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BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

element.io

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Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#271

Post by shapefrog »

PYTHONDJANGO wrote: post #241
foepys wrote: post #38

Germany was quite advanced when it came to technology but then the drive to make more of it somehow stopped. It has always been incredibly sad to me that the German ID card (Personalausweis) has an RFID chip inside with trust zones, certificates, authorization features, and much more and just never had been used. Like at all except for getting cigarettes at vending machines. 12 years after the first RFID Personalausw…

Unfortunately still many people working in tec jobs do not understand that putting an ID on an official governmental document that you need to carry is effectively the same like a tattoo with a number on your arm. Despite Germans have made bad experiences with that, the idea survived the 3rd Reich. The idea that as a human being you need "governmental documents" to identify is an authoritarian core value that is fund…

We should pay vast quantities to microsoft or google do it, they can be trusted ... right

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#272

Post by snowpid »

romwell wrote: post #200
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is good this project is failing. Such a thing will never fly in the US. Both the left and right will rightfully or wrongfully oppose it for different reasons. Edit: E.g. see the left opposing voter ids in the US.

>Edit: E.g. see the left opposing voter ids in the US. FYI, the left wasn't opposing voter IDs . The left was opposing Voter ID laws , which required a voter to have an ID, while selectively providing these IDs to the population. That's a uniquely American problem. We wouldn't have an issue with a Voter ID law if everyone was guaranteed to have a state ID , regardless of where they live, whether they have a car or no…

Personal ID arent for free in Germany (though not expensive, ca. 30 EUR), they are mandatory to wear and you have to show if you want to elect.

No IDs in an election are a culture war issue in US and lefties argue irrationally on the topic. Btw, I am not a Trump supporter.

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#273

Post by stevehawk »

EMIRELADERO wrote: post #189
stevehawk wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The impact is not likely to be positive. Nearly every government in Europe will want access to the comms happening, particularly if it's within their borders or with their citizens. Europe is not likely to introduce an end-user-to-end-user encryption. It will be encrypted from end user to the government to the next end user.

The EU's DMA regulation, which is the one that will enforce interoperability, explicitly requires end-to-end encryption to be preserved.

and as facebook and governments have taught us, a lot of people consider end to end encryption to include "i can encrpyt between you and my server, decrypt it, read it, encrypt it again and pass it on".

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#274

Post by Sporktacular »

newaccount74 wrote: post #103
Sporktacular wrote: post #48

These guys keep pushing the idea that if it's not federated, it's closed and proprietary. In at least the cases of Signal and Threema that's just not true.

Signal clients may be open source, but as far as I know the network is very much closed and proprietary. Correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I understand you can't make any changes to the Signal client, compile it yourself, and connect to the Signal network. You have to use the binaries from the app store.

So, you can't just make your own signal network? Sounds pretty open if you can and hardly proprietary if the license allows for that.

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#275

Post by Sporktacular »

Arathorn wrote: post #93
Sporktacular wrote: post #48

These guys keep pushing the idea that if it's not federated, it's closed and proprietary. In at least the cases of Signal and Threema that's just not true.

Signal and Threema are proprietary, in that the protocol they speak is vendor-specific and not openly standardised. You are literally locked to that system, and neither of them allow 3rd party clients to connect. Moreover, Threema's server is closed-source and so completely proprietary - and you could argue that Signal's server is often closed-source too, given years occasionally go by without public code releases. T…

Signal publishes its protocol spec and allows other applications to use it. Not on their network, but again, that's an issue of federation, not openness. The license allows you to modify it, so you could roll out your own implementation. So you are literally not locked into that system and that's not proprietary.

As for Threema, true enough as it's useless without a server. But again, federation isn't a necessary condition for being open.

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#276

Post by romwell »

snowpid wrote: post #272
romwell wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Edit: E.g. see the left opposing voter ids in the US. FYI, the left wasn't opposing voter IDs . The left was opposing Voter ID laws , which required a voter to have an ID, while selectively providing these IDs to the population. That's a uniquely American problem. We wouldn't have an issue with a Voter ID law if everyone was guaranteed to have a state ID , regardless of where they live, whether they have a car or no…

Personal ID arent for free in Germany (though not expensive, ca. 30 EUR), they are mandatory to wear and you have to show if you want to elect. No IDs in an election are a culture war issue in US and lefties argue irrationally on the topic. Btw, I am not a Trump supporter.

>No IDs in an election are a culture war issue in US and lefties argue irrationally on the topic.

Do you live in the US?

If not, looks like you're missing the important context that the Republican party makes access to facilities that issue IDs limited.

For most Americans, the primary ID is the driver's license.

And for those that don't drive, it's... non-driver license, also issued by department of motor vehicles.

Which is often not accessible by public transportation.

And whose locations strategically avoid black and poor small towns.

So no, it's not a "culture war", and the arguments are rational once you learn the context of the issue at hand.

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#277

Post by hatenberg »

foepys wrote: post #38

Germany was quite advanced when it came to technology but then the drive to make more of it somehow stopped. It has always been incredibly sad to me that the German ID card (Personalausweis) has an RFID chip inside with trust zones, certificates, authorization features, and much more and just never had been used. Like at all except for getting cigarettes at vending machines. 12 years after the first RFID Personalausw…

25 years of intentionally slowing down digitalization to protect local SMEs (which make 70-80% of the economy) against US tech companies leveraging economies of scale.

Yes there’s plenty corruption and disastrous bets (ISDN…), but let’s not pretend the situation isn’t intentionally created.

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#278

Post by ho_schi »

miroljub wrote: post #36
ho_schi wrote: post #28

Makes me happy to read that. One of the bright lights on horizon is that the Bundeswehr opted for a open-source, federated, multi-platform and secure messaging framework. Instead of some proprietary, closed-source piece of crap from a Big-IT vendor which make same depending in a negative way.

This was possible only because Ursula vdL is not in charge of Bundeswehr any more. That being said, god save the EU, since these walking tax-money black hole is now leading the whole EU.

As hanikesn pointed out the decision got for Matrix was made back in 2019, probably under VdL and/or AKK.
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