    Apart from online personal information (which is still available to governments , so not private) they don't hold high free speech standards as the US does. I dont think there's a perception that EU is the pinnacle of human rights protections.
  • 0xy 6y ago
    The EU defends human rights with the exception of allowing the US to spy on EU citizens and businesses and allowing member states to sell weapons to authoritarian regimes that are sometimes used to commit war crimes. It's a corrupt cabal just like the United States. European citizens like to blind themselves to the atrocities by patting themselves on the back when the EU builds some renewable energy, as if it makes up for the wet work committed by EU members in the Middle East and otherwise. It's almost cult-like.
• nullsense 6y ago
  I dunno... I feel like I should just give up on encryption and privacy and say what the hell, so long as you're able to thwart the terror attacks that are coming thats probably a better outcome than any notion of privacy at this point. It's a sad world we live in.
• _trampeltier 6y ago
  So they have to make an key for the EU. Then the US will do the same, also make an key for the US too. And China and India would like to have the key too. Then every other country will ask for the same. At this point you can drop encryption anyway, because 1000 eyes will read every message. Just WTF, and everybody said 2020 can't become more worse.
• oij3jj 6y ago
  The EU is worse than any terrorist organization. GDPR, Upload Filter, Encryption Ban, etc... United States shouldn't rescue them from soviet union in WW2 and let it fail and be completely destroyed by the soviets.
• randyrand 6y ago
  Next: Law to requires all citizens record every conversation they have for government storage
• XCSme 6y ago
  I don't understand what this solves. If bad guys want to do bad things via chat, they can easily create their on chat app that encrypts messages in a few lines of code.
  • dane-pgp 6y ago
    This is only step 1. Step 2 is to ban people from installing unapproved apps on their phone. But, as you say, these apps are just a few lines of code, so step 3 is stopping people visiting non-whitelisted websites.
• trhway 6y ago
  prohibiting encryption practically means prohibiting speech whenever government can't understand it or even just when government can suspect that there is another interpretation possible (would be one more reason for the straight very simple language in 1984). That naturally leads to government having right to demand a detailed explanation to any speech and actions to the full understanding/satisfaction by the government. I mean that belly dance moves may be an encrypted sequence carrying an secret message. Now, try to prove (to the full satisfaction of that polite government bureaucrat) that is isn't. Conspiracy theory - wise : how about an idea that the authorities let the terrorist act to happen (as they had been warned in advance about the guy) in order to have pretext to make further push for tightening of the screws ( Belarus has just again shown the power of social media communication channels and that couldn't have been missed by the powers-to-be). I mean it is kind of curious how immediately after the terrorist act where AK-47 was used there is an attack on encryption instead of say on AK-47 sales.
• corona-research 6y ago
  This is not fascism. It’s only for your security.
• sixhobbits 6y ago
  My german isn't that good, but from what I understand and from the translation below, the source seems a bit conspiratorial. I completely agree with the concerns raised elsewhere in this thread, but I'm not sure I see the clear link to recent events in Vienna etc claimed here. Here[0] is an earlier document from 21 october which the article seems to take some screenshots from, so it seems that this has been coming either way. I wonder how this effects countries like Switzerland and the UK? [0] https://www.statewatch.org/media/1434/eu-council-draft-declaration-against-encryption-12143-20.pdf https://www.statewatch.org/media/1434/eu-council-draft-decla...
  • kenniskrag 6y ago
    Switzerland is not part of the european union but has to follow some rules to have access to their market. If Whatsapp breaks E2E it will possibly affect multiple countries.
    • dogma1138 6y ago
      If WhatsApp breaks E2E in Europe every other country will jump on the bandwagon.
      • GekkePrutser 6y ago
        WhatsApp is hardly safe from prying eyes anyway. Sure, there's always-on E2E encryption that is really well designed. However, WhatsApp constantly prompts every user to back up to the cloud, which is much less well secured. Thus, it's pretty trivial for the authorities to get to it there, I'm sure they can get into iCloud and Google Drive if they want to. It only takes one person in the conversation to have this option switched on. I think this is why WhatsApp doesn't get so much flak from the authorities for having good E2E encryption.
        • hated 6y ago
          Which is to say WhatsApp is perfectly secure as long as the hostile actor cannot access the WhatsApp backups. Only nation state actors might be able to do that.
• campuscodi 6y ago
  Just a draft for now. Answer expected next week.
• vaccinator 6y ago
  Encryption should be banned for everything... not only chat apps... How else is the NSA going to steal trade secrets?
• Zigurd 6y ago
  An enormous problem with laws of this nature is that they create a large new category of contraband. It is worse than drug laws in that this is invisible, weightless contraband that can be instantly delivered anywhere. Defending yourself against accusations that you posses this kind of contraband will be devilishly difficult. Inevitably that will be used to make false accusations, often against vulnerable minorities.
