11 ms·

France rejects backdoor mandate

1043 points by hn_acker 2y ago

phtrivier 2y ago
Though it is a good piece of news (and those are not that common nowadays), some caution about the political context is warranted here. The National Assembly is very divided a the moment, and the Minister defending the backdoor amendment is from a minority party at the AN, that just happens to have majority in the other chamber. Also, he is preparing for a presidential bid, and has a fair share of ennemies, both in and out of his party. So, all in all, it was a relatively "cheap" move from the MP who voted against it : - it's screwing up with a powerful opponent - it's easy publicity given that "spyping in whatsapp" would made bad headlines - there has not been a massive terrorist attack recently, so the measure will not look urgent. I'm pretty sure that some of those MPs, asked to vote the same thing by a president of their party, after a terror attack, would vote for the backdoor.
palata 2y ago
Just like for other big challenges like biodiversity and climate change, it feels like it often boils down to the politicians just not understanding enough to take rational decisions. Of course they can't all have a PhD in cryptography, but they should also not have no clue at all. Over an over again, politicians are asking for backdoors. To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryption works. Especially these days in Europe, it seems completely insane: it is already a problem that most companies use US services, given that the US have become hostile to Europe. The sane way to go is to try to get better privacy for European companies/people, not worse. Adding backdoors just makes it easier for adversaries to access private data.
- miohtama 2y ago
  But think of the children
  - WJW 2y ago
    The children are not benefited by Putin and Kim Jong-Un being able to read their messages.
- mouse_ 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
    >Right wing international police apparatus will stop at nothing. What's this have to do with right wing? Can't we have a civil discussion about tech impact in society without making it all about how only one political affiliation is always evil wile the other is always righteous? Abuse on freedom of speech, spying and censorship is bad no matter which political side does it, and they all do it, so leave your political grumbles at home, this aint the place, hence flagged.
    - zimza 2y ago
      Because tech and society, like everything else, is inherently political. Backdoors, surveillance, control. These are things fascist and proto-fascist societies try to achieve. And they are thriving as of late.
      - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        Fascist behavior and actions aren't limited to the political right wing. Anyone can do it, you just choose to cherry pick the one you dislike under "fascism" and be OK with the fascist behavior that allies to your political views as being correct and justified. Do you see any conservatives firebombing people's private property right now, or is it only the "tolerant left" doing it? How much online free speech was censored under the leadership of the left in the years prior, all under the guise of "protecting free speech" and "creating safe spaces"? One can abuse the "think of the children" emotional arguments to justify a lot of fascist totalitarian behavior and policies, all in the name of "good". Remember: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".
        LPisGood 2y ago
        Vandalism by itself isn’t really a fascist action, so I’m not really sure what your point is. However, it is my experience that people using the phrase “tolerant left” aren’t frequently interested in discussions grounded in reality.
- dataflow 2y ago
  > they should also not have no clue at all. Over an over again, politicians are asking for backdoors. To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryption works. Unless you're claiming that it's literally impossible to construct a cipher with multiple decryption keys, I don't see how you're implying that asking for a backdoor "proves they don't understand the very basics of how encryption works". Their stance differs from yours due to their values being different from yours, not due to inferior literacy.
  - whatshisface 2y ago
    It is impossible to construct a cypher with just one key, such that the good guys (spanning several allied nations, dozens of government agencies, perhaps even local police) can use the key, but bad guys (spanning several opposing nations, dozens of intelligence agencies, thousands of hacker groups, tens of thousands of individual cyber-criminals around the world) cannot. We are talking about every single person who can buy a copy of a piece of paper carried out of HQ being able to read all of your personal and professional correspondence: no doubt a possibility.
    - dataflow 2y ago
      You're missing my point completely. These folks very well understand that bad people can steal keys. Stolen keys have been a thing since antiquity. It's not rocket science they don't understand. Every single key in history has had a risk of theft and this is no exception. The truth is a lot of them understand this just like you. But unlike you, they are willing to accept this risk. You aren't. That's fine. You have a value disagreement -- you don't think the risk is worth it, and they think it is. Which is why you make arguments about the merits of the issue, instead of attacking the other side on their basic literacy. Just because you disagree on values that doesn't mean the other side is stupid or illiterate about the basics. This isn't about politeness either, it's actively counterproductive to your own cause: insulting people and showing that you lack a basic understanding of their position is a sure-fire way to make sure they dig their heels in and continue to oppose you regardless of the merits of the situation. i.e. it's a grest strategy for losing in the end.
- whatshisface 2y ago
  I would like to know what the public opinion on these issues is before blaming politician's ignorance, considering that to them the relevant knowledge is knowledge of what voters will support or tolerate. The impossible promise of backdoors that France can enter but no other country, organized criminal syndicate or petty government-employed stalker can find is only one impossible promise among the many we can hear from the world's parliaments. In fact, the impossible promise is something of a stereotypical tactic.
  - aucisson_masque 2y ago
    French want less criminals and immigrants in the street. Whatever it takes. I'm french, i have not heard any people, work, street, even television or internet speak about that. The sad truth is that it wouldn't even solve the issue, criminals will always be able to use encrypted communications. there are open source software that can't be tampered with, software that doesn't use a single server where backdoor can be put, or they could even simply encrypt their text message. i could do that from my mac terminal and Bruno Retailleau isn't going to put a backdoor in my mac terminal...
    - Braxton1980 2y ago
      > French want less criminals and immigrants in the street. Whatever it takes. What about using the probability that a specific race or religion will commit crimes then target those people with aggressive tactics. As for the public they could make those people feel unwelcomed through constant harassment in the hopes they leave the country. Thus reducing the crime rate by any means. ---- I checked the murder rate and it's been on a downward trajectory for the last 30 years https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/fra/france/murder-homicide-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/fra/fra... I haven't check other stats but what if your views on crime are being manipulated by people who have agenda that normally wouldn't be possible if the true reason was revealed?
      - outside2344 2y ago
        In France, like a lot of other countries, they are blaming everything on the immigrants. Crime? Immigrants are doing it. Retirement age? Immigrants are spending the money. These things are not backed up by data, but just like the US, or Nazi Germany, nobody cares, simply easier to choose an easy "solution" and blame immigrants.
- m463 2y ago
  With things like this I think of the bill that tried to change the value of pi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_pi_bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_pi_bill
  - pbhjpbhj 2y ago
    It seems to me the bill tried to charge royalties on maths and that a result would have been state sanctioned calculations would contradict the value of pi. The Wikipedia article notes that the redefining of pi was specifically not an aim of the bill, pi not being mentioned in it.
- hartator 2y ago
  > Just like for other big challenges like biodiversity and climate change, it feels like it often boils down to the politicians just not understanding enough to take rational decisions. Of course they can't all have a PhD in cryptography, but they should also not have no clue at all. They would argue about the damages drugs do. I think they know what they are doing. Digital privacy has no lobby outside of EEF. We donate more than $10k to them annually.
  - Nextgrid 2y ago
    The "war" on drugs is what brings all of the violence and crime associated with drugs, not the drugs themselves. But it finances the police industrial complex and so many people would lose out (or be forced to focus on actual crimes rather than people consensually trading plants or chemicals) that it will never happen.
    - achenet 2y ago
      The pharmaceutical industry has a pretty big lobby, so does big tobacco, and don't even get me started on the alcohol industry. If one of them finds a way to patent drugs that are currently illegal or otherwise profit from it, legalization will happen. Honestly, in many places, legalization has already happened, look at the coffee shops in the Netherlands and the dispensaries in North America. The police industrial complex might be attached to their cash cow, but everyone else in the capitalist system wants to get rich too, and I suspect in the long run that'll win out. Also, much as how after a few thousand years of civilization people eventually wised up to human sacrifice wasn't actually a good idea and was not in any way required to make the sun come up, maybe at some point in the future we'll realize that harsh criminal penalties don't actually solve the drug problem. France has some of the strictest laws against cannabis use in Europe, and also some of the highest rates of consumption, or at least it did last time I checked.
    - tiltowait 2y ago
      > The "war" on drugs is what brings all of the violence and crime associated with drugs, not the drugs themselves. Some of it, certainly, but I doubt it's all. Violence committed by druggies trying to scrape up enough for their next hit would still happen.
- amelius 2y ago
  > To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryption works. Even if you don't have the encryption keys you can read messages by breaking into a phone and taking screenshots, for example.
  - BowBun 2y ago
    If you've broken into the phone/app, you've got access to the key...
    - amelius 2y ago
      But it's only useful if you understand how encryption works.
- daniel-s 2y ago
  These aren't dumb people. They know exactly what they're asking for. Privacy and security of the public's data is not a priority to them, surveillance and power is. Politicians would much prefer all communication in plaintext, to hell with individual freedoms and privacy, especially European politicians that don't come from the same traditions of freedom as the anglophone countries. What politician do you expect to openly confess the above in public. These are world-leading politicians, i.e., professional athletes of lying and obfuscation.
  - bananalychee 2y ago
    The UK and Australia are ahead of countries like France in restricting freedom, so this sounds like a poor attempt to avoid complimenting the US specifically.
    - thomasfedb 2y ago
      What freedoms are you referring to wrt Australia?
      - chgs 2y ago
        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-46463029 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-46463029 https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/14/identify_and_disrupt_bill_australia/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/14/identify_and_disrupt_...
