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Brexit deal mentions Netscape browser and Mozilla Mail
- notRobot 6y agoPoliticians should consult with experts. They almost never actually do. We shouldn't tolerate this. And yet, we always will.
- dt3ft 6y agoShouldn't experts be more politically active?
- notRobot 6y agoIt's on the people making the laws to make sure that said laws are up-to-date and appropriate. It's literally their job. Blame them for not doing it well.
- kristopolous 6y agoIt's the politicians responsibility. If you are say, writing IP and finance code, is it your responsibility to seek legal counsel or is it the legal profession's responsibility to somehow find you, discover what you are doing, and then impose themselves upon you?
- chrisfinazzo 6y agoIn public companies, the process is a bit different, but the idea is the same. Say the CEO or other senior management "writes" a press release... (I put this in quotes because they don't put pen to paper, it's done by someone else obviously, but these are their words) It may be copyedited by Comms for tone and grammar, as well as fact checked by someone who is an expert in the subject - but also by Legal if it touches on relevant issues. In that case, they will seek you out, if only for CYA reasons, before it goes out the door.
- fogihujy 6y agoWhy? Expertise within a specific field does not equal political ambitions.
- aaossa 6y agoWhy does political activism have to be related to political ambitions? (I'm assuming you mean personal ambitions). Of course you could be an expert within a field but also try to promote or intervene in some decisions with your knowledge, without greater political aspirations. Is not a requirement, but if you're interested in providing useful insights from your field, just go for it.
- fogihujy 6y agoWell, having a political goal and actively pursuing that goal counts as political ambition in my book, regardless if the motivation is personal gain or not. Regardless, I didn't mean that experts shouldn't get involved in politics. It's just that experts care and don't care about politics to the same extent everyone else does. There's no reason why an expert within a given field should be expected to care more than anyone else.
- Lio 6y agoHard to be more active when the architects of Brexit have strongly made clear that they’ve “had enough of experts” when they failed to find a single expert economist who thought Brexit was a good idea[1]. I don’t know which is sadder that our current leaders are so incompetent or that people must have known that and voted them in with a big majority anyway. Speaks to how poor the opposition were too. A pox on both your houses! :P 1. https://www.indy100.com/people/coronavirus-advice-experts-michael-gove-tories-boris-johnson-9390216?amp https://www.indy100.com/people/coronavirus-advice-experts-mi...
- hayd 6y agoFull Gove quote: "I think the people in this country have had enough of experts with organisations from acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong." The ones _getting it consistently wrong_ being key... yet rarely quoted. We should be keeping track of predictions from those who want to be called experts, and retrospectively grading them/enumerating their successes and failures.
- jeofken 6y agoPolitics is for those who want to control other people
- elygre 6y agoLikewise, experts (here: we, the people of hackernews) should consult with other experts. Like those diplomats that write agreements like this. It seems to me that the purpose of ANNEX LAW-1 is to incorporate existing EU law into this agreement. It seems like they wanted to avoid creating a new text, just because the old one was, well, old. We probably have something similar in our programming professions: If I am to split a monolith into microservices, I'd avoid rewriting the business logic at the same time. Reuse the existing business logic, and then revisit it once the architecture itself is stable.
- Stevvo 6y agoThe professional consequences can be dire if your advice isn't what the politicians want to hear. E.g. David Nutt in the UK.
- pfortuny 6y agoSeems taken from wikipedia (an earlier redaction probably). Today wikipedia says “ S/MIME functionality is built into the majority of modern email software and interoperates between them. Since it is built on CMS, MIME can also hold an advanced electronic signature”, which is the same as in the OP but without NS/Outlook, etc.
- Deukhoofd 6y agoPretty sure it's copied from here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2008/616/annex/chapter/1/division/5/division/5.4/adopted https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2008/616/annex/chapter/1... Still not really a good showing to just copy and paste previous laws without considering whether or not its out of date.
- jcelerier 6y ago> Still not really a good showing to just copy and paste previous laws without considering whether or not its out of date. otoh wouldn't it take something like 30 years to review every single line again ? everything would have to be vetted, which means full parliamentary sessions, no ? While outdated, but accepted law, does not need to go through the whole process again.
- jen20 6y agoWe are in a time when parliamentary scrutiny means “vote whichever way your party whips tell you under any circumstances”. This is no doubt partly owing to the generally low abilities of contemporary members of Parliament, but also because it’s almost always the case that a majority government can get whatever it wants through parliament by definition of the numbers.
- llimos 6y agoPreviously discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25557746 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25557746
- spzb 6y agoThanks. I did do a search before I posted but obviously not very well.
