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France rejects backdoor mandate

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Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#271

Post by MITSardine »

ur-whale wrote: post #270
MITSardine wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give concrete examples of situations where your freedom is restricted in France?

> Could you give concrete examples I thought I already did, but here it is again https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieudonn%C3%A9_M%27bala_M%27ba... The dude kept on saying completely outrageous things on public channels, none of which should have been an issue in a country with normal free speech laws. Here's another interesting case, where a TV channel was outright shutdown because they said things that the powers that…

Excuse me? C8 would be right in its place in Moscow, on the contrary. It's a propaganda channel owned by a billionaire FN backer. Cyril Hanouna is basically a Russian TV host that speaks French. The embodiment of bad faith.

At any rate, one of the main reasons was the repeated offenses of the channel, having beaten a record of fines, and never having done anything to correct their course. Fines are not a cost of operation, they are penalties for breaking the law. You can't break the law systematically and then cry about not getting your license renewed. Though I'm sure Hanouna has painted himself quite the victim in this affair.

These fines were often for things I think most people would view as legitimate, such as verbal assault, threats or hate speech.

About cash payments, I think you're making a caricature. From your source:

> There is no limit to the amount paid in cash between individuals (e.g. car purchase). Written text is required beyond €1,500 for to prove payments.

This written text is just a proof of sale, not a justification as to the use of cash or its provenience.

The 1000€ figure is when dealing with professionals, among other reasons to avoid VAT fraud. Many countries implement similar measures, often more stringent. Regardless, I'm almost sure your chauffagiste or mechanic will accept a cash payment of any amount. There is the theory, and then the practice.

I really struggle to see how this affects your life in any way.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#272

Post by orbital-decay »

throwaway290 wrote: post #267
orbital-decay wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unbelievable. What does Russian propaganda of all damn things has to do with this? Especially considering that the power takeover in Russia happened much in the same way - people assumed the politicians are dumb and naive, which I'm telling you as someone who tried to resist that takeover. Yes, your politicians - all politicians, regardless of the country - would have been happy to have more power over you and need t…

> What does Russian propaganda of all damn things has to do with this? They welcome Europeans thinking their government is out to get them > Especially considering that the power takeover in Russia happened much in the same way - people assumed the politicians are dumb and naive People in Russia did the opposite of that. People in Russia were conditioned by decades of violent dictatorship and were either afraid to ma…

> People in Russia did the opposite of that. People in Russia were conditioned by decades of violent dictatorship and were either afraid to make a noise or actively wanted the strongman fascist rule. And the guy in power is actual ex KGB. There's a difference

I'm sorry if I'm blunt or rude but you have zero idea what you're talking about, and judging by this answer you're unlikely to even attempt to find out. It saddens me that people who have actual chance to avoid neo-feudalism learn nothing from the experience of my own country (Russia), because hey that's Eastasia and we've always been at war with Eastasia so it can be discarded, "we" are not like that, surely "we" are not "them" and can do better, it can never happen here. Well, good luck! You'll need it.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#273

Post by unification_fan »

csomar wrote: post #133
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…

> 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…

What I don't understand is this:

Whether they are gullible, corrupt, or simply pieces of shit and sociopaths... Why are they allowed to keep their job? And how can we fix democracy to make sure that they are held accountable?

Let's be clear about one thing: Hanlon's razor is bullshit. Globally, only about ~30% of humans think that "people are generally trustworthy". Even fewer think that "strangers can be trusted". So it fucking IS malice, and people are not trusting because they know that it is malice. In fairness you can look at nord-european countries for some counter-examples, but 30% is a good approximation.

I don't even care if politicians are stupid or malicious. They're probably both anyway because they're human. But what I care about is that they don't fuck with my hard earned civil liberties. So much blood was shed to get where we are... have we learned nothing at all?

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#274

Post by immibis »

ur-whale wrote: post #215
buybackoff wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is pretty much the same way Americans view America, right? Dead convinced that American freedom of speech is the best in the world, even while people get their permanent residency revoked for making Israel look bad, and other people get denied entry for texting their friend that they aren't the best fan of Trump. It also happens to be the way North Koreans view North Korea (understandable for them, since they're shot if they don't).

