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Denmark's Justice Minister calls encrypted messaging a false civil liberty

• christkv 1y ago
  Well then why does he need an exception from the rule.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• Aldipower 1y ago
  Det er virkelig et skam. Pinlig.
  • vages 1y ago
    *en skam
    • sgt 1y ago
      Han skriver dansk
      • LadyCailin 1y ago
        Kamalåså!
• fxtentacle 1y ago
  I look forward to soon reading about Peter Hummelgaard's leaked private emails in the newspapers. Let's hope (for him) that he was right about not needing any privacy or encryption. And let's hope his friends/family agree.
  • askonomm 1y ago
    Well according to the Chat Control legislation proposal, politicians are, of course, exempt from monitoring.
    • mrighele 1y ago
      Note that he said "everyone's civil liberty". It means that he thinks that it is not everybody's right, not that it is nobody's right. They want to keep the right for themselves.
    • Almondsetat 1y ago
      Politicians' work emails are exempt, but private ones as citizens aren't
    • troyvit 1y ago
      I think (or hope) that the point of the parent was to leak his emails anyway just so he gets a taste of what it's like for citizens to live in the society he wants to create. Personally I get the sense that politicians are too narcissistic to learn a lesson from that but it would still be fun.
    • mcv 1y ago
      Because everybody knows that politicians are immune to the temptations of child porn...
    • dathinab 1y ago
      it's very ironic that they don't realize that this really doesn't work that way in practice whatever backdoor you put in - will be used for industry espionage - will be used against politicians where it's supposed shouldn't apply - will be used by state actors systematically destabilize EU countries if the relationship with US, China, Russia get's worse (e.g. "ups, I spoofed non encrypted message and no it looks like the prime minister is a pedo" kind of situations)
    • l-one-lone 1y ago
      Nope. That's not true. There is a provision that exempts people working for state security (e.g. spies), not politicians. Please don't make up stuff: this proposed law is already bad enough.
    • willi59549879 1y ago
      those are the only people who should never be exempt
• Mistletoe 1y ago
  Encrypted messaging is a basic human right. Those who seek to end it should be put on the same lists as other human rights abusers.
  • zoobab 1y ago
    Those politicians can barely write laws that are not a frontal attack on fundamental rights.
  • patchtopic 1y ago
    well said.
  • b3lvedere 1y ago
    Not that i do not agree, but how did the humans actually do that a couple of thousands of years ago?
    • esafak 1y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cryptography#Antiquity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cryptography#Antiqu...
    • endgame 1y ago
      I think that the cleaner argument is that the ability to have private conversations is a fundamental human right, and in the current technological environment, that means strong encryption.
    • bux93 1y ago
      Egyptian inscriptions used alternate hieroglyphics to hide meaning. Substitution ciphers were known to the Romans. Those involve mathing, although only a bit of addition. The Vigenère cipher is only hundreds, rather than thousands of years old - at least, as far as we know; the Greeks or Romans certainly had the requisite math skills to pull that one off. More broadly, confidential communications existed. Mesopotamian clay tablets (ca. 2000 BCE) had envelopes with seals. You'd imagine breaking a seal would be punishable. The hippocratic oath (3rd century BCE) mentions keeping medical secrets. But that's not to say a human right should not spring into existence as new technology becomes available. For instance, the freedom to receive information (especially radio stations, such as Voice of America) got some attention post WW II.
• r2xdgw129 1y ago
  Bloomberg recently published around 18,000 plain text Epstein mails from his Yahoo account which led to the firing of British US ambassador and long time powerful figure in the background Lord Mandelson. This could have been achieved at least 15 years earlier, so encryption does not seem to be the main obstacle to investigations. In some cases. Similarly, all investigations into Epstein related JP Morgan transactions have been obstructed, for example by the firing of a Virgin Islands GA who investigated too much. Looking forward to some EU politician tweets on these issues.
  • giveita 1y ago
    Epstein isn't a great example. It's someone leading an extravagant life we and connected to a rediculous number of people. That's a lot of people to try and get to use signal or exchange PGP keys with. Especially celebrities that wouldnt know what that is.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
• aa-jv 1y ago
  [flagged]
• einarfd 1y ago
  Oops, seems the quote is an old one, and not news. That invalidates my original post somewhat, and I'm sorry that I didn't do proper due diligence. Here is the original post: That doesn't sound like the rhetoric of someone who is winning. It sounds more like something someone pushed into a corner, and seeing their project crumbling would say. But bringing up that it is about civil liberties is an important point, not the way he would like though. You would think that trying to keep the discourse about criminals and pedophiles would be smarter for his side? I do not follow Danish politics, but I do start to wonder if he is just not very good at doing politics?
