Crypto is just about worthless without personal computing.

That can't happen with open-source, whether it's "free" or not.

While true, an adversarial government can pass new laws to restrict access or installation of software it deems dangerous. Politicians, uh, find a way.

Open source. That means that they'd have to either prevent the downloading of the source, prevent it compiling, or prevent running something that you compiled on your own box. Any of those three seems to be guaranteeing that Europe will not have any leading role in computers for the foreseeable future. Any of those three also seems almost impossible to enforce.

There's no way to build apps locally on most smartphones which are the majority of end user devices.

Open source practically died with personal computers.

When did personal computers die? Most desktops and laptops are fairly open and although android phones are not as open you can build software on your laptop/desktop for usage on your phone.

You could also use something like pinephone or librem. You wont have access to a lot of android tech but the most important functionality. A web browser, sending sms, email, making calls all work.

I agree. Currently not many people use open source on their phones, but that could change, and things like F-Droid are ready to be used.

It wasn't that long ago that encryption was banned in France.

Source?

In the US, forcibly including certain code in your program would be a 1st amendment violation.

I can envision all sorts of workarounds to this constitutional issue. And, Congress does this sort of thing all the time.

Signal didn't publish the source for their server-side from 20 April 2020 to 6 April 2021 while they secretly added a cryptocurrency payment system. Open source is only open if the source is available (and yes -- if their end-to-end encryption system is working properly than even a notional malicious server would not be able to intercept message contents, but could of course provide metadata, and also you have no way of verifying that the app you install via whichever app store you install Signal from was built from any given source).

That's absolutely not true, since Google is now signing app distributions and can easily swap them out. Additionally, there's no guarantee that Signal is shipping the same code to the app stores.

The whole stack needs to be open source and user modifiable, though. Signal is open source, but if Apple is one day compelled to ban non-backdoored versions from the App Store, nobody can use it on an iPhone.

it can if you don't compile the source yourself, a la the app store

That's not how this works in practice

xkcd is a just a comic - please don't make it a conversation killer.

Well, to revive this conversation.

States have access to "a monopoly of legitimate violence". We grant them that in order for them to be able to keep the peace, you know, law and order.

Everything else can be boiled down to this. No matter how many bits of encryption keys are used, someone with a chloroform infused rag and a wrench can visit any of us at any moment. And it's actually part of what we, collectively, as citizens, have granted as a power to the state.

I might be too influenced with Brazil I watched recently, but the monopoly on necessary violence is not without restrictions ( which is why there is an outcry when the outer bands are pushed too far ). Granted, the fact is that the bands are now hidden from public view only to resurface when a whistleblower lets the population know. Still, basic principle remains. There are limits to violence goverment can legitimately engage in.

> someone with a chloroform infused rag and a wrench can visit any of us at any moment

That's where engineering comes into play, maybe materials science to build suitable systems to defend against such physical attacks. And, you can't just ban engineering.

Unless I become Robert Johansson[0], my imagination and capacity for material engineering is not going to be enough to simultaneously have a life and protect against a single sufficiently motivated individual, let alone a nation state putting a lawful (by its standards) order against me.

I’m only even safe from nutcases because the nation collectively has enough experience dealing with people who think they know better.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_E._Taylor

> someone with a chloroform infused rag and a wrench can visit any of us at any moment.

Phrased like this it sounds like you are implying that the legal system in any EU country has no power over goons with wrenches, and everybody is effectively living in a police state. Why even bothering to pass laws around encryption?

To be precise, the article says that apps like Signal are to be the target of a follow-up regulation scheduled for coming September. It also emphasizes citizens' strong opposition to this prospect.

Fingers crossed, but is it enough? What can we do to prevent this sh*tload?