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EU member states still cannot agree about end-to-end encryption
- roenxi 3y ago> “Ideally, in our view,” they say, “it would be desirable to legislatively prevent EU-based service providers from implementing end-to-end encryption.” - Spain It is hard to even comment on in idea that extreme. The rest of us are lucky the EU has failed so comprehensively at establishing a global tech presence.
- na2083z 3y ago[flagged]
- lkramer 3y agoyeah, conservative across the world are famously hands off in interfering in their citizen's lifes...
- maccard 3y agoThe EU don't have a monopoly on dumb laws. > The rest of us are lucky the EU has failed so comprehensively at establishing a global tech presence. Lots of us think that the world would be better if tech companies didn't play so fast and loose with our data, and were better regulated.
- arminluschin 3y agoNo end-to-end encryption means they have more data though.
- hef19898 3y agoNo, it just means whatever data they have is less secure. Encryption does nothing about data collection.
- jabradoodle 3y agoThis is a silly distinction, if they have just as much data but it's encrypted and they can't use it, most people would call that less data.
- hef19898 3y agoI am as much anti sureveillance as you get. There is abdifference so between end-to-end encryption of communications (all for it) and collecting user data (all against it). Usually I hate semantics, because most of the time people use it to nitpick on deffinitiom ignoring what people understand using a word, but here the differwnce between the two things is a) technical reality and b) relevant for topic at hand.
- clarionbell 3y agoWell encrypted data is practically useless to the collector. They could just as well be a random noise. Metadata may be worth something, but not nearly as much.
- maccard 3y agoThe solution there is political, not technical.
- throwaway60722 3y agoThe political solution is way too fragile.
- sbuk 3y agoHmmm. I wonder if the GDPR could be leveraged against the EU in this case?
- izacus 3y agoYeah, in a world where DMCA exists (guilty until proven innocent... with no process to prove that for normal people), whining about EU is really out of the line.
- clarionbell 3y agoGreat, now you will see how that looks.
- hcks 3y agoI wish euros could explain to me why they speak of "their data" as if that was their souls
- derelicta 3y agoThe amount of data you generate and store about yourself is akin to everything you generate and store physically. Between the bills I pay, the notes I write down and the photos I take, I find it pretty reasonable to affirm "my data" are representative of what I am.
- mnw21cam 3y agoI have one answer for that if the asker is based in the US: I see Americans going on and on about denying warrantless searches of their house and car. It's everywhere. Assert your rights, don't consent to a search, remain silent, don't talk to the police. That position is logically inconsistent with then letting every random company you ever have any vague dealings with (like loading their web page) deeply investigate your life in excruciating detail. If you're arguing against the first of these, you should be arguing against the latter too.
- roenxi 3y agoI agree 80%, but it isn't logically inconsistent. Google can't arrest you, the odds of Google employees shooting anyone in their day-to-day work is extremely low, and Google (all capitalist enterprises, really) managers are heavily incentivised to ignore any beliefs I hold that aren't strictly impacting their ability to do business. Any data that Google has is available to law enforcement, and that is a major problem, but in the abstract someone can object to government invasion of privacy without objecting to Google's dragnet.
- __m 3y agoAfter Snowden I wouldn’t consider ourselves lucky
- fer 3y agoSpain has been traditionally and particularly idiotic about tech legislation. Some examples: - There was (and is) a fee on every CD-R, DVD-R, BR-R, hard drive, SSD, printer... as a "just in case it happens to store/copy copyright-protected material at some point ever" fee [0]. - They forced link aggregators to pay newspapers/sites for linking to their content, even just using their <og> tags. [1]. So such insane statement comes as an absolute non-surprise to anyone who's followed Spanish tech legislation for a while. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociedad_General_de_Autores_y_Editores#Digital_canon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociedad_General_de_Autores_y_... [1] https://pressgazette.co.uk/platforms/google-news-spain-facebook-challenge/ https://pressgazette.co.uk/platforms/google-news-spain-faceb...
- jeroenhd 3y ago> - There was (and is) a fee on every CD-R, DVD-R, BR-R, hard drive and SSD as a "just in case it happens to store copyright-protected material at some point ever" fee [0]. Sadly, Spain isn't the only country that does this. The copyright lobby has been very successful at making people fund their failing business model.
- clarionbell 3y agoYep. Unfortunately this is pretty normal. I would be fine with it, if it meant I get immunity from persecution when distributing pirated content. Unfortunately that would go against corporate rent seeking.
- miohtama 3y agoSpain, inheriting Franco's legacy, likes their own secret internal police and abuse of power. For exampel, Madrid was using Pegasus spyware to spy Catalonian politicians and separatists https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/catalonia-bans-use-of-pegasus-spyware/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/catalonia-ban... From this background, it's more understandable they want to all possible methods to spy their own citizens.
