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Dutch government says no to backdoors, grants $540k to OpenSSL

theregister.co.uk

71–80 of 101 posts

Re: Dutch government says no to backdoors, grants $540k to OpenSSL

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debian stable is using LibreSSL for around a year already (Debian started switching just after the fork).

Debian is not using LibreSSL, I just checked. Sid currently ships OpenSSL 1.0.2e, and Jessie currently ships 1.01k.

openssl is still the most popular one everywhere, it will probably be so for a long time.

Re: Dutch government says no to backdoors, grants $540k to OpenSSL

#72
post #56
post #8

I tried to open the (Dutch) DOCX that contains the official position paper of our government, but LibreOffice refuses to open it: File format error found at SAXParseException: '[word/document.xml line 2]: unknown error', Stream 'word/document.xml', Line 2, Column 30060(row,col). http://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/brieven_regering/deta... Great. Usually OOXML Word files at least open in LibreOffice, but this one s…

Please complain to them [1]. They are required to publish that document as ODF, not DOCX. Alternatively PDF or HTML could be used. Using DOCX in Dutch government is against the standard [2], which is ODF 1.2. [1] http://www.tweedekamer.nl/contact/contact#webform-client-for... [2] https://lijsten.forumstandaardisatie.nl/open-standaard/odf12

Done. The helpdesk representative actually mailed me the PDF version, and said that a PDF version should be forthcoming:

Bijna alle kamerstukken zijn als pdf terug te vinden. Zo te zien worden de recente eerst als doc gepubliceerd.

Apparently new documents can be posted as DOCX only (strange).

You are right to point out the open standard guidelines, but unfortunately, they are marked as comply or explain. This means that they are not mandatory if you have a valid reason not to be able to comply with them. In this case, the reason is probably "our civil servants are used to Microsoft's defaults", which is — as much as I disagree with this policy — probably enough to get away it.

Re: Dutch government says no to backdoors, grants $540k to OpenSSL

#74
post #8

I tried to open the (Dutch) DOCX that contains the official position paper of our government, but LibreOffice refuses to open it: File format error found at SAXParseException: '[word/document.xml line 2]: unknown error', Stream 'word/document.xml', Line 2, Column 30060(row,col). http://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/brieven_regering/deta... Great. Usually OOXML Word files at least open in LibreOffice, but this one s…

Works in LibreOffice 5.0.3.2

Re: Dutch government says no to backdoors, grants $540k to OpenSSL

#75
post #33

This statement was made early December. And I think it does deserve some nuance: Minister Steur (Security and Justice) this monday said, representing the second chamber, that "laws that prohibit encryption are not desirable at this time ". That doesn't retract their early statement, but I think it's an important nuance. Arguably, it might also just be political play to get some douchebag rightwing parties over the li…

Someone who disagrees with your policy does not make them a douche. This is the beginning of illiberal politics: If you are not with me, I will denigrate your person and declare you an enemy. The left wing of Europe was running at full speed towards Stalin / USSR for most of 2nd half of 20th century. It's easier to name-call than to govern.

Re: Dutch government says no to backdoors, grants $540k to OpenSSL

#77
post #75
post #33

This statement was made early December. And I think it does deserve some nuance: Minister Steur (Security and Justice) this monday said, representing the second chamber, that "laws that prohibit encryption are not desirable at this time ". That doesn't retract their early statement, but I think it's an important nuance. Arguably, it might also just be political play to get some douchebag rightwing parties over the li…

Someone who disagrees with your policy does not make them a douche. This is the beginning of illiberal politics: If you are not with me, I will denigrate your person and declare you an enemy. The left wing of Europe was running at full speed towards Stalin / USSR for most of 2nd half of 20th century. It's easier to name-call than to govern.

> Someone who disagrees with your policy does not make them a douche.

Devil's advocate: he never said the parties in question were douches because they disagree with the privacy policy (although in this context it's certainly reasonable to assume it was implied). There's plenty of valid reasons to call the members of the PVV a bunch of douchebags, for example; especially the part where it's a populist party that thrives on insulting everyone else.

Re: Dutch government says no to backdoors, grants $540k to OpenSSL

#78
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Withholding known security vulnerabilities from the public in order to be later used for hacking is immoral and dangerous. Imagine if the police had prior knowledge of a vulnerability in the computer system of a car, but did not act to protect the public. A few years later a criminal figure out the same vulnerability and causes a major car crash on a motorway and murder several people. I would view the police officer…

> if companies has a legal responsibility to protect their customers and provide safe products Since 1 January there is also a law in the Netherlands that requires companies to report any data leaks. https://www.government.nl/latest/news/2015/07/10/obligation-...

A data leak is not the same as a security vulnerability. The data leaks refer to organisations having customer data which is hacked. They have to report this. This doesn't cover finding a leak in Flash.

Re: Dutch government says no to backdoors, grants $540k to OpenSSL

#79
post #75
post #33

This statement was made early December. And I think it does deserve some nuance: Minister Steur (Security and Justice) this monday said, representing the second chamber, that "laws that prohibit encryption are not desirable at this time ". That doesn't retract their early statement, but I think it's an important nuance. Arguably, it might also just be political play to get some douchebag rightwing parties over the li…

Someone who disagrees with your policy does not make them a douche. This is the beginning of illiberal politics: If you are not with me, I will denigrate your person and declare you an enemy. The left wing of Europe was running at full speed towards Stalin / USSR for most of 2nd half of 20th century. It's easier to name-call than to govern.

You're doing exactly the thing that you're accusing of -- labeling. Just because you disagree with left parties' policies you're labeling them they were running towards Stalin and USSR, which is also not very logical since Stalin died in 1952.

Re: Dutch government says no to backdoors, grants $540k to OpenSSL

#80
post #55
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it might also just be political play to get some douchebag rightwing parties over the line Who is the real "douchebag" in that case?

Surveillance is not generally a right/left thing and seems to be more an establishment thing.

This issue is captured in the Authoritarian Libertarian axis on the 'grid' representation of political views.

It's the reason I really don't like Hillary. I can put up with her economic and social positions but in my view she hits the tip top of the authoritarian graph and it scares me.

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