  - econ 2y ago
    I sort of agree with them. I want all privacy abolished for politicians. Think about it, if we live stream them in the shower we might get some much needed young people to take the job. Let them keep the ad revenue. Only fans suggests it should be the best paid job out there and the workers are all about public approval. no more naughty business!
    - verisimi 2y ago
      That is not how it works. Politicians will vote for special measures for themselves, but citizens need to have their data easily presentable for inspection by government agencies. Think of the children/terrorists.
- zelphirkalt 2y ago
  The problem is, that many of the politicians in high positions are corrupt, bought by companies, and/or only went into politics, because they couldn't get a productive job. There are politicians, who never in their life had a proper job, were born wealthy and never had to work like someone in a productive proper job has to. There may be exceptions, of course, but over and over again, when one checks the background of politicians in high positions, one finds out, that they simply inherited a lot, and never worked in the field they are making decisions about, nor actually in any other field. They "just became politicians". And even then they misuse funds, cars for private trips, first class tickets on means of transportation, let themselves be bought by lobbies, have prospect of some corporate board later, have even more side income than they are being already paid for their badly done job as a politician, and so on and on. Many one could outright call despicable. The problem is, that we let them do it. Going into politics is such a clusterf' that no normal person even wants to do it any longer. It only attracts those kinds of person we see there. Others are sidelined or never join politics in the first place. Then we also don't vote/kick/protest them out of office the moment we hear about their crimes.
- latexr 2y ago
  > To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryption works. Hanlon’s razor isn’t always true, sometimes it really is malice. Considering EU ministers want to exempt themselves from Chat Control, that suggests to me they do understand enough of the basics. https://european-pirateparty.eu/chatcontrol-eu-ministers-want-to-exempt-themselves/ https://european-pirateparty.eu/chatcontrol-eu-ministers-wan...
  - artursapek 2y ago
    I love the combination of them naming this evil bill "Child Sexual Abuse Regulation Proposal" to make it sound like an obviously good idea, and them asking to be exempt from it. So are you implying you are abusing children?
    - fransje26 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - barbecue_sauce 2y ago
        You'll leave a link to a blatantly disreputable tabloid news blog?
        southernplaces7 2y ago
        So what? The source isn't nearly so relevant as the nature of the information presented. It's tedious to see sometimes useful tidbits for possible investigation get dismissed because they're "disreputable".
        Teever 2y ago
        Can't you find a better source?
        fransje26 2y ago
        Similar accusations have been constant recurring themes since the emergence of the Dutroux case, and from other cases that have emerged since then. That link was the first random link that popped up, that, from memory, was illustrating the theme at hand. No, I wasn't willing to do a deep dive into the putrid sewer of child abuse to satisfy the need for a "better" link. It's upsetting enough to know that these things exist, and I have absolutely no need to make it my area of expertise and focus, for my own well-being. If you want to, knock yourself off.
- noduerme 2y ago
  >> given that the US have become hostile to Europe I'd like to comfort you that this is not true for the majority of Americans. We are having a hard time wrapping our heads around what our new government is doing.
  - imoverclocked 2y ago
    It kinda doesn’t matter; Individuals aren’t making foreign policy decisions day-by-day, Republicans leaders are. Until we effect change in our government, we are hostile to most of our allies.
    - noduerme 2y ago
      It matters to me, as a person who travels frequently, that people in the countries I visit don't believe that Americans writ large voted for the foreign policy we see being enacted. Even among the ones who voted for Trump, there seems to be a lot of shock at the aggressive posture toward our allies. I think it's important to convey that a majority of Americans are not on board with this 180 degree turn in our position toward Europe. But yes... individuals don't make foreign policy, and we are subject to the whims of our polity. That's exactly what I'm asking the parent poster to take into account.
      - imoverclocked 2y ago
        It matters to me too. However, it still doesn’t negate the fact that we are hostile. There is always good news and bad news in the world. Our judicial branch is (so far) working to reverse illegal moves by the executive branch. People are protesting across the US and across the world. Our allies are currently putting pressure on us that is reversible. The bad news is that our country is losing trust every day. We voted this person into office twice. We are deporting people for voiced opposition to the regime. There are now travel warnings to the US from multiple countries. Ironically, it’s now harder to leave the US. MAGA is trying to spread into other countries given the foothold it has gained here. There isn’t a lot of comfort to give when the guy who holds the nations nuclear codes is questionably coherent and actively hostile.
- csomar 2y ago
  > it feels like it often boils down to the politicians just not understanding enough to take rational decisions. That's a very gullible take and kind of apologetic for the politicians. If you are implementing a backdoor to crypto-systems, you probably know exactly what you are doing. That, and this has been re-surfacing time and again under different pretenses make this a deliberate attack on freedom of expression. The politicians know exactly what they are doing.
  - Spivak 2y ago
    I'm sure some of them do but encryption is pretty unusual as a lock that police can't break. If a judge orders a search of your house and the incriminating evidence is in a safe they will break it open if you refuse to open it for them. Governments aren't exactly happy that for digital assets there's ready made mass-market systems where the response to any search warrant will be to pound sand. When law enforcement tells you that they're being hindered by the fact that even unsophisticated criminals have E2EE messaging and that's their biggest source of evidence (pulling text records) then asking for back doors starts to sound reasonable. It isn't of course because it defeats the whole point but it doesn't have to be a crusade against speech or whatever.
    - roenxi 2y ago
      > Governments aren't exactly happy that for digital assets there's ready made mass-market systems where the response to any search warrant will be to pound sand. Which is to say they understand the situation perfectly and are acting with a firm intellectual grasp of what is going on. The issue isn't that they don't understand encryption, it is that they reject citizens having any sort of power to resist the state. Which is cool and all, authoritarianism is always with us to some extent. But at its core they see this from the viewpoint that the state is fundamentally in control and sometimes it grants people the privilege of privacy because it doesn't think what they are saying is important and therefore they can be humoured. They'll pretend technical ignorance if it gets the liberals off their backs, but the only people they are fooling are the credulous.
      - 2y ago
- sitkack 2y ago
  > Of course they can't all have a PhD in cryptography We could be seeing the effect of France's top notch level of mathematical attainment in how their politicians are behaving. Education lifts all boats.
  - hkt 2y ago
    On the other hand, people can believe experts without being experts. Perhaps the French parliamentarians just listen better.
    - sitkack 2y ago
      Not trying to debate club you here, but it could also be that higher educational attainment creates parliamentarians that can listen.
      - sitkack 2y ago
        Another thought, in a highly educated populace, the path length between any person and someone highly skilled would be much shorter. Everyone would know someone who knows someone who is an expert in a subject. So it would be much easier for someone to seek and get assistance.
- raincole 2y ago
  What politicians want (and what they think average people want) is very different from what HN users want. Politicians: a backdoor that can be used by the police for investigating crimes, but not by criminals themselves. HN users: no backdoor at all, especially not a backdoor that can be used by the police.
  - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
    also politicians want a backdoor especially for tracking treason / spying possibilities, which in a way comes under police investigating crimes but is more national security apparatus protecting the state.
    - palata 2y ago
      Which makes no sense, because if you have a backdoor, it opens the way for adversaries to access your data. You don't improve your national security by weakening its encryption.
  - concerndc1tizen 2y ago
    I strongly disagree. Politicians: technology that strengthens the power of the state, against crime, but also militarily, for spying on enemies both foreign and domestic. Citizens: defensive architecture that prevents the state from preventing free speech. This is especially relevant in the era of AI, where the cost of mass surveillance is virtually zero, and is incredibly powerful at sentiment analysis and summarization. Free speech is threatened when any statement can and will be used against you.
- zazazache 2y ago
  They know, they just don’t care. And they have learned if they just ignore problems, then most times they’ll get away with it. Like for example all their responsibilities to stop an ongoing genocide, or to combat apartheid
- agent327 2y ago
  The US have not become hostile. So far it has made two demands of Europe, and both of them are reasonable: 1. Europe should not rely entirely on the US for its defense (stated by Trump numerous times). 2. Europe should stop its mad self-destruction and descent into totalitarianism (stated by Vance on several occasions). Were they incorrect? Were they unreasonable? Sometimes you need a friend to tell you a harsh truth. Hearing that truth does not make that friend into an enemy; quite the contrary.
  - hkt 2y ago
    And tariffs are the the act of a friend too? Let's not be silly. Trump's is America first: the upshot of which is everyone else can be a subordinate or a rival. Europe is wisely choosing not to subordinate itself to the US quite so much. It'll be interesting to see if it becomes a real rival.
  - TFYS 2y ago
    1. And made it clear by threatening to take land from a European country by force. 2. That's funny coming from a person who is building a totalitarian system. He was supporting parties that would make a similar development in Europe possible.
  - sunshine-o 2y ago
    It is anecdotal but during Covid and the crypto boom I was chatting with someone living in France. He told me he was happy to have a few crypto since he has been using one of those exchange to buy illegal drugs. Basically he told me that over there people just go on websites to order drugs, pay with crypto from a centralized crypto exchange and then have it delivered in they physical mailbox. And this is not the Silk road thing this is local business, shipped by the national postal service from an address in France from France. I also read an article once saying drug stores on the internet and social media are very common over there. My conclusion was that, selling most drugs had become de facto decriminalized in France. Strangely France is also by far the country where I have been systematically harassed by the police and customs (at the frontier and within the country). They are very aggressive and it is to the point that I now avoid that country as much as possible.
  - 2y ago
- ErrorNoBrain 2y ago