• iandanforth 6y ago
  I see this as follows: 1. Terrorism and trafficking of children will win the moral high ground. 2. App stores will be forced locale by locale to conform to these policies. 3. Most people will not notice or care. 4. This will be used by N-Eyes and totalitarian governments to quash dissent. 5. Meanwhile the tech crowd will create alternate app distribution mechanisms allowing those who care to communicate securely. 6. Those secure methods will be used by people with the most to lose. (e.g. the drivers of point 1) Given this predictable series of events I see the primary question as: How do we prevent (4)? How can we make people secure by default again and make adoption easy in the face of app store capture.
  • throw0101a 6y ago
    > 1. Terrorism and trafficking of children will win the moral high ground. Requisite: > The term was coined by Timothy C. May in 1988. May referred to "child pornographers, terrorists, drug dealers, etc."[2]. May used the phrase to express disdain for what he perceived as "Think of the children" argumentation by government officials and others seeking to justify limiting civilian use of cryptography tools. Connotations related to such argumentation continue to be attached to the phrase, and it is more commonly used by those who wish to deride various restrictions on Internet activity than by those who support such restrictions. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
  • j0ba 6y ago
    It's the infinite horse race. Black hats vs white hats. Neither holds the upper hand for long. I hope that if we ever reach a steady state, it will be unbreakable privacy.
    • bob1029 6y ago
      Entropy always wins in the end.
    • caf 6y ago
      "Red Queen's Race" is the term often used for that.
• Daniel_sk 6y ago
  I want to also give some perspective why this is bad even IF we can make sure that only governments will have the keys. We have just uncovered an organized crime at the top levels in Slovakia where even the President of police is part of it and they influenced many court cases and were accessing secret information and databases on citizens, basically a mafia. And we are part of EU. I don't trust our goverment to use they keys only for good purpose. And I speak from the recent experience.
  • dane-pgp 6y ago
    Another way of determining whether these proposals past the "smell test" is to ask how politicians treat legitimate requests for access to their communications (carried out as part of their jobs, which we pay them for) in response to Freedom Of Information requests. An example[0] from 2012 in a (then) EU member state is very informative in that regard, as indeed is the name of the special adviser behind the controversial policy. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17235168 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17235168
  • waskeifnikakew 6y ago
    I also don't trust my goverment to use the keys only for good purpose, recently in Spain a commissar was paying girls to have sexual contact with influential people to get information about politiceans.
    • Daniel_sk 6y ago
      In our case those guys had direct access to police systems, they could look up anything (and they did!). Now imagine if they could also read all your messages. The EU proposal will actually weaken the security of its own citizens. The IT community must fight back.
  • Areading314 6y ago
    Yep, also scandals like the one in neighboring Austria where senior government officials were caught on candid camera making deals with fake oligarchs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibiza_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibiza_affair
• hhjj 6y ago
  We have a right of privacy so it's stupid. Now maybe we could limit size of private group chats but i am not sure what is the reasoning anyway.
• waskeifnikakew 6y ago
  Perhaps some groups want to ban encryption to get more information, for example to force politiceans to resign. That is to know small bad things about people to make them resign. For example Madrid President (*), or Dominique Strauss, or Monica Levinski case. Many people rip off their clothes in outrage when their minds are conveniently manipulated. Getting information for pouring shit into your political adversary, who is going to ban that before banning encryption? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/madrid-president-cristina-cifuentes-resigns-over-alleged-face-cream-theft https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/madrid-preside..., https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/10/dominique-strauss-kahn-case-settled https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/10/dominique-stra...
• prof-dr-ir 6y ago
  I found this article from a month ago easier to read: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/orders-top-eus-timetable-dismantling-end-end-encryption https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/orders-top-eus-timetab... But maybe that is just because it contains fewer German words. Edit: the top link has now changed to the actual proposal instead of a German source. The EFF's opinion may still interest people.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• jjoergensen 6y ago
  Stasi 2.0
• supportlocal4h 6y ago
  The current HN link points to a page written in what looks like the German language to me. I do not understand German. The German language could be and has historically been used to spread hatred resulting in the deaths of millions of people. It is clearly risky to allow people to run around using languages I don't understand. Especially scary languages like German. And that includes Dutch. Please ban all speech that is not understandable by me. If you are that concerned about privacy, you can use Pig Latin.
