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EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

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Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right to privacy, not right to encryption specifically. And governments cracking down on encryption will, of course, claim that it is a matter of national security, and is a proportionate action to fight terrorism, child pornography, and other crimes.

Just like phone taps and listening devices. That said, those should only be employed if there is reasonable suspicion; iirc they still need a judge to approve employing these tools. The fear with this is that they will try and catch all messages and retroactively look for bad actors. And of course that the backdoors will be discovered and abused by bad actors.

> iirc they still need a judge to approve employing these tools.

that's a weak point, not a strength, in various scenarious

a) Agency XYZ files a motion to have a member of their legal team promoted to judge at the respective courts. Motion accepted, judge signs off on all requests

b) judge simply doesn't care for privacy, if it hinders the boys at work, signs off on it, gets appealed later, slap on the wrist, no consequences, learn from mistakes, rinse and repeat, obey formal obligations this time

c) Police and Attorneys construct evidence to construe threats, judge Joe Shmoe believes it, signs off on it

Besides, the whole system has been found to hinder investigation. The need for a warrant in night time emergencies is already relaxed in some countries, far as I know.

d) More over, the judge is bound by law, so you can trust as much confidence in the judge as you want. Once precedent is established at federal court level, because of your we can trust the judges, it will be a slippery sloapy down-wards spiral for more invasive access for less serious matters -- if it isn't already. This is effectively the federal judge signing off on all warrants, subject to veto by a lower judge, what can be escalated back up the chain due to the power of attorney. Vice-versa, the state attorney is bound by executive orders from the ministry -- as was surely the case after Snowden ("no evidence") -- which has been repeatedly red flagged by EU reports (that are otherwise quite benign).

The defense is the defense attorney. The precedent is frequently established because a single lawyer fails to make a case. Subsequent cases are only accepted on special occasion, otherwise declined due to precedent. Subsequently there is only limited control over a lower court's decision. The guideline cited in all commentaries on German constitutional law is, when the decision looks plain wrong. It is of course a little bit more involved in detail, but the principle is not a judge but one single judge gets to decide. Which lays a whole lot of preassure on them. Of course you get a second chance pretty much unconditionally, but that's a concern for later only if something was found, in which case the chances for an appeal on principle grounds are obviously against you. Eitherway a due notice remains at the secretion of the court (§101b (6) StPO), which may mean the judge presiding over the chamber, or the court, I'm not sure.

An ironic corralary is that, of course they will at least take a look, which has to sound but cynic in this scenario.

Wikipedia lists several points of criticizm against the new president of the Bundesverfassungsgericht (SCoG) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephan_Harbarth

> The fear with this is that they will try and catch all messages and retroactively look for bad actors.

Said Stephan Harbarth was in parliament and worked on a law for collective mass surveillance, which was subsequently called by the supreme court, in which he later went on to lead. Which is incomprehensible, because I was under the impression chief justices needed to climb the ladder first (ref, probably: BVerfGG).

Very similar, good ol' Mr. Biden signed responsible in 1991 on the American bill that is equivalent to the act under discussion here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/senate-bill/266 (see Title II, SubSection B: Electronic communication) not saying much at all.

This is entirely dystopic. The Bad Actors I have in mind are the good guys, I don't want to see the bad guys.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears this study shows that the majority of suspects for crimes are immigrants, which is an important distinction. I have no knowledge about the situation in Sweden, but in Germany there are known statistical problems like immigrants both having a higher chance of becoming suspects ("Tatverdachteffekt") and crimes where an immigrant is suspected are more likely to be reported ("Anzeigeeffekt"). Stastistics about…

I would bet basically anything that inferring "did commit" from "is suspect" works very well in aggregate.

This doesn't work numerically if each crime averages more than one suspect.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#713
post #525
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm certainly open to changing the URL from what is probably an obscurantist press release to a more accurate and neutral source. But it would need to be in English. Sorry—I realize that's frustrating to anyone who reads both languages, but most HN readers can't. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

Wasn't this originally on orf.at? That is the web site of the national Austrian news network: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORF_(broadcaster)

There may be some confusion. The original link wasn't in English. The current one is a press release or similar. What would be best is an article that is both in English and not a press release.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Switzerland and several other Eurpean countries have very high rates of gun ownership, but low rates of gun violence. They also have vastly stricter gun regulation laws, and while ownership rates are high in some, the US is an extreme outlier and no other country comes even close. Because nobody in any European country thinks they have a "right" to own a gun, most of them could if they wanted to, but they simply do…

Saying Switzerland has "vastly" stricter gun laws /might/ be true if mushing the U.S. into a whole, but it ignores the very important variations at the state level. Some states have very strict regimes that compare to Switzerland's, and in some you can just walk into a store and buy long guns if you're of age. I totally agree about the responsibility thing. Concerning the "dog shoots owner" headlines, you should igno…

> Some states have very strict regimes that compare to Switzerland's, and in some you can just walk into a store and buy long guns if you're of age.

