Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

eureporter.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 273 posts

Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#91

Post by aftbit »

denton-scratch wrote: post #78
seanw444 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's worth noting that UK courts can't overturn Acts of Parliament. Interesting. I didn't know this, and as an American, it seems quite odd. Decisions by the parliament are treated as immutable there? Here, if a bill passed by Congress is deemed unconstitutional, it can be struck down by the Supreme Court.

The only constitution that the UK has consists of Acts of Parliament. So I don't know why it should seem odd; the US courts can't strike clauses of the US Constitution, and the UK courts can't strike Acts. Amusingly, the UK government is currently trying to pass an Act to the effect that black is equivalent to white, i.e. that Rwanda is a safe country to which asylum seekers can be sent. This is analogous to the Stat…

In the US, it's quite hard to change the constitution. It requires agreement from 2/3rds of Congress followed by ratification by the individual legislatures of 3/4ths of the states. Such a thing has not been done since 1992, and not on a politically charged question since 1971.

Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#93

Post by Georgelemental »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #11

Reminder that the European Court of Human Rights, although very powerful and influential, does not have the authority to force anyone to abide by their rulings. Also, here's a better article: https://fortune.com/2024/02/13/end-to-end-encryption-russia-...

For example, Azerbaijan (a brutal and militarily aggressive dictatorship) is a member

Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#94

Post by px43 »

guappa wrote: post #53
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the client is properly developed and secured, they cannot break it without shipping an update to that client to change its behavior - which then affects everyone.

I'm quite sure they can use the app store to push a targeted update just to some.

Yes, an operating system that uses a compromised software supply chain is at risk of compromise, but that really has nothing to do with e2ee.

Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#95

Post by denton-scratch »

vdaea wrote: post #71
martimarkov wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d need to define “unconstitutionally” as it seems if they have the right then it is constitutional

The constitutional court of Spain ruled the state of alarm (a kind of state of emergency) that was used to prohibit gatherings during the pandemic was unconstitutional. But by then the damage was made of course.

The constitutional court of Spain is an ultra-rightwing joke. Imprisoning Catalan nationalist politicians for calling for independence brought that court into disrepute.

I'm not keen on written constitutions, or constitutional courts cough US Supremes>.

Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#96

Post by miohtama »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #67

Man, Europe is really setting an example lately for how it's possible to roll out sensible technology regulations.

This decision was needed because the EU was about to ban end-to-end encryption. It’s not the EU commission, but a judge that ruled. AFAIK Commission can still ignore this.

Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#98

Post by glitchc »

seanw444 wrote: post #73
M2Ys4U wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>While a ruling on a specific case (and law), the Court seems quite skeptical towards any "requirement that providers of such services weaken the encryption mechanism for all users". If I were the UK government, I would be quite worried that the UK Online Safety Bill will be overturned by domestic courts (or the European Court) on the basis of this ruling. It's worth noting that UK courts can't overturn Acts of Parli…

> It's worth noting that UK courts can't overturn Acts of Parliament. Interesting. I didn't know this, and as an American, it seems quite odd. Decisions by the parliament are treated as immutable there? Here, if a bill passed by Congress is deemed unconstitutional, it can be struck down by the Supreme Court.

Yup, that's because the UK doesn't have a constitution.

Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#99

Post by M2Ys4U »

tpm wrote: post #64
Deukhoofd wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a part of the Council of Europe, which includes all European countries besides Russia and Belarus (who got kicked out last year). It has no real enforcement powers for its judgements, though most countries do adopt most its judgements, and it has pushed human rights in Europe forward a lot. While the EU could potentially just ignore the statement, there's a good chance they won't, especially as the European Parl…

EU can't ignore it - while the ECHR is separate from the EU, the EU itself is legally bound to follow the ECHR rulings.

>the EU itself is legally bound to follow the ECHR rulings

You'd think so, but it actually isn't. All of the EU's member states are, but the EU and its institutions aren't.

The EU is legally bound to join the Council of Europe (and thus come under the jurisdiction of the ECHR), except the EU's Court of Justice threw a spanner in the works quite a while ago and this is on hold, pretty much indefinitely.

The conflict is that the CJEU is supposed to be the authoritative interpreter of EU law, but if the EU joins the CoE then the ECHR could also rule on matters of EU law, potentially binding the CJEU, and it doesn't like that very much.

Post reply on HN