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European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy

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Re: European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy

#91

Post by progval »

TFNA wrote: post #59
teekert wrote: post #45

Oh man I will never let them read my private comms. So what are they going to do to me? I’m afraid that I, as a good person and father, am going to be punished for not letting them read my private messages. I’m afraid for my future in the EU.

No one really cares about your individual comms. The goal of legislation like this is to ensure that E2E chat apps are no longer distributed on the app stores, so even if a tiny amount of nerds like us might use them among ourselves, they are no longer relevant socially.

And being one of the few who use them will be considered aggravating factor in unrelated lawsuits. This already happened once even though it's not illegal: https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2023/06/05/criminalization-o...

Re: European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy

#92

Post by TheChaplain »

These threads are amusing.

In an earlier one about Iceland and EU, people criticizing EU were downvoted, called russian bots or far-right. I don't expect much difference here.

Chat control and ProtectEU are certainly not the last totalitarian measures EU will invent, there will be more. And I find it interesting that people still defend EU without any hesitation.

Now I think the initial trade union was great and a necessary counter weight when competing with larger economies and countries. But it rather quickly evolving into something that is less concerned about the citizens, and more about staying in power.

Re: European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy

#93

Post by wbl »

ajb wrote: post #90
p_l wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately every attempt at reforming it is blocked with "but my sovereignty!" - as EC and Council of Ministers are very much controlled and steered by member nations' governments . Not to mention it makes for perfect scapegoat

This is true. However there's a potential way to fix it, and it would only take one member state, no matter how small to start the landslide. And it's basically the same thing that happened to the US Senate. The Senate, like the Council of Ministers, was intended to represent the member states. Originally, Senators were appointed by state legislatures. A few states started to have direct primaries, with the legislati…

The more democratic the EU the less sovereign legitimacy countries have. That's the tension that makes Euroskeptic parties oppose reforms.

Re: European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy

#94

Post by ablob »

plufz wrote: post #83
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I‘m not being ironic. With a dictator you have full responsibility concentrated in a single person. Bureaucracies are the opposite: they’re intentionally setup to diffuse responsibility as much as possible and hold no one accountable. Instead of a single guy, you now have to fight something resembling a fungus. This is much harder: instead of a decapitation strike, you face an enemy that is more resilient and resista…

Are you saying that historically very bureaucratic countries have been worse to live in than dictatorships? Not sure I follow actually. It sounds very strange to me. Isn’t also the first move of all dictators to take over all institutions with their own people?

They are saying that in bureaucratic countries there is not a single entity that can be held accountable, which means that "bad" decisions, are not easily undone. Likewise it means that "good" decisions are hard to change. It is a statement about the momentum of change, not about it's worth or intention.

There is no further comparison made between these governmental forms and how they affect their subjects.

Why would you create such a blatant red herring?

Re: European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy

#95

Post by traceroute66 »

This is from 2025. I don't know why someone has seen fit to repost it again in 2026.... I'm guessing they didn't look at the date.

And lots of people here are spouting FUD.

In the ensuing period, the EU took expert advice later in 2025, and as they say in an update a few months later in June 2025[1]:

    The High-Level Group recommended taking a cautious approach to designing solutions for lawful access to systems, whereby industry should not be asked to integrate systems that are likely to weaken encryption in a generalised or systemic way for all users of a service. Lawful access to data must remain targeted and limited to specific communications on a case-by-case basis.

   As a general rule, any solutions should be implemented based on clear standards that are developed with input from all stakeholders, including industry representatives, data protection, privacy and cybersecurity experts, and law enforcement practitioners. However, caution is warranted when dealing with encryption, as underlined by the High-Level Group.
So there is ZERO EVIDENCE that the EU are "pushing for encryption backdoor".

It is instead quite clear from the above that the experts are on "our" side AND the EU are listening to them.

Instead, all these publications are just a reflection of a democratic process of discussing modern threats. The documents clearly mention "terrorism, organised crime, online fraud, drug trafficking, child sexual abuse, online sexual extortion, ransomware".

So it is only fair and reasonable that politicians should be discussing ways to counter these threats. And quite honestly they would not be doing their job if someone did not MENTION "encryption" and ask "the question" to the experts and other stakeholders.

The fact they are DISCUSSING "encryption" does not automatically mean they want to backdoor it.

I know it is alien to people in the US under the present administration, but this is how proper politics works. You openly discuss issues of the day, you seek opinions from stakeholders and experts, rinse and repeat until you make a decision (or not). The present US administration could do with learning a thing or two. ;)

People here need to rein in the FUD.