  > but they should also not have no clue at all. they usually talk to experts in those areas. Who those experts are can vary quite a lot though.
- bboygravity 2y ago
  "the US have become hostile to Europe." 1. I don't believe that anything changed in recent months/years other than the US repeating the statement that maybe EU should take care of its own defense. Not exactly a new sign of "becoming hostile" IMO. 2. If this would even be true then they have always been hostile to Europe and only just recently started becoming honest and open about it (but again, I dont see any sign of actual change). Five eyes, NSA, etc is not exactly new and have super obviously been used and are still being used by the US to do economic and political espionage on Europe for at least decades. The leaked news of NSA spying on German chancellor Angela Merkel's phone is like 10+ years ago by now? My opinion is that every EU company that uses Onedrive, Teams, Outlook, Google etc (99 percent of them is my guess) are basically paying to give away their trade secrets to their US competitors. "but the terms of the contract say..." yeah right...
  - graemep 2y ago
    Its just become harder to stick European heads in the sand. Is government agencies to. In the UK the NHS uses AWS, courts use Teams.... IT security is just ignored - its only recently that it occurred to the govt to remove Chinese cameras from sensitive sites. European militaries are heavily dependent on the US too and have a lot of equipment that is reliant on US supplies or can only be used in line with agreements with the US.
    - apples_oranges 2y ago
      Plus apparently there are things that only USA can currently do, awacs radar support and other recon I think
      - ojl 2y ago
        I believe there are several non-US awacs systems out there, although the American ones are probably the most common.
  - apples_oranges 2y ago
    They have alienated their allies for sure and this time it seems different and it seems that it will have a lasting impact. Including for tech companies.
- charcircuit 2y ago
  >To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryption works. Chats being encrypted between multiple participants is a normal use case of cryptography. Giving limited government access can be part of a cryptoscheme and doesn't mean that encryption has to be disabled.
- pembrook 2y ago
  > it is already a problem that most companies use US services, given that the US have become hostile to Europe. Risking a potential flame war here but I think it’s important to cool down hysterical rhetoric whenever it’s pushed. The US has not become hostile to Europe, and it’s quite silly to say this in contrast to, say, a certain country next door that is currently invading a European country. The US is in the midst of a many decades “pivot to Asia.” This is not hostility, but growing indifference.
  - palata 2y ago
    > This is not hostility, but growing indifference. Among others, the US is threatening to invade and annex ex-allies using militarily force. This is the definition of "hostility", and again this is only one example.
- hamilyon2 2y ago
  Every good idea needs powerful PR. How about we start rallying around the term "software equivalent of cancer" which Tim Cook coined to describe encryption backdoor. Speech matters. "Software cancer bill" sure sounds less appealing than "catch terrorists bill". Nobody has to understand the details about why encryption backdoor is impossible to implement without breaking the encryption. It is too hard of a topic. I only understand it vaguely. Does it matter? You don't need phd in silicon design to know that chips are important.
- joostdecock 2y ago
  I am not here de defend politicians, but... The title says "France rejects backdoor mandate" but TFA makes it clear that France is not a hive-mind: - The rejection was by the French National Assembly (think parliament/congres) - Ths happened despite pressure from the internal ministry (the government) I find it interesting that it is often a similar story at the EU level where the European Parliament puts a stop to the worst impulses of the European Commission.
- tw04 2y ago
  > given that the US have become hostile to Europe That’s more than a bit of an overstatement. One faction in the US government has started being less loyal to Europe. Most Americans consider Europe to still be our closest allies and friends. Furthermore the US businesses are not stupid and have shown they will stand up to government pressure around data sovereignty. Anything less will drive both US and global customers back to on-prem infrastructure. https://www.reuters.com/article/legal/microsoft-sues-us-government-over-data-requests-idUSL2N17H1F6/ https://www.reuters.com/article/legal/microsoft-sues-us-gove...
  - timbit42 2y ago
    > Most Americans consider Europe to still be our closest allies and friends. The feeling isn't mutual. > Furthermore the US businesses are not stupid and have shown they will stand up to government pressure around data sovereignty. Only until it threatens their livelihood and family. Don't be naive. The majority of both Democrat and Republican members of the Senate and Congress, and many judges and other people in high positions in the government are afraid of the repercussions of crossing Trump. The US is screwed.
  - palata 2y ago
    > Most Americans consider Europe to still be our closest allies and friends. Maybe, yes. Do you know how many Europeans now consider that the US are not allies anymore? And how many take the threats of invading them seriously? Allies don't threaten to invade. > Furthermore the US businesses are not stupid The oligarchs of BigTech have clearly bent the knee. It would be irrational to trust them.
  - alphager 2y ago
    Your government has threatened military invasion of Denmark.
- paulddraper 2y ago
  > To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryption works. No? You can have encryption with “secure” backdoors. (In the sense that only an entity with the backdoor key could use it.) For example, let’s say you were going to symmetrically encrypt some data with a certain private key. You can add the key to the data, asymmetrically encrypted with the public backdoor key. (You can improve on this with a salt to retain public anonymity.) As a theoretical matter, cryptography can do this. As a practical matter…that’s a separate question of human structures and behaviors. But you don’t need cryptography to understand that.
- neycoda 2y ago
  The adversary is often the person wanting the backdoor.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ziofill 2y ago
I’ve lived and worked in France for three years. There are many things I’ve learned about it, some good some bad, but certainly one of them is that France is a country that can show real leadership.
buybackoff 2y ago
I've found the original debates video on the National Assembly website. My French is good enough for that (not enough for cooking et al. though), so I believe I understood. I'm positively surprised by some deputies remarks. But Bruno (interior minister) Retailleau is either totally incompetent technically, with his advisors as well, or is a liar. "We will apply the math selectively, only for those that are a threat and when the big brother approves"... In every country it's the same narrative. This time it was not about children, but "Freeing France from the drug trafficking trap" ("Sortir la France du piège du narcotrafic"). And it looks like it was not the main point and they tried to pass it as a minor subnote or something. ... They will find dozens of other issues to cancel the math. https://videos.assemblee-nationale.fr/video.16453163_67dc7864b9d58.3eme-seance--sortir-la-france-du-piege-du-narcotrafic-suite-20-mars-2025 https://videos.assemblee-nationale.fr/video.16453163_67dc786...
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  France is in decay with incompetent and unpatriotic governments for decades. It is facing many issues but has lacked strong leadership courageous enough to put country first. So, in fact, it is a fairly typical European country... The spread of "narcotrafic" is an example of that, there are others. If you follow French news you'll see many.
  - buybackoff 2y ago
    I live in France for the last 5 years. Been to many places in the world. France is OK overall.
    - mytailorisrich 2y ago
      Well I am French. "OK overall" is obviously good but at global scale this means better than the "third world", so context is important. The context of my previous reply is France's "direction of travel", which negative like most other European countries. This is a key metric on any meaningful timescale, which is what ultimately matters.
aucisson_masque 2y ago
The backdoor mandate was part of an anti organized criminality law, Bruno Retailleau (interior minister) pretend criminals use encrypted chat to communicate and so backdoor is required to intercept their communications. makes sense to the average non tech people. The sad truth however is that it wouldn't even solve the issue, criminals will always be able to use encrypted communications: there are open source software that can't be tampered with, software that doesn't use a single server where backdoor can be put, or they could even simply encrypt their text message. i could do that from my mac terminal, encryption is basically mathematics. Bruno Retailleau isn't somehow going to put a backdoor in every device that could be used to encrypt. People even used to encrypt communications before computer. The only looser of that law is the normie, you and me, who use whatsapp or signal to chat and couldn't ever push their relative to use things like pgp encrypted email.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  Wouldn't law enforcement just use Pegasus style zero-days to spy on the their targets? So why all the hubbub about making backdoors that become vulnerabilities for nefarious users too? Like why bother convicting Signal to create a backdoor for you, when you can put your nations geniuses to find some RCE bugs in Qualcomm or Apple modems or SoCs, and spy on them that way? This way nobody's the wiser.
  - whatshisface 2y ago
    Governments around the world do not want to stop at the identifiable target. They'd like to imitate the US and China, obtaining special deals with service providers that allow them to collect summary statistics and identify individuals computationally from the total of all communication. Here are a few uses for total surveillance: 1. Public opinion can be monitored on a much more objective level than polling provides. 2. Discontent can be identified long before potential protestors are aware of others who share their views. 3. People whose views are significantly outside the usual range can be picked out and targeted in advance of any crime, even when no crime would occur. 4. Serious attempts at labor or protest organization can be resolved into definite schedules with more basis for comparison to other events than the participants themselves have access to. 5. There would be no more electoral surprises. From this list, you may notice that states that are presently democratic have even more of a use for this capability than the others.
AceJohnny2 2y ago
Tangentially, France has had the CNIL [1] since ~1978, following a scandal about creating a national citizen's database, and exists to prevent exactly that. (I believe the objection stemmed from memories of the Petainist fascist regime during WW2) The CNIL is why France (and now Europe) has "Right to Forget" laws. It is the direct ancestor of stuff like GDPR. Unfortunately, I feel like the CNIL is fairly neutered nowadays. Nevertheless, it serves as historical precedent, for those who remember it exists. [1] "Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes" ~= "National Commission of Computing & Liberties"
- mocamoca 2y ago
  This goes well beyond historical precedent. The legal system is complex, but even when Parliament approves a law, it can still be struck down if it violates fundamental principles. For matters concerning IT and privacy, the CNIL (French Data Protection Authority) could spearhead such cancellation proceedings. And companies doing business in France should watch out—CNIL sanctions are no joke! Are there specific events making you feel it has been neutered?
- vladms 2y ago