  • redprince 1y ago
    Rest assured, he's also trying that route. That mastodon article links to parliamentary requests for clarification of aforementioned quote. In article 1425 he responds (google translate): "We know that social media and encrypted services are unfortunately largely is used to facilitate many forms of crime. There are examples on how criminal gangs recruit completely through encrypted platforms young people to commit, among other things, serious crimes against persons. It is an expression of a cynicism that is almost completely incomprehensible. We therefore need to look at how we can overcome this problem. Both in terms of what the services themselves do, but also what we from the authorities can do. It must not be the case that the criminals can hide behind encrypted services that authorities cannot access to." [...] "I also note that steps have been taken within the EU towards a strengthened regulation of, among other things, digital information services and social media platforms. For example, the European Commission has proposed a new Regulation on rules for preventing and combating sexual abuse of children." [...] "The government has a strong focus on eliminating digital violations – it applies especially when it comes to sexual abuse of children – and supports the proposed regulation, unlike the opposition."
  • fuzzfactor 1y ago
    Even a 5 year old can tell right off the bat that it's a Minister of False Justice. Give me a break, more like an intrusive creep their parents want them to beware of. Most kids are taught not to lie, and they can smell it a mile away. Which is a bit more than a kilometer. Some adults just can not set a good example of what justice is, it's actually completely disgraceful when it gets to this point. Trying to be a bad influence on a younger generation. What's wrong with some people? Kids are too intuitive naturally to believe for a minute that privacy and civil liberty are erroneous concepts. They're well aware by this age that it's usually an individual erroneous moron who doesn't understand simple stuff like this, who's causing the trouble and some of them are adults no different than the asinine kids they are quite familiar with. As everybody knows, most average children by definition are born already having more intelligence than a below-average adult, kids just don't have a paycheck which depends on them having a dystopic point of view.
• catigula 1y ago
  If the government requires the ability to arbitrarily spy on anyone at will to exist (which they have, the encryption thing is mostly retrospective and unwillingness to use/reveal the bigger guns in large public cases), we are probably at a point when the nation state as we know it needs to be renegotiated entirely. That being said I don't agree that his is necessary.
• kriops 1y ago
  What an absolute clown literally trying to outlaw math. Are people going to jail every time they apply Fermat's little theorem, or what exactly is the plan here?
  • phkamp 1y ago
    I suggest you look into how much of chemistry, physics and biology has already been "outlawed", and how the legislatures went about it ?
    • aredox 1y ago
      Yeah, nitrogen chemistry, high-concentration hydrogen peroxyde is already fairly restricted, as well as poisons. Including in the US. The "right to bear arms" doens't cover high-energy explosives.
      • SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
        Interestingly, the laws around high explosives in the US aren’t as restricted as you think. You can make lots of things legally. The laws are around storage and transport. Where the short version is you 24hours and you mostly can’t transport.
      • mothballed 1y ago
        Ackshually, when the NFA was passed to 'tax' explosives ('destructive devices'), it was considered unconstitutional infringement on the right to keep/bear arms to ban explosives, machine guns, etc so they 'taxed' them instead. You can still buy/manufacture them with a tax stamp. Also when congress de-funded (outlawed) the process for felons to restore their firearm rights, they forgot to do it with explosives. So even a felon can have high-energy explosives legally.
      • jandrewrogers 1y ago
        High explosives are even less regulated than firearms in the US. You can buy them by the ton and explosives are very inexpensive. This does not circumvent compliance with regulations for safe transport and storage, which is the practical limitation.
• HelloUsername 1y ago
  Related discussion yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45242458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45242458
• patchtopic 1y ago
  A false civil liberty they reserved for themselves.
• 31337Logic 1y ago
  This Minister of "Justice" doesn't know the meaning of the word and should be fired immediately. Don't ever let anyone tell you that THEY are entitled to participate in YOUR private discussions. A good old fashioned "fuck you" does the trick, here.
• shiandow 1y ago
  Indeed it is not merely about the right people have to do something. It is about the right of the government to harm its citizens, all of them, all the time.
• Svip 1y ago
  A few details to note: The quote is from August 2024 (last year), and the question (from an MP) to the minister is from September 2024 and so is the response, which can be read here: https://www.ft.dk/samling/20231/almdel/reu/spm/1426/svar/2073769/2913128/index.htm https://www.ft.dk/samling/20231/almdel/reu/spm/1426/svar/207... For those less familiar with Danish: the minister's answer is basically the same spiel about needing to protect children; and how people will still be protected by the legal system (you know, which is little consultation after you've been beaten up, swindled across borders or worse). So this quote is from a year before Denmark had the presidency in the EU and pushed Chat Control forward. (Though clearly they haven't changed their views on this.)
  • 0xWTF 1y ago
    > consultation consolation
• enlyth 1y ago
  If he truly believes that, he should have no problem disclosing all of his private and personal messages and emails to us, for everyone to see on the internet. The truth is that this is just another corrupt politician.