• dinglefairy 6y ago
  2 things: 1. creating a backdoor defeats the purpose of having encryption in the first place. it makes the creation of encryption irrelevant and pointless. a chicken and egg scenario. so it's an all or nothing kind of argument. 2. don't quantum computers make all encryption obsolete anyways? and with quantum encryption, whether or not your data gets compromised, it tells you that someone tried to, or got access to, your encrypted data. it seems like the government already has a backdoor for all encryptions since they already have a quantum computer. so i think that this whole argument is more about setting the precedent of control over a population. gaining consensus and solidifying power. something you do when you're trying to increase your influence [which someone says the gov is always trying to do]. applying the use of force to encryption. i think the thing for humanity to realize is that absolutes exist only in oblivion
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• GekkePrutser 6y ago
  So, basically they want a backdoor but want strong encryption as well. In this case you can't have your cake and eat it. And really how are they going to make this happen? I'm sure Whatsapp, Telegram etc will cave in. But there will always remain open-source solutions. Encryption is not a secret.
• punnerud 6y ago
  Is there a good reason not to ban pinned certificates? Feel this is the biggest obstacle to check that apps are not sending personal information.
• alangibson 6y ago
  > Since there is no single way of achieving the set goals... should read > There is no way of achieving the set goals It's been said many times, but you can't have your own math. Broken encryption is broken for everyone, not just the good guys.
• pojntfx 6y ago
  Stuff like this is exactly why I'm planning to move out of the EU soon. After article 13 and nonsense like this it's clear that the EU does not serve the interests of its member states' citizens.
• EGreg 6y ago
  I have given this stuff a lot of thought. I have spent $1M and years to build a company that builds decentralized social networks (https://qbix.com/platform https://qbix.com/platform) and now a company that uses crypto to secure payments and elections (https://community.intercoin.org https://community.intercoin.org) So I have spent a long time thinking about, and spoken to a lot of prominent people about, encryption and I have come to a seemingly contrarian type conclusion that perhaps flies in the face of what HN typically says, but I hope that, instead of knee-jerk downvoting it, you think about it and let’s have a discussion based on substance. There is a difference between using crypto primitives for signatures and zk proofs to secure everyone’s TRUST in a resilient, decentralized system, and using encryption to hide content from others. To be honest ... I no longer think that end-to-end encryption is the right solution to human rights problems. If citizens are reduced to sneaking around and denying their activities to survive, their governmental system is way past due for fixing. This is like the “good slave owners” delaying the abolition of slavery. You’re solving the wrong problem. I believe that crypto is needed to secure decentralized byzantine fault tolerant systems like Ethereum etc. to be TRUSTED, not to hide information. Signatures, not encryption, if you will. If anything, it is the government who doesn’t want encryption to be broken (eg of copyrighted DVD content etc.) and there is an inherent contradiction since anyone who consumes unencrypted content can reshare it. What we really need is to decentralize the personal data in many places, and use zero-knowledge proofs for attestation, but that is different than encrypting and hiding information. Should we make bulk collection of data infeasible in huge amounts? Sure. But let’s see if there are any uses of encryption — as opposed to signing and securing data - that are truly indispensable to society and are the right and best solution to solve the problem. Within organizations, auditing and accountability are very much desired. Banning users and so on. Even though I am a libertarian, there is no simple solution to “just always have a flat system” - hierarchies always form due to efficiencies of scale (eg to gang up on people and defend against that, etc.) What we should instead focus on, imho, is programming incentives from the beginning to promote checks and balances among the most powerful entities in the system. Look at the US Constitution and how the system has endured. Look at Bitcoin miners, Ethereum miners and so on. That is what we need - to have benign rules for everyone and make sure it’s super hard to maintain a collusion for long to overturn these rules. Otherwise you can geek out on encryption all you want while the AI-enhanced government will track all of your physical movements and speech with cameras, gait recognition, speech recognition on vibrating potato chip bags through windows, will figure out what you’re all planning through network analysis and precrime, and nail you with parallel construction and social credit score penalties, and if anyone tries to help you they’ll get nailed too. Think it’s far fetched? China and Palantir are already doing it. Social credit systems are actually more benign, jailing and physical coersion and brainwashing are worse. Encryption won’t save the Uyghurs from re-education camps, nor profiling of Black youth in USA, nor will it help foil the next terrorist attack or mass shooting, so it doesn’t help either side of the equation that exacerbates the other in endless escalation and reprisals. And if you really don’t want those things to happen, you need to focus on architecting the governmen’t technology to be more benign in its rules, rather than facilitating sneaking around and delaying the need for the real solutions!! Don’t listen to me only. Listen to the venerable Randall Munroe: https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
• Maha-pudma 6y ago
  This is really 3 problems for the EU or whatever government wants to bring this in. The way I see it is the government/EU, whatever, needs to first force this encryption backdoor into use, then force everyone to only use chat apps with the backdoor, and finally force everybody not to go looking for this backdoor. They are listed in order of difficulty. And they are totalitarian in their level of force.