[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...

Re: European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy

#96

Post by s_dev »

TheChaplain wrote: post #92

These threads are amusing. In an earlier one about Iceland and EU, people criticizing EU were downvoted, called russian bots or far-right. I don't expect much difference here. Chat control and ProtectEU are certainly not the last totalitarian measures EU will invent, there will be more. And I find it interesting that people still defend EU without any hesitation. Now I think the initial trade union was great and a ne…

It's not that, it's calling the EU a dictatorship, meanwhile the US has genuinely slipped out of the liberal democracy rankings to a electoral democracy (the same as Hungary last year) and seems to be on the path to full blown oligarchy. There is genuine concern here about this bill but it's not the elephant in the room. The EU hasn't threatened to invade a NATO country, isn't initiating trade wars with close allies and seemingly done a 180 on foreign policy in the past 2 years.

Last year, there many seemed to have major concerns about Hungary but again it was pointed out that things could be turned around. I don't see how the US is doing to turn this around.

Re: European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy

#97

Post by surgical_fire »

bradley13 wrote: post #19

The European Commission has far too much power, and answers far too little to the populace. In reality, they want to be dictators. If you don't know, the unfortunate way thf EU is structured, the Parliament cannot initiate legislation. They can only vote on whatever the Commission puts in front of them. If the Parliament votes "wrong", the Commission just repackages the idea in a new bill, pulls a couple of dirty tri…

Who picks the comissioners are the national governments.

It's important to lay the blame on who is actually pushing this crap.

It's little coincidence that the EU parliament, who actually represents the people, that keep shooting shit like this down.

Re: European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy

#98

Post by Neikius »

VorpalWay wrote: post #37
throw0101a wrote: post #26

Signal, Apple iMessage, and WhatsApp have to announce at some point that they will simply stop providing services to any country/region that insists on breaking E2EE. All you'll be left with is unencrypted RCS. It's a bit of a 'nuclear option', but at the end of the day, once one jurisdiction forces them to break the math, every other one will as well. IMHO, it's the only way to force the proponent(s) of these propos…

There are peer to peer (or otherwise decentralised, e.g. multiple servers operated by many different people) alternatives to Signal. I haven't tried any of them, nor do I know which ones have been audited. But if the worst comes to the worst, there are alternatives that are hard to block. In particular I remember reading about DeltaChat which piggiebacks on normal email infrastructure, making it really hard to block…

Been using matrix for years now. Even operating a server for a small community. It is slightly more involved for regular users though so that is not the best but otherwise works. Setting up your own federated instance is quite simple, there is an Ansible playbook around to make it even easier. You could even isolate it and have it only for your org. From what I know there is some traction to get it adopted in a bunch of agencies eu-wide.

Re: European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy

#99

Post by dingdingdang »

bradley13 wrote: post #19

The European Commission has far too much power, and answers far too little to the populace. In reality, they want to be dictators. If you don't know, the unfortunate way thf EU is structured, the Parliament cannot initiate legislation. They can only vote on whatever the Commission puts in front of them. If the Parliament votes "wrong", the Commission just repackages the idea in a new bill, pulls a couple of dirty tri…

Given the almost religious attention the term limit of sitting presidents of the US has it is interesting that so very little attention is given to the fact that the EU structure has no effectual limit at all; if the current EU President were to be nominated by the European Council in a circular manner she will effectually serve for perpetuity (while the Parliament can in principle say no they are only ever given one candidate to vote for (...) and has thus far never said no to any nominee).

Re: European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy

#100

Post by applfanboysbgon »

AnssiH wrote: post #60
qwytw wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until they come up with a procedure to workaround the fact that there is no majority in the EU parliament and push it through anyway (like they did a couple of weeks ago with ChatControl 1.0).

"ChatControl 1.0" is entirely voluntary so there is much less opposition in parliament.

There was opposition in parliament, though. It was only passed because they snuck it in while MPs had left for summer vacation, and the parliamentary rules are absolutely pants-on-head idiotic and default to passing proposed legislation if a majority of all MPs do not vote it down (rather than merely the ones present). In other words, they passed it by default without achieving any kind of majority, because there weren't enough people physically present to vote it down.

The EU never delegitimised itself more than it did with that act. Actively undermining parliament to knowingly impose legislation the population absolutely does not want validated every concern anti-EU advocates ever had.

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