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

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

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK DOES NOT WANT TO LEAVE THE ECHR. Select people in the government want to, not the whole of UK.

Good clarification. Personally I just hope we can remove those “select people” from office before they can actually carry out their plan.

You can’t remove the administrative state. It’ll be happy to sustain the illusion of “democracy” for you by throwing a few of its representatives under the bus every now and again, but in the end all of the candidates you get to vote for are 100% acceptable to the administrative state and are anointed by it.

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

#112
post #35

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-...

Not so. The UK, for instance, appears to treat these rulings as binding. This is why the UK conservatives want to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a supposedly identical Bill of Rights, the key difference being a presumption that the UK's supreme court would cease to defer to the convention court. A couple of examples relating to this that come to mind: * Deporting refugees to Rwanda was stopped by an i…

[deleted]

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

#114
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When there is an emergency to break into a house, the police needs to get a mandate from a judge.

Well, there is actually an exception to that too - the Police can break into any home, without a warrant, in the US, if they can prove they had reasonable cause to believe that there was imminent and immediate threat of bodily harm or death. If you are a police officer and see a guy clearly pointing a gun at someone else through the window, yes, you can break in if the circumstances warrant that.

The flip side of that is that if the police enter on that basis, any evidence they come across in the course of that action is going to be tainted and potentially thrown out of court, especially if that evidence wasn't in plain sight.

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

#115
post #66

For a better understanding: The Court held (in the circumstances of this case) that a legal obligation to decrypt E2E communications is a disproportionate interference with the right to privacy. The law in question specifically obligated messengers such as Telegram to hand over communications alongside the "information necessary to decrypt electronic messages if they were encrypted". To come to that conclusion, it re…

>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…

I wholeheartedly recommend How Parliament Works¹ for people who want a deep dive on these points. It is nowhere near as dry as you'd imagine for a five hundred page book about parliament.

While used copies are super cheap I'd also recommend picking up a current revision. Recent years have seen far more use(or attempts to use) some of the more obscure tools of both houses. The updates include more explanation of those topics, along with descriptions of recent cases before the courts.

¹ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1032015012

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

#116

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

Now if they could only do a good job developing the technology itself…

Why do what everyone can do if you can do the thing only you can do?

ASML

When there's a gold rush, make shovels.

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

#118
post #50
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so. The UK, for instance, appears to treat these rulings as binding. This is why the UK conservatives want to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a supposedly identical Bill of Rights, the key difference being a presumption that the UK's supreme court would cease to defer to the convention court. A couple of examples relating to this that come to mind: * Deporting refugees to Rwanda was stopped by an i…

I believe both your examples are ones where the UK did not follow the decision of the ECHR.

The Rwanda ECHR injunction was followed, which is one reason why no migrants have yet been sent to Rwanda despite nearly two years of harsh rhetoric.

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

#119

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…

> that Rwanda is a safe country to which asylum seekers can be sent

Putting aside whether the UK government's approach is a sensible one (which in my view it isn't) we should be aware that:

"the UNHCR, with financial support from the EU, has transferred refugees from Libya to Rwanda under a scheme called the Emergency Transit Mechanism (ETM) [..] The ETM offers vulnerable refugees, taken into detention by the Libyan authorities, a choice to have their application processed in Rwanda."[0]

"In 2019, the [Rwandan] Government established the Emergency Transit Mechanism (ETM) Centre that hosted 824 refugees evacuated from Libya. Currently, the transit centre hosts 371 evacuees while working on long-term solutions continues. By the end of 2021, 462 refugees had resettled to third countries so far."[1]

So Rwanda was apparently safe enough for the UNHCR to offer to process some refugees there.

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67431602

[1] https://www.unhcr.org/uk/countries/rwanda

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

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now if they could only do a good job developing the technology itself…

Why do what everyone can do if you can do the thing only you can do? ASML When there's a gold rush, make shovels.

That’s it? One noteworthy company for a population of 440M?
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