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I don't fully understand the talking about "scale" then. Scale is irrelevant to criminals. OpenPGP has been around longer than I've been alive, and OTR for soon

I don't fully understand the talking about "scale" then. Scale is irrelevant to criminals. OpenPGP has been around longer than I've been alive, and OTR for soon 20 years. The fact that WhatsApp and iMessage has been per default for the last 10 does not push the needle for a motivated criminal. The fact that it IS deployed at scale now is the "problem" and what will be "solved" by something like Chat Control. We would go back to how it was before E2EE became the norm. What this legislation would allow is (even more) mass surveillance of normal people.

palata 2y ago
> What this legislation would allow is (even more) mass surveillance of normal people. Totally. I feel like we agree but are talking past each other :-). Maybe you don't like my wording or the fact that I mentioned the scale of E2EE. But I think we agree on the fact that policy makers need to accept the reality of encryption: it exists, it's out there, and there is no compromise to be made, we have to live with those facts.
- filleokus 2y ago
  We've now passed the threading limit so I'll make this my last reply (maybe) :-). I think we are in agreement that laws like this are bad and not something we want in our societies. Where I think we might have differing views is that I consider the "it exists" argument as being really weak against a proposal like this. If someone truly believes that this will only be used for "good" purposes and that it has near-zero cost on society ("Honest people don't have anything to hide"), arguing that "criminals can still use illegal E2EE" is not fruitful. "So what? We will probably catch many or even most criminals. They aren't known to be the sharpest tool in the toolbox, it's going to be cumbersome to use illegal Signal and criminals are lazy. And by the way, child sexual abuse material will also always exist, does that mean we can't make that illegal either??" No law is ever 100% effective, and policy makers know that. They just have a different cost/benefit calculus, or don't see all the costs (or both).
  - palata 2y ago
    > arguing that "criminals can still use illegal E2EE" is not fruitful. That's why I mentioned 3 points, I would say :-). They go together. They mean that it makes no sense to say "we want to weaken E2EE for the sake of our children". Either you remove E2EE (and enable mass surveillance), or you don't (and protect the children differently). In those discussions by politicians, there is systematically someone who comes back with an argument like "no, but imagine we could detect child pornography without actually weakening the encryption", and that argument just does not make any sense at all. Decision makers need to understand that, so that they can choose between keeping E2EE and removing E2EE improperly. Then of course, some politicians could try to push for mass surveillance. That's a political stance. But at least they would be having the real debate, instead of hiding it behind weird technical solutions that do not and cannot exist.

palata 2y ago

> What this legislation would allow is (even more) mass surveillance of normal people. Totally. I feel like we agree but are talking past each other :-). Maybe you don't like my wording or the fact that I mentioned the scale of E2EE. But I think we agree on the fact that policy makers need to accept the reality of encryption: it exists, it's out there, and there is no compromise to be made, we have to live with those facts.

filleokus 2y ago
We've now passed the threading limit so I'll make this my last reply (maybe) :-). I think we are in agreement that laws like this are bad and not something we want in our societies. Where I think we might have differing views is that I consider the "it exists" argument as being really weak against a proposal like this. If someone truly believes that this will only be used for "good" purposes and that it has near-zero cost on society ("Honest people don't have anything to hide"), arguing that "criminals can still use illegal E2EE" is not fruitful. "So what? We will probably catch many or even most criminals. They aren't known to be the sharpest tool in the toolbox, it's going to be cumbersome to use illegal Signal and criminals are lazy. And by the way, child sexual abuse material will also always exist, does that mean we can't make that illegal either??" No law is ever 100% effective, and policy makers know that. They just have a different cost/benefit calculus, or don't see all the costs (or both).
- palata 2y ago
  > arguing that "criminals can still use illegal E2EE" is not fruitful. That's why I mentioned 3 points, I would say :-). They go together. They mean that it makes no sense to say "we want to weaken E2EE for the sake of our children". Either you remove E2EE (and enable mass surveillance), or you don't (and protect the children differently). In those discussions by politicians, there is systematically someone who comes back with an argument like "no, but imagine we could detect child pornography without actually weakening the encryption", and that argument just does not make any sense at all. Decision makers need to understand that, so that they can choose between keeping E2EE and removing E2EE improperly. Then of course, some politicians could try to push for mass surveillance. That's a political stance. But at least they would be having the real debate, instead of hiding it behind weird technical solutions that do not and cannot exist.