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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

#201

Post by bawolff »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #190
smnrchrds wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada's constitution has written and unwritten parts. The Constitution Act of 1982 (which includes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms), for example, is a written part of Canada's constitution. Changing the charter would require the procedure for constitutional change, which is rather difficult. It's not something that can be amended like a normal act of the parliament.

That's fair. I was using the term "written constitution" from the perspective of a US reader. There's no document that says "I'm the constitution, that's it". Canada works under the idea of an open constitution. There's a collection of documents that become entrenched and are considered part of the constitution. There are endless debates about exactly which documents should be considered. Since the amending formula h…

> There's no document that says "I'm the constitution, that's it".

Umm section 52(2) of the constitution act? I mean,i guess that is not exhaustive, but its most of it.

> There are endless debates about exactly which documents should be considered.

I think you are significantly overstating that. There is some debate, but its mostly theoretical and rarely comes up in practise.

> Since the amending formula has made changes impossible

Its not easy but its not that hard, just nobody agrees on anything. The process for ammending the canadian constitution is roughly the hard as the american one (except for stuff to do with the monarch). Americans need 75% of states, we need 70% of provinces which must contain 50% of the population. Basically the same.

> And of course, we're not going to mention the notwithstanding clause.

What about it? I might personally not like it, but i don't see how it confuses anything in the constitution.

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

#202

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

sandworm101 wrote: post #199
bawolff wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a canadian, this is interesting, because i always thought our system was a copy of the UK system, but our courts strike down laws for being unconstitutional all the time.

It is a copy. The UK has a constitution. The UK constitution just isn't a simple document one can hang on the wall. The UK constitution is a body of knowledge and traditions. Recognize and do something a particular way for a few hundred years and it can become constitutional irrespective of whether it was nicely codified in a single document. One can even say that the US and Canadian constitutions don't actually say…

Most people understand "a constitution" to mean something written down that you can point to, that has the force of behind it, that cannot be trivially elided by a government.

None of these are true of the UK "constitution", whether it is one document or 5000 precedents.

Any document written in a spoken human language will be open to interpretation - there's no getting away from that, regardless of the language, culture or country the document comes from. I still consider that a step up from the bullshit assemblage of "constitutional law" that claimed to be "the UK constitution".

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

#203

Post by jltsiren »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #123
aftbit wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, it's quite hard to change the constitution. It requires agreement from 2/3rds of Congress followed by ratification by the individual legislatures of 3/4ths of the states. Such a thing has not been done since 1992, and not on a politically charged question since 1971.

> Such a thing has not been done since 1992 We’re a 235-year old republic. Changing the firmware once every 10 to 15% of the time seems fine. > and not on a politically charged question since 1971 This is a feature. If a question is charged it should be resolved first federally, through the states, and then politically, via the legislature. Only once there is consensus should it be elevated to Constitutional status.…

I believe that a constitution should get a full rewrite once every 50-60 years. That's to only way to ensure that the constitution remains legitimate and relevant.

The US does not really have a constitution. There is a set of documents that claims to be the constitution, but it's so out of date that it can't serve as one. Then there is the Supreme Court, which can change the actual constitution easily with its creative interpretations. Because there is no need for a widespread consensus for changing the constitution, its legitimacy remains questionable at best.

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

#204

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #123
aftbit wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, it's quite hard to change the constitution. It requires agreement from 2/3rds of Congress followed by ratification by the individual legislatures of 3/4ths of the states. Such a thing has not been done since 1992, and not on a politically charged question since 1971.

> Such a thing has not been done since 1992 We’re a 235-year old republic. Changing the firmware once every 10 to 15% of the time seems fine. > and not on a politically charged question since 1971 This is a feature. If a question is charged it should be resolved first federally, through the states, and then politically, via the legislature. Only once there is consensus should it be elevated to Constitutional status.…

You cannot use that process for constitutional questions.

Consider the dispute in the USA over the correct intepretation of the 2nd Amendment. A state (such as NY) implements legislation embodying that state's interpretation of the amendment. SCOTUS rules that the legislation in fact violates the amendment. No change is possible until the constitution is changed ... or the composition of the SCOTUS is modified, and a new court decides that stare decisis is not relevant, which leads to a different type of change to the constitution: interpretation.

The only way to change the actual text of the constitution is to change the constitution, and that does not require consensus, just a super-majority.

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

#205

Post by infamouscow »

jacobp100 wrote: post #76
sackfield wrote: post #46

It's nice to know this also applies to the UK even after Brexit (still a member of the ECHR).

[flagged]

I'm not sure why this is being downvoted.

Governments aren't accountable to their citizens, and there aren't any repercussions nor punishment for violating rights. Sure, the court might have ruled on this, but that's irrelevant when the government decides "national security" takes precedent and uses the media to manufacture the consent of the population into thinking extraordinary times require extraordinary measures.

If most of the people with guns want to ignore the court, they will.

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

#207

Post by JAlexoid »

sandworm101 wrote: post #199
bawolff wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a canadian, this is interesting, because i always thought our system was a copy of the UK system, but our courts strike down laws for being unconstitutional all the time.

It is a copy. The UK has a constitution. The UK constitution just isn't a simple document one can hang on the wall. The UK constitution is a body of knowledge and traditions. Recognize and do something a particular way for a few hundred years and it can become constitutional irrespective of whether it was nicely codified in a single document. One can even say that the US and Canadian constitutions don't actually say…

> The UK has a constitution.

Yes, it's the parliament. There are practically no limits on The Parliament and they can pretty much issue any law they want.

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

#208

Post by scotty79 »

xvector wrote: post #192
berkes wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously not. There are tons of large companies, many of which are often misread as American, because they are listed on the Nasdaq or another US exchange. Many EU companies have far higher revenues than their US counterparts (Airbus, Volkswagen, Alstom), are boring but crucial (Heidelberg, DTE) or not easily recognised (Novo Nordisk, Unilever). Even in tech, there's a lot of interesting ones: Booking.com, elastic s…

The EU's entire modern tech industry does not even measure up to that of one US company. Dismissals of the EU's inability to compete in tech is why EU citizens have missed out on literally tens of trillions of dollars in economic growth post-2000s. The EU's lack of ability to innovate is becoming a serious problem for the progress of our species as a whole.

US valuations are simply insane. Oligarchs money looking for an investment vessel inflate share prices. In most cases it has nothing to do with actual value of the companies or their revenue.

In US empty company can be "worth" billions for a time.

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

#209

Post by tempestn »

infamouscow wrote: post #205
jacobp100 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. Governments aren't accountable to their citizens, and there aren't any repercussions nor punishment for violating rights. Sure, the court might have ruled on this, but that's irrelevant when the government decides "national security" takes precedent and uses the media to manufacture the consent of the population into thinking extraordinary times require extraordinary measures…

I expect it's being downvoted because it's patronizing and lacking in any useful information beyond an implied disagreement.

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

#210

Post by procflora »

hot_gril wrote: post #141
AJ007 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "e2e" concept that most are familiar with is basically fake: the provider is responsible for the client that does the encryption and decryption. Of course they can break it if forced. Software exploits are a separate matter and also easier to deal with when the end user isn't truly in control of the encryption (or easier if they don't know what they are doing.)

It's more fake because you download the app, look up your friend's number "1-555-333-2222", and your client trusts their server to actually return your friend instead of a MITM. Some asterisks there, but basically it's far from trustless.

Isn't this what the "safety number" in Signal is for? Obviously you are still trusting many other things there (the client software, OS, hardware, whatever out of band method you use to compare the numbers, etc.), but I thought the safety number pretty much addresses the MITM concern specifically, if you bother to check it.
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