  I wonder if not having such state database is not causing today more issues than it defends from. In the 80s I would get it, the state was the only one able to build such a database and people were afraid of what it would do secretly with it. Nowadays, "everybody" has a database with millions of people (ex: facebook, linkedin, x, tax offices, etc.) and discriminatory actions are done based on whims/stupidity rather than on actual good data. People will do horrible stuff because they believe in it, not because they have good data.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    The CNIL is doing a ton of work to limit private databases and cross-checking as well. It can be hard to believe from more business focused countries, but the agency setting precedents has had dissuasion effects, and most companies do end up caring about their data retention and management policies. I've been in enough meetings where UX proposal gets entirely reworked because of a simple link to the CNIL's guidelines.
nickslaughter02 2y ago
France has rejected this backdoor but keep in mind that France is still in favor of chat control (mandatory on device scanning of your communication). There's now a majority among EU countries and the proposal is expected to pass. The next meeting is April 8th.
- buybackoff 2y ago
  I hoped that was a part of this EU debate. It's sad if not.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- orwin 2y ago
  France government is a minority government. The proposal their finance/interior minister do to the council of Europe is a minority opinion in France.
  - nickslaughter02 2y ago
    Does that make a difference? The proposal has France's vote.
- thomasingalls 2y ago
  This seems like one of those situations that's going to turn regular people into outlaws. How could anyone vote in favor of something so foolish? Also how would that even work, would your device get compromised by connecting to a wireless network inside French borders?
- rdm_blackhole 2y ago
  And as usual, the french politicians will change their tune in a few months and go on TV and say that the EU made them do it even though they did not want to.
- contravariant 2y ago
  Ugh, no wonder they don't mind missing this one. Chat control is far more pervasive than what amounts to a digital wiretap.
Etheryte 2y ago
This is a good reminder that regardless of what country you hail from, freedom and liberty are like love — continuous activities that you do every day, not something that you achieve once and then you're done. There will always be those who wish to consolidate more power to themselves than is good and always those who wish to impose their will on others. These people win if you, specifically you reading this, don't do something. So always choose to do something.
thomassmith65 2y ago
If the general public is given a choice between super secret internet messaging, or the current status quo, they will go for the latter. This is because the former hampers law enforcement's ability to track down criminals and terrorists. And the better informed non-techies are about the tech, the more they will support backdoors. No large service will survive providing E2EE. In the near future, there is bound to be some widely publicized incident where E2EE plays a pivotal role in a big atrocity or financial calamity. Then the public will demand that government, for whom it is already a worry, do something about it. It just seems like a pipedream to me that unfettered E2EE will last in big tech.
- stephen_g 2y ago
  E2EE is very much in the interest of providers, because if their systems are breached in a cyberattack, E2EE is the only thing that stops that stolen data being useful. People can be educated about that. Terrorists used planes as the key part of the attack in 9/11, and nobody called for a ban on all air travel. It’s not a forgone conclusion people will be fine keeping E2EE!
  - thomassmith65 2y ago
    Judging by post 9/11 airport security SOP, if an alternate means of mass transport had been as fast as air travel, America would have banned commercial flights forevermore on 9/12. The only benefit E2EE messaging offers the public over partially encrypted messaging is a lower chance of being spied upon. That's nice, but intangible.
- fuzzzerd 2y ago
  That seems a plausible outcome. Pretty dystopian for sure, but plausible. Sadly the cat is out of the bag, so banning it for the general public means that only the bad guys have it and they're already presumably doing illegal things so why do they care about using illegal software too?
- nickslaughter02 2y ago
  "If the general public is given a choice between super secret internet messaging, or the current status quo, they will go for the latter. This is because the former hampers law enforcement's ability to track down criminals and terrorists." I don't know where you live but that's not my experience thankfully. Why? Because the opinion is (including mine) that the vast majority of crimes should not be crimes at all (in this case all drugs should be freely available for adults to buy) and terrorist acts will happen whether you spy on citizens or not anyway.
spapas82 2y ago
> provision that would have forced messaging platforms like Signal and WhatsApp to allow hidden access to private conversations. The fact that this could have been possible is the reason why the pgp/gpg way (you manage your certificate and you choose whose certificates to trust) is still the only way to have true encrypted communications. Using centralised services to encrypt important data is a joke.
- precommunicator 2y ago
  PGP/GPG by default have no perfect forward secrecy though. In Signal you can check the certificates checksums in conversation settings, to compare them e.g. when physically present to the other device. There are other solutions that use Signal protocol or that have PFS that are decentralized. And you can build your own, it's open source at the end. Signal stated already that they would sooner exit certain markets than violate their security (e.g. https://swedenherald.com/article/signals-ceo-then-were-leaving-sweden https://swedenherald.com/article/signals-ceo-then-were-leavi...)
  - spapas82 2y ago
    Yes, if you care about forward secrecy then pgp is not a good solution. > Signal stated already that they would sooner exit certain markets than violate their security You still need to rely on a third party's goodwill to keep that promise. Also even if they are willing to keep the promise it is possible that they won't be able.
  - 3np 2y ago
    The point was not really about using PGP specifically but referring to its web-of-trust model, I believe. Forward secrecy does not require centralized key distribution and/or trust lists.
  - upofadown 2y ago
    If you keep your messages around in some form then that effectively defeats forward secrecy. In any case where the attacker can get your secret encryption key material, they will be able to get any messages you still have access to. Most people want to keep their old messages around. So for messaging, forward secrecy is of little practical value. If you do keep your messages around, then PGP's encrypt once[1] scheme is much better than what most other systems do. The message is encrypted and stays encrypted. It is never in a decrypted state unless the user wants to look at it. This normally involves the entry of a secure passphrase. Contrast that with typical instant messengers where the security of retained messages is entirely up to the device security. The implementation of a forward secrecy scheme ironically makes this more likely. Once the session key is deleted, the easiest way to keep the message around is to leave it as plaintext. So the user either has to turn on self deleting messages and lose those messages, or has to leave those messages available to potential attackers. BTW, "forward secrecy" is a terrible term for usability. Something like "message burning" much better fits with a typical users conceptual context. [1] https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgpfan:encryptonce https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgpfan:encryptonce
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
grej 2y ago
France is shining brightly on many levels at the moment.
econ 2y ago
I forsee that the future will bring us LLMs that can reasonably precisely find incriminating chats while keeping everything perfectly unreadable for those naughty untrustworthy humans.
roschdal 2y ago
Vive La France!
rixed 2y ago
Probably just step one of a multi step journey toward European wide mandatory backdoor.
hoseja 2y ago
Just don't ask what happened to Telegram :)
ingohelpinger 2y ago
this was a battle not the war, they will come back sooner or later.
isaacremuant 2y ago
They keep trying to impose an all seeing all knowing state and people here have already bought into the "age verification, think of the children" rethoric. After seeing how gleefully people accepted totalitarian anti constitutional covid laws, It's omly a matter of time. Wait for the next "crisis". Good one for France, though.
zkmon 2y ago
Any grouping (such as nation) of individuals arises from some loss of freedom, income and privacy for the individuals. The loss of individuals or the contribution is the element that powers the nation or a community. 100% privacy means zero privacy-related contribution towards legal enforcement. So the question is all about striking a balance between loss of privacy and the need for legal enforcement. The negotiations would continue, to arrive at the acceptable/needed level of privacy loss.
- stingraycharles 2y ago
  The problem in this case is that the actual criminals will just move to a more obscure, properly encrypted solution, and as such the normal population that uses Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal will be the only users being monitored.
- dtquad 2y ago
  In 2017 Copenhagen had a wave of gang shootings with 1-2 daily fatalities during the worst weeks. That is nothing compared to the most violent US cities but it was completely unprecedented for a Danish city. The gang warfare was stopped by massive police surveillance operations. This included military surveillance and signal intelligence planes [1] and helicopters to aid the police. It worked. I know it goes against left-libertarian talking points on HN/reddit to suggest that police and surveillance can actually stop crime but it did in 2017 in Copenhagen. Looking at the gang problems still facing Sweden I'm fine with Danish authorities going full surveillance mode back in 2017 instead of letting the gang violence grow to Swedish levels. [1]: https://www.berlingske.dk/samfund/politiet-tager-nye-vaaben-i-brug-mod-banderne-vi-goer-fund-og-fangster-fordi-vi https://www.berlingske.dk/samfund/politiet-tager-nye-vaaben-...
  - SJC_Hacker 2y ago
    I don't think anyone is opposed to police surveillance at least in public areas or with some warrant. The questions are 1) proper judicial oversight in the latter case and 2) governments making it illegal for anyone to distribute more effective (assumed) privacy
dfawcus 2y ago
Chat Control may well give them a second bite at the cherry, if it get through. It keeps getting resurrected with slight variations, and if passed, then they'd be obliged to implement some form of back door. So I guess all one can say is that the war continues, just one battle has been won.
rr808 2y ago
The dumb thing is you know the USA has a backdoor onto everything, probably including Tiktok by now. European states are trying to play fair when everyone else broke the rules a long time ago. What we really need is a European social media company to use instead of this US dominated **show.
smogcutter 2y ago
I would reject a backdoor man date too, but to each their own.
ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
> The proposed law was a surveillance wishlist disguised as anti-drug legislation. So the fact that people break one law which violates their basic human rights, the right to privacy and to decide over what they put in their own bodies, suddenly becomes an excuse to violate their right to privacy even further.
jalapenos 2y ago
Seems so many in government are incapable of asking "are we the baddies?". Scum rises to the top in our system
dickersnoodle 2y ago
Am I the only person giggling at this headline?
neycoda 2y ago
Backdoors are too much of a security risk for the people. The solution is to provide the data upon a search warrant from a judge who determines a reason for suspicion of a crime. That's it. The government pushing for more than that is becoming a new security problem.