- petre 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mrtksn 3y agoEU is a wide range of countries with very wide range of expectations on anything so all generalizations are wrong. EU’s function is to create a mechanism to find a common ground but that’s very hard so that’s why EU is has made a name for being slow and ineffective. Spain and Switzerland or Sweden and Italy would have very, very different understanding on what the state should be able to do and how much involvement they must have because the way they govern their countries and the problems they face are very different. Spain or Italy would usually be arguing on preserving some traditional way of doing things, Finland and Denmark would attack the issue very pragmatically and have great ideas that can’t possibly work anywhere else and the France and Germany would propose something that would increase their power in the area and the original concerns would be secondary.
- Moldoteck 3y agofiy, switzerland is not in eu
- mrtksn 3y agoSure, I'm giving it as an example of the extremes of the European mindset. IMHO, it would have been better to have Switzerland not only as a country that follows that EU laws as being in the single market but also contribute into regulating it.
- pjmlp 3y agoIt isn't, however due to the bilateral agreements they might agree on specific changes, depending on how they see them. Even if it goes to vote, sometimes referendum results might turn out differently than expected.
- gotbeans 3y agoNot surprising from Spain if you ask me. Spain's central gov's been found to actively spy trhough malware politically opposing parties[1], so hearing they are against e2e encryption just sounds about right. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CatalanGate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CatalanGate
- shiroiuma 3y agoWell, it shouldn't be too surprising that a literal dictatorship would act this way. It may not be a dictatorship at the moment, but it was not too many years ago, and the only reason it's not a dictatorship today is only because the dictator died of old age. Spain does not have a very good track record with democracy, so of course such a culture isn't going to value freedom and liberal (in the classical sense) democratic values.
- bestouff 3y agoWho cares ? AFAIK the parliament is against snooping, so it won't pass.
- agilob 3y agoIt won't pass >this time<
- rdm_blackhole 3y agoIt will pass this time. The Swedish politician is in the pocket of big tech corporations.
- jeltz 3y agoYes, Sweden is pushing for this but the Parliament will again block it. Swedish politicians can't force it, that is not within their powers.
- PhilipRoman 3y agoIMO this has nothing to do with big tech. End to end encryption does not prevent big tech from reading your messages if you use their provided client. The importance of money in politics is greatly overstated, this is just government wanting more control.
- Xelbair 3y agobecause they keep trying again and again, ad nauseam?
- DocTomoe 3y agoIt's the EU way of doing things. Data retention gets killed by courts every year, and every year a new iteration is being proposed by politicians. Remember the Lisbon Treaty, which necessitated a referendum in Ireland - which was repeated until the politically desired result was in.
- croes 3y agoIt's like with data retention, first against child abuse and terrorism and then suddenly also against copyright infringement. Not to mention the dubious benefit of preventing abuse.
- raverbashing 3y agoWhile the discussion is important, this article is old
- telegpt 3y ago[dead]
- rollulus 3y agoInitiatives like Chat Control makes me pessimistic. They keep on coming in all sort of variations and we defend. Given enough of such iterations, at some point though they’ll eventually be lucky and god knows how long it will take to revert things. And what I don’t get is that this sort of proposed legislation is more than Stasi could've ever wished. And yet it’s openly discussed as if it’s good idea. And note that “they” are supposed to represent “us”. It freaks me out to the point that I rather have my country leave the EU.
- hef19898 3y agoBecause leaving the EU worked out so well last time someone tried.
- robertlagrant 3y agoSpeaking as a Remain voter, I think that 2023 would look the almost the same post-Covid and Russia invading Ukraine. Brexit is a distant third in terms of damage done.
- justinclift 3y agoIt's probably made the nation more fragile / less resilient to externals shocks though, such as Covid and the Ukraine invasion.
- devjab 3y agoBrexit didn’t really help in terms of privacy though, the UK being one of the leading western anti-encryption countries politically. At least within the EU you have the chance of having at least one member state be an adult about it and realise that mass surveillance won’t work out the way they hope.
- robertlagrant 3y agoWell, the UK government could still introduce a law of their own anyway. Unless you're saying the EU would've created an EU-wide law that mandated that member states couldn't do it, but that seems very unlikely based on what we know of the EU.
- qwerty456127 3y agoHow comes people using the well-known "children protection" manipulation and the "I have nothing to hide" fallacy to legally (thogh unenforceably) destroy privacy creating a total surveilance dystopia and put everyone in iminent danger (because whatever secrets only a government agency has access to, will sooner or later leak anway) are allowed to shape EU policies? To me they clearly seem either intentionally malevolent or fundamentally ignorant (thus professionally inadequate for the job) actors. Or am I wrong?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lynx23 3y agoThe day the EU forbids E2E is the day I start to actively root for my country to exit.
- ko27 3y agoAnd then you'll finally realize it's your government that's fucked up, EU is just a reflection of it, because you'll end up with the same E2E control, like the UK.
- arghwhat 3y agoJust be sure that your country isn't one of the many voting for this proposal first, as only 3 countries have given a strict and clear "no". If so, leaving EU might just be letting go of the leash.
