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EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

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Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#271

Post by dane-pgp »

ben_w wrote: post #151
dheera wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if we can make an encryption protocol that cryptographically securely encrypts an arbitrary English sentence into an English passage that sounds like it makes sense but is unrelated to the ciphertext.

Yes. 1. Encrypt as normal. 2. Given a language model which can generate a choice of multiple possible next-symbols given what has already been written, use bytes from the cypher text to choose between the available options. For example, using the predictive text options on my iPhone, and treating 0=left 1=right, the cypher text 011100 and the starting symbol “Hi”, I get: “Hi I have heard from the other” (Note: I’m fa…

This is the correct answer, although it's worth thinking about what the threat model is.

If the government is just going to force specific companies to add backdoors, then the process above isn't really necessary, you just need a way to install a client that isn't backdoored. If, however, the government is banning the sending of encrypted messages, then you have to hope that a jury doesn't see your long pointless messages as strong evidence of using encryption.

To improve slightly upon the language model example given above, though, I suggest something like this:

https://bellard.org/textsynth/sms.html

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#272

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

I_am_tiberius wrote: post #256
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of this depends on where your political position is, what is elected in your country and how the the EU is currently pointing. For instance for me as an Austrian citizen my country is significantly more leaning towards surveillance that I'm more worried about what we would be doing if we were not protected by the EU lawmaking process getting a lot more scrutiny and visibility.

I'm Austrian as well and I don't think lawmaking would go in the direction of surveillance without the EU. Austria's main ruling party has too many show politicians - I think they can do what they do now because they don't have to say in public what they do. In short: I don't think Sebastian Kurz would say in public that he wants all encryption (or chat app encryption) to be illegal.

I can only say that I disagree. Bluemel even wanted to require real name registration for all online services before Ibiza.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#273

Post by withinboredom »

scrollaway wrote: post #32
emteycz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-techies most certainly understand what encryption is and if you describe what 'end' in the WhatsApp notice about end to end encryption means, it's very clear to them.

No, non-techies do not "understand what encryption is". They'll understand if you explain it to them, but if you ask someone off the street what encryption is, the closest to a correct description they may give you is "it's garbled text you can decrypt". It's hard enough to explain the easy, obvious stuff like tax brackets. You think people have a native understanding of encryption ?

> You think people have a native understanding of encryption?

It’s easy. Tell people they’re speaking English to one other person who also speaks English at a dinner table. No one else in the world speaks English. You can look and sound like you’re talking about how excellent the food is, but really you’re saying how terrible it is... and no one on earth will ever know, other than the one person who understands you.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#274

Post by waskeifnikakew »

Daniel_sk wrote: post #243

I want to also give some perspective why this is bad even IF we can make sure that only governments will have the keys. We have just uncovered an organized crime at the top levels in Slovakia where even the President of police is part of it and they influenced many court cases and were accessing secret information and databases on citizens, basically a mafia. And we are part of EU. I don't trust our goverment to use…

I also don't trust my goverment to use the keys only for good purpose, recently in Spain a commissar was paying girls to have sexual contact with influential people to get information about politiceans.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#275

Post by throw0101a »

scrollaway wrote: post #42
alkonaut wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E2E encryption is scary. I'm also in the "you can't ban math, why try" camp. But I can't see authorities/politicians give up the idea of getting access to decrypted communications after court orders, in a 100 years, even if everyone completely understood the topic. It's just not happening.

I mean, if you put it that way, assumption of innocence is also a scary concept; being the police and having to let someone you know is a murderer or terrorist go because you can't prove what they did is routinely touted as a genuinely terrifying prospect in plenty of TV shows. Privacy is a human right in Europe. I don't think it's a pipe dream to give encryption some good PR, especially when it powers the internet,…

> being the police and having to let someone you know is a murderer or terrorist go because you can't prove what they did

"A policeman's job is only easy in a police state." — https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Touch_of_Evil

> as a genuinely terrifying prospect in plenty of TV shows.