• antpls 6y ago
  So would that mean no more HTTPS ? I'm perplexed.
• WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
  It's as if actual terrorists would use mainstream messaging platforms.
• class4behavior 6y ago
  It's really ridiculous. Law enforcement and intelligence constantly fail to pay attention to forewarnings or invest in investigations, but right-wing populists still continue to nab on citizens' and human rights. Austia, for instance, was informed by Turkey and Slovakia about that man's IS affiliation. https://www.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/jqe37d/turkey_detained_the_vienna_attacker_in_september/ https://www.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/jqe37d/turk... Further reading: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/orders-top-eus-timetable-dismantling-end-end-encryption https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/orders-top-eus-timetab... https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/the-story-behind-the-commissions-new-emphasis-on-encryption/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/the-story-behi... https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/german-presidency-charts-new-covid19-metadata-rules-in-leaked-eprivacy-text/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/german-preside...:
• GordonS 6y ago
  Good lord. As a Scot, when the UK voted to leave the EU, I lamented the fact that the EU has always seemed more liberal, more sensible on privacy and human rights than the UK's home secretaries invariably are. It felt like the EU helped keep our politicians in check, keep them from doing anything too insane. If the liberal EU is taking a stance like this, what hope is there?!
  • ourlordcaffeine 6y ago
    This is an idea from the council of ministers. It's gotta get past MEP's, until then it's just a shitty idea. The EU, or rather bodies in the EU, have at other times suggested making encryption mandatory. So don't fret.
• karmakaze 6y ago
  How practical is any declaration of law? Wouldn't it be feasible to say, have a video streaming site hide messages it its streams and also in its control data? More sophisticated methods are of course possible. Basically "outlawing encryption means only outlaws have encryption." The only use from any such laws is surveillance of the public at large.
  • intricatedetail 6y ago
    What if people use their own language as a form of encryption?
    • karmakaze 6y ago
      Like the Navaho 'Windtalkers' code that was unbroken in WWII.
• freeopinion 6y ago
  1. Encrypt message. 2. Break message into 16-bit chunks. 3. Add 0x0F00 to each chunk. Result: you have a message written in Tibetan. What could be more innocent than that? Wait. Does this proposal address unintelligible communication?
  • intricatedetail 6y ago
    Basically a ban on foreign languages...
    • freeopinion 6y ago
      And lawyers?
• fhskslncneia 6y ago
  The EU really wants to be raped by some white dude for a yet unknown reason. Too bad it's only going to hurt them severely. I guess we're fucked.
• deleted 6y ago
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• malchow 6y ago
  Little known fact: the Trump NSC, in its capacity as delegates to bilateral and multilateral fora, was the sole remaining force for strong encryption rights for individuals.
• mootzville 6y ago
  I'll decrypt my hard drive when governments decrypt theirs.
• go13 6y ago
  some non-obvious negative effects of banning end-to-end encryption: 1. an individual loses his power against large corporations, most importantly, GOVERNMENTS. Large structures become corrupt over time and occasionally need to be demolished partially or fully because they stop serving their purpose but start serving their self-interest. Only an individual, not groups, as ultimate indivisible units is the last resort for all values that any civilisation is built on: starting from justice, democracy etc. Thus, e-2-e encryption empowers individuals (putting aside criminals that cane be considered as a necessary evil) that doesn't make groups in power happy. So, by shifting the power from individuals to groups, the first loose an ability to use their intrinsic, built by billions of years of evolution, judgements what is good and what is now, to keep the system in check and press a red button when needed to destroy a government (like Nazi) that went out of control or a corporation. 2. Introducing these kind of anti-individualistic laws creates a bad example for already corrupted and authoritarian countries lie Russia, China and others, that would use this as an justifications to toughen already draconian laws to control their citizens. Once they do loose a good example of freedom that is meant to exist in western countries, they would become corrupted even more, causing not only troubles, but potentially military confrontations that would cost way more than those relatively small issues caused by criminals. Even just this simple example shows that stepping aside from principles for the sake of expedience may create unforeseen consequences that left governments (because all governments in europe are large and trying to become even larger) don't want to realise because of one simple reason: they have already transformed from serving their initial idea and purpose to being self-serving.
• CivBase 6y ago
  They keep saying "encryption is important" and "law enforcement needs to be able to access relevant data" without ever elaborating why encryption is important, why law enforcement needs access to the data, or even what data law enforcement needs access to. It's just a collection of assertions without any of the insight necessary to have a useful conversation on the subject. They also completely fail to address the elephant in the room: bad actors already have access to strong encryption and they don't need the blessings of Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, or any organization to use it. Encryption is an idea, not a product. They cannot prevent terrorists from using strong encryption any more than they can prevent terrorists from using algebra.