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#275

Post by immibis »

whatshisface wrote: post #81
immibis wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they think when that happens they'll change it. Or they'll change it on a schedule... "Just use HTTPS" is good enough for every website and web app on the planet (including ones that handle more messages than the entire country of France) but not a state intelligence agency can't keep their TLS keys secret?

"Just use HTTPS" sends French messages directly to NSA, insofar as those platforms are concerned. In that case there's not even a copy of any encryption key...

France is giving everything they receive to the NSA anyway, so there's not much difference.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#276

Post by immibis »

dragonwriter wrote: post #72
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascist behavior and actions aren't limited to the political right wing. Anyone can do it, you just choose to cherry pick the one you dislike under "fascism" and be OK with the fascist behavior that allies to your political views as being correct and justified. Do you see any conservatives firebombing people's private property right now, or is it only the "tolerant left" doing it? How much online free speech was cens…

> Fascist behavior and actions aren't limited to the political right wing. Fascism is a right-wing political ideology, not a set of personal/non-governmental behaviors and actions. So while this is a series of words that grammatically forms of a structurally valid sentence, it doesn't actually have any meaning.

It has a meaning. Fascist behaviour and actions are the behaviour and actions of fascists.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#277

Post by ur-whale »

MITSardine wrote: post #271
ur-whale wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could you give concrete examples I thought I already did, but here it is again https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieudonn%C3%A9_M%27bala_M%27ba... The dude kept on saying completely outrageous things on public channels, none of which should have been an issue in a country with normal free speech laws. Here's another interesting case, where a TV channel was outright shutdown because they said things that the powers that…

Excuse me? C8 would be right in its place in Moscow, on the contrary. It's a propaganda channel owned by a billionaire FN backer. Cyril Hanouna is basically a Russian TV host that speaks French. The embodiment of bad faith. At any rate, one of the main reasons was the repeated offenses of the channel, having beaten a record of fines, and never having done anything to correct their course. Fines are not a cost of oper…

> Excuse me? C8 would be right in its place in Moscow, on the contrary. It's a propaganda channel owned by a billionaire FN backer. Cyril Hanouna is basically a Russian TV host that speaks French. The embodiment of bad faith.

What you say may or may not be true, I wouldn't know, I don't watch French TV.

It is, at any rate entirely irrelevant: if that TV channel was advocating that people should tattoo a swastika on their forehead, they still should be allowed to do so, however retarded that is.

That's what free speech means, however horrible and shocking that may be to you. People are free to make up their mind about the channel and not watch it.

The government has strictly no business, in a truly free country, to decide who can and cannot broadcast.

> You can't break the law systematically and then cry about not getting your license renewed.

Why in heaven's name would you even need a license to run a TV channel? Do you need a license to create YouTube videos?

> I really struggle to see how this affects your life in any way.

This tells me you and I likely don't live the same kind of life.

But if you're happy living in a society where every private transaction you make is monitored by your government, hey, what can I say: more power to you, after all, complete and utter surveillance of the plebs is also what happens in Russia. They also likely think it's normal to have your every move monitored over there.

When you've lived your whole life in a prison, you end up not seeing the walls anymore.

I'm personally very happy I don't have to suffer living in a place like France.

> The 1000€ figure is when dealing with professionals, among other reasons to avoid VAT fraud.

Every coercive power there ever was has always had that kind of "won't you think of the children" or "this is for your own protection" bullshit message to wrap their coercion of basic freedoms in a nice package. This is no different.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#278

Post by throwaway290 »

orbital-decay wrote: post #272
throwaway290 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does Russian propaganda of all damn things has to do with this? They welcome Europeans thinking their government is out to get them > Especially considering that the power takeover in Russia happened much in the same way - people assumed the politicians are dumb and naive People in Russia did the opposite of that. People in Russia were conditioned by decades of violent dictatorship and were either afraid to ma…

> People in Russia did the opposite of that. People in Russia were conditioned by decades of violent dictatorship and were either afraid to make a noise or actively wanted the strongman fascist rule. And the guy in power is actual ex KGB. There's a difference I'm sorry if I'm blunt or rude but you have zero idea what you're talking about, and judging by this answer you're unlikely to even attempt to find out. It sadd…

What you quoted is reality. People who care are in those two categories with rare exceptions. If you are actually russian like me you'd know that 95% of people are in two of the above groups I described. Literally everybody you ask either voted for Putin or did not vote (if we pretend elections were real)

And you I guess have no objection to my main point. e2ee helps crime as much as good guys, maybe more because it helps scale crime. And non stupid government would see that. If what a democratic government is doing to fix this looks like censorship, then it does not mean the government is bad. There is other context. A good democratic government can be instructed by competent experts make better tradeoffs. You cannot expect politicians to be competent experts.