1043 points by hn_acker 2y ago

Though it is a good piece of news (and those are not that common nowadays), some caution about the political context is warranted here. The National Assembly is very divided a the moment, and the Minister defending the backdoor amendment is from a minority party at the AN, that just happens to have majority in the other chamber. Also, he is preparing for a presidential bid, and has a fair share of ennemies, both in and out of his party. So, all in all, it was a relatively "cheap" move from the MP who voted against it : - it's screwing up with a powerful opponent - it's easy publicity given that "spyping in whatsapp" would made bad headlines - there has not been a massive terrorist attack recently, so the measure will not look urgent. I'm pretty sure that some of those MPs, asked to vote the same thing by a president of their party, after a terror attack, would vote for the backdoor.

palata 2y ago

Just like for other big challenges like biodiversity and climate change, it feels like it often boils down to the politicians just not understanding enough to take rational decisions. Of course they can't all have a PhD in cryptography, but they should also not have no clue at all. Over an over again, politicians are asking for backdoors. To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryption works. Especially these days in Europe, it seems completely insane: it is already a problem that most companies use US services, given that the US have become hostile to Europe. The sane way to go is to try to get better privacy for European companies/people, not worse. Adding backdoors just makes it easier for adversaries to access private data.

miohtama 2y ago
But think of the children
- WJW 2y ago
  The children are not benefited by Putin and Kim Jong-Un being able to read their messages.
mouse_ 2y ago
[flagged]
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  >Right wing international police apparatus will stop at nothing. What's this have to do with right wing? Can't we have a civil discussion about tech impact in society without making it all about how only one political affiliation is always evil wile the other is always righteous? Abuse on freedom of speech, spying and censorship is bad no matter which political side does it, and they all do it, so leave your political grumbles at home, this aint the place, hence flagged.
  - zimza 2y ago
    Because tech and society, like everything else, is inherently political. Backdoors, surveillance, control. These are things fascist and proto-fascist societies try to achieve. And they are thriving as of late.
    - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
      Fascist behavior and actions aren't limited to the political right wing. Anyone can do it, you just choose to cherry pick the one you dislike under "fascism" and be OK with the fascist behavior that allies to your political views as being correct and justified. Do you see any conservatives firebombing people's private property right now, or is it only the "tolerant left" doing it? How much online free speech was censored under the leadership of the left in the years prior, all under the guise of "protecting free speech" and "creating safe spaces"? One can abuse the "think of the children" emotional arguments to justify a lot of fascist totalitarian behavior and policies, all in the name of "good". Remember: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".
      - LPisGood 2y ago
        Vandalism by itself isn’t really a fascist action, so I’m not really sure what your point is. However, it is my experience that people using the phrase “tolerant left” aren’t frequently interested in discussions grounded in reality.
dataflow 2y ago
> they should also not have no clue at all. Over an over again, politicians are asking for backdoors. To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryption works. Unless you're claiming that it's literally impossible to construct a cipher with multiple decryption keys, I don't see how you're implying that asking for a backdoor "proves they don't understand the very basics of how encryption works". Their stance differs from yours due to their values being different from yours, not due to inferior literacy.
- whatshisface 2y ago
  It is impossible to construct a cypher with just one key, such that the good guys (spanning several allied nations, dozens of government agencies, perhaps even local police) can use the key, but bad guys (spanning several opposing nations, dozens of intelligence agencies, thousands of hacker groups, tens of thousands of individual cyber-criminals around the world) cannot. We are talking about every single person who can buy a copy of a piece of paper carried out of HQ being able to read all of your personal and professional correspondence: no doubt a possibility.
  - dataflow 2y ago
    You're missing my point completely. These folks very well understand that bad people can steal keys. Stolen keys have been a thing since antiquity. It's not rocket science they don't understand. Every single key in history has had a risk of theft and this is no exception. The truth is a lot of them understand this just like you. But unlike you, they are willing to accept this risk. You aren't. That's fine. You have a value disagreement -- you don't think the risk is worth it, and they think it is. Which is why you make arguments about the merits of the issue, instead of attacking the other side on their basic literacy. Just because you disagree on values that doesn't mean the other side is stupid or illiterate about the basics. This isn't about politeness either, it's actively counterproductive to your own cause: insulting people and showing that you lack a basic understanding of their position is a sure-fire way to make sure they dig their heels in and continue to oppose you regardless of the merits of the situation. i.e. it's a grest strategy for losing in the end.
whatshisface 2y ago
I would like to know what the public opinion on these issues is before blaming politician's ignorance, considering that to them the relevant knowledge is knowledge of what voters will support or tolerate. The impossible promise of backdoors that France can enter but no other country, organized criminal syndicate or petty government-employed stalker can find is only one impossible promise among the many we can hear from the world's parliaments. In fact, the impossible promise is something of a stereotypical tactic.
- aucisson_masque 2y ago
  French want less criminals and immigrants in the street. Whatever it takes. I'm french, i have not heard any people, work, street, even television or internet speak about that. The sad truth is that it wouldn't even solve the issue, criminals will always be able to use encrypted communications. there are open source software that can't be tampered with, software that doesn't use a single server where backdoor can be put, or they could even simply encrypt their text message. i could do that from my mac terminal and Bruno Retailleau isn't going to put a backdoor in my mac terminal...
  - Braxton1980 2y ago
    > French want less criminals and immigrants in the street. Whatever it takes. What about using the probability that a specific race or religion will commit crimes then target those people with aggressive tactics. As for the public they could make those people feel unwelcomed through constant harassment in the hopes they leave the country. Thus reducing the crime rate by any means. ---- I checked the murder rate and it's been on a downward trajectory for the last 30 years https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/fra/france/murder-homicide-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/fra/fra... I haven't check other stats but what if your views on crime are being manipulated by people who have agenda that normally wouldn't be possible if the true reason was revealed?
    - outside2344 2y ago
      In France, like a lot of other countries, they are blaming everything on the immigrants. Crime? Immigrants are doing it. Retirement age? Immigrants are spending the money. These things are not backed up by data, but just like the US, or Nazi Germany, nobody cares, simply easier to choose an easy "solution" and blame immigrants.
m463 2y ago
With things like this I think of the bill that tried to change the value of pi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_pi_bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_pi_bill
- pbhjpbhj 2y ago
  It seems to me the bill tried to charge royalties on maths and that a result would have been state sanctioned calculations would contradict the value of pi. The Wikipedia article notes that the redefining of pi was specifically not an aim of the bill, pi not being mentioned in it.
hartator 2y ago
> Just like for other big challenges like biodiversity and climate change, it feels like it often boils down to the politicians just not understanding enough to take rational decisions. Of course they can't all have a PhD in cryptography, but they should also not have no clue at all. They would argue about the damages drugs do. I think they know what they are doing. Digital privacy has no lobby outside of EEF. We donate more than $10k to them annually.
- Nextgrid 2y ago
  The "war" on drugs is what brings all of the violence and crime associated with drugs, not the drugs themselves. But it finances the police industrial complex and so many people would lose out (or be forced to focus on actual crimes rather than people consensually trading plants or chemicals) that it will never happen.
  - achenet 2y ago
    The pharmaceutical industry has a pretty big lobby, so does big tobacco, and don't even get me started on the alcohol industry. If one of them finds a way to patent drugs that are currently illegal or otherwise profit from it, legalization will happen. Honestly, in many places, legalization has already happened, look at the coffee shops in the Netherlands and the dispensaries in North America. The police industrial complex might be attached to their cash cow, but everyone else in the capitalist system wants to get rich too, and I suspect in the long run that'll win out. Also, much as how after a few thousand years of civilization people eventually wised up to human sacrifice wasn't actually a good idea and was not in any way required to make the sun come up, maybe at some point in the future we'll realize that harsh criminal penalties don't actually solve the drug problem. France has some of the strictest laws against cannabis use in Europe, and also some of the highest rates of consumption, or at least it did last time I checked.
  - tiltowait 2y ago
    > The "war" on drugs is what brings all of the violence and crime associated with drugs, not the drugs themselves. Some of it, certainly, but I doubt it's all. Violence committed by druggies trying to scrape up enough for their next hit would still happen.
amelius 2y ago
> To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryption works. Even if you don't have the encryption keys you can read messages by breaking into a phone and taking screenshots, for example.
- BowBun 2y ago
  If you've broken into the phone/app, you've got access to the key...
  - amelius 2y ago
    But it's only useful if you understand how encryption works.
daniel-s 2y ago
These aren't dumb people. They know exactly what they're asking for. Privacy and security of the public's data is not a priority to them, surveillance and power is. Politicians would much prefer all communication in plaintext, to hell with individual freedoms and privacy, especially European politicians that don't come from the same traditions of freedom as the anglophone countries. What politician do you expect to openly confess the above in public. These are world-leading politicians, i.e., professional athletes of lying and obfuscation.
- bananalychee 2y ago
  The UK and Australia are ahead of countries like France in restricting freedom, so this sounds like a poor attempt to avoid complimenting the US specifically.
  - thomasfedb 2y ago
    What freedoms are you referring to wrt Australia?
    - chgs 2y ago
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-46463029 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-46463029 https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/14/identify_and_disrupt_bill_australia/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/14/identify_and_disrupt_...
- econ 2y ago
  I sort of agree with them. I want all privacy abolished for politicians. Think about it, if we live stream them in the shower we might get some much needed young people to take the job. Let them keep the ad revenue. Only fans suggests it should be the best paid job out there and the workers are all about public approval. no more naughty business!
  - verisimi 2y ago
    That is not how it works. Politicians will vote for special measures for themselves, but citizens need to have their data easily presentable for inspection by government agencies. Think of the children/terrorists.
zelphirkalt 2y ago
The problem is, that many of the politicians in high positions are corrupt, bought by companies, and/or only went into politics, because they couldn't get a productive job. There are politicians, who never in their life had a proper job, were born wealthy and never had to work like someone in a productive proper job has to. There may be exceptions, of course, but over and over again, when one checks the background of politicians in high positions, one finds out, that they simply inherited a lot, and never worked in the field they are making decisions about, nor actually in any other field. They "just became politicians". And even then they misuse funds, cars for private trips, first class tickets on means of transportation, let themselves be bought by lobbies, have prospect of some corporate board later, have even more side income than they are being already paid for their badly done job as a politician, and so on and on. Many one could outright call despicable. The problem is, that we let them do it. Going into politics is such a clusterf' that no normal person even wants to do it any longer. It only attracts those kinds of person we see there. Others are sidelined or never join politics in the first place. Then we also don't vote/kick/protest them out of office the moment we hear about their crimes.
latexr 2y ago
> To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryption works. Hanlon’s razor isn’t always true, sometimes it really is malice. Considering EU ministers want to exempt themselves from Chat Control, that suggests to me they do understand enough of the basics. https://european-pirateparty.eu/chatcontrol-eu-ministers-want-to-exempt-themselves/ https://european-pirateparty.eu/chatcontrol-eu-ministers-wan...
- artursapek 2y ago
  I love the combination of them naming this evil bill "Child Sexual Abuse Regulation Proposal" to make it sound like an obviously good idea, and them asking to be exempt from it. So are you implying you are abusing children?
  - fransje26 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - barbecue_sauce 2y ago
      You'll leave a link to a blatantly disreputable tabloid news blog?
      - southernplaces7 2y ago
        So what? The source isn't nearly so relevant as the nature of the information presented. It's tedious to see sometimes useful tidbits for possible investigation get dismissed because they're "disreputable".
        Teever 2y ago
        Can't you find a better source?
      - fransje26 2y ago