  • lawn 6y ago
    If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy.
• MrTortoise 6y ago
  we value encryption we like stuff to be easy though for thousands of years people used codes that couldn't be broken but we got lazy wah wah lets break security
• mbf1 6y ago
  If the government can break encryption, so can hackers. If hackers can break your encryption, and my records are being held in it, then your competition will eat your lunch as I move my records to their services. Either my data is safe from rogue agents and rogue governments or it is not. If encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will use it. The EU can make as many logical conclusions it wants to, but reality will come back and bite their law enforcement offices that their criminals won't stop using unbreakable encryption. The difference between theory and practice is greater in practice than it is in theory.
  • aflag 6y ago
    It's not really true that everyone committing a crime will use cryptography. Most people (including criminals) do not care or think about cryptography that much, but the providers of the services and devices they use to commit crimes do think about it. In that way, lawful service providers help haphazard criminals cover their tracks. I believe the idea is to change that, so that lawful service providers will not provide that level of security anymore. All that being said, obviously countries outside of the EU will continue to allow cryptography. So, unless they create a "great firewall" sensible people (including sensible criminals) will just move elswhere, possibly weakening the EU's presence in the Internet as a whole (which seems like a bad move to me).
    • mswann 6y ago
      Creating a firewall akin to China's is actually seriously considered by the EU [1]. [1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/648784/IPOL_STU(2020)648784_EN.pdf#page=39 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/6487... (Page 37, section 5.1 "European Cloud / European Internet")
• yholio 6y ago
  Dear EU leaders, There is no "reasonable middle ground" in this issue. Either the encryption works, and it protects the conversation, or it doesn't and it can be broken by both state and private actors, foreign or domestic. It is not like other policies in the phisical world, where a compromise on guns, drugs etc. can be reached that maximize the social welfare. The mathematics of encryption do not allow partial privacy, you either have it, or you don't and when you do, no government can break it. It follows that any "reasonable balance" in practice alwas means a de facto ban of encryption technology, and replacing it with a state monopoly on encryption. Thus, citizens could pe provided with simulated encryption tools, where messages are securely sent to infrastructure controlled by the government, stored, then resent securely to the intended recipient, with the state or their intermediaries controlling the privacy of the conversations. This conceptual copying need not be done for every encrypted exchange, the key issue being the existence of a backdoor that could be activated at the decision of the state. This is undesirable for many reasons: 1. It is insecure and dangerous; once a backdoor exists, its activation must be unknowable by the citizens, otherwise it makes no sense as it would tip off the criminals. If activation of the backdoor is unknowable, then there can exist no guarantees it's only used for legitimate purposes. The backdoor would be of a mathematical and technical nature while the institutions called to regulate it would be no better than other institutions humans create: they could be corruptible, incompetent, tyrannical etc. The mathematics of encryption backdoors would serve such institutions well regardless of their dedication to the goal of providing only lawful access, and would serve any 3rd party that could abuse it. Furthermore, lawful intereption points constitute a central point of attack for a powerful adversary, even to the point of weakening national security. 2. It is essentially useless. Smart criminals use off-the-shelf technology because they know it's fit for purpose. If government snooping is implemented in all such products, then they would switch to other forms of communications that can provide them with the secrecy they require to operate. Additionally, encryption is just math, and the fundamental capability of computers that surround us is to perform math and load user-defined programs. Encryption can never be banned, just commercial products that use it. Criminals don't care about such bans and would revert to older implementations or write their own ilegal encryption tools. 3. It disempowers citizens. The ability to have private communication unperturbed by the power of the state is a fundamental freedom in a democratic country. It is a modern manifestation of a timeless pact between the governed and the rulers: government exists to protect the liberty of ruled, not protect itself. People are to be trusted because their freedom is an end in itself, and the technology of encryption is vastly liberty enhancing without being, by itself, a direct threat to anyone.
• someonehere 6y ago
  One aspect people don’t realize that this will be abused by those in power for inside information. Imagine having access to the cell phone data of scientists developing the Covid vaccine and getting inside info on their timeline to announcing a working vaccine. They then make calls or pump money into the company and make money. This is ripe for financial abuse from governments and representatives.
• deleted 6y ago
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• justinclift 6y ago
  One thing these kinds of documents never seem to incorporate, is something along the lines of "how do we stop 'legally allowed' groups from one jurisdiction, from accessing politicians communications in another?". For example, if backdoor(s) are added to all EU E2E encryption through this... then the NSA and other non-EU groups will be listening in on EU leadership's (eg Angela Merkel) private communications 24/7. That's not a scenario the EU leadership seems like it would be ok with.
