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France rejects backdoor mandate

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Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#231
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenSSL = OpenSSL Software Foundation Inc / OpenSSL Software Services Inc (In the US) OpenSSH = OpenBSD (In Canada). OpenBSD does maintain a fork of OpenSSL, called LibreSSL.

OpenBSD had a SSL stack too, not bound to US licenses and restrictions on exporting.

Before the LibreSSL fork? I did not know that. They've shipped OpenSSL for as long as I can remember, and then forked it, in 2014.

How long ago was that?

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#232

France has rejected this backdoor but keep in mind that France is still in favor of chat control (mandatory on device scanning of your communication). There's now a majority among EU countries and the proposal is expected to pass. The next meeting is April 8th.

And as usual, the french politicians will change their tune in a few months and go on TV and say that the EU made them do it even though they did not want to.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#233
post #148
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.

No, it is theatre. They are masters of their craft. They are pushing an agenda to convince the public. They pose as ignorant and relatable, so that the ignorant and relatable keep voting for them.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#234
post #228

Any grouping (such as nation) of individuals arises from some loss of freedom, income and privacy for the individuals. The loss of individuals or the contribution is the element that powers the nation or a community. 100% privacy means zero privacy-related contribution towards legal enforcement. So the question is all about striking a balance between loss of privacy and the need for legal enforcement. The negotiation…

In 2017 Copenhagen had a wave of gang shootings with 1-2 daily fatalities during the worst weeks. That is nothing compared to the most violent US cities but it was completely unprecedented for a Danish city.

The gang warfare was stopped by massive police surveillance operations. This included military surveillance and signal intelligence planes [1] and helicopters to aid the police.

It worked. I know it goes against left-libertarian talking points on HN/reddit to suggest that police and surveillance can actually stop crime but it did in 2017 in Copenhagen.

Looking at the gang problems still facing Sweden I'm fine with Danish authorities going full surveillance mode back in 2017 instead of letting the gang violence grow to Swedish levels.

[1]: https://www.berlingske.dk/samfund/politiet-tager-nye-vaaben-...

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#235
post #228

Any grouping (such as nation) of individuals arises from some loss of freedom, income and privacy for the individuals. The loss of individuals or the contribution is the element that powers the nation or a community. 100% privacy means zero privacy-related contribution towards legal enforcement. So the question is all about striking a balance between loss of privacy and the need for legal enforcement. The negotiation…

The problem in this case is that the actual criminals will just move to a more obscure, properly encrypted solution, and as such the normal population that uses Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal will be the only users being monitored.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#236

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…

> Freeing France from the drug trafficking trap This reason just like all the other reasons that have been used to try and strip away every shred of privacy that we have (think of the children, fight terrorism and so on) is complete bogus. My mom was working as an admin person in a police station in France back in the 90s and from the many conversations she had with the cops, knowledge was never the problem. They alr…

It's still true today. A cop friend of mine told me "if you arrest all the drug dealers, the whole city will burn in less than 24 hours."

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#237
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Especially considering that governments such as the UK (I know they left the EU but I'm more familiar with them than the current EU members) have a pretty grim history of exactly that.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#238
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 am not here de defend politicians, but...

The title says "France rejects backdoor mandate" but TFA makes it clear that France is not a hive-mind:

- The rejection was by the French National Assembly (think parliament/congres) - Ths happened despite pressure from the internal ministry (the government)

I find it interesting that it is often a similar story at the EU level where the European Parliament puts a stop to the worst impulses of the European Commission.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It is impossible to construct a cypher with just one key, such that the good guys (spanning several allied nations, dozens of government agencies, perhaps even local police) can use the key, but bad guys (spanning several opposing nations, dozens of intelligence agencies, thousands of hacker groups, tens of thousands of individual cyber-criminals around the world) cannot. We are talking about every single person who…

> It is impossible to construct a cypher with just one key […]

Technical nit:

I (mis?)remember reading in a cryptography book (by Schneier?) that the NSA has at least one algorithm where the decryption key is different than the encryption key, but my search-fu finds no references to it online. The application would be for devices in 'hostile territory' where there was a risk of capture of the unit and so you didn't want the other side to be able to alter data/firmware since the cipher that is available is decrypt only.

However, see perhaps:

* https://crypto.stanford.edu/~dabo/abstracts/traitors.html

* https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/39397/one-encrypt...

Also, see n-of-m algorithms:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_secret_sharing

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#240
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenBSD had a SSL stack too, not bound to US licenses and restrictions on exporting.

Before the LibreSSL fork? I did not know that. They've shipped OpenSSL for as long as I can remember, and then forked it, in 2014. How long ago was that?

OpenSSL built on Canada was fine. Get NetBSD from US mirrors and you got a TLS-challenged OS until the 00's when the restriction exports on tech 'as weapons' were nonsense.
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