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France rejects backdoor mandate

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Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#211

Post by berkes »

achenet wrote: post #91
aucisson_masque wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Moi aussi je suis francais. > French want less criminals and immigrants in the street. Whatever it takes. Maybe it's because I spent most of my time in big cities hanging out with relatively well-educated, often left-leaning, relatively young people, but I'm not getting that vibe at all. Yes, you do have pathological cases of badly integrated immigrant communities - for example the quartiers Nord de Marseille, and ye…

You could , and should, make the point about criminals and drug dealing affecting "normal citizens" without using imprecise and often wrong terms like immigrants.

Yes. Many people feel unsafe, are affected by crime, or feel they are. Yes, people are afraid. Whether they are, statistically actually more unsafe, or not (most often aren't) matters little. If people have a problem with criminal behaviour or abuse, they have a problem with criminal behaviour or abuse. Regardless of where that comes from. Being beaten up by three Moroccans hurts just as much as being beaten up by three Frenchies whose great grandparents were also born in Marseille.

It honestly doesn't help. First and foremost because many people will now dismiss the problems you may adress, simply because they are drowned in what appears racism, or at least ignorance.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#212

Post by Propelloni »

tuetuopay wrote: post #203
bambax wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Listening to the debates in the lower chamber (Assemblée Nationale) and the arguments of those arguing in favor of backdoors clearly show they do not have a clue how any of this works. They are not clever players doing double-bluffs. They are ignorant stooges.

The article clearly states that it was pushed by the Interior Ministry. Those in there know exactly what they are doing. On the other hand, the interior minister himself has no clue, as well as all the politicians in the assemblée. This is where the double-bluff is from. (granted, I think Darmanain was an exception) We have to remember that, while the minister changes with the government and thus is by definition a p…

> Those are the ones making the calls.

No, the career specialists in the ministries are the ones writing the reports and developing options. Ministers, in France and other democracies, bring their own staffs of experts. Those will work out a recommendation. The minister -- or more broadly speaking the politician -- makes the call.

And frankly, I don't know of another way. Nobody can be an expert on all the things that come up in a single ministry, let alone the parliament.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#213

Post by 3np »

precommunicator wrote: post #128
spapas82 wrote: post #63

> provision that would have forced messaging platforms like Signal and WhatsApp to allow hidden access to private conversations. The fact that this could have been possible is the reason why the pgp/gpg way ( you manage your certificate and you choose whose certificates to trust) is still the only way to have true encrypted communications. Using centralised services to encrypt important data is a joke.

PGP/GPG by default have no perfect forward secrecy though. In Signal you can check the certificates checksums in conversation settings, to compare them e.g. when physically present to the other device. There are other solutions that use Signal protocol or that have PFS that are decentralized. And you can build your own, it's open source at the end. Signal stated already that they would sooner exit certain markets tha…

The point was not really about using PGP specifically but referring to its web-of-trust model, I believe.

Forward secrecy does not require centralized key distribution and/or trust lists.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#214

Post by artursapek »

latexr wrote: post #120
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…

> To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryption works. Hanlon’s razor isn’t always true, sometimes it really is malice. Considering EU ministers want to exempt themselves from Chat Control, that suggests to me they do understand enough of the basics. https://european-pirateparty.eu/chatcontrol-eu-ministers-wan...

I love the combination of them naming this evil bill "Child Sexual Abuse Regulation Proposal" to make it sound like an obviously good idea, and them asking to be exempt from it. So are you implying you are abusing children?

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#215

Post by ur-whale »

buybackoff wrote: post #77
mytailorisrich wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. On individual rights I would qualify that by saying that France has never been leading on them. The state is what matters and individual rights have always in practice been restricted to that effect.

I admit ambiguity, but I meant 180 opposite. I believe France is and has been the top at individual freedom. That perception is an important reason I'm there, so I acted on it.

> I believe France is and has been the top at individual freedom.

You could not be more wrong.

