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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

#101

Post by ExoticPearTree »

ronsor wrote: post #21
random3 wrote: post #18

And, of course, no thought is given to the implications this could have in conjunction with the next Orban. Europe is aligning against Russia as a threat, while at the same time shooting itself in the foot by disabling basic rights like privacy with absolutely no memory of how much more basic lack of privacy (enabled by Facebook) was leveraged with relatively simple tools ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Camb…

Europe has learned the lesson that extremists are bad, but it has not learned the lesson that the tools shouldn't exist.

There will always be extremists on both sides of the political spectrum.

The problem is quite simple: people swing more to one side or another if their voices are not heard.

The current boogeyman is the growth of the far-right in Europe. But that could have been prevented if the EU did not have an open-doors migration policy to start with. And to have listened to the people on other issues too.

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

#102

Post by trinsic2 »

betteryet wrote: post #57
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…

The dictators part is false, the EU is not a structure you can easily dictate. But this encryption backdoor thing is somebody's pet project and extremely alarming. The UK has a similar bend they've already put in place with IPA and TCNs. The US is way gone on decrypted stored data and metadata, but not on encryption backdoors yet, though legislators have tried.

Can you please explain to me why you think this is the case? Can parliament make law or not? Why is the commission the only body that can make law? Its staffed with people that appear to serve special interests. I saw this during the Stop Killing Games Where the EU commission meet with the game industry privately in EU before the decision on the Stop Destroying Video games Initiative. If there is no way to challenge the EU commission's practices that are not democratic, how can you consider the EU commission a body that actually works for I members?

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

#103

Post by ExoticPearTree »

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.

> Oh man I will never let them read my private comms. So what are they going to do to me?

Depends on where you live. If for example you live in the UK, they will jail you until you pony up the PIN to your phone and any other passwords they want from you. Don't know how it is other countries.

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

#104

Post by stymaar »

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…

> The European Commission has far too much power, and answers far too little to the populace. In reality, they want to be dictators.

As much as I hate the political leaning of the Commission, this is complete bullshit.

The commission is named by the member states' head, with the head of the commission and the individual commissioners' nomination being validated by the European parliament.

Yes they aren't elected, but that's no different from a minister in most country, nobody elected the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK, the Secretary of Defense in the US or the Ministre de l'Intérieur in France. But we don't call them wannabe dictators because that would be silly.

That's equally silly when talking about the European commission.

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

#105

Post by rhdunn »

b112 wrote: post #84
written-beyond wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Secret Hitler(the boardgame) fan?

Wait, Hilter made a boardgame? I'm... curious. (Looks around with apprehension)

"Secret Hitler" is a social deduction game (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Hitler). You can find various games of it on YouTube.

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

#106

Post by leonidasrup »

betteryet wrote: post #57
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…

The dictators part is false, the EU is not a structure you can easily dictate. But this encryption backdoor thing is somebody's pet project and extremely alarming. The UK has a similar bend they've already put in place with IPA and TCNs. The US is way gone on decrypted stored data and metadata, but not on encryption backdoors yet, though legislators have tried.

The US has CLOUD Act, it has a backdoor in almost every data center on Earth. Because:

"The CLOUD Act allows United States authorities to request data from cloud providers and other covered service providers regardless of where the data is physically stored. The act is not limited to companies based in the United States. It applies to "all electronic communication service or remote computing service providers that operate or have a legal presence in the U.S". Courts can require parent companies to provide data held by their subsidiaries."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act

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

#107

Post by Saline9515 »

bojan wrote: post #77
shevy-java wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is also true - national countries sabotage any reform. Basically the EU would have to be designed anew from the get go, but lobbyists will prevent this from ever happening.

The last concrete attempt was blocked at Dutch and French referenda, not the lobbyists. That was in 2004. Since then, basically any referendum about anything related to the EU anywhere returns a negative result, with a couple of small exceptions like a Danish defense opt-out. So the money doesn't really go to the lobbying, more to the population-wide propaganda. And the money is available, as it's in the interest of…

This is not exactly, both french and dutch referenda were

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

#108

Post by ajb »

wbl wrote: post #93
ajb wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is a dilemma, but I don't think it's loss of legitimacy so much as authority. They are quite similar but not the same; an institution that loses authority but is still legitimate, and there is potential for it to regain authority (like the strategic concept of a "fleet in being").

But for many states, they have significantly greater power by virtue of being in the EU than they would without. Arguably, even the UK lost power by leaving.

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

#109

Post by sveme »

LaurensBER wrote: post #76
shevy-java wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is also true - national countries sabotage any reform. Basically the EU would have to be designed anew from the get go, but lobbyists will prevent this from ever happening.

I have many concerns about the rise of populism in Europe but the (few/very few) good things that might come out of this is that there will finally be (enough?) pressure on the EU to reform. Despite all their talk about being pro human-rights and pro democracy in practice the voter turnout percentages for the EU elections are extremely low. As an EU citizen I almost never meet someone who's interested or who feel rep…

It’s more likely that the rise of the populist right (or left, like Melenchon) will lead to the destruction of the EU. They do not want reform, they want to go back to the fifties.

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

#110

Post by Hizonner »

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…

> IMHO, it's the only way to force the proponent(s) of these proposal(s) to see the folly of their ways (and it's no guarantee that they will).

I'm pretty sure they'd see it as a win, at least unless it led to massive public backlash. So why not skip that step and just give them the backlash?

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