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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

#21

Post by ryukoposting »

HenryBemis wrote: post #15

The article is semi-garbage (politics aside it is a badly written/biased article). Better read the decision. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng/#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-230854... } CASE OF PODCHASOV v. RUSSIA (Application no. 33696/19)

Relevant English text from the Court's press release:

> The applicant, Anton Valeryevich Podchasov, is a Russian national who was born in 1981 and lives in Barnaul (Russia).

> Mr Podchasov was a user of Telegram, a messaging application which was listed as an “Internet communications organiser” (организатор распространения информации в сети Интернет) by the Russian State. It was therefore obliged by law to store all communications data for a duration of one year and the contents of all communications for a duration of six months and to submit those data to law-enforcement authorities or security services in circumstances specified by law, together with information necessary to decrypt electronic messages if they were encrypted.

> Relying on Article 8 (right to respect for correspondence) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the Convention, Mr Podchasov complains of the legal requirements to store, pass on and decrypt data, and that he did not have an effective remedy for this complaint.

> Violation of Article 8

> Just satisfaction: The finding of a violation constitutes in itself sufficient just satisfaction for any non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicant

Source: (this is broken) https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng-press/#{%22fulltext%22:[%2233...}

Edit: Yuck, this website makes it impossible to permalink anything. What a horrible idea for an organization that's supposed to make very important decisions that people need to reference.

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

#22

Post by 1f60c »

HenryBemis wrote: post #15

The article is semi-garbage (politics aside it is a badly written/biased article). Better read the decision. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng/#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-230854... } CASE OF PODCHASOV v. RUSSIA (Application no. 33696/19)

  FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT
  
  Holds, unanimously, that it has jurisdiction to deal with the applicant’s complaints in so far as they relate to facts that took place before 16 September 2022;
  Declares, unanimously, the complaint concerning the alleged violation of the right to respect for private life and correspondence admissible;
  Holds, unanimously, that there has been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention;
  Holds, by five votes to two, that there is no need to examine the complaint under Article 13 of the Convention;
  Holds, by six votes to one, that the finding of a violation constitutes in itself sufficient just satisfaction for any non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicant;
  Dismisses, by six votes to one, the applicant’s claim for just satisfaction.
  
  Done in English, and notified in writing on 13 February 2024, pursuant to Rule 77 §§ 2 and 3 of the Rules of Court.

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

#23

Post by martimarkov »

vdaea wrote: post #12
mratsim wrote: 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.

That's not true at least in Spain. There's "In flagrante delicto" which means if the police suspects something going on they can kick your door down. It was used many times during the pandemic: when they suspected you were having too many people over at home, they acted. Unconstitutionally, mind you. The EU is not the utopia many think it is.

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

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

#24

Post by Quanttek »

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 referred to the wide-scale impact such a weakening of E2E through backdoors would have and referred to "calls for alternative 'solutions to decryption without weakening the protective mechanisms, both in legislation and through continuous technical evolution.'" Looking at the cited material, these include traditional policing, undercover operations, metadata analysis, international police cooperation, live forensics on seized devices, guessing or obtaining private keys held by parties to the communication, using vulnerabilities in the target’s software or sending an implant to targeted devices.

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 should be noted that, although the backdooring of E2E was considered to go beyond how the right to privacy may legitimately be restricted, the right to privacy is a so-called derogable right, i.e. a government can, upon declaration of a state of emergency, derogate from the right insofar that is necessary to address an emergency "threatening the life of the nation" (Art 15 ECHR))

Relevant paragraphs are paras 76-80 here: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng/#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-230854...}

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

#25

Post by Aachen »

tokai wrote: post #18
Aachen wrote: post #10

I am a bit confused. The article seems fairly political, quoting some promotional text by the pirate party and not describing what case was brought in front of a judge and what the ruling bans specifically, so I clicked through to the actual court case linked at the bottom. It has nothing to do with the pirate party or chatcontrol or any such thing. The court case was one person against the Russian government for fin…

Its a judgement that will provide precedence. A Pirate Party member of the European Parliament comments because its a core issue to the party. Why would there be anything about the Pirate Party in the ruling?

Why would you include "We Pirates will now fight even harder for our digital privacy of correspondence!" (and then continuing to link their website as a source of truth on the matter) in a non-promotional piece? This is an advertisement, not a news article

One which I agree with, to be clear. I'm not opposed to the pirate party's views on digital matters. This party's goals/narrative just has no place in a piece about a court case

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

#26

Post by sampo »

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-...

Also, despite its name and despite its location in Strasbourg, European Court of Human Rights is not an EU institution.

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

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

#27

Post by Quanttek »

ryukoposting wrote: post #21
HenryBemis wrote: post #15

The article is semi-garbage (politics aside it is a badly written/biased article). Better read the decision. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng/#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-230854... } CASE OF PODCHASOV v. RUSSIA (Application no. 33696/19)

Relevant English text from the Court's press release: > The applicant, Anton Valeryevich Podchasov, is a Russian national who was born in 1981 and lives in Barnaul (Russia). > Mr Podchasov was a user of Telegram, a messaging application which was listed as an “Internet communications organiser” (организатор распространения информации в сети Интернет) by the Russian State. It was therefore obliged by law to store all…

Click on "details" and you can permalink

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

#28

Post by tokai »

Aachen wrote: post #25
tokai wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a judgement that will provide precedence. A Pirate Party member of the European Parliament comments because its a core issue to the party. Why would there be anything about the Pirate Party in the ruling?

Why would you include "We Pirates will now fight even harder for our digital privacy of correspondence!" (and then continuing to link their website as a source of truth on the matter) in a non-promotional piece? This is an advertisement, not a news article One which I agree with, to be clear. I'm not opposed to the pirate party's views on digital matters. This party's goals/narrative just has no place in a piece abou…

I'm not arguing that with you. You misunderstood what was going on here, edited your comments many times, and now you want to discuss the article linked instead of the actual news (the judgement). Calm down.

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

#29

Post by [deleted] »

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-...

[deleted]

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

#30

Post by krastanov »

tokai wrote: post #18
Aachen wrote: post #10

I am a bit confused. The article seems fairly political, quoting some promotional text by the pirate party and not describing what case was brought in front of a judge and what the ruling bans specifically, so I clicked through to the actual court case linked at the bottom. It has nothing to do with the pirate party or chatcontrol or any such thing. The court case was one person against the Russian government for fin…

Its a judgement that will provide precedence. A Pirate Party member of the European Parliament comments because its a core issue to the party. Why would there be anything about the Pirate Party in the ruling?

I thought precedents only matter in the US "common law" framework, but most of the EU is following the "civil law" framework where precedents do not matter. Does this precedent really matter?
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