  • nicolailolansen 1y ago
    The thing is, politicians will be exempt from the rules proposed by this chat control legislation. "*EU politicians exempt themselves from this surveillance under "professional secrecy" rules." source: https://fightchatcontrol.eu/ https://fightchatcontrol.eu/
• arcmutex 1y ago
  When Governments ban encryption, its like banning the citizens from sending unreadable gibberish messages over the network. Encryption algorithm, source code and ciphertext are also free speech. Here is RSA printed on a T-shirt: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Munitions_T-shirt_(front).jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Munitions_T-shirt_(fron...
• mr90210 1y ago
  The Danish showing their claws. The grass isn’t greener.
  • otikik 1y ago
    Those are not "claws". Claws are tools, and tools can be useful for an organism. Those are signs of rot and fungal infection.
    • mr90210 1y ago
      I stand corrected. As a fellow EU citizen that came from a “third world country” I can’t help but to be surprised about 3 things: - How slowly but surely the EU and its members are becoming exactly like the governments of said third world countries. (I’ve lived through them, trust me, I know) - How unaware most citizens are about EU’s power hungriness. The same EU that hasn’t yet apologised for their attempt to clean up the US mess in the Middle East by taking on the displaced people from that region without proper integration plans. - The fellow Europeans have little clue about the shit-show and corruption in Brussels. It’s rotten.
• mrtksn 1y ago
  Actually, having encryption defeating mechanisms makes a lot of sense when its limited to public servants, like the Denmark's Justice Minister. Those people are trusted with a lot of public resources, in fact all the public servants should have a monitoring device like a black box on them all the time and when something goes wrong that blackbox should be decrypt-able so we can look at the logs and see what went wrong. Corruption and incompetence, solved.
  • miohtama 1y ago
    Chat Control proposal excludes politicians themselves from Chat Control.
    • bojan 1y ago
      Former Dutch PM used to have an old Nokia with a very limited capacity to store messages[0], so he could always say he had to delete messages so he could keep receiving new ones. [0] https://nos.nl/artikel/2429354-wissen-sms-jes-door-rutte-volstrekt-verkeerd-signaal-maar-wat-zijn-de-regels https://nos.nl/artikel/2429354-wissen-sms-jes-door-rutte-vol...
      • alluro2 1y ago
        Eschewing responsibility through these kinds of "tricks", where the person obviously thinks themselves so above everyone else that they can make them idiots to their face, makes my blood boil. It's always either public "servants" in power, or the rich people, putting themselves outside of the rules. If you are an elected official, and make a stunt like this, it should be grounds for immediate dismissal, IMO. But, alas, nowadays these kinds of things are so minor and irrelevant, in the sea of ridiculously horrible stuff they do. It's at least refreshing that there are still places, like the Netherlands in this case, where there are some (even when it's surface-level) repercussions of such behavior.
        • vanviegen 1y ago
          > makes my blood boil I don't think off-the-record communication always implies corruption. I imagine it to be impossibly hard sometimes to get people to agree on anything (which is basically a PM's entire job), if all communication must happen out in the open.
• b3lvedere 1y ago
  I think i get what he's trying to achieve: To get the bad guys (faster) by disallowing things the bad guys can use to get away with stuff. The slippery balance is also that the good guys of yesterday are the bad guys of today and vice versa. But both never stopped development of better, weirder, stranger and scarier stuff that can both be used for bad or for good, whichever you choose. I highly doubt encryption will stop because they outlawed it. There will be even better development of encryption that will be even harder to detect if encryption was actually used.
  • em-bee 1y ago
    just a random thought, since AI can now simulate conversations, it can be used for steganography. you can hide the real conversation in a simulated one without effort.
• ricardo81 1y ago
  I'm definitely not one who thinks about these things deeply (as others surely do more), though the act of having a private conversation seems sacrosanct, why should distance or medium be a factor.
• wodow 1y ago
  Something I think is often missing in this evergreen debate: governments have banned encryption before, in amateur radio. See e.g. https://ham.stackexchange.com/questions/72/encrypted-traffic-and-amateur-radio https://ham.stackexchange.com/questions/72/encrypted-traffic... (Obviously, the difference is in number of users -- not many hams, and lots of internet users, and "a sufficiently large difference in quantity is a difference in kind")
  • voxlax 1y ago
    I don´t see the relation to this debate. HAM Radio communications do not need encryption, as they have a fully different purpose. You would not discuss private/sensitive matters anyway as the whole thing is just a hobby/learning/experimentation or sport. Your life´s important decisions don´t depend on this type of communication. Besides, I think one of the most important motivations behind this restriction is to avoid misusing frequencies for commercial purposes.