        Similar accusations have been constant recurring themes since the emergence of the Dutroux case, and from other cases that have emerged since then. That link was the first random link that popped up, that, from memory, was illustrating the theme at hand. No, I wasn't willing to do a deep dive into the putrid sewer of child abuse to satisfy the need for a "better" link. It's upsetting enough to know that these things exist, and I have absolutely no need to make it my area of expertise and focus, for my own well-being. If you want to, knock yourself off.
noduerme 2y ago
>> given that the US have become hostile to Europe I'd like to comfort you that this is not true for the majority of Americans. We are having a hard time wrapping our heads around what our new government is doing.
- imoverclocked 2y ago
  It kinda doesn’t matter; Individuals aren’t making foreign policy decisions day-by-day, Republicans leaders are. Until we effect change in our government, we are hostile to most of our allies.
  - noduerme 2y ago
    It matters to me, as a person who travels frequently, that people in the countries I visit don't believe that Americans writ large voted for the foreign policy we see being enacted. Even among the ones who voted for Trump, there seems to be a lot of shock at the aggressive posture toward our allies. I think it's important to convey that a majority of Americans are not on board with this 180 degree turn in our position toward Europe. But yes... individuals don't make foreign policy, and we are subject to the whims of our polity. That's exactly what I'm asking the parent poster to take into account.
    - imoverclocked 2y ago
      It matters to me too. However, it still doesn’t negate the fact that we are hostile. There is always good news and bad news in the world. Our judicial branch is (so far) working to reverse illegal moves by the executive branch. People are protesting across the US and across the world. Our allies are currently putting pressure on us that is reversible. The bad news is that our country is losing trust every day. We voted this person into office twice. We are deporting people for voiced opposition to the regime. There are now travel warnings to the US from multiple countries. Ironically, it’s now harder to leave the US. MAGA is trying to spread into other countries given the foothold it has gained here. There isn’t a lot of comfort to give when the guy who holds the nations nuclear codes is questionably coherent and actively hostile.
csomar 2y ago
> it feels like it often boils down to the politicians just not understanding enough to take rational decisions. That's a very gullible take and kind of apologetic for the politicians. If you are implementing a backdoor to crypto-systems, you probably know exactly what you are doing. That, and this has been re-surfacing time and again under different pretenses make this a deliberate attack on freedom of expression. The politicians know exactly what they are doing.
- Spivak 2y ago
  I'm sure some of them do but encryption is pretty unusual as a lock that police can't break. If a judge orders a search of your house and the incriminating evidence is in a safe they will break it open if you refuse to open it for them. Governments aren't exactly happy that for digital assets there's ready made mass-market systems where the response to any search warrant will be to pound sand. When law enforcement tells you that they're being hindered by the fact that even unsophisticated criminals have E2EE messaging and that's their biggest source of evidence (pulling text records) then asking for back doors starts to sound reasonable. It isn't of course because it defeats the whole point but it doesn't have to be a crusade against speech or whatever.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    > Governments aren't exactly happy that for digital assets there's ready made mass-market systems where the response to any search warrant will be to pound sand. Which is to say they understand the situation perfectly and are acting with a firm intellectual grasp of what is going on. The issue isn't that they don't understand encryption, it is that they reject citizens having any sort of power to resist the state. Which is cool and all, authoritarianism is always with us to some extent. But at its core they see this from the viewpoint that the state is fundamentally in control and sometimes it grants people the privilege of privacy because it doesn't think what they are saying is important and therefore they can be humoured. They'll pretend technical ignorance if it gets the liberals off their backs, but the only people they are fooling are the credulous.
    - 2y ago
sitkack 2y ago
> Of course they can't all have a PhD in cryptography We could be seeing the effect of France's top notch level of mathematical attainment in how their politicians are behaving. Education lifts all boats.
- hkt 2y ago
  On the other hand, people can believe experts without being experts. Perhaps the French parliamentarians just listen better.
  - sitkack 2y ago
    Not trying to debate club you here, but it could also be that higher educational attainment creates parliamentarians that can listen.
    - sitkack 2y ago
      Another thought, in a highly educated populace, the path length between any person and someone highly skilled would be much shorter. Everyone would know someone who knows someone who is an expert in a subject. So it would be much easier for someone to seek and get assistance.
raincole 2y ago
What politicians want (and what they think average people want) is very different from what HN users want. Politicians: a backdoor that can be used by the police for investigating crimes, but not by criminals themselves. HN users: no backdoor at all, especially not a backdoor that can be used by the police.
- bryanrasmussen 2y ago
  also politicians want a backdoor especially for tracking treason / spying possibilities, which in a way comes under police investigating crimes but is more national security apparatus protecting the state.
  - palata 2y ago
    Which makes no sense, because if you have a backdoor, it opens the way for adversaries to access your data. You don't improve your national security by weakening its encryption.
- concerndc1tizen 2y ago
  I strongly disagree. Politicians: technology that strengthens the power of the state, against crime, but also militarily, for spying on enemies both foreign and domestic. Citizens: defensive architecture that prevents the state from preventing free speech. This is especially relevant in the era of AI, where the cost of mass surveillance is virtually zero, and is incredibly powerful at sentiment analysis and summarization. Free speech is threatened when any statement can and will be used against you.
zazazache 2y ago
They know, they just don’t care. And they have learned if they just ignore problems, then most times they’ll get away with it. Like for example all their responsibilities to stop an ongoing genocide, or to combat apartheid
agent327 2y ago
The US have not become hostile. So far it has made two demands of Europe, and both of them are reasonable: 1. Europe should not rely entirely on the US for its defense (stated by Trump numerous times). 2. Europe should stop its mad self-destruction and descent into totalitarianism (stated by Vance on several occasions). Were they incorrect? Were they unreasonable? Sometimes you need a friend to tell you a harsh truth. Hearing that truth does not make that friend into an enemy; quite the contrary.
- hkt 2y ago
  And tariffs are the the act of a friend too? Let's not be silly. Trump's is America first: the upshot of which is everyone else can be a subordinate or a rival. Europe is wisely choosing not to subordinate itself to the US quite so much. It'll be interesting to see if it becomes a real rival.
- TFYS 2y ago
  1. And made it clear by threatening to take land from a European country by force. 2. That's funny coming from a person who is building a totalitarian system. He was supporting parties that would make a similar development in Europe possible.
- sunshine-o 2y ago
  It is anecdotal but during Covid and the crypto boom I was chatting with someone living in France. He told me he was happy to have a few crypto since he has been using one of those exchange to buy illegal drugs. Basically he told me that over there people just go on websites to order drugs, pay with crypto from a centralized crypto exchange and then have it delivered in they physical mailbox. And this is not the Silk road thing this is local business, shipped by the national postal service from an address in France from France. I also read an article once saying drug stores on the internet and social media are very common over there. My conclusion was that, selling most drugs had become de facto decriminalized in France. Strangely France is also by far the country where I have been systematically harassed by the police and customs (at the frontier and within the country). They are very aggressive and it is to the point that I now avoid that country as much as possible.
- 2y ago
ErrorNoBrain 2y ago
> but they should also not have no clue at all. they usually talk to experts in those areas. Who those experts are can vary quite a lot though.
bboygravity 2y ago
"the US have become hostile to Europe." 1. I don't believe that anything changed in recent months/years other than the US repeating the statement that maybe EU should take care of its own defense. Not exactly a new sign of "becoming hostile" IMO. 2. If this would even be true then they have always been hostile to Europe and only just recently started becoming honest and open about it (but again, I dont see any sign of actual change). Five eyes, NSA, etc is not exactly new and have super obviously been used and are still being used by the US to do economic and political espionage on Europe for at least decades. The leaked news of NSA spying on German chancellor Angela Merkel's phone is like 10+ years ago by now? My opinion is that every EU company that uses Onedrive, Teams, Outlook, Google etc (99 percent of them is my guess) are basically paying to give away their trade secrets to their US competitors. "but the terms of the contract say..." yeah right...
- graemep 2y ago
  Its just become harder to stick European heads in the sand. Is government agencies to. In the UK the NHS uses AWS, courts use Teams.... IT security is just ignored - its only recently that it occurred to the govt to remove Chinese cameras from sensitive sites. European militaries are heavily dependent on the US too and have a lot of equipment that is reliant on US supplies or can only be used in line with agreements with the US.
  - apples_oranges 2y ago
    Plus apparently there are things that only USA can currently do, awacs radar support and other recon I think
    - ojl 2y ago
      I believe there are several non-US awacs systems out there, although the American ones are probably the most common.
- apples_oranges 2y ago
  They have alienated their allies for sure and this time it seems different and it seems that it will have a lasting impact. Including for tech companies.
charcircuit 2y ago
>To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryption works. Chats being encrypted between multiple participants is a normal use case of cryptography. Giving limited government access can be part of a cryptoscheme and doesn't mean that encryption has to be disabled.
pembrook 2y ago
> it is already a problem that most companies use US services, given that the US have become hostile to Europe. Risking a potential flame war here but I think it’s important to cool down hysterical rhetoric whenever it’s pushed. The US has not become hostile to Europe, and it’s quite silly to say this in contrast to, say, a certain country next door that is currently invading a European country. The US is in the midst of a many decades “pivot to Asia.” This is not hostility, but growing indifference.
- palata 2y ago
  > This is not hostility, but growing indifference. Among others, the US is threatening to invade and annex ex-allies using militarily force. This is the definition of "hostility", and again this is only one example.
hamilyon2 2y ago
Every good idea needs powerful PR. How about we start rallying around the term "software equivalent of cancer" which Tim Cook coined to describe encryption backdoor. Speech matters. "Software cancer bill" sure sounds less appealing than "catch terrorists bill". Nobody has to understand the details about why encryption backdoor is impossible to implement without breaking the encryption. It is too hard of a topic. I only understand it vaguely. Does it matter? You don't need phd in silicon design to know that chips are important.
joostdecock 2y ago
I am not here de defend politicians, but... The title says "France rejects backdoor mandate" but TFA makes it clear that France is not a hive-mind: - The rejection was by the French National Assembly (think parliament/congres) - Ths happened despite pressure from the internal ministry (the government) I find it interesting that it is often a similar story at the EU level where the European Parliament puts a stop to the worst impulses of the European Commission.
tw04 2y ago
> given that the US have become hostile to Europe That’s more than a bit of an overstatement. One faction in the US government has started being less loyal to Europe. Most Americans consider Europe to still be our closest allies and friends. Furthermore the US businesses are not stupid and have shown they will stand up to government pressure around data sovereignty. Anything less will drive both US and global customers back to on-prem infrastructure. https://www.reuters.com/article/legal/microsoft-sues-us-government-over-data-requests-idUSL2N17H1F6/ https://www.reuters.com/article/legal/microsoft-sues-us-gove...
- timbit42 2y ago
  > Most Americans consider Europe to still be our closest allies and friends. The feeling isn't mutual. > Furthermore the US businesses are not stupid and have shown they will stand up to government pressure around data sovereignty. Only until it threatens their livelihood and family. Don't be naive. The majority of both Democrat and Republican members of the Senate and Congress, and many judges and other people in high positions in the government are afraid of the repercussions of crossing Trump. The US is screwed.
- palata 2y ago
  > Most Americans consider Europe to still be our closest allies and friends. Maybe, yes. Do you know how many Europeans now consider that the US are not allies anymore? And how many take the threats of invading them seriously? Allies don't threaten to invade. > Furthermore the US businesses are not stupid The oligarchs of BigTech have clearly bent the knee. It would be irrational to trust them.
- alphager 2y ago
  Your government has threatened military invasion of Denmark.
paulddraper 2y ago
> To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryption works. No? You can have encryption with “secure” backdoors. (In the sense that only an entity with the backdoor key could use it.) For example, let’s say you were going to symmetrically encrypt some data with a certain private key. You can add the key to the data, asymmetrically encrypted with the public backdoor key. (You can improve on this with a salt to retain public anonymity.) As a theoretical matter, cryptography can do this. As a practical matter…that’s a separate question of human structures and behaviors. But you don’t need cryptography to understand that.
neycoda 2y ago
The adversary is often the person wanting the backdoor.

