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France rejects backdoor mandate

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Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing my point completely. These folks very well understand that bad people can steal keys. Stolen keys have been a thing since antiquity. It's not rocket science they don't understand. Every single key in history has had a risk of theft and this is no exception. The truth is a lot of them understand this just like you. But unlike you, they are willing to accept this risk . You aren't. That's fine. You have…

I don't believe that France is actually willing to accept that every opposing intelligence agency will obtain the key...

And yet the immense majority of the population accept & use messaging platforms operated by "not France" where the operator would be able to obtain everyone's key with a couple clicks. (Yes, this includes Apple's).

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that France is actually willing to accept that every opposing intelligence agency will obtain the key...

Maybe they don't think it's as likely as you think. Or maybe they think the time horizon is long enough that it is worth it. Whatever it is, I assure you they are not too stupid to realize this is a possibility. They just differ on either the degree of the risk, or on the value they get in return. In which case, logic dictates that if you believe the actual risk is higher than they would tolerate, to find a way to co…

That's a matter of facts rather than values. The "impossible promise" is that a private company can keep a kilobyte of data out of the hands of every spy agency on Earth for any length of time.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#53
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…

> 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.

They would argue about the damages drugs do.

I think they know what they are doing. Digital privacy has no lobby outside of EEF. We donate more than $10k to them annually.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#54

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…

the problem with backdoored encryption isn't making a cypher with multiple decryption keys. It's keeping secret that's worth billions of dollars and shared among 10s of thousands of people. The difference between backdoored encryption and no encryption is whether the backdoor is known to the public. There is a coherent set of values that lead to saying "no encryption", but not one for "only backdoored encryption".

> There is a coherent set of values that lead to saying "no encryption", but not one for "only backdoored encryption".

While I oppose building backdoors, I don't really agree with this claim. There's nothing incoherent about developing a threat model.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#55

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…

France is in decay with incompetent and unpatriotic governments for decades. It is facing many issues but has lacked strong leadership courageous enough to put country first. So, in fact, it is a fairly typical European country... The spread of "narcotrafic" is an example of that, there are others. If you follow French news you'll see many.

> France is in decay with incompetent and unpatriotic governments for decades.

What are you on about? What does the "unpatriotic" bit have to do with anything?

> It is facing many issues but has lacked strong leadership courageous enough to put country first.

Right. What would "putting country first" mean? France is doing what it wanted to do for decades, which is consolidating European power to its advantage. Is that what you consider unpatriotic? If so, I have bad news for you: France is a great country, but absolutely does not have the resources for its ambitions on its own.

> If you follow French news you'll see many.

If you follow sources related to reality in any way you’ll see that some things are getting better and some things are getting worse. What does not change is the agitation about safety and security to make people afraid of their own shadow, even as the situation is quite clear: the country is safer than it has ever been.

You have a valid point hidden somewhere, it’s that the people were shortchanged and that inequality is rising. You are badly misguided if you think that this has anything to do with patriotism. In fact, the people pushing this narrative have their own interests to look after in the class struggle. They might make you think that they have the same enemies as the people but they are just looking after their own. Just look at any country in which the local nationalists came to power.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#56
This is a good reminder that regardless of what country you hail from, freedom and liberty are like love — continuous activities that you do every day, not something that you achieve once and then you're done. There will always be those who wish to consolidate more power to themselves than is good and always those who wish to impose their will on others. These people win if you, specifically you reading this, don't do something. So always choose to do something.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that France is actually willing to accept that every opposing intelligence agency will obtain the key...

And yet the immense majority of the population accept & use messaging platforms operated by "not France" where the operator would be able to obtain everyone's key with a couple clicks. (Yes, this includes Apple's).

That makes sense because it has been brought about as a consequence of consumer preference. It wouldn't make sense for it to have been required by the government.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#58
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…

> 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. They would argue about the damages drugs do. I think they know what they are doing. Digital privacy has no lobby outside of EEF. We don…

The "war" on drugs is what brings all of the violence and crime associated with drugs, not the drugs themselves. But it finances the police industrial complex and so many people would lose out (or be forced to focus on actual crimes rather than people consensually trading plants or chemicals) that it will never happen.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#59
post #30

The backdoor mandate was part of an anti organized criminality law, Bruno Retailleau (interior minister) pretend criminals use encrypted chat to communicate and so backdoor is required to intercept their communications. makes sense to the average non tech people. The sad truth however is that it wouldn't even solve the issue, criminals will always be able to use encrypted communications: there are open source softwar…

While I generally agree with your position, this is the same unconvincing argument I've read for a long time. Even if there is a specific criminal gang that is sophisticated enough to use a properly encoded open source application, the majority aren't, and there is enough of a overhead and annoyance factor that will allow the majority not to use them. If any open source application gets enough people using it, there…

Even it would occupy them 20% of their time, the issue with such a backdoor is what it can do to non-criminals (ex: loose the backdoor to an enemy nation state that would allow spying on all citizens, or allowing some party to eliminate opposition).

I always find this "war on drugs" strange, considering they are so many buyers to make it worth. Annoy/treat/educate/understand the buyers, if enough people want something you will not make it go away by reducing supply. Or make it legal and make money from it as a state...

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#60
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> firebombing people's private property So any destruction of private property due to political or ideological reasons is inherently "fascist"? Anyway not that this justifies anything but wouldn't insurance pay for the destroyed Teslas? If so the terrorists are doing those people a service in an indirect since they would be able to buy a car they wouldn't have to be ashamed of driving anymore, so win-win (as long as…

[flagged]

Please learn to recognize sarcasm.

And just to be clear, even if you are responding in a tongue in cheek way. One person is joking about damaging physical property, and you're joking about about sending that person to prison for 20 years for their sarcastic remark. Do you really think a Tesla is more valuable than a human life? Do you really think a low effort joke is more valuable than a human life?

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