- codetrotter 6y ago> I believe this looks like a standard copy-and-paste of old standards, and with little understanding of the technical details. Exactly. I’ve seen people who work like that. Copy-paste a bunch of stuff that they don’t understand and betting that the people that read it don’t understand or don’t care either. And worse yet it turns out that often they are right. No one cares anyway. So the people that do this get away with it. And the people that do care are spending their time writing stuff that in the end most other people that don’t care aren’t even going to give more than a cursory glance anyways.
- spzb 6y agoThat describes half the web developers I've worked with too.
- atwebb 6y agoIsn't that a little true of every abstraction? yum is shorthand for "I trust you, please give me something"
- dylan604 6y agoIsn't that a little bit different though? yum/apt-get/etc are designed to be used this way while legislation isn't.
- dylan604 6y agoFor a direct example, take a block of code copied from StackOverflow and then search for it on GitHub.
- rglover 6y agoDoes anybody know if there's an "official" term for this sort of behavior beyond laziness or apathy?
- insert_coin 6y agopolitics
- papaf 6y agoI am surprised to see a trade deal include the transfer of "DNA data". My guess its for people since it also mentions fingerprints. Hopefully this is only applies to criminals or hippies.
- jjgreen 6y agoYou hope in vain; DNA is taken from everyone arrested in the UK and retained for 3-5 years if not convicted (indefinitely if convicted).
- lawtalkinghuman 6y agoIt only applies to criminals and others whose biometrics has been collected by the police. The point of the section of the agreement to which this excerpt is attached is to: "establish reciprocal cooperation between the competent law enforcement authorities of the United Kingdom [...] and the Member States [...] on the automated transfer of DNA profiles, dactyloscopic data and certain domestic vehicle registration data" This already happens under existing arrangements between EU Member States, and all this does is continue those mutual arrangements with the UK.
- dboreham 6y agoOne of those days when your mother emails you the article that's #1 on HN...
- vixen99 6y agoSounds like a huge assumption about 'mothers'.
- Kognito 6y agoAs per the article, looks as if it has been taken from earlier legislation. Noted here in 2008 [1] but wouldn’t surprise me if it dates back much further. Given the size of the legal document (~2000 pages) I’m hardly surprised that this sort of boilerplate gets copy/pasted. The real question is whether this sort of oversight is indicative of the quality of the rest of the text - though I suspect time and effort will have gone into the substantial “non-boilerplate” parts (with any luck). Either way, the European Parliament won’t be debating this until February so it’s only provisional until then meaning there’s plenty of time to comb through it and make adjustments. [1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2008/616/annex/chapter/1/division/5/division/5.4/adopted https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2008/616/annex/chapter/1...
- rasguanabana 6y agoHard to blame non-technical people when even programmers happen to use md5. Anyway, why such documents don’t refer to auxiliary standards with big ass year of creation somewhere on top? That might ring a bell if you’re about to use something from 3 decades ago and you have a hint it’s security related.
- danaris 6y agoThere's a big difference between still using a very-common hashing algorithm that happens to no longer be secure, and discussing the use of programs that haven't actually existed in decades.
- rasguanabana 6y agoOh I was referring to the other part of article about document recommending usage of algorithms such as 1024 bit RSA and SHA-1.
- jgraettinger1 6y agoA more charitable interpretation is that the copy/paste isn't because the authors are hopelessly out of touch: instead, they're seeking to enable the direct re-use of all of the executive policy and judicial precedent which has developed around those legal particulars since they were first codified.
- 2T1Qka0rEiPr 6y agoThis seems like a good explanation to me, thanks! One question though - why have the EU texts themselves not been updated since 2008?
- volta87 6y agoProbably because legislators have better things to do.
- foepys 6y agoNo need. The intend is clear and there are more important things to do.
- kqvamxurcagg 6y agoIn reality more modern communication techniques will be in use now. The legislation is in effect setting a minimum standard for implementation.
- thayne 6y agoBetter question, why was it not written so it could be updated by security experts without requiring new legislation.
- evgen 6y agoBecause it is not necessary. The actual parties involved know what is meant and intended, so adding some ongoing and constant amendment process is counter-productive.
- 6y ago
- Faaak 6y agoAmong other interesting things: "for the exchange of DNA profile information [...]: Data are exchanged by Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and other state-of-the-art technologies, using a central relay mail server provided by the network provider. The XML file is transported as mail body" Well, this is not good
- wongarsu 6y agoWhy? XML in S/MIME over SMTP might not be cutting edge, but it's still state-of-the-art. I would be hard pressed to come up with something better that's equally based on open, established standards. XML is the only thing I would like to replace, but that's probably not worth it given the number of existing legacy systems
- jmnicolas 6y ago> for the exchange of DNA profile information So you're fine that your DNA information is transmitted in clear in an email?