Probably for a reason:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copaganda

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#276

Post by MauranKilom »

names_are_hard wrote: post #171
TheRealPomax wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are of course aware that "having a law that says one more part of the already illegal activity is illegal" is going to do nothing to stop that illegal activity, right? All this does is criminalize the use of e2ee for everyone, which solves the whole "crime" problems for exactly no one. Your kids aren't any safer, but everyone who needs e2ee (journalists, activists, vulnerable/opressed groups) now needs to engage…

Just curious: do you also apply this argument to the the gun control debate in the United States? In any case, it's quite possible that making something dangerous illegal does indeed stop some would-be bad guys. The truly committed criminals break the law and gain access to the contraband, while the casual/less intelligent criminal is stopped. You have to make a call: is the reduction, but not complete elimination, o…

It's an interesting point you make, but there's a fundamental difference between E2EE communication and guns. Mass shootings require guns. They do not require E2EE communication.

Yes, regulating both could reduce the "bad things", but clearly to very different degree. They would both cause "reduction, but not complete elimination", but equating them does not make sense in my eyes.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#278

Post by wizzwizz4 »

alkonaut wrote: post #227
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Which they can do, too. Just break into an Android phone (easy enough to do remotely). Bug home, bug the car, bug shoes, now you have phone calls from an iPhone. (You can pick up electrical interference from phone calls on an iPhone, due to the hearing aid induction loop.)

For every phone, you can just slip an antenna under the case (or in the phone's body) and pick up the LCD switching interference – faint though it may be – and figure out what's on the screen from there. Or, you know, CCTV.

Encryption-for-the-masses merely protects from mass surveillance; anyone protecting themselves from targeted surveillance isn't going to suffer from an encryption ban.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#279

Post by throw0101a »

textgel wrote: post #24
yogthos wrote: post #5

I was told that this only happens in authoritarian regimes like China. Turns out that while everybody was talking about China exact same things were happening here in the West. It's as if the whole focus on China was specifically designed to distract people from what's happening in their own countries.

What concerns me is that with the increase in arguably totalitarian laws and the constant attempts on once sacrosanct principles like the above we're moving in a direction where we'll run out of room to point at that side and say "yes they've got X but I'd still rather us because they have Y" when more and more we have Y as well.

> […] the constant attempts on once sacrosanct principles like the above we're moving in a direction […]

This is sometimes done on purpose:

> The Overton Window is an approach to identifying the ideas that define the spectrum of acceptability of governmental policies. Politicians can only act within the acceptable range. Shifting the Overton Window involves proponents of policies outside the window persuading the public to expand the window. Proponents of current policies, or similar ones within the window, seek to convince people that policies outside it should be deemed unacceptable.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#280

Post by hvis »

names_are_hard wrote: post #171
TheRealPomax wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are of course aware that "having a law that says one more part of the already illegal activity is illegal" is going to do nothing to stop that illegal activity, right? All this does is criminalize the use of e2ee for everyone, which solves the whole "crime" problems for exactly no one. Your kids aren't any safer, but everyone who needs e2ee (journalists, activists, vulnerable/opressed groups) now needs to engage…

Just curious: do you also apply this argument to the the gun control debate in the United States? In any case, it's quite possible that making something dangerous illegal does indeed stop some would-be bad guys. The truly committed criminals break the law and gain access to the contraband, while the casual/less intelligent criminal is stopped. You have to make a call: is the reduction, but not complete elimination, o…

Removing guns from easy access means removing the very means that a lot of crimes are perpetrated with. Including crimes of passion (non-premeditated ones).

Not so with encryption.

And since the terrorist cases are really aberrations in our times (there are very few incidents, realistically speaking, compared to other kinds of crime and other causes of death), the perpetrators must be significantly motivated individuals (or groups) that are unlikely to be deterred by E2E encryption being unavailable in the popular chat apps.

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