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France rejects backdoor mandate

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Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#71

Post by immibis »

whatshisface wrote: post #45
dataflow wrote: post #39

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...

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?

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#72

Post by dragonwriter »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #10
zimza wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because tech and society, like everything else, is inherently political. Backdoors, surveillance, control. These are things fascist and proto-fascist societies try to achieve. And they are thriving as of late.

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.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#73

Post by immibis »

whatshisface wrote: post #52
dataflow wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why does this concern apply to the French intelligence agency but not, say, the code signing certificate for Whatsapp?

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#74

Post by yodsanklai »

hansvm wrote: post #36
buybackoff wrote: post #12

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…

Totally unrelated, but since you brought it up a bit, I find recipes written in French to usually be much higher quality than similar recipes I find in English -- enough so that I'll alter my country and language for search engines when searching for recipes, and for ChatGPT I'll ask the question French. Modern translation products aren't too terrible to cook from. Especially if you know some French already, I think…

As a French, English is my default language for most queries on the web, but it wouldn't cross my mind to look up for a recipe in English. I also find that we have a lot of good science/maths youtube channels.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#75

Post by mytailorisrich »

kergonath wrote: post #55
mytailorisrich wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

Good attempt at caricature or is it humour?

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#76

Post by nonrandomstring »

whatshisface wrote: post #16
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…

I would like to know what the public opinion on these issues is before blaming politician's ignorance, considering that to them the relevant knowledge is knowledge of what voters will support or tolerate. The impossible promise of backdoors that France can enter but no other country, organized criminal syndicate or petty government-employed stalker can find is only one impossible promise among the many we can hear fr…

> to them the relevant knowledge is knowledge of what voters will support or tolerate

That's relevant knowledge. It's not the relevant knowledge. Another piece of relevant knowledge is facts about complex things like political science, cryptography, etc. Since politicians actually need to decide and implement things, as a side gig to being popular, lack of the proper knowledge to do so is a shortcoming.

> I would like to know what the public opinion on these issues is

Not big sample sizes, but I regularly ask and interview people from all sides of life, and to a simple question like "Do you think the police should spy on you if that catches criminals?" the answer is always a resounding "no". Especially young people. They just way "No way. We're not criminals". They "arguments" may be choppy, muddy waters, but I don't think peoples feelings about being spied on is much of a mystery.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#77

Post by buybackoff »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #48
buybackoff wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I beliebe you are talking about the first derivative. I want to believe the second is all right lately. The scariest thing in France I've seen is ~20yo voting for Mel-the-leftist-egocentric-schmuck so that they could keep doing nothing but taxing productive people. Other that that the "direction of travel" is dual: either drown in the mire of ever increasing taxes or kick ass. My feeling is that France has everything…

I agree with you. On individual rights I would qualify that by saying that France has never been leading on them. The state is what matters and individual rights have always in practice been restricted to that effect.

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.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#78

Post by letsownmeansofp »

aucisson_masque wrote: post #26

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…

the conversations seem to stay focus on e2ee good or bad; it’s important to question - is this the correct focus? Drugs should not be illegal in the first place; decriminalising them is known to have good results, (look at Portugal) it weakens organised crime and black markets, less costs for the justice system, less health issues and less need for public health money to be spent on dealing with resulting issues, the list goes on. E2ee is essential for a society to protect itself against internal threats like tyrants.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#79

Post by whatshisface »

immibis wrote: post #73
whatshisface wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why does this concern apply to the French intelligence agency but not, say, the code signing certificate for Whatsapp?

On one level it does apply to certificates.

On another level, pushing a compromised update to every phone in Europe (to gain access equivalent to having a copy of the backdoor) would be noticed by the publisher, and the binary difference would quickly be found by security researchers.

Re: France rejects backdoor mandate

#80

Post by outside2344 »

Braxton1980 wrote: post #69
aucisson_masque wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French want less criminals and immigrants in the street. Whatever it takes. I'm french, i have not heard any people, work, street, even television or internet speak about that. The sad truth is that it wouldn't even solve the issue, criminals will always be able to use encrypted communications. there are open source software that can't be tampered with, software that doesn't use a single server where backdoor can be…

> French want less criminals and immigrants in the street. Whatever it takes. What about using the probability that a specific race or religion will commit crimes then target those people with aggressive tactics. As for the public they could make those people feel unwelcomed through constant harassment in the hopes they leave the country. Thus reducing the crime rate by any means. ---- I checked the murder rate and i…

In France, like a lot of other countries, they are blaming everything on the immigrants.

Crime? Immigrants are doing it. Retirement age? Immigrants are spending the money.

These things are not backed up by data, but just like the US, or Nazi Germany, nobody cares, simply easier to choose an easy "solution" and blame immigrants.

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