    • sleepybrett 1y ago
      Uh, there is nothing stopping a crazy guy with a cell of white supremists in idaho for communicating with another sell of malitia guys in utah via ham. If I were said crazies I would certainly want to encrypt that traffic. Given a rural enough compound it might be one of the only ways that they can communicate, certainly starlink exists these days but you catch my meaning. Ham is useful, there are things about it that make it DIFFERENTLY useful than the internet. (see also number stations)
    • jacquesm 1y ago
      > You would not discuss private/sensitive matters anyway as the whole thing is just a hobby/learning/experimentation or sport. You mean like certain medical issues? You really should tune into a HAM band one of these days.
  • schlauerfox 1y ago
    It's contested, in the USA the spectrum is allocated so the FCC regulations seem to allow an abridgement of first amendment freedoms in exchange for use of the regulated spectrum. Is that constitutional? Why are broadcast airwaves censorsed, but the cable companies that were built with public right of ways contracted to private companies because they're natural monopolies allowed to swear on cable channels? It's not clear to me this is just.
• raxxorraxor 1y ago
  Depending on the country and constitution, it very much is. And if not, it should be. The construct of government with its many imperfections isn't able to parse and interpret any and all communication. If he really believes that he should send all his correspondence to Putin and Trump and probably much worse for him: his constituents.
• cs702 1y ago
  What the Justice Minister means is that electronic privacy should not be a civil liberty. Perhaps he doesn't realize that making encrypted messaging illegal is the same as making it illegal to share sequences of decimal digits of transcendental numbers like e and π, which include every every possible sequence of digits encrypting a message?
  • hulitu 1y ago
    > What the Justice Minister means is that electronic privacy should not be a civil liberty. Perhaps he doesn't realize In time, you will find that what a politician means is dependent at least of: political party he is in, amount of lobby/bribes he/she was subjected to, time of day, weather, his souse's mood. Don't make the priest follow the teaching of Jesus, it won't work.
• sebtron 1y ago
  From the European Convention on Human Rights [1]: > Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life edit > Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. [1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/European_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Human_Rights_and_Fundamental_Freedoms https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/European_Convention_for_the_P...
  • perihelions 1y ago
    From the Constitution of the German Democratic Republic, Article 31: > "Postal and telecommunications secrecy are inviolable." https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Constitution_of_the_German_Democratic_Republic_(1974)#Article_31 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Constitution_of_t...
    • epolanski 1y ago
      Same for Italian constitution. But you know how it goes with law: all you need is a supreme-court equivalent to judge what are the boundaries and exact definition of those articles..
    • hopelite 1y ago
      Germany does not have what could be considered a constitution, or a Verfassung in German. The article 31 is not even protected by the “Eternity Clause” that, ironically can simply be removed by the legislature. But it seems relatively irrelevant anyways, as all western governments seem to just ignore all fundamental laws if it suits them, let alone regular laws, regardless of constitution or not. And that does not even go into the fact that the illegitimate EU just de facto supersedes all legitimate national laws.
      • throw-the-towel 1y ago
        You've not reading GP carefully, they're quoting the East German constitution.
        • 1y ago
• tokai 1y ago
  The minister was abused by his father during his childhood, and that has manifested itself in a low empathic response and a desire to force others to submit. I'm not being fastidious here, his behavior goes from head scratching to explainable when this fact is known, and not just in this case.
• ktosobcy 1y ago
  WTF is wrong with Danes/Denmark? o_O
  • em-bee 1y ago
    "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"
• clemensnk 1y ago
  Here at the computer science department in Aarhus, some of our professors and our head of department are doing their best to try to talk some sense into our politicians. See this post (apologies for linking to linkedin): https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cs-au-dk_dkpol-eupol-kryptering-activity-7371471518276419584-rgu-/ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cs-au-dk_dkpol-eupol-krypteri... Diego has been part of putting together this open letter from 500+ cryptography and cybersecurity researchers: https://csa-scientist-open-letter.org/Sep2025 https://csa-scientist-open-letter.org/Sep2025
  • kaliszad 1y ago
    This is very laudable! The letter's first page looks very low effort, which unfortunately is the first impression undermining the certainly large amounts of work people have invested in this. The note about needing a PhD could well be left to the form instead of sounding extremely elitist right on the first page. Yes, it's shallow and everything but do you want to be right or get your way?
• ionwake 1y ago
  Denmark, is a great country, however even I notice problems here as there are in other countries. Corruption and poor decisions. For example a local government office has a brand new facade finish ( amongst other work) that has taken about 4 years to do, its an entire building. Tall buildings are banned in Denmark so its actually surprisingly imposing. Trouble is, they did not use the tax funds to improve the local school for children. I am not joking, its a literal portacabin. Yes there are normal schools in buildings, but the main primary school for this village, ( and bear in mind this is denmark where most things are still carefully constructed and beautiful), is 2 literal portacabins / part of a small modern house, in dire need of upgrading. Im not saying the new government building is saurons tower, but there was no need to divert funds to improve it, it was just one of the buildings in a non descript village. I wouldnt normally care, but I know someone who goes to the primary school, and apparently it was a big upset that the funds for it went to this government building instead. Before anyone thinks I am being mean to DK, a very similar thing happened in the UK, the local library that used to be in a large building got moved to essentially a backwater dark room in a terrible part of town, and the main building converted to bigger nicer officer for the local government. Its a problem I am seeing all over europe. Just sat badly with me. EDIT > WTF everyone always so touchy. Everyone just relax ok this is a public forum.