- Moldoteck 3y agolmao do you realise that if your country does not vote for it, it'll not be implemented. So if eu forbids e2ee, this means your country is ok with this
- sebtron 3y agoWhy not actively root for that one specific law to be reverted? Sounds like an easier change.
- lynx23 3y agoBut not a long-term solution. The brits had the right intuition. The EU is pretty much a globalist failure. The more it goes in the direction of an US of E, the less I want to be a part of it. Its slow and hopelessly naiv. The whole refugee situation and the russia thing made this very obvious.
- izacus 3y agoYour country is almost certanly supporting this measure and will continue to have the law enacted even after you leave. Are you SURE your own are not part of the support?
- varispeed 3y agoWhat EU is afraid of if they think they need Stasi level of surveillance? Many Europeans still remember the dark times before 1989. Why there is a need to come back to it?
- rdm_blackhole 3y agoBecause people don't care and governments can't help themselves wanting more power. It's sad state of affair. Like you say this is the Stasi's wet dream coming to fruition. Soon , they'll expand it to wrong-think and who knows maybe disable your device if you dare criticize the EU or someone in power. I mean why stop at CSAM right? Any other reason will work. It's the ultimate power in the hands of politicians. This woman, who is behind Chat Control is a former communist party member. I think that she must remember with fondness the time where the state has absolute power over it's citizens and decided now, was good time to bring this back to life.
- hellojesus 3y agoWrong think already exists in many European countries. Norwegian actress Tonje Gjevjon faces up to 3 years in prison for saying men cannot be lesbians https://nypost.com/2022/12/15/tonje-gjevjon-faces-up-to-3-years-in-prison-for-saying-men-cannot-be-lesbians/ https://nypost.com/2022/12/15/tonje-gjevjon-faces-up-to-3-ye... Swiss LGBTQ+ rights groups hail 60-day sentence for polemicist who called journalist a ‘fat lesbian’ https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-discrimination-switzerland-alain-sorel-lesbian-journalist-23d40c5014bfea851905f5174ad01eb7 https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-discrimination-switzerland-... Woman’s conviction in Austria for calling the Prophet Mohammed a paedophile did not breach her right to free speech, European Court of Human Rights rules https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6316567/Woman-correctly-convicted-Austria-calling-Prophet-Mohammed-paedophile-ECHR-rules.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6316567/Woman-corre...
- derelicta 3y agoThe "polemicist" you mention is a literal jew-hating national-socialist.
- rdm_blackhole 3y agoSo I guess we have to wait to see if EtoE encryption is banned and/or client side scanning becomes mandatory. What is the best path of action for someone who is privacy minded? Buy a dumb phone?
- eterps 3y agoYou can continue to use encryption just fine: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.sufficientlysecure.keychain/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.sufficientlysecure.keych... The problem would be with the messaging/media services that have EtoE encryption integrated in the same app. I am not sure how buying a dumb phone solves anything.
- rdm_blackhole 3y agoWell,a dumb phone without any app capabilities would not have the client-side scanning software running unless I am mistaken.
- eterps 3y ago> without any app capabilities So you'd use e-mail and SMS?
- wkat4242 3y agoThe problem is, they will enforce the scanning in the usual mainstream apps like WhatsApp and telegram. They will have killed privacy for everyone using those. But this won't be the end of it. Obviously the pervs will simply move to an open source app that doesn't obey this scanning. Or they'll use some kind of overlay encryption. Like sending gpg encrypted files as you point out. So, in a year or so the police will rightfully complain they can't filter those and there's too many apps to check for. So what will the EU do? They'll mandate client side scanning in the OS that scans everything being displayed on screen. It's the only way to catch everything. They just killed privacy for everyone using an off the shelf phone. And perhaps PC if they include those. But this won't be the end of it. Obviously the pervs will simply move to an open source OS. So, in a year after that the police will complain they can't check open source devices. So what will they do? They'll mandate running a signed OS and using attestation to access the internet. They just killed FOSS and privacy for everyone using technology. And of course, no that won't be the end of it. The pervs will share their pics on paper or whatever. And everyone else will be under surveillance for the rest of our lives. This endeavour will only lead to erosion of privacy and will not lead to prevention of sharing this material because they'll just find another way. Whatever the EU will come up with, it'll either easily be bypassed, or it'll be unthinkably draconian. The former won't solve the problem and the latter will end society as we know it. There is no solution other than hard police work.
- hbfdhfdhadfhnfa 3y agoThis is one of the most important topics
- akomtu 3y agoChat Control is really about Thought Control. Today a customs and border agent in France freaks out if he cannot see what's in your phone or laptop, but what he's really after is inspecting your thoughts and memories. When neuralink succeeds in its effort to make a brain reading device, it will be used frivolously in EU and US airports, and hiding your thoughts, or obscuring them with encryption-like methods, will be grounds for throwing you in jail. The idea that the strong must control the weak is rapidly spreading in Europe.
- NoZZz 3y agoBuh they're going to lose more citizens.