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ziofill 2y ago

I’ve lived and worked in France for three years. There are many things I’ve learned about it, some good some bad, but certainly one of them is that France is a country that can show real leadership.

buybackoff 2y ago

I've found the original debates video on the National Assembly website. My French is good enough for that (not enough for cooking et al. though), so I believe I understood. I'm positively surprised by some deputies remarks. But Bruno (interior minister) Retailleau is either totally incompetent technically, with his advisors as well, or is a liar. "We will apply the math selectively, only for those that are a threat and when the big brother approves"... In every country it's the same narrative. This time it was not about children, but "Freeing France from the drug trafficking trap" ("Sortir la France du piège du narcotrafic"). And it looks like it was not the main point and they tried to pass it as a minor subnote or something. ... They will find dozens of other issues to cancel the math. https://videos.assemblee-nationale.fr/video.16453163_67dc7864b9d58.3eme-seance--sortir-la-france-du-piege-du-narcotrafic-suite-20-mars-2025 https://videos.assemblee-nationale.fr/video.16453163_67dc786...

mytailorisrich 2y ago
France is in decay with incompetent and unpatriotic governments for decades. It is facing many issues but has lacked strong leadership courageous enough to put country first. So, in fact, it is a fairly typical European country... The spread of "narcotrafic" is an example of that, there are others. If you follow French news you'll see many.
- buybackoff 2y ago
  I live in France for the last 5 years. Been to many places in the world. France is OK overall.
  - mytailorisrich 2y ago
    Well I am French. "OK overall" is obviously good but at global scale this means better than the "third world", so context is important. The context of my previous reply is France's "direction of travel", which negative like most other European countries. This is a key metric on any meaningful timescale, which is what ultimately matters.

aucisson_masque 2y ago

The backdoor mandate was part of an anti organized criminality law, Bruno Retailleau (interior minister) pretend criminals use encrypted chat to communicate and so backdoor is required to intercept their communications. makes sense to the average non tech people. The sad truth however is that it wouldn't even solve the issue, criminals will always be able to use encrypted communications: there are open source software that can't be tampered with, software that doesn't use a single server where backdoor can be put, or they could even simply encrypt their text message. i could do that from my mac terminal, encryption is basically mathematics. Bruno Retailleau isn't somehow going to put a backdoor in every device that could be used to encrypt. People even used to encrypt communications before computer. The only looser of that law is the normie, you and me, who use whatsapp or signal to chat and couldn't ever push their relative to use things like pgp encrypted email.

FirmwareBurner 2y ago
Wouldn't law enforcement just use Pegasus style zero-days to spy on the their targets? So why all the hubbub about making backdoors that become vulnerabilities for nefarious users too? Like why bother convicting Signal to create a backdoor for you, when you can put your nations geniuses to find some RCE bugs in Qualcomm or Apple modems or SoCs, and spy on them that way? This way nobody's the wiser.
- whatshisface 2y ago
  Governments around the world do not want to stop at the identifiable target. They'd like to imitate the US and China, obtaining special deals with service providers that allow them to collect summary statistics and identify individuals computationally from the total of all communication. Here are a few uses for total surveillance: 1. Public opinion can be monitored on a much more objective level than polling provides. 2. Discontent can be identified long before potential protestors are aware of others who share their views. 3. People whose views are significantly outside the usual range can be picked out and targeted in advance of any crime, even when no crime would occur. 4. Serious attempts at labor or protest organization can be resolved into definite schedules with more basis for comparison to other events than the participants themselves have access to. 5. There would be no more electoral surprises. From this list, you may notice that states that are presently democratic have even more of a use for this capability than the others.