  • arcfour 1y ago
    Maybe Denmark isn't as beautiful as you describe and you are simply biased.
    • ionwake 1y ago
      [flagged]
    • cuntymaccunto 1y ago
      [flagged]
    • bondarchuk 1y ago
      The scandinavian countries are widely upheld as some of the best and most civilized countries in the world second only to japan and switzerland. Sure countries are complicated affairs and we can bicker for years about these kinds of opinions, but it's not some kind of weirdo niche to think denmark is a far above-average country.
• NullCascade 1y ago
  One Swedish-Kurdish man in Iran who is working for the Iranian government is using Telegram/Signal and Monero to intentionally cause carnage in the streets of Sweden and has been attempting to expand to Denmark. But instead of going directly after this man our tech inept governments are trying to do the mathematically impossible.
  • rockemsockem 1y ago
    Right, to catch a predator managed to catch people without needing to backdoor stuff. These people are just lazy and incompetent, potentially intentionally.
  • tgv 1y ago
    How would they go about that without violating other laws/rights? The state cannot act on rumors alone.
  • Yokolos 1y ago
    Even worse, they're setting up Europe for a fascist takeover. To protect us. Just what? You'd think we never had the Third Reich, Nazis or WW2 with how they're behaving.
    • cuntymaccunto 1y ago
      [flagged]
      • anthk 1y ago
        As if your corporatocracy wasn't any better.
      • Yokolos 1y ago
        The US which has already turned into an authoritarian fascist dictatorship. Right. What a bastion of freedom there, lmao. "Don't tread on me" has literally turned into "Tread on me, daddy".
  • modo_mario 1y ago
• rsynnott 1y ago
  I am a little puzzled why Denmark cares so much about this. Most of the 'yes' countries were, as far as I can see, more or less taking a "yeah, okay, whatever" approach (hence a fair bit of wavering once Germany became a 'no'), but Denmark seems desperate to push it.
  • jaapz 1y ago
    Denmark seems to have a bit of a gang violence and organised crime problem, may be related
    • tokai 1y ago
      Not really. Its very minor compared to most other European countries.
      • jaapz 1y ago
        From what I've read it is at least a major theme in their national discourse, of course that doesn't mean that the statistics support that it is actually a major problem. But probably at least a lot of people (voters) feel that it's a major problem, so that makes it something for politicians to want to take into account /use for their benefit.
• guccihat 1y ago
  The technical proposal behind this legislation is to enforce on-device AI analysis of all chat communication so your device can notify authorities. This mass surveillance proposal is so dystopian and broken, I’m genuinely ashamed to be an EU citizen.
• isaacremuant 1y ago
  That corrupt man doesn't disclose his entire life nor has cameras in his home exposing how he acts at every second. He doesn't show how shady he is because he wants no privacy for others but transparency for himself. The funniest thing is how this authoritarian excuse of a human being wants to make his 1984 world a thing worldwide, because he doesn't even care about the pretense of EU agreements. Not only is there no sovereignty but we should all follow his whims.
• rdm_blackhole 1y ago
  This sort of politician is the reason people turn to the far right. They see the clowns in power from the right and the left and either decide to completely removes themselves from the political scene or decide that blowing up the whole system is better. And who can blame them? To me the fact that Chat Control is even entertained is basically a huge betrayal of all the people who want to live in a democracy.
  • tokai 1y ago
    He is a minister of a center-right wing government.
    • rdm_blackhole 1y ago
      Exactly my point. This sort of non-sense used to be part of the ideas expressed by people on the fringes of the political class not from center-right/center left parties.
  • NemoNobody 1y ago
    The far right is about to try to take away all of America's guns, freedom of the press, speech, and the right to assemble. They have already essentially removed birthright citizenship for brown US Citizens that are the minor children of immigrants. The far right is always infringing on liberty in a hope to bring the world backwards or stop some way society is changing - that is what the right is - traditional.