• gorgoiler 6y ago
  When the only real solution is to outlaw encryption, it is disingenuous for government (or the EU president to ask member governments) to “call on industry to work together.” By working together the President means “we hate encryption but it’s politically distasteful to ban it, so we’re going to make you ban it instead or else we’ll backdate your Irish taxes to be Belgian ones instead.”
• arthurcolle 6y ago
  Sorry if this is an aside, but I mean... practically speaking, wouldn't a ban on encryption basically be useful and impossible to enforce? The US export controls on encryption in the 1990s were largely ineffective, no? Forcing Apple/Microsoft to build in backdoors in their implementations of encryption packages might be one thing, but software developers surely have local copies of openssl, libsodium, etc, so what will this actually be able to achieve?
• ineedasername 6y ago
  Anyone else getting mixed messages here? Seems like the TL;DR is something like "Encryption is great and helps people be safe and also for our own safety we need the ability to break encryption" I also don't see how they can propose with a straight face that encryption is important in securing human rights while advocating for governmental ability to break encryption.
• vishnumohandas 6y ago
  Is it just me or is the title a bit sensationalized? For starters, the document is a declaration "ON" encryption, not "AGAINST" it. Also the document clarifies the intent to work with the industry to come up with solutions that strike a "balance" and not to blanket ban E2EE protocols. What the EU decides to do if/when they conclude that there are no viable solutions will be interesting. IMO the heated comments on this thread that have assumed bad intent is (for now) unwarranted.
• mkl95 6y ago
  The EU, the US, and the UK are now campaigning against encryption. Have we lost this war?
• gentleman11 6y ago
  If this came to pass and a person wanted to shut down their online accounts before they immediately get hacked, how would you live a modern life as a software engineer?
• jurschreuder 6y ago
  What's next? They're going to require a microphone in every home because else it's too hard to fight terrorism?
• davedx 6y ago
  This title is such flamebait. Did anyone actually read the PDF I wonder before leaping in? Flagged.
• hyko 6y ago
  It’s a good example of false balance – you either have encryption that works, or not. There is no middle ground.
• turowicz 6y ago
  The only way for the government to bypass encryption in chat apps is to create their own social media company, just like china did.
• raverbashing 6y ago
  So apparently no-one read the article itself Read it, it's in English and it's pretty straightforward > technical solutions for gaining access to encrypted data must match the principles of legality, necessity and proportionality. > Since there is no single way of achieving the set goals (read, banning or limiting encryption), governments and industry need to work together to create this balance See https://twitter.com/iiyonite/status/1325589752431697927 https://twitter.com/iiyonite/status/1325589752431697927 Also relevant https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-statement-end-to-end-encryption-and-public-safety https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-sta...
  • nomercy400 6y ago
    Buried very deeply in the comment section, yet the best response.
• bserge 6y ago
  > under the Recovery and Resilience Facility Ah, so that's where the Covid recovery funds are going. I was wondering why small business can't access any of it, or why it's not invested in tech (well, I guess you can call this "tech) and energy. Paid for by your taxes. Why don't we just ban crime, surely that's more effective.
• unioncitizen5 6y ago
  For those of us living in the EU, whom of our representatives can we contact to point out that this is a Really Stupid Idea?
• londons_explore 6y ago
  A middle ground in the encryption/privacy debate seems to be "the authorities can spy on what I do, but have to notify me first". That could be implemented by having full e2e encryption as today, but requiring clients to hand over the keys when requested by a local governing authority. The client/app would then immediately show to the user "Local Authorities have viewed a copy of this message". Why isn't this middle ground being discussed? I understand authorities don't want to alert their targets about an investigation, but let's be honest - if they read the messages and find you've done some crime, authorities will eventually track you down.
  • vim-guru 6y ago
    I think this sounds like a fair proposal
  • MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    This is known as a key disclosure law. We have such a law already in the UK. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law * https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/10/uk_police_can_n.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/10/uk_police_can... * https://www.theregister.com/Print/2007/10/03/ripa-decryption_keys_power/ https://www.theregister.com/Print/2007/10/03/ripa-decryption...
  • feanaro 6y ago
    I don't know why they are not proposing this instead (well, I do, because they'd prefer more power), but I do not find this proposal acceptable either. The fact that you might be able to see that a government read a message of yours offers little assurance that the government will not start abusing this power. After all, what possible recourse do we have after we start seeing these notifications on our messages? Certainly the government won't start telling us the exact reason they are snooping. The very fact that your conversations had been snooped on by the government might imply there is something shady about you. Where there is smoke, there's also fire, right? And this still has us relying that governments won't start pressuring clients to have special code which bypasses the notification when it is convenient for them. No. The government must not be allowed to deny the citizen his right to have private conversations.