AceJohnny2 2y ago

Tangentially, France has had the CNIL [1] since ~1978, following a scandal about creating a national citizen's database, and exists to prevent exactly that. (I believe the objection stemmed from memories of the Petainist fascist regime during WW2) The CNIL is why France (and now Europe) has "Right to Forget" laws. It is the direct ancestor of stuff like GDPR. Unfortunately, I feel like the CNIL is fairly neutered nowadays. Nevertheless, it serves as historical precedent, for those who remember it exists. [1] "Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes" ~= "National Commission of Computing & Liberties"

mocamoca 2y ago
This goes well beyond historical precedent. The legal system is complex, but even when Parliament approves a law, it can still be struck down if it violates fundamental principles. For matters concerning IT and privacy, the CNIL (French Data Protection Authority) could spearhead such cancellation proceedings. And companies doing business in France should watch out—CNIL sanctions are no joke! Are there specific events making you feel it has been neutered?
vladms 2y ago
I wonder if not having such state database is not causing today more issues than it defends from. In the 80s I would get it, the state was the only one able to build such a database and people were afraid of what it would do secretly with it. Nowadays, "everybody" has a database with millions of people (ex: facebook, linkedin, x, tax offices, etc.) and discriminatory actions are done based on whims/stupidity rather than on actual good data. People will do horrible stuff because they believe in it, not because they have good data.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  The CNIL is doing a ton of work to limit private databases and cross-checking as well. It can be hard to believe from more business focused countries, but the agency setting precedents has had dissuasion effects, and most companies do end up caring about their data retention and management policies. I've been in enough meetings where UX proposal gets entirely reworked because of a simple link to the CNIL's guidelines.

nickslaughter02 2y ago

France has rejected this backdoor but keep in mind that France is still in favor of chat control (mandatory on device scanning of your communication). There's now a majority among EU countries and the proposal is expected to pass. The next meeting is April 8th.

buybackoff 2y ago
I hoped that was a part of this EU debate. It's sad if not.
deleted 2y ago
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orwin 2y ago
France government is a minority government. The proposal their finance/interior minister do to the council of Europe is a minority opinion in France.
- nickslaughter02 2y ago
  Does that make a difference? The proposal has France's vote.
thomasingalls 2y ago
This seems like one of those situations that's going to turn regular people into outlaws. How could anyone vote in favor of something so foolish? Also how would that even work, would your device get compromised by connecting to a wireless network inside French borders?
rdm_blackhole 2y ago
And as usual, the french politicians will change their tune in a few months and go on TV and say that the EU made them do it even though they did not want to.
contravariant 2y ago
Ugh, no wonder they don't mind missing this one. Chat control is far more pervasive than what amounts to a digital wiretap.

Etheryte 2y ago

This is a good reminder that regardless of what country you hail from, freedom and liberty are like love — continuous activities that you do every day, not something that you achieve once and then you're done. There will always be those who wish to consolidate more power to themselves than is good and always those who wish to impose their will on others. These people win if you, specifically you reading this, don't do something. So always choose to do something.

thomassmith65 2y ago

If the general public is given a choice between super secret internet messaging, or the current status quo, they will go for the latter. This is because the former hampers law enforcement's ability to track down criminals and terrorists. And the better informed non-techies are about the tech, the more they will support backdoors. No large service will survive providing E2EE. In the near future, there is bound to be some widely publicized incident where E2EE plays a pivotal role in a big atrocity or financial calamity. Then the public will demand that government, for whom it is already a worry, do something about it. It just seems like a pipedream to me that unfettered E2EE will last in big tech.

stephen_g 2y ago
E2EE is very much in the interest of providers, because if their systems are breached in a cyberattack, E2EE is the only thing that stops that stolen data being useful. People can be educated about that. Terrorists used planes as the key part of the attack in 9/11, and nobody called for a ban on all air travel. It’s not a forgone conclusion people will be fine keeping E2EE!
- thomassmith65 2y ago
  Judging by post 9/11 airport security SOP, if an alternate means of mass transport had been as fast as air travel, America would have banned commercial flights forevermore on 9/12. The only benefit E2EE messaging offers the public over partially encrypted messaging is a lower chance of being spied upon. That's nice, but intangible.
fuzzzerd 2y ago
That seems a plausible outcome. Pretty dystopian for sure, but plausible. Sadly the cat is out of the bag, so banning it for the general public means that only the bad guys have it and they're already presumably doing illegal things so why do they care about using illegal software too?
nickslaughter02 2y ago
"If the general public is given a choice between super secret internet messaging, or the current status quo, they will go for the latter. This is because the former hampers law enforcement's ability to track down criminals and terrorists." I don't know where you live but that's not my experience thankfully. Why? Because the opinion is (including mine) that the vast majority of crimes should not be crimes at all (in this case all drugs should be freely available for adults to buy) and terrorist acts will happen whether you spy on citizens or not anyway.

spapas82 2y ago

> provision that would have forced messaging platforms like Signal and WhatsApp to allow hidden access to private conversations. The fact that this could have been possible is the reason why the pgp/gpg way (you manage your certificate and you choose whose certificates to trust) is still the only way to have true encrypted communications. Using centralised services to encrypt important data is a joke.

precommunicator 2y ago
PGP/GPG by default have no perfect forward secrecy though. In Signal you can check the certificates checksums in conversation settings, to compare them e.g. when physically present to the other device. There are other solutions that use Signal protocol or that have PFS that are decentralized. And you can build your own, it's open source at the end. Signal stated already that they would sooner exit certain markets than violate their security (e.g. https://swedenherald.com/article/signals-ceo-then-were-leaving-sweden https://swedenherald.com/article/signals-ceo-then-were-leavi...)
- spapas82 2y ago
  Yes, if you care about forward secrecy then pgp is not a good solution. > Signal stated already that they would sooner exit certain markets than violate their security You still need to rely on a third party's goodwill to keep that promise. Also even if they are willing to keep the promise it is possible that they won't be able.
- 3np 2y ago
  The point was not really about using PGP specifically but referring to its web-of-trust model, I believe. Forward secrecy does not require centralized key distribution and/or trust lists.
- upofadown 2y ago
  If you keep your messages around in some form then that effectively defeats forward secrecy. In any case where the attacker can get your secret encryption key material, they will be able to get any messages you still have access to. Most people want to keep their old messages around. So for messaging, forward secrecy is of little practical value. If you do keep your messages around, then PGP's encrypt once[1] scheme is much better than what most other systems do. The message is encrypted and stays encrypted. It is never in a decrypted state unless the user wants to look at it. This normally involves the entry of a secure passphrase. Contrast that with typical instant messengers where the security of retained messages is entirely up to the device security. The implementation of a forward secrecy scheme ironically makes this more likely. Once the session key is deleted, the easiest way to keep the message around is to leave it as plaintext. So the user either has to turn on self deleting messages and lose those messages, or has to leave those messages available to potential attackers. BTW, "forward secrecy" is a terrible term for usability. Something like "message burning" much better fits with a typical users conceptual context. [1] https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgpfan:encryptonce https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgpfan:encryptonce

deleted 2y ago

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grej 2y ago

France is shining brightly on many levels at the moment.

econ 2y ago

I forsee that the future will bring us LLMs that can reasonably precisely find incriminating chats while keeping everything perfectly unreadable for those naughty untrustworthy humans.

roschdal 2y ago

Vive La France!

rixed 2y ago

Probably just step one of a multi step journey toward European wide mandatory backdoor.

hoseja 2y ago

Just don't ask what happened to Telegram :)

ingohelpinger 2y ago

this was a battle not the war, they will come back sooner or later.

isaacremuant 2y ago

They keep trying to impose an all seeing all knowing state and people here have already bought into the "age verification, think of the children" rethoric. After seeing how gleefully people accepted totalitarian anti constitutional covid laws, It's omly a matter of time. Wait for the next "crisis". Good one for France, though.

zkmon 2y ago

Any grouping (such as nation) of individuals arises from some loss of freedom, income and privacy for the individuals. The loss of individuals or the contribution is the element that powers the nation or a community. 100% privacy means zero privacy-related contribution towards legal enforcement. So the question is all about striking a balance between loss of privacy and the need for legal enforcement. The negotiations would continue, to arrive at the acceptable/needed level of privacy loss.

stingraycharles 2y ago
The problem in this case is that the actual criminals will just move to a more obscure, properly encrypted solution, and as such the normal population that uses Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal will be the only users being monitored.
dtquad 2y ago
In 2017 Copenhagen had a wave of gang shootings with 1-2 daily fatalities during the worst weeks. That is nothing compared to the most violent US cities but it was completely unprecedented for a Danish city. The gang warfare was stopped by massive police surveillance operations. This included military surveillance and signal intelligence planes [1] and helicopters to aid the police. It worked. I know it goes against left-libertarian talking points on HN/reddit to suggest that police and surveillance can actually stop crime but it did in 2017 in Copenhagen. Looking at the gang problems still facing Sweden I'm fine with Danish authorities going full surveillance mode back in 2017 instead of letting the gang violence grow to Swedish levels. [1]: https://www.berlingske.dk/samfund/politiet-tager-nye-vaaben-i-brug-mod-banderne-vi-goer-fund-og-fangster-fordi-vi https://www.berlingske.dk/samfund/politiet-tager-nye-vaaben-...
- SJC_Hacker 2y ago
  I don't think anyone is opposed to police surveillance at least in public areas or with some warrant. The questions are 1) proper judicial oversight in the latter case and 2) governments making it illegal for anyone to distribute more effective (assumed) privacy

dfawcus 2y ago

Chat Control may well give them a second bite at the cherry, if it get through. It keeps getting resurrected with slight variations, and if passed, then they'd be obliged to implement some form of back door. So I guess all one can say is that the war continues, just one battle has been won.

rr808 2y ago

The dumb thing is you know the USA has a backdoor onto everything, probably including Tiktok by now. European states are trying to play fair when everyone else broke the rules a long time ago. What we really need is a European social media company to use instead of this US dominated **show.

smogcutter 2y ago

I would reject a backdoor man date too, but to each their own.

ulrikrasmussen 2y ago

> The proposed law was a surveillance wishlist disguised as anti-drug legislation. So the fact that people break one law which violates their basic human rights, the right to privacy and to decide over what they put in their own bodies, suddenly becomes an excuse to violate their right to privacy even further.

jalapenos 2y ago

Seems so many in government are incapable of asking "are we the baddies?". Scum rises to the top in our system

dickersnoodle 2y ago

Am I the only person giggling at this headline?

neycoda 2y ago

Backdoors are too much of a security risk for the people. The solution is to provide the data upon a search warrant from a judge who determines a reason for suspicion of a crime. That's it. The government pushing for more than that is becoming a new security problem.