• maxdo 1y ago
  A bit of context for Americans: the Europe is under a hybrid multi-vector attack from the Evil Axis (China, Russia, Iran, Hungary, etc.). People are too occupied with ideas of their own comfort and liberty. For everyone who thinks this is such a basic black and white question... We are on the doorstep of WWIII. China, working through Russia, Iran, Hungary, and others, has built a network of influence proxies. They use liberty and security as tools to conduct hybrid attacks. Their goal is to undermine the unity of the West, one by one. Look at the recent extremely well-coordinated multi-vector hybrid attack on Poland. Some attack vectors: 1. Military vector: They sent military drones to monitor reactions—political, military, etc. It's a milary act but not strong enough to have a military response. Drones had Polish sim cards, and used Telegram protocol to mask their traffic to a simple chat. 2. Political Vector. Vote of no confidence. Once Ursula and the EU decided to respond asymmetrically, they deployed one of their assets, Hungarian Orbán. They tried to remove Ursula, who was advocating for a firm response. 3. Informational Vector. They also started distributing false flag conspiracy theories claiming it was Ukraine, not Russia, who sent the drone. It's a tactic of small bites and proxy attacks internally, spreading propaganda and false narratives. This is just one of such attacks. Imagine yourself a government worker, trying to fight that. Where left and right your colleagues got bribed , threatent, etc. and you can't even find proofs against them. Your enemy on contrary, knows everything about everyone in their country.
  • ah12397d 1y ago
    The only thing in Europe that got sabotaged was Nord Stream, and the current investigation focuses on Ukrainians who, according to the WSJ, were directed by Zaluzhnyi. We might want to monitor Zaluzhnyi's messages. Sorry, the Russia invasion is utterly wrong, but this kind of fear mongering is dangerous.
    • maxdo 1y ago
      oh yeah, 19 drones attacking Poland just to test things is just a joke, sure :)
    • maxdo 1y ago
      Read how Nord Stream was built first. It was shit show of a bribery, similar to how I outline before. And that bribery broke EU anti monopoly rule which dictate that no supplier should go above certain %. So yeah, whoever did this, you should say thank you
• ChrisArchitect 1y ago
  [dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45242458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45242458
• themgt 1y ago
  Ran across this interesting NYT article from 1908. After President McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist, Teddy Roosevelt demanded action against anarchist publications being sent through the postal service. And yet he clarifies this does not apply to normal mail - "sealed documents" - explaining the government is "expressly forbidden to ascertain, what the purport of such messages may be": The greater portion of his opinion is devoted to the question of whether, in the absence of any legislation by Congress, the Postmaster General has the right to exclude such publications. On this point his conclusion is: "The Postmaster General will be justified in excluding from the mails any issue of any periodical, otherwise entitled to the privilege of second-class mail matter, which shall contain any article constituting seditious libel, and counseling such crimes as murder, arson, riot, and treason." The Attorney General makes a clear distinction with reference to the authority of postal officials over sealed and unsealed mail matter. In conveying letters and newspapers to persons to whom they are directed, he says the United States "undertakes the business of a messenger." He adds: "In so far as it conveys sealed documents, its agents not only are not bound to know, but are expressly forbidden to ascertain, what the purport of such messages may be; therefore, neither the Government nor its officers can be held either legally or morally responsible for the nature of the letters to which they thus, in intentional ignorance, afford transportation." https://www.nytimes.com/1908/04/10/archives/roosevelt-demands-action-on-anarchy-his-message-to-congress-says.html https://www.nytimes.com/1908/04/10/archives/roosevelt-demand...
  • ErigmolCt 1y ago
    Fast forward to today, and we're somehow arguing that end-to-end encrypted messages (our modern sealed letters) should be scan-able "just in case."
    • ethbr1 1y ago
      The purported difference now is that governments don't want to actually look that them... they just want to install a machine (that they control) that looks at all of them. Completely different. /s
      • 1y ago
• bsenftner 1y ago
  Time to learn Navajo and other obscure languages. Then watch the fear propaganda as these dicks make foreign languages nobody speaks illegal.
• josefritzishere 1y ago
  Privacy for me and not for thee.
• dartharva 1y ago
  For a democratic leader to do this, there must be some nontrivial subset of their voter base who support it. In all this ruckus over Europe trying to ban encrypted communication I keep wondering - who the hell are the voters pushing for this?
  • bell-cot 1y ago
    So long as you proclaim "to protect our children" (or whatever) loudly, >50% of voters will support anything that they don't really understand.
• alluro2 1y ago
  This "it's only right that we, the humble and fair politicians, are exempt from this forceful control we're exerting over everyone" aspect of ChatControl is beyond ridiculous. I'm not usually of a "revolutionist" kind in the slightest, but, when you combine this small example to a lot of things currently happening across Europe and the US - it does increasingly seem like people in power are less and less wary of heavy and serious responsibility their positions hold to the people, and are more and more brazen when it comes to trying to isolate themselves from scrutiny over their self-profiting endeavours. Historically, there were somewhat regular "correction" events happening somewhere sufficiently close, that made sure that responsibility is stuck in politician's minds for longer into the future, but it's been a long time since. Edit: My comment is partially fueled by everything that's currently happening in Serbia (grand-scale systemic corruption), but I do think you can see similar movement in much more orderly countries in Europe as well, and all this is unconnected to ChatControl, but I see it as a small ripple from the same source. I also dare say that current state of affairs in US has emboldened such people everywhere. Nepal is probably not felt as close enough to have an effect.