• varispeed 6y ago
  If you are accused of something you have a right to remain silent. Wouldn't this proposal violate this? If you spy on someone's communication you essentially change the audience to whom the accused may not wish to speak to. I understand that the authorities want to catch the bad people, but where does it end? Should we accept having a civil servant and their handler in our homes? Should we have weekly polygraph testing? What if someone speaks in a code, that is the spoken sentences will have a different meaning than what language would suggest? What if someone speaks their mother tongue, is that going to be classed as circumvention of surveillance? Why this is even an official proposal?
• enriquto 6y ago
  Anti-encryption is a red herring. The real fight is against general purpose computing. If I control my CPU, then I can easily implement the Diffie-Hellman algorithm and communicate secretly with my friends around the world. Any ban against encryption is ineffective unless it attacks general purpose computing. We live in scary times!
  • kmlx 6y ago
    i’m sure some politicians will understand this as: “ok then let’s attack general purpose computing/your control of the cpu”
    • enriquto 6y ago
      Of course they already do. That's why I say it's scary. We live in Stallman's "The Right To Read" dystopia.
• deleted 6y ago
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• deleted 6y ago
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• albertgomariz 6y ago
  yes!
• dgmdoug 6y ago
  I think the title here is overly inflammatory. To suggest there is a 'fair right' to data behind encryption for goverment use, to my mind, somewhat misses the point of encryption and privacy in general. This is the point I believe we should be arguing. Your representaiton of the article as a 'declaration against encryption' somewhat undermines this argument, and polarises it into an 'us vs them' debate. For accuracy, this document is titled: "Draft Council Declaration on Encryption - Security through encryption and security despite encryption" Its pretty handwavy, overly general, and seems to call for some sort of 'back door' from the tech companies. Missing the point really, anybody wishing to use strong encryption for criminal purpoes can do so so with very few resources, and quite independently.
• Aerroon 6y ago
  I expected nothing less from the EU. They say that strong encryption is important to our society. It is important for privacy. And then they go on explaining how they're going to undermine that encryption. I absolutely hate this double speak. They do it all the time in the EU.
• crnkofe 6y ago
  Recently every crime seems to make legislators think it's time to tighten the grip and introduce more laws to fix societal problems, which remain the same, while I and everyone else is forced to abide by more and more absurd laws. Most recently when criminals went all-out in Austria with guns the police later admitted they knew the attacker was shopping for ammo. What would change if the police knew they were chit-chatting by tapping into their coms as a man-in-the-middle. Likely they would be saying after the attack they were hating the state over whatever-chat while the attacks would happen nontheless. By banning encryption nothing would change but the potential for abuse is incredible. What we need is less legislation, that actually has some measurable positive effect. It would also help if EU was way more aggressive against countries that sponsored various terrorist groups, overthrew governments and pushed some middleeastern countries back into the dark ages.
• pelasaco 6y ago
  "Law enforcement and judicial authorities must be able to access data in a lawful and targeted manner, in full respect of fundamental rights and data protection regime, while upholding cybersecurity." For me it sounds like banning legal weapons in the expectation that all criminals are going to follow the rules.
• bausano_michael 6y ago
  HN reads from EU, take half an hour to contact your EU parlament elect and provide them with information and arguments on why this law shouldn't be passed. The comments with links on this thread should help you compile a reasonable email.
• swiley 6y ago
  People often point to child predators when they argue for things like this. We have examples like Facebook where there's no privacy and child predators abound.
• jjk166 6y ago
  Orpnhfr bs pbhefr n pevzvany jub ernyyl jnagf gb rapelcg gurve zrffntr arrqf gung shapgvbanyvgl ohvyg vagb n znwbe cyngsbez naq jbhyq abg or noyr gb svaq nal bgure jnl bs qbvat fb.
• nojvek 6y ago
  Can we spin this in a massive public campaign that govt wants encryption backdoors so they can see your privates and be the pedophiles? Snowden did expose that yes indeed, NSA did share around private pictures of people within themselves and joked around. The way Uber+Lyft made a giant stink by making everyone acknowledge how Prop22 will affect them before they could hail a ride, tech companies coukd create awareness of anti-encryption in a similar manner right ?
• anonunivgrad 6y ago
  Liberalism has failed. It was a great truce between political factions and (not all that different) value systems. But the value systems are drifting further apart. Conservatives and liberals no longer tolerate each other and technology has made it easier to coordinate and carry out mass illegality. The future is more authoritarian states that don’t espouse neutrality but firmly embrace a value system and enforce it. We are seeing this already. In the US, the political battle is now between left authoritarians and right authoritarians (grudgingly dragging right-liberals/libertarians with them). This is awful for people with liberal (left or right) sensibilities because it raises the stakes of politics. But there’s nothing we can do about it. Only authority can hold our societies together at this point. Democracy will probably survive, but liberalism will not, except in its vestigial form. In America (unlike Europe), the government will not come for you for expressing your opinions, but it will indoctrinate your children against you and it will increasingly limit the exercise of freedom of conscience. It will not arrest you for publishing an article, but it will also not stop monopolist private platforms from censoring you, and will in fact encourage that censorship as responsible.