- matthewmacleod 6y agoIt’s not “in clear” though, is it? It’s encrypted.
- wongarsu 6y agoOf course it's encrypted, the deal reads "The open standard s/MIME as extension to de facto e-mail standard SMTP will be deployed to encrypt messages containing DNA profile information" (highlight mine). Then it goes on with technical details (that could be updated a bit), then the mention that common email software already supports this (including those from the headline, which is how we got this headline). https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/948119/EU-UK_Trade_and_Cooperation_Agreement_24.12.2020.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... page 921
- Piskvorrr 6y agoExcept...not. HTTP is also cleartext, but it is usually tunelled through TLS. The entire stack matters, not that this one part is insecure when considered in isolation.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- globular-toast 6y agoIt sounds like nobody cares what the rules are, only that there are rules. Humans are strange.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kqvamxurcagg 6y agoThis is a repost and the key takeaway is that changing this legislation from the prior version from 2008 would be counter-productive to moving forward and require further EU law changes. When the EU updates their own 2008 legislation then I imagine this trade treaty can also be updated.
- Veen 6y agoPresumably, the goal of this part of the agreement is to harmonize various regulations, processes, and bits of legislation. It's included because that's what the pre-Agreement EU/UK verbiage says, not because someone thinks SHA-1 is adequate in 2020. It makes sense in a way, because there wasn't really time to re-legislate every outdated multi-national standard and regulation that needed addressing in the agreement. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2008/616/annex/chapter/1/division/5/division/5.4/adopted https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2008/616/annex/chapter/1...
- einpoklum 6y agoMozilla Mail is a modern service... It is is distributed as Thunderbird these days. And while I have a lot of gripes with the way it's managed (ugh, don't ask!) - it's still one of the best alternatives. Still sort of extensible if you sneak in the back way (i.e. not WebExtensions).
- lr 6y agoBeing someone who has been in the tech field for well over 20 years, I always look upon any legislation that deals with tech, with suspect. Sadly, I venture that people in other fields feel the same way when legislation is geared toward their areas of expertise. Elected officials are truly like aristocrats, who are too far removed from the world in which the govern. And because of this, they rely too often on lobbyists and their overwhelmed staff to tell them what to do/what to believe.
- hkt 6y agoFitting that a deal setting us back decades would mandate 90s tech. Though of course, the actual reason is sensible and relates to the legals around those things, I imagine.
- bilekas 6y agoNobody tell them about napster yet!
- peterkelly 6y agoIf those problems, which are readily understandable to readers here, exist, imagine how many other things are wrong in such a large and wide-ranging document that most of us would be unable to spot.
- memetherapy 6y agoWhat seems to be missing from this discussion is that this agreement was negotiated mind bogglingly quickly (9 months as opposed to the multi year / decade long process) and hasn't undergone the usual process of scrubbing which is where such technical and legal issues would normally be fixed. This process would itself normally take longer than the entire period in which this has been negotiated. Of course it's a mess and is full of copy-pasta errors. Luckily however law isn't code, especially not at the international agreement level, and it is implemented by humans, not computers (or software developers). The big problem with the Brexit deal is that it has essentially come straight from the hands of the politicians and civil servants who have negotiated it and is then being approved without proper scrutiny, at least from the UK parliament and the council of Europe. Let us hope that the only problems with it are a few embarrassing technical errors that in reality will be dealt with by secondary legislation and side agreements between the parties. If there are serious issues then they will likely be picked up before it is approved by the European Parliament (and it's not a shoe in that it will actually be approved by MEPs) and these will need to be dealt with, probably through a bunch of secondary legislation and agreements.
- kergonath 6y agoI can’t wait for them to sit together again and start working on errata.
- kgin 6y agoIt does make me wonder if this type of legal document is just too large and complex for the people agreeing to it to even really know what they're agreeing to. The international politics version of a EULA.
- JamisonM 6y agoI would suggest that the BBC rewarding Prof Bill Buchanan with a quote in a story for this silly bit of grandstanding is a bad idea. He says, "one day we will build a digital world fit for the 21st Century ..." and I roll my eyes. At least he could follow this up with some tweets that educate his audience about how these sorts of agreement /should/ be drafted. But I suspect that he is just a drive-by critic and doesn't have any insights into how they should be drafted. And now I feel so snarky.. the man's twitter profile says "Old World Breaker/New World Creator" .. I could only dream of growing up to be this pretentious!