  • daemin 1y ago
    My response: "We must break with the totally erroneous perception that politicians' communications are private."
  • raxxorraxor 1y ago
    I think Bill Maher did a good summary about Europe getting worse in every perceivable way on civil liberties. And people wonder why young people leave the old continent. Surely not only because of this, but the political class in Europe is more and more dysfunctional.
• gorgoiler 1y ago
  The end game for these policies is, sadly, eminently viable. You’d have to treat your citizenship as if they were corporate employees: all phones under mobile-device-management, all laptops locked down and monitored by kernel level “agents”, and all network traffic running through traffic analysis. Say goodbye to any kind of home made computing devices or operating systems that don’t meet audit approval. You could nudge this sort of thing into play by starting with e-commerce. No online shopping unless you’re using a Trusted OS. Ratchet up to cat videos and TV shows. Ratchet again to Trusted News. You’re most of the way there! The “you can’t outlaw math!” crowd are kind of right but that argument assumes free and unencumbered end user devices, which, as crazy as it sounds, might not be a given in the particularly awful dystopian futures available to us right now.
  • Zak 1y ago
    > The “you can’t outlaw math!” crowd are kind of right but that argument assumes free and unencumbered end user devices, which, as crazy as it sounds, might not be a given in the particularly awful dystopian futures available to us right now. That future is already here for the substantial number of people who have only iOS devices. Even in the EU where Apple is forced to allow alternate app stores and direct installation of apps, the apps must be signed with a key that Apple can revoke. Google seems to be planning something similar for "certified" Android, and some important apps refuse to run on any other kind of Android. I'm disappointed so many smart people in the tech world participated in this corporate power grab.
    • gorgoiler 1y ago
      Well said. And I am disappointed in myself as much as anyone. My only consolation is that I at least took a frontline part in making Linux, GNU, FreeBSD, and FOSS in general what it is these days, on the back-end. — sent from my iPhone
      • Zak 1y ago
        I suppose someone who understands the problem choosing an iPhone in spite of it is very slightly culpable, but it doesn't sound like you helped build any of these systems that deprive end users of their final say over computers they own.
• marginalia_nu 1y ago
  The mechanism of rights makes a lot of sense in a constitution, to establish that these core principles of the legal code of Latveria and may never be trampled upon by subsequent laws, and then refer back to that as a judgement when evolving the law. However, in recent years it's taken a life on its own and people all over the political spectrum are inventing new rights or denying established rights. At face value it seems like a punchy statement that this is a human right or that isn't a civil liberty, but there's usually nothing to back that up. It's nothing more than a vapid slogan used this way.
• raffael_de 1y ago
  Assuming a trustworthy government with an independent legal system, all communication should be accessible upon judicial decision. This is analogous to acceptance of search warrants and seizure of evidence including paper based documents and messages. Then again governments often aren't trustworthy. Germany isn't even able to issue European Arrest Warrants as prosecution here is politically dependent¹. And accordingly I also kind of prefer to have my electronic communication cryptographically protected. But I'm not so naive as to believe that this is a solution. This is just treating a symptom which eventually gets worse if not addressed directly. 1: https://www.eurojust.europa.eu/news/landmark-ruling-european-arrest-warrant https://www.eurojust.europa.eu/news/landmark-ruling-european...
• 0xbadcafebee 1y ago
  That's famously why all our mail gets read by the government, and all our phone calls are listened to, and all our homes' walls are transparent, right? Because privacy isn't a civil liberty?
• nickslaughter02 1y ago
  Is this discussed in Danish news?
• ErigmolCt 1y ago
  Encryption isn't about hiding crimes; it's about protecting everyday people from surveillance, abuse, and censorship
• epolanski 1y ago
  Serious question: why is Denmark so engaged on that topic?
• alsetmusic 1y ago
  I typically consider Nordic countries to be pretty enlightened, so this is surprising to me. Just goes to show how politicians everywhere are wrong about encryption.
  • bazoom42 1y ago
    Presumably “enlightened” mens having the same opinions as you?
• dathinab 1y ago
  is he aware that not having encrypted messaging will severely endanger the financial interests of Denmark companies? I mean sure it's indirect. But making them susceptible to industry espionage, planting false evidence (encryption also protects against spoofing) or blackmailing executives for dump reasons (idk. sexting in a adulterating manner) is something countries like Russia would do and would endanger financial interests of such companies. And are Denmarks companies aware about that? I mean there are so much more important reasons for encrypted messaging (e.g. investigative journalism) but "local companies and with that jobs" being endangered tends to move politicians.
