France pushes for law enforcement access to Signal, WhatsApp and encrypted email  | Computer Weekly
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Proposals to be discussed in the French Parliament will require tech companies to hand over decrypted messages and email or face huge fines
  • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
    36·
    9 hours ago

    The power struggle in these governements between the psycho glowies and the people with IT knowledge pushing for more encryption and decentralization must be so frustrating. Imagine you work for years on large scale implementations for more private and secure infrastructure and then some 40 IQ caveman comes along screaming about “protect the children and police work is too hard waaah” completely fucking your whole public standing.

    • FizzyOrange@programming.dev
      15·
      8 hours ago

      I don’t think they’re stupid, they just don’t care about the same things. The sooner people understand that the better.

      • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
        31·
        7 hours ago

        Yeah i know, they are simply corrupt and serve the interest of tech companies looking to capitalize from those decisions. But that only makes sense on a surface level, because if we actually broke encryption like this, they themselves would be heavily negatively impacted by it. Nobody wins when all communication is backdoored. Ofcourse they would say “ah but we the important people wont have the backdoored version” but realistically that wont work.

        • FizzyOrange@programming.dev
          53·
          6 hours ago

          Yeah i know, they are simply corrupt

          They aren’t stupid or corrupt. They have different priorities. Perfect privacy isn’t a fundamental right. It’s perfectly reasonable for some people think it is worth giving up in return for making it easier to catch criminals.

          And yes it does make it easier to catch criminals. They aren’t all tech masterminds with perfect opsec who think “oh, no E2E encryption in WhatsApp; I’d better use Signal instead”.

          I still think we should be allowed to have proper encryption. But I totally understand why some people don’t, and it isn’t because they are corrupt or stupid.

          • aaron@infosec.pub
            1·
            14 minutes ago

            You have no idea whether the people pushing for encryption backdoors are corrupt or not.

            Seeking to spy on everybody’s private communications could be described as corrupt by default. It could also be called a whole host of things including creepy, fascist, totalitarian.

          • kat@orbi.camp
            2·
            3 hours ago

            Criminals will find alternatives. While consumers end up losing their rights.

            Also, just cause someone has reasons, doesn’t mean they’re not corrupt or stupid.

            • FizzyOrange@programming.dev
              1·
              3 hours ago

              Criminals will find alternatives.

              Some criminals will find alternatives. Read my comment again and think about it some more.

              • kat@orbi.camp
                2·
                3 hours ago

                Wait, my comment wasn’t meant for you. But the one above.

          • Jesus_666@lemmy.world
            3·
            4 hours ago

            Mind you, enemies of encryption have claimed that backdoors or encryption bans would’ve prevented attacks where it’s known that the perpetrators have been communicating with bog-standard unencrypted email and text messages. Most of the time there problem is not encryption but insufficient collaboration between agencies.

            Often enough, going for encryption is an abstract power grab wrapped in security theater. Plus, “we need to been encryption” or its modern counterpart “the police need a universal backdoor key” are simple solutions to complex problems, which is a common approach for scoring with voters who have no idea what’s going on.

            Encryption is simply on the list of acceptable targets.

            • vrek@programming.devEnglish
              1·
              31 minutes ago

              I agree with “if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear” that said before I get beheaded by lemmy… No on has nothing they don’t want public. Maybe you drink too much, maybe you’re pregnant, maybe you are in debt, maybe you have a ex lover you are try to keep away from. Everyone has something to hid but most governments don’t give a shit (corporations may but that’s a different topic).

              That said if a key to a door exists it will be made public. They reason why keys work is there is 10000+ of them. Odds are the keys to my apartment aren’t identical to yours. That said if a universal key was made the idea of locking your doors is irreverent. Because eventually that key will be public, you boss may see your apartment, your mother may, your ex girlfriend may etc.

              This like tell lock makers to make a universal key that will open any locked door. Yes it may help investigators if they have a suspicion of who did it(and are willing to break the 4th amendment) but who else may it help?

          • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
            42·
            5 hours ago

            Yes, they are corrupt, absolutely no way to deny this without lying. Example: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/chat-control-johansson-vainly-tries-to-dismiss-lobbying-network-in-libe-committee/

            There is no way to argue against encryption without ignoring the catastrophic consequences it would bring to ban encryption. I think its fair to call it stupid if people do so anyways. Banning encryption is like nuking your own country, if you dont understand that then there is no value in talking to you.