It saddens me that every now and then even well intentioned(?) fellow russians act like every government is like that. You're not the only one. The legacy and history of how people came to power is completely different. Yes it's hard to believe but there are governments who are different.

If you want to see how actual surveillance would look, check out russia. Chinese firewall tech, TSPU boxes at every ISP, making VPN illegal etc. Unlike EU there is historical context and evidence in which it is clear that the government is not doing this to fight crime.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#279

Post by orbital-decay »

throwaway290 wrote: post #278
orbital-decay wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People in Russia did the opposite of that. People in Russia were conditioned by decades of violent dictatorship and were either afraid to make a noise or actively wanted the strongman fascist rule. And the guy in power is actual ex KGB. There's a difference I'm sorry if I'm blunt or rude but you have zero idea what you're talking about, and judging by this answer you're unlikely to even attempt to find out. It sadd…

What you quoted is reality. People who care are in those two categories with rare exceptions. If you are actually russian like me you'd know that 95% of people are in two of the above groups I described. Literally everybody you ask either voted for Putin or did not vote (if we pretend elections were real) And you I guess have no objection to my main point. e2ee helps crime as much as good guys, maybe more because it…

TSPU is just the consequence of a failed attempt to bring it under control, which happened much much earlier (no point in getting into detail here). And yes you're right, I actually have no objections to proportional response and keeping trust where it's possible, you can't get things done without it. Just keep in mind that "it cannot happen here" attitude is dangerous and you're always one step from what you've thought is impossible. Opposing to E2EE strikes me as similar to unified IDs in some European countries that are proud of safety and convenience it brings, dismissing the reality that they are now one regime change from the total control. (not even the unlikely change, considering that certain EU countries historically lean "right", for simplicity).

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#280

Post by MITSardine »

ur-whale wrote: post #277
MITSardine wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me? C8 would be right in its place in Moscow, on the contrary. It's a propaganda channel owned by a billionaire FN backer. Cyril Hanouna is basically a Russian TV host that speaks French. The embodiment of bad faith. At any rate, one of the main reasons was the repeated offenses of the channel, having beaten a record of fines, and never having done anything to correct their course. Fines are not a cost of oper…

> Excuse me? C8 would be right in its place in Moscow, on the contrary. It's a propaganda channel owned by a billionaire FN backer. Cyril Hanouna is basically a Russian TV host that speaks French. The embodiment of bad faith. What you say may or may not be true, I wouldn't know, I don't watch French TV. It is, at any rate entirely irrelevant: if that TV channel was advocating that people should tattoo a swastika on t…

I think this is naive regarding propagandists. These TV channels don't "express views", they manipulate and fabricate opinion to serve the interests of their owners (in this case a multi-billionaire industrial family with a far right ideology).

Rather than offer viewpoints, they suppress any constructive discussion and recenter the debate on bogus issues to rile people up and garner votes for populist parties that are friendly to their stakeholders. They are a poison to democracy. The riling up itself also has direct and violent consequences.

In such situations, the freedom of the perpetrators is at odds with the freedom of the victims. There is no solution that prevents a lion eating a gazelle that doesn't involve restraining the lion. As children are taught, "my freedom ends when the freedom of others begins".

I doubt any country in the world allows you to manipulate someone into murder and then walk away with it once the deed is done. Punishing hate speech is that but on a larger scale. I struggle to see the issue, really. The only matter of discussion is the definition of hate speech, but the principle itself is sound and necessary in my opinion (and of the majority of people who welcome that such laws exist).

By the way, you mentioned England in your initial comment, but the UK has similar laws in this regard. Were you thinking of the US as a freer nation? For having lived in both, I'll have to beg to disagree, I've never felt as surveilled as in the US. Private companies store your whole card number and any details you were unfortunate enough to share with a given retailer (such as email address) are shared across nation-wide networks. But it sure is convenient when WholeFoods knows you have an Amazon Prime subscription. Or does it not count when it's private companies, only the government?

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