- ampdepolymerase 6y agoWelcome to academia, may I offer you tenureship?
- phaemon 6y agoBe as snarky as you like. What have you contributed to the field of CS that's so much more impressive than the Professor?
- admg 6y agoFairly standard for the type of quote the bbc likes from academics unfortunately.
- kalimoxto 6y agoCan you imagine how much we would laugh if modern web browsers identified themselves to servers by all saying they were Mozilla browsers and referencing old technologies like Gecko?
- mgkimsal 6y agoor if apple and ms and google browsers all identified themselves as each other?
- cxr 6y ago> old technologies like Gecko Gecko is a modern browser engine.
- extropy 6y agoGecko is old and, while still in use, is being actively replaced by Servo for last 3 years.
- cxr 6y agoApply more scrutiny to the pop tech news sources you pay attention to and/or be more mindful of the takeaways that you read out of the information that is reported. This information is incorrect.
- vanderZwan 6y ago"The proof that you are wrong is obvious and left as an exercise for the reader" it no way to hold a discussion on a public forum, or anywhere. And I say this as someone who knows that Gecko is constantly being updated and that Servo is a testing ground for new technologies that after being shown to be effective were migrated into Gecko.
- cxr 6y agoPlease don't fabricate quotes. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13602947 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13602947 Aside from that, the burden of proof is on the person I responded to. The idea that anyone needs to prove them wrong is completely backwards.
- speedgoose 6y agoAES is mentioned too, with big 256 bits keys, but it appears that you can use whatever block cipher mode you want such as the terrible ECB one.
- forgotmypw17 6y agoNetscape 3 is a great browser, and I still test and support my websites with it. Fast layout engine, basic JS support, no support for annoying bs like notifications.
- nashashmi 6y agoCopy and paste is so abhorrently common in proposal submission. It is also apparently common in policy making. After all, brexit has been going on for about two years with several versions of proposals. Seriously how often are people going to create fresh documents for nearly the same things? Copy and paste it is. And if they like it, then they will correct it as needed.
- mytailorisrich 6y agoThis is a point of negotiation and legal matter. This is a 1,500 page document about a unique issue. It's likely that for some topics they just went "can we agree to stick to the terms of x previous agreement?" and then just copy-pasted the whole thing. That's the real world. In practice it's not a problem.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deenadayalan 6y agoThey should have included DOS, BASIC and MARIO.
- rgblambda 6y agoThe treaty of Saint-Germaine-en-Laye which concluded peace with the Allies and what was left of Austria-Hungary, was a copy/paste of the Treaty of Versailles. One clause prohibited landlocked Austria from having submarines. So I guess this sort of thing does happen a lot.
- jedberg 6y agoHow does that even happen back then? I guess the human who was retyping/rewriting things didn't think about what they were writing?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rgblambda 6y agoI want to say the Allies imagined a future where Austria reclaimed it's coastal territories, but I'd imagine it's an oversight when they instructed the typist to copy the part that said the Allies got to repossess the enemy submarines.
- Ericson2314 6y agoI would fire anyone that so wantonly cuts and pastes code. I which the law, which is far more important than most other programs, was treated with the same reverence.
- johnday 6y agoLaws are interpreted (eventually) by judges, who are given the solemn duty to exercise common sense in their interpretations. Computers, by contrast, do exactly what they are told and no more. This is why it takes an engineer to craft a computer program, but a politician can craft a law.
- Ericson2314 6y agoI don't really take comfort in that. At least in the US, the idea that the legal system fixes up bad law is utterly preposterous. Issues with narrow typos, sure, but broader issues with the overall architecture? Hell no.
- johnday 6y agoFor sure, it's not a comforting thought! It simply explains why the world has not yet* fallen to total ruin.
- Ekaros 6y agoIf they were to fix this part, what other parts is there to be also fixed? How long did it originally take time to write just this part? Now expand to whole document. It's quite unrealistic to expect them in hurry to tear down and rewrite certain parts that don't even need negotiation. Wonder how many years would it be to search for all parts needing updating, then collect necessary personnel to rewrite those and then pass them through all parties involved. Likely very much longer than entire process has now taken time.
- w_t_payne 6y agoDon't ask me how ... but this might weirdly be partially my fault .... >///<
- gitowiec 6y agoThis is common behaviour of administrative workers. 7 years ago I was employed in a company where contracts with such clauses happend in monthly basis. "Web page should work on MSIE 5.5", and etc.