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France rejects backdoor mandate

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Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#21

Post by bdangubic »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #10
zimza wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because tech and society, like everything else, is inherently political. Backdoors, surveillance, control. These are things fascist and proto-fascist societies try to achieve. And they are thriving as of late.

Fascist behavior and actions aren't limited to the political right wing. Anyone can do it, you just choose to cherry pick the one you dislike under "fascism" and be OK with the fascist behavior that allies to your political views as being correct and justified. Do you see any conservatives firebombing people's private property right now, or is it only the "tolerant left" doing it? How much online free speech was cens…

now we have president and his apostoles publicly calling on journalists to be jailed. “free speech” for right means “only shit we want to hear” and for left means “you can’t really say shit that entices violence and is blatantly false” neither of course is “right” but as you initially stated this shouldn’t be political and then you proceeded to politicize it fully :)

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#22

Post by mytailorisrich »

buybackoff wrote: post #12

I've found the original debates video on the National Assembly website. My French is good enough for that (not enough for cooking et al. though), so I believe I understood. I'm positively surprised by some deputies remarks. But Bruno (interior minister) Retailleau is either totally incompetent technically, with his advisors as well, or is a liar. "We will apply the math selectively, only for those that are a threat a…

France is in decay with incompetent and unpatriotic governments for decades.

It is facing many issues but has lacked strong leadership courageous enough to put country first. So, in fact, it is a fairly typical European country...

The spread of "narcotrafic" is an example of that, there are others. If you follow French news you'll see many.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#23

Post by aucisson_masque »

whatshisface wrote: post #16
palata wrote: post #3

Just like for other big challenges like biodiversity and climate change, it feels like it often boils down to the politicians just not understanding enough to take rational decisions. Of course they can't all have a PhD in cryptography, but they should also not have no clue at all. Over an over again, politicians are asking for backdoors. To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryptio…

I would like to know what the public opinion on these issues is before blaming politician's ignorance, considering that to them the relevant knowledge is knowledge of what voters will support or tolerate. The impossible promise of backdoors that France can enter but no other country, organized criminal syndicate or petty government-employed stalker can find is only one impossible promise among the many we can hear fr…

French want less criminals and immigrants in the street. Whatever it takes.

I'm french, i have not heard any people, work, street, even television or internet speak about that.

The sad truth is that it wouldn't even solve the issue, criminals will always be able to use encrypted communications. there are open source software that can't be tampered with, software that doesn't use a single server where backdoor can be put, or they could even simply encrypt their text message. i could do that from my mac terminal and Bruno Retailleau isn't going to put a backdoor in my mac terminal...

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#24

Post by pqtyw »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #19
pqtyw wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> firebombing people's private property So any destruction of private property due to political or ideological reasons is inherently "fascist"? Anyway not that this justifies anything but wouldn't insurance pay for the destroyed Teslas? If so the terrorists are doing those people a service in an indirect since they would be able to buy a car they wouldn't have to be ashamed of driving anymore, so win-win (as long as…

[flagged]

In what way was I promoting or justifying anything?

I mean it's horrible if you car is destroyed by dumb and violent people (just burning lithium batteries makes it much worse, which IMHO is the greater crime but that's somewhat tangential) but if it doesn't affect you financial it's not a big deal and you are much less of a victim than the fire fighters who have to put out that fire.

Damage to property seems secondary and barely significant compared to uncontrolled burning of dangerous materials. Thinking otherwise is quite something...

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#25

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

dataflow wrote: post #15
palata wrote: post #3

Just like for other big challenges like biodiversity and climate change, it feels like it often boils down to the politicians just not understanding enough to take rational decisions. Of course they can't all have a PhD in cryptography, but they should also not have no clue at all. Over an over again, politicians are asking for backdoors. To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryptio…

> they should also not have no clue at all. Over an over again, politicians are asking for backdoors. To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryption works. Unless you're claiming that it's literally impossible to construct a cipher with multiple decryption keys, I don't see how you're implying that asking for a backdoor "proves they don't understand the very basics of how encryption…

the problem with backdoored encryption isn't making a cypher with multiple decryption keys. It's keeping secret that's worth billions of dollars and shared among 10s of thousands of people. The difference between backdoored encryption and no encryption is whether the backdoor is known to the public.