Which is exactly why the regulation in the US does not work; Anybody who disagrees with their states particular laws can just cross into another state to get their fix there.

That why any proper regulation needs to happen on a federal level so individual states won't act as a loophole.

> Concerning the "dog shoots owner" headlines, you should ignore that sort of thing. Those sorts of incidents are super rare. They hit headlines /because/ they're rare and therefore interesting.

It's something that should be non-existent, I haven't seen it anywhere else in the world. But only a couple of days ago there was yet another example out of the US [0].

These are the kind of absurd situations that simply do not happen in any other place as other places lack the "firearm saturation" that enables this in the US. So something that should be improbable, still ends up being a regular thing.

[0] https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/dog-accidentally-shoots-ow...

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly kind of my point. I’m not suggesting however that because they are immigrants they commit more crime. Note most violence is committed by 2nd generation immigrants - so they’ve been born here. How’s that for a failure of society... They are simply people on the outside living surrounded by people leading lives they cannot relate to. We’ve made it terribly difficult to attain this norm life as well making…

One thing that's great for societal stability is not too much inequality of wealth. Another thing is cultural homogeneity. We're probably seeing both at play in Sweden.

Young men shooting at each other in the street sure is a culture clash. This culture need to be canceled!

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact so many people feel they need a gun for safety is the first and biggest issue IMO. This is fueled by movies and culture - have the gun in your possession and you’ll automatically win the fight - that was easy! I’ve read countless comments from Americans that they have a gun to shoot intruders. Statistics telling you there’s a bigger chance someone else will get hurt be damned. These ideas are have to be fuel…

I think you're on the mark talking about them as toys for adults. I don't think most people want them because they really fear for their safety without, though the ability to defend oneself may be a bonus. My feeling is mostly it's just a fun hobby and it's also a clear signal of group membership. I think your claim about there being a higher chance of accidental injury vs. self defense is probably wrong. The issue i…

You might be right about the injury thing.

I still believe many people see guns as a solution to a problem and on top of that vastly overrate their own abilities in a pressure situation.

If you’ve not trained many many hours in a setting resembling this pressure to a high degree you really have no idea how you’ll react.

It seems really easy in movies!

Can’t speak for the source but first hit on google:

http://features.hollywoodreporter.com/the-gun-industrys-lucr...

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fair. I retract my comment.

I think what prompted me to react was mostly your `[government bad]` blurb. It felt like you got to state your political position and caricaturise the political position of the responder while avoiding further discussion. That felt wrong.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do. Even though the world has become safer and more prosperous it is still dangerous to our health and sanity. That doesn't mean we should avoid all risk. What you are more talking about is the Politicians overstate the chance of dangers and they do it on the most evocative of topics (ex: terrorism, CP, etc). A high danger we're in is from the potential for our governments to entrench their own powers and encourag…

Politicians are part of the danger. Judging from the history, greater danger than the dangers we are allegedly being saved from

I certainly agree, and that is somewhat part of what I was saying.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#719
post #151
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if we can make an encryption protocol that cryptographically securely encrypts an arbitrary English sentence into an English passage that sounds like it makes sense but is unrelated to the ciphertext.

Yes. 1. Encrypt as normal. 2. Given a language model which can generate a choice of multiple possible next-symbols given what has already been written, use bytes from the cypher text to choose between the available options. For example, using the predictive text options on my iPhone, and treating 0=left 1=right, the cypher text 011100 and the starting symbol “Hi”, I get: “Hi I have heard from the other” (Note: I’m fa…

Maybe something that's aided by an AI that generates English texts(a little similar to your iPhone auto-suggest, but more advanced) so that the sentences are valid and coherent. The recipient would need to know some sort of key/"seed" for the AI, that you'd give them in another channel. I bet something like that would be possible, but the ciphertext would be much larger than the plaintext. Still a fun idea.

Re: EU Draft Council Declaration Against Encryption [pdf]

#720
post #688
post #684

Less relevant to European regulation, but the FBI's attempt to use phone taps/hotel room bugs to blackmail Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. int committing suicide[0], is a good example of why we should be suspicious of even lawful intercept. Terrorism is bad, but I think we can all agree a world where the US civil rights movement was stillborn would be much worse than what we have. (They went after more civil rights leade…

As usual the malevolent statists in Brussels care nothing about the rights of the INDIVIDUAL ... just "government, industry, and society", whatever "society" means: "Encryption is a necessary means of protecting fundamental rights and the digital security of governments, industry and society." But they did reveal themselves by putting the list in order of importance, with "government" first of course.

The statists around the world are increasingly brazen - out in the open - with their objectives. It's remarkable to watch as they hide their aims less as authoritarianism rises around the world, they feel more comfortable not hiding their ambitions for power and control in the programs they implement.

Which makes sense - the US is gradually going Socialist and the world's other superpower is a Communist dictatorship. The world is about to be pinned between two authoritarian nightmares that presume total power over the individual.

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