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EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

statewatch.org

221–230 of 780 posts

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like TSA luggage keys.... there's no way those would leak online, and no way anybody would be able to download them from https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1687424 and 3d-print them... no way something like that'd happen!

Luckily, you can't 3D print an encryption key that would be useful in any way. Although, now I wish the guy from Lavabits had handed in his SSL cert as 3D printed letters and numbers like a puzzle.

3D printing is one of the more useful ways to securely backup up encryption key’s. Just ensure the only place they exist is inside an object and not only are they durable, but tamper resistant as someone can’t just photocopy the key.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We expect privacy in "unencrypted" phone calls, but seem happy that law enforcement can eavesdrop on 4G when they have to. Don't assume that "we" are happy about that. You might be; others are not. Unbreakable encryption should be available to everyone, and straightforward for everyone to use, and used by default rather than only for "sensitive" information. Unbreakable encryption should be so widely used that the…

> Don't assume that "we" are happy about that. You might be; others are not. I don't want to suggest everyone is happy with the status quo, but it's at least not one of the top items on everyone's agenda for change. > Unbreakable encryption should be available to everyone, and straightforward for everyone to use, and used by default rather than only for "sensitive" information. Unbreakable encryption should be so wid…

One of many angles is "perhaps you trust your government (or perhaps not), but do you trust every government with a backdoor? Do you trust everyone who has gotten hold of it? Do you trust that it can't be broken or stolen or abused?"

We need to very clearly and universally make the message clear: there's unbreakable encryption, and there's broken encryption, nothing in between. Anything that purports to be in between is either broken or soon will be.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#223
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It pretty much is, section 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: > No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. I mean wearing my programmer goggles it doesn't state privacy AND correspondence but OR, but sti…

When they have a court warrant, it's not arbitrary. I think some rights were given to the people to combat government tyranny (right to bear arms for example), but combating government tyranny is just not feasible anymore, due to a set of factors, like our inability to organize behind a common cause. Anyway, the choice here is reserving our ability to overthrow an unjust system, or giving the government the rights to…

>giving the government the rights to catch those who might want to unjustly overthrow it.

So how decides when an attempt is just? Did the British think the American revolutionaries were just in declaring independence?

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These things come from EC. Your vote does not influence incoming legislation. Only way to achieve something is lobbying and you'd have to find huge sums to have EC members even consider talking to you. They can make a lot of money from controlling the communication of citizens and you cannot vote them out, so what's the alternative?

Legislation in most countries does not come from elected officials, it typically is drafted up by lawyers. That's not a good argument. With the commission a lot of what ends up on the proposals is lobbied by citizens and it's the MEP that vote on it before becoming law who are elected. I vote liberal parties in my country and that has done jack shit to prevent shitty laws to be passed because the majority seems to be…

The difference is that you can vote for people who choose lawyers and they can influence what lawyers write. You dont have this much control in the EU.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#226
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These things usually boil down to: You must not do as I do, you must do what I tell you to.

This is silly. Governments have all sorts of things like machine guns, tanks, and battleships that (rightfully) aren't allowed for the general public.

> Governments have all sorts of things like machine guns, tanks, and battleships that (rightfully) aren't allowed for the general public.

You have listed three things which are all really the same thing. There is no objection to private ownership of motor vehicles or ships. You object to the weaponry.

But we can put aside the whole right to bear arms debate in this case because there is an obvious way to distinguish it. Encryption is a purely defensive technology.

It is totally illegitimate for a government to prohibit things like armor and electromagnetic shielding, even if some of them do, because these things only defend, they do not attack.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I follow. The struggle politicians are in isn't to eavesdrop on everyone. The fact that this is possible is an unwelcome side effect. The struggle is to not lose the same ability (targeted eavesdropping after court orders) when people switch to e2e from phone calls. If cell phones had e2e encryptoions so the normal court-order landline eavesdropping disappeared from law enforcements' toolboxes - there is zer…

> The struggle is to not lose the same ability (targeted eavesdropping after court orders) when people switch to e2e from phone calls. But they haven't. They can physically install a listening device at the location in the warrant and thereby record any conversations you make from there. That gives them the same capability they historically had with landlines.

Yes. So for a static location that's feasible. But the status quo is they can also tap old school mobile voice calls and text messages.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#229
An enormous problem with laws of this nature is that they create a large new category of contraband. It is worse than drug laws in that this is invisible, weightless contraband that can be instantly delivered anywhere. Defending yourself against accusations that you posses this kind of contraband will be devilishly difficult. Inevitably that will be used to make false accusations, often against vulnerable minorities.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#230
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine here in Berlin is from Hong Kong. Thanks to the Pro-Democracy protests in Hong Kong, the general nature of which my friend confirmed, I know about how to use traffic cones to defend against tear gas. I’ve personally witnessed “we don’t like how Corona is being handled” marches here in Berlin. The difference is massive.

That’s a great point, thankfully Europe is more humane than China in dealing with riots. The concern for how Corona is handled in Europe, is that the temporary measures for dealing with Corona become permanent. In Denmark these temporary measures are supposed to expire in March 2021, but it’s anyone’s guess if that arrangement is honored by the government.

Not to forget that top epidemiologists demand to stop the devastating measures immediately because our data shows that they cause much more harm than good.
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