There is a coherent set of values that lead to saying "no encryption", but not one for "only backdoored encryption".

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#26

Post by aucisson_masque »

The backdoor mandate was part of an anti organized criminality law, Bruno Retailleau (interior minister) pretend criminals use encrypted chat to communicate and so backdoor is required to intercept their communications.

makes sense to the average non tech people.

The sad truth however is that it wouldn't even solve the issue, criminals will always be able to use encrypted communications: there are open source software that can't be tampered with, software that doesn't use a single server where backdoor can be put, or they could even simply encrypt their text message.

i could do that from my mac terminal, encryption is basically mathematics. Bruno Retailleau isn't somehow going to put a backdoor in every device that could be used to encrypt. People even used to encrypt communications before computer.

The only looser of that law is the normie, you and me, who use whatsapp or signal to chat and couldn't ever push their relative to use things like pgp encrypted email.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#27

Post by FirmwareBurner »

aucisson_masque wrote: post #26

The backdoor mandate was part of an anti organized criminality law, Bruno Retailleau (interior minister) pretend criminals use encrypted chat to communicate and so backdoor is required to intercept their communications. makes sense to the average non tech people. The sad truth however is that it wouldn't even solve the issue, criminals will always be able to use encrypted communications: there are open source softwar…

Wouldn't law enforcement just use Pegasus style zero-days to spy on the their targets? So why all the hubbub about making backdoors that become vulnerabilities for nefarious users too?

Like why bother convicting Signal to create a backdoor for you, when you can put your nations geniuses to find some RCE bugs in Qualcomm or Apple modems or SoCs, and spy on them that way? This way nobody's the wiser.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#28

Post by AceJohnny2 »

Tangentially, France has had the CNIL [1] since ~1978, following a scandal about creating a national citizen's database, and exists to prevent exactly that. (I believe the objection stemmed from memories of the Petainist fascist regime during WW2)

The CNIL is why France (and now Europe) has "Right to Forget" laws. It is the direct ancestor of stuff like GDPR.

Unfortunately, I feel like the CNIL is fairly neutered nowadays. Nevertheless, it serves as historical precedent, for those who remember it exists.

[1] "Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes" ~= "National Commission of Computing & Liberties"

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#29

Post by buybackoff »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #22
buybackoff wrote: post #12

I've found the original debates video on the National Assembly website. My French is good enough for that (not enough for cooking et al. though), so I believe I understood. I'm positively surprised by some deputies remarks. But Bruno (interior minister) Retailleau is either totally incompetent technically, with his advisors as well, or is a liar. "We will apply the math selectively, only for those that are a threat a…

France is in decay with incompetent and unpatriotic governments for decades. It is facing many issues but has lacked strong leadership courageous enough to put country first. So, in fact, it is a fairly typical European country... The spread of "narcotrafic" is an example of that, there are others. If you follow French news you'll see many.

I live in France for the last 5 years. Been to many places in the world. France is OK overall.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#30

Post by jbm »

aucisson_masque wrote: post #26

The backdoor mandate was part of an anti organized criminality law, Bruno Retailleau (interior minister) pretend criminals use encrypted chat to communicate and so backdoor is required to intercept their communications. makes sense to the average non tech people. The sad truth however is that it wouldn't even solve the issue, criminals will always be able to use encrypted communications: there are open source softwar…

While I generally agree with your position, this is the same unconvincing argument I've read for a long time.

Even if there is a specific criminal gang that is sophisticated enough to use a properly encoded open source application, the majority aren't, and there is enough of a overhead and annoyance factor that will allow the majority not to use them.

If any open source application gets enough people using it, there will be plenty of opportunity for the maintainers to be bullied into submission to the state. Then the fragmentation will begin ("You need to use this branch, that branch is compromised").

If 10-20% of your full time job as a criminal is keeping your communication encrypted, that's probably a win for the government.

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