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EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

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Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#691

Post by cactus2093 »

As someone in tech I’m well aware of the downsides, and inclined to agree with the consensus here that this is a really bad idea.

However, I’m interested in at least understanding the other side. Are there any studies or estimates of the effect this might have? How many crimes would have actually been prevented by this, in the past few years? How many lives saved or child trafficking victims spared?

Of course, criminal behavior might easily change once a law like this is passed, but this would at least help give an upper bound on the benefit and my guess is it would still be very low. The world mostly continues to get safer and safer, there are still some outlier horrific crimes that happen but these might not be affected by banning encryption (such as mass shootings, which are usually a single person not coordinating with anybody).

I would just like to understand what concrete problem this solves from the lawmakers perspective.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#692

Post by JumpCrisscross »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #645
Shivetya wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that is the crux of the issue, how much do you trust your government and what are your options in supporting change. This may require a level of involvement in politics that is more time consuming than most want to expend or can. This means if not actively supporting a candidate or current representative who shares your views that you instead convince them your view is worthwhile. If not actively finding one who…

This. It gets framed as "encryption = child abuse" and anyone who supports private encryption is obviously a pedo. There doesn't appear to be an emotional argument the other way - I guess "so you're happy with random police officers[0] browsing your nudes, then?". It needs to be framed as an emotional argument, because that's what cuts through to the audience these days. Only HN is interested in logical discussions ;…

> so you're happy with random police officers[0] browsing your nudes, then?

Your kids’ photos.

Many people don’t have nudes on their phones. Most people do have photos of their kids and know their kids have sensitive photos of themselves. “Think of the children” can be flipped if you can get the public suspicious of spooks.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#694

Post by Krisando »

Veedrac wrote: post #660
Krisando wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but about networks which are systematically and in actuality doing things like trafficking children for sexual abuse The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation. --Adolf Hitler

I believe this is a misquote. It's also a morally horrific line of argument. Like saying you shouldn't care about shooting civilians because bad people in the past have used human shields as a war tactic. These are not imagined people being hurt, spun out of whole cloth.

> I believe this is a misquote.

It is a legitimate known translation, not a misquote from the Ralph Manheim translation of Mein Kampf (ISBN 0395078016 / year 1943), page 403. Other translations have similar wording on the page, although not in such a nice succint sentence.

Manheim was known to have gone into great effort to create an exact English equivalent of Hitler's work for Mein Kampf.

> It's also a morally horrific line of argument. Like saying you shouldn't care about shooting civilians because bad people in the past have used human shields as a war tactic.

The point of the quote is to show there are no limits curtailing liberties, not an absolute we shouldn't bother. The attempt to spin the quote into something else, probably because, you wish to "protect the children" is proving the point.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#695

Post by foldr »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #645
Shivetya wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that is the crux of the issue, how much do you trust your government and what are your options in supporting change. This may require a level of involvement in politics that is more time consuming than most want to expend or can. This means if not actively supporting a candidate or current representative who shares your views that you instead convince them your view is worthwhile. If not actively finding one who…

This. It gets framed as "encryption = child abuse" and anyone who supports private encryption is obviously a pedo. There doesn't appear to be an emotional argument the other way - I guess "so you're happy with random police officers[0] browsing your nudes, then?". It needs to be framed as an emotional argument, because that's what cuts through to the audience these days. Only HN is interested in logical discussions ;…

>I guess "so you're happy with random police officers[0] browsing your nudes, then?".

I agree with your point, but I think a lot of people aren't actually too worried about the specific case of random police officers seeing their nude selfies.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#696

Post by Dahoon »

EGreg wrote: post #371
Dahoon wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just today I read that Android doesn’t let you take a screenshot of your own phone. Not many seemed to care to click the link in that thread. If one did one would know that it was to a bug report and a fix was even posted in the same link. Screenshots work just fine.

Fine. But I can name a ton of things that were in fact closed down due to “think of the starving artists” copyright laws in US or 自我约束；自律 “self-censorship” in China for political speech [1] I have written a far more extensive post just now on HN that fleshes out the overall argument against focusing on encryption - please read it here and we can discuss: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25030085

No need as I don't disagree.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#697

Post by Zak »

IgorPartola wrote: post #649
shostak wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incorrect. The fourth amendment gives people the absolute right against "unreasonable search and seizure". This means the police may be granted access to search someone's property by a judge, if they are suspected of a crime. It does not give the government the right to find anything, only to search. Furthermore, the fifth amendment grants people the absolute right to not incriminate themselves. So if you kno…

Ah you are correct. But let’s make a physical analogy. If I can make an uncrackable safe in which I put evidence of a crime along with lots of other secrets. The police come to my door with a reasonable search warrant. I tell them I have the key to the safe but will not tell them where it is. They know they have absolutely no way to get into my safe without taking about 100 years and $2 billion. What happens next?

The law isn't entirely settled on the matter, but some rulings so far suggest that the government can compel the surrender of a physical key, but not the disclosure of a combination.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#698

Post by phkahler »

freeflight wrote: post #527
part1of2 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about proposing encryption as an EU human right? Has that been attempted?

Privacy is already a UHR according to UDHR article 12 [0] The problem with applying this is that the violation of privacy is not arbitrary , from the draft: > Law enforcement and judicial authorities must be able to access data in a lawful and targeted manner So this is framed as an matter of lawful and targeted intercept, not blanket bulk access, like pretty much all of the mass surveillance creep. [0] https://www.u…

>> Law enforcement and judicial authorities must be able to access data in a lawful and targeted manner

As is the case everywhere, they claim to want lawful access. In reality that's a minor point, what they really want is access to information without the knowledge of its owner. They're OK with needing approval or getting a warrant to read your email just as long as it's some 3rd party granting access so you won't know. Otherwise just get a warrant for Alice and Bob's email and compel them to decrypt it. No new laws or systems are actually required for that.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#699

Post by Veedrac »

feanaro wrote: post #689
Veedrac wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of comment is exactly why I'm avoiding the politics side of things. I don't want to subject myself to this sort of bad faith jabbing, as much as it comes with the topic.

It was not meant as a jab, and certainly not bad faith. I'm just telling you that your comment was of exactly the same character. Either refrain from making a political comment yourself or have it be responded to. Making a political comment but then trying to shut down discussion of it by stating that you will not participate in political discussions is a double standard, though perhaps you were unaware that you were…

I never said people couldn't respond to them. I said I wasn't going to debate it. Saying “so you admit defeat” (or the many, many variations) whenever someone exits a heated part of a debate is a textbook jab, and has no place in honest conversation.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#700

Post by jordanbeiber »

KMag wrote: post #667
bigbizisverywyz wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The fact so many people feel they need a gun for safety is the first and biggest issue IMO. And the reason for that is simple - marketing. Here in Switzerland I basically see no guns unless I go to the shooting club. There's none sold in the shops, there's none advertised in newspapers, tv or on the radio. And there is definitely no gun offered when opening a bank account. Basically if you want a gun for whatever re…

I spent over 30 years in the U.S., mostly in the upper Midwest, and the only gun advertisements I remember seeing were in sporting magazines or in sporting goods stores. I think your perceptions of U.S. gun advertising is either greatly exaggerated, or your experience is from a very different part of the country. Maybe things have changed drastically in the 8 years since I left, but I doubt it.

I’d say action movie content serves as massive marketing. American film is stacked with guns. It’s kind of ridiculous.

There have to be money involved.

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