However, I am not surprised you would believe that: I have quite a few French friends who believe the exact same thing because they've all drunk the kool-aid that was served to them during their school years, namely that France is the country who invented human rights, freedom of speech, etc...

Nothing could be further from the truth (England is a way better approximation to "invented free speech" than France ever was, where do you think Voltaire discovered what Freedom really meant if not during his exile years in England?).

Even today, your average Frenchmen is dead convinced that freedom of speech in France is one of the best in the world and a fundamental value of French society.

If you compare it to Iran or North Korea, fair enough. But then go look up what happened to a guy named Dieudonne if you want a perfect example of there being no freedom of speech whatsoever in France.

Compared to global standards, France is really not high on the individual freedom / freedom of speech scales, but then you have to be able to properly compare things to make vaguely correct calls on such things.

And if you have never left your country nor master English well enough to understand what goes on outside your tiny cultural bubble, and you have been indoctrinated by the French school system since day one, it's a perfectly normal thing to believe.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#216

Post by isaacremuant »

They keep trying to impose an all seeing all knowing state and people here have already bought into the "age verification, think of the children" rethoric.

After seeing how gleefully people accepted totalitarian anti constitutional covid laws, It's omly a matter of time. Wait for the next "crisis".

Good one for France, though.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#217

Post by chgs »

bambax wrote: post #148
csomar wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it feels like it often boils down to the politicians just not understanding enough to take rational decisions. That's a very gullible take and kind of apologetic for the politicians. If you are implementing a backdoor to crypto-systems, you probably know exactly what you are doing. That, and this has been re-surfacing time and again under different pretenses make this a deliberate attack on freedom of expression. T…

Listening to the debates in the lower chamber (Assemblée Nationale) and the arguments of those arguing in favor of backdoors clearly show they do not have a clue how any of this works. They are not clever players doing double-bluffs. They are ignorant stooges.

The question is who is feeding them that information.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#218

Post by chgs »

thomasfedb wrote: post #210
bananalychee wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK and Australia are ahead of countries like France in restricting freedom, so this sounds like a poor attempt to avoid complimenting the US specifically.

What freedoms are you referring to wrt Australia?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-46463029

https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/14/identify_and_disrupt_...

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#219

Post by hamilyon2 »

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…

Every good idea needs powerful PR. How about we start rallying around the term "software equivalent of cancer" which Tim Cook coined to describe encryption backdoor.

Speech matters. "Software cancer bill" sure sounds less appealing than "catch terrorists bill".

Nobody has to understand the details about why encryption backdoor is impossible to implement without breaking the encryption. It is too hard of a topic. I only understand it vaguely. Does it matter? You don't need phd in silicon design to know that chips are important.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#220

Post by mrweasel »

daniel-s wrote: post #116
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…

These aren't dumb people. They know exactly what they're asking for. Privacy and security of the public's data is not a priority to them, surveillance and power is. Politicians would much prefer all communication in plaintext, to hell with individual freedoms and privacy, especially European politicians that don't come from the same traditions of freedom as the anglophone countries. What politician do you expect to o…

No dumb perhaps, but very very short sighted and it pretty clear how other decisions can be so very wrong, once you hear them get quizzed on encryption.

"We should have a backdoor for law enforcement", okay but what if that abused by some regime that doesn't like Jews, Muslims, Christians, homosexuals, communists, authors, journalists... you? Obviously THOSE people shouldn't have access to a backdoor. Okay, but if you do it EU wide then Hungary will have access to it. Okay, only Western European nations should have access. What if AFD wins in Germany or Groupe Rassemblement National in France? Okay, in THAT case the backdoor access should be revoked. Who decides that?

It's very clear that politicians want backdoors in encryption, but only under a very specific set of circumstances. Those circumstances are almost completely tied to their own parliamentary seats. If questioned long enough, most of them will see it issue, they probably won't admit it though.

So no, not dumb, just incredibly short sighted on almost irreversible decisions that can and will hurt the wrong people.

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