• djoldman 1y ago
  It's interesting to think about support for laws that disallow actions as driven by the action itself or "something else." The something else is often the alleged failure or difficulty of enforcing other laws. For example: if all encrypted messaging traffic was about innocuous trivialities, support for banning encryption would be absurd. The support for banning encryption isn't because people think encryption is bad, it's because governments propose that encryption makes it too difficult or expensive to enforce other laws like prohibition of CSAM, money laundering, etc. Other examples: KYCAML, drug paraphernalia, Terry stops / stop and frisk, etc.
• seydor 1y ago
  Is it legal to invent a secret language with your friend and talk to each other in that language?
• exabrial 1y ago
  For him it would be. Everything he does should be monitored.
• Daisywh 1y ago
  Portraying encryption as a threat is a distortion of the very concept of “freedom.” It’s not about hiding, but about preserving a private space in the digital world just as it is in the physical world.
• arbirk 1y ago
  It seems all politicians have to through this. Encryption is either-or. Either it has no backdoors or it does not work for anyone including our financial systems
  • vanviegen 1y ago
    There may be some middle ground: only allow encryption that's expensive but possible to decode without the key. That would at least make dragnets impractical. Political activists and those holding corporate secrets would still be at risk though...
• Hizonner 1y ago
  And don't even get me started on envelopes, the terrorist's friends.
  • delichon 1y ago
    Along with all of those irresponsible people who say things where they cannot be heard by a government microphone, or think things without saying them, implicity promoting false civil liberty.
• natch 1y ago
  Is DHH aware of what his country is doing? The dude can communicate. If only he were on this.
  • jjgreen 1y ago
    Afraid not, too busy cheerleading racists like Christopher Yaxley-Lennon. https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64 https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64
    • natch 1y ago
      I didn't see that name in that post so I don't see what you're talking about (and it seems highly inflammatory, toxic, misinformed, and off topic). But I suspect the concern for DHH is not so much race as culture.
      • jjgreen 1y ago
        This is the "culture" demo DHH is referring to https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tommy-robinson-protest-met-police-london-b2825980.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tommy-robins... "Tommy Robinson" is the nom de guerre that the fascist Yaxley-Lennon uses since it sounds more working class.
• Havoc 1y ago
  Maybe all the ministers private communications should be posted publicly then if he’s so keen on having mystery parties inspected them without the senders/receivers consent
• fredsted 1y ago
  Danish politicians are famous here for their lack of knowledge and interest in IT-related subjects. Many danes have the uninformed "what are you hiding" perspective when it comes to privacy matters. Our government-built IT systems are also generally poor with many cost overruns. It's no surprise a Social Democrat politician would say something as ignorant as this.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• yieldcrv 1y ago
  Before digital artifacts, nations had to identify the individual, and get access to their writings to determine culpability. With digital artifacts, nations have enjoyed the ability to go to third parties to for the last 40-50 years to get access to individual's writings as a shortcut. This is just a return to the mean. It is not novel or controversial to say "identify the individual, and get access to their writings" in whatever legal way that nation prescribes. Good luck, since their devices may be locked, but going after the individual is real law enforcement
• acd 1y ago
  Universal Declaration of Human Rights "Article 12 No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."
• apexalpha 1y ago
  The Dutch constitution has an article giving everyone the right to private mail correspondence. It was meant for physicial mail of course. I wonder if a judge would even see the difference. A message is a message, regardless whether its deliver by electricity or a horse. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence It guarantees that the content of sealed letters is never revealed, and that letters in transit are not opened by government officials, or any other third party. I wonder how they are going to try to argue that a E2E encrypted message is not ‘sealed’.
  • throwaway89201 1y ago
    > I wonder if a judge would even see the difference. A judge can't actually apply the constitution, as article 120 of the constitution forbids that, and The Netherlands doesn't have a constitutional court. In any case, most articles contain the phrase "except in cases determined by law". This means that the constitution is mostly a set of guidelines for politicians that practice civic hygiene, and not a tool to oppose bad laws. It's especially useless to delay and oppose fascists, as they'll just pass laws and/or state of emergencies without basis or changing the constitution. Judges can apply the European Convention on Human Rights, specifically the right to privacy, but of course lawful exceptions can be made there as well as long as they are proportional and subsidiary. There's a good case to be made that Chat Control is neither.
• willi59549879 1y ago
  outlawing encryption for the population is bad. people have a right for privacy but i would be for making public all communication of politicians.
• niemandhier 1y ago
  I’d only back this if it also meant every civil servant’s communications, written or spoken and sent through any device, were archived from five years before taking office until five years after leaving. Not necessarily public, but fully accessible for prosecution. Any attempt to dodge this should carry jail time.
• thewileyone 1y ago
  By his logic, if I spoke to another in a language incomprehensible to him, I would be forced to divulge my conversation.