• pieter_mj 6y ago
  in the mean time, there's a more recent version of the document obtained by statewatch.org. It's from november 6th and you'll find it at https://files.orf.at/vietnam2/files/fm4/202045/783284_fh_st12143-re01en20_783284.pdf https://files.orf.at/vietnam2/files/fm4/202045/783284_fh_st1...
• KMag 6y ago
  Less relevant to European regulation, but the FBI's attempt to use phone taps/hotel room bugs to blackmail Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. int committing suicide[0], is a good example of why we should be suspicious of even lawful intercept. Terrorism is bad, but I think we can all agree a world where the US civil rights movement was stillborn would be much worse than what we have. (They went after more civil rights leaders than just Dr. King.) More recently, FISA courts have a terrible record of filtering out unreasonable lawful intercept requests. Are there any comparable post-WWII Eurpopean abuses that should make citizens think twice about blanket law enforcement back-doors? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
  • sizt 6y ago
    As usual the malevolent statists in Brussels care nothing about the rights of the INDIVIDUAL ... just "government, industry, and society", whatever "society" means: "Encryption is a necessary means of protecting fundamental rights and the digital security of governments, industry and society." But they did reveal themselves by putting the list in order of importance, with "government" first of course.
    • adventured 6y ago
      The statists around the world are increasingly brazen - out in the open - with their objectives. It's remarkable to watch as they hide their aims less as authoritarianism rises around the world, they feel more comfortable not hiding their ambitions for power and control in the programs they implement. Which makes sense - the US is gradually going Socialist and the world's other superpower is a Communist dictatorship. The world is about to be pinned between two authoritarian nightmares that presume total power over the individual.
• jakearmitage 6y ago
  I thought the EU were the good guys.
• cactus2093 6y ago
  As someone in tech I’m well aware of the downsides, and inclined to agree with the consensus here that this is a really bad idea. However, I’m interested in at least understanding the other side. Are there any studies or estimates of the effect this might have? How many crimes would have actually been prevented by this, in the past few years? How many lives saved or child trafficking victims spared? Of course, criminal behavior might easily change once a law like this is passed, but this would at least help give an upper bound on the benefit and my guess is it would still be very low. The world mostly continues to get safer and safer, there are still some outlier horrific crimes that happen but these might not be affected by banning encryption (such as mass shootings, which are usually a single person not coordinating with anybody). I would just like to understand what concrete problem this solves from the lawmakers perspective.
• I_am_tiberius 6y ago
  Petitions: English: http://chng.it/8SXDQdKF http://chng.it/8SXDQdKF German: http://chng.it/Gnr682gzr5 http://chng.it/Gnr682gzr5
• DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
  I remember what it was like when we didn't rely on mobile phones. a lot of the communications with loved ones and friends that is now taking place over E2EE channels used to be in person. But back then we also didn't spend all our days in the office. My dad used to be back at 18:00 and home-offices were unheard of for most jobs. The argument is now to break open what has been until now a private comms channel in order to catch a few crooks, pedos and nutters. Guess we should all be prepared for a stronger presence of people wearing uniforms in our lives.
• miohtama 6y ago
  HTTPS (SSL) is end-to-end encryption, right?
• ashtonkem 6y ago
  Time to borrow a phrase from those to my right: will not comply.
• einpoklum 6y ago
  Given how the EU recommends the use of Signal to its employees, I humbly suggest that this declaration be renamed: "Council declaration on eating our cake and having it".
• Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  I have ranted against this many times, and I will say it one more time: the goal of war on encryption is not fight with terrorism. It is thought-policing. Terrorists have easy ways to talk to each other securely, using GPG and email, or even SSH for that matter. They don't need fancy apps, filters, masks, stickers and other UX candy. General population, on the other hand, wants these things, and uses a small number of apps that government wants to control. Turns out, not just in authoritarian countries, but in a supposedly democratic EU too. It is common people who are most affected by lack of privacy, and the goal is the same that STASI / KGB had: to filter out dissidents who might pose risk to those who are currenlty at the top. Such powers can be abused easily, and it special services will be granted such powers, they WILL be abused. So a duty of every free person is to fight such proposals and kill them outright.
• oytis 6y ago
  Am I reading it wrong, or does it say "We need strong encryption that we are able to break"?