Unfortunately, here's what will really happen:

5:30am, loud knock at the door. You open the door a crack to see who it is. Cops bust in. You're immediately handcuffed and sat outside. Cops take anything with a screen, usb plug, etc. All your media. All your computers. All your external hard drives.

Every one of these devices will be imaged, and archived prior to being searched. The data will be kept for years, to protect against inevitable appeals, etc.

But you know, good luck with your plan.

That won’t happen here but sure, US type of police overreach makes a better soundbite with horribly vague proposals like this. And people should be scared so I guess it’s good; maybe they will protest (probably not though because the children the children).

Stuff quite similar to that happens in Germany[1]. Where is "here"?

[1] https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2018/hausdurchsuchungen-bei-ve...

Netherlands. I wonder if it is similar: I saw a few here and they were friendly, no cuffs, they had a list of IPs, made an appointment to collect the drives etc (and that was with enough proof to know for sure they would find what they were looking for). But sure I can see how it escalates but why would they if there are no guns (usually only with drugs at which points they will come with more force)? Shame about Germany but why don’t we hear these things more; they should be on the front page of HN I guess (and not in German or in any language outside english if it awareness needs to be built)? At least the outline. So which dutch articles did I miss I wonder then; I cannot find any of these kind of overreaches.

Also German lawyers seem to be far more trigger happy in a lot of cases than dutch like with copyright and not having your company info on your site etc; seems there is more litigation there like an industry looking for people to ‘sue’. Why aren’t people protesting or are they?

I accidentally (e.g. I didn't know) bought a stolen laptop some time ago. The police came at 05:00am, raided my home with guns drawn and took the laptop. So yes, it does happen in Europe as well.

yikes! Hope you and your family are ok!

All good, after the initial surprise and when they found out that I am neither armed nor a criminal they were quite friendly actually. Still wouldn't want to experience something like this ever again.

Here where? This is standard procedure in e.g. Germany based on press reports and articles written by lawyers.

I don’t think it’s better in other European countries.

> That won't happen here

Ah, those famous words.

Don't forget the part where returning the original devices takes months or years, and of course you can't download a copy of the data if you lack a backup or the backup was also seized.

At this point, everything encrypted at rest will be a must.

Then encryption becomes evidence of guilt, unless you give up the key so they can search it to make sure you're not guilty.

Yeah also not, they will need to have proof of at least connections with some criminal networks to compel you to do that.

Parallel construction though.

This is not how it works at least in Canada and the US. Until they can read the password out of our minds (or at least prove that we have it) we don't need to give up the key.

Technically correct however courts can hold you in contempt. There was one case where a suspect was arrested and refused to give up passwords to hard drives. The prosecution had reasonable evidence (allegedly) that those hard drives contained child pornography, however since the defendant failed to provide access the prosecution could never prove it.

Other good points were brought up - why not dismiss the hard drive as evidence and use other “proof” such as network logs, computer thumbnails caches from the defendants personal computer, etc?

Personally I’m not sure if those ideas were ever explored.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/man-who-refused-...

I can't speak for Canada, but in the US if a court issues a search warrant for data stored on one of your devices you are obligated to take whatever steps are necessary to turn over the data, including decrypting the data if applicable. This power is provided to the government by the 4th Amendment. What you are likely referring to is the 5th Amendment right that protects a person from being compelled to testify against themselves, which protects a person from being compelled to turn over a password if doing so would incriminate them, but this is only applicable in circumstances where turning over the password would incriminate you, not where the decryption of the data would incriminate you. This is applicable only in circumstances where it is uncertain whether you have access to the device in question, since compelling you to produce the password amounts to compelling you to admit that it is your device. Once a court is satisfied that it is beyond doubt that the device is yours and you know the password, a judge is free to compel you to provide the password.

There's a further consideration of whether you can refuse if the literal string of the password itself would incriminate you, but I don't believe that has been conclusively litigated.

That is not true; there is conflicting precedent on the matter.

Are you so sure?

Also, why don't they just beat the shit out of you to get the key?

I don't think that works in countries with a jury system. I don't have anything illegal on my computers, but I would never give up my passwords to anyone working for the government. I think the odds that at least one person who is like me (or can at least understand that mindset) will be on any given jury is pretty good.

And even then, weaknesses are built into encryption, long-term it may be broken with advances in computing (I mean who knows what the NSA and co are working on at the moment), etc.

It's better to not do or have anything illegal. Make it so you can say "I have nothing to hide", but don't give them access voluntarily because of that.

If NSA has a backdoor or has broken the encryption you are using, they will want to keep that secret for as long as possible to get the greatest possible use out of it. They will use it covertly (using parallel construction to keep it out of court cases) on important cases like (actual) national security, mafia or people running dark net marketplaces, spying on friendly and hostile governments etc.

But they won't risk it for someone with a CSAM match or anything similarly uninteresting, and local authorities won't even be aware that it's something their government can do.

Still, don't do anything illegal, but I think for most people it's legitimate to have a threat profile that assumes that encryption is effective.

As if full disk encryption doesn't exist.

Encrypted data will be illegal for plebs. Failure to hand over passwords will be punished as if you are guilty of the worst thing imaginable.

I doubt it because at that point they cant pretend anymore to have rule of law, or being a democracy.

Sure, it could be a gradual decent into such a reality, but it will take a long time.

France : "Loi no 2001-1062 du 15 novembre 2001 relative à la sécurité quotidienne, article 30 (Law #2001-1062 of 15 November 2001 on Community Safety) allows a judge or prosecutor to compel any qualified person to decrypt or surrender keys to make available any information encountered in the course of an investigation. Failure to comply incurs three years of jail time and a fine of €45,000; if the compliance would have prevented or mitigated a crime, the penalty increases to five years of jail time and €75,000.[21]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law

If they can justify to legislators being able to spy on all network traffic, they can probably also convince those same legislators that encryption is a tool only bad guys use to prevent justice being served.

There's a constant push, at least in the US, for regulation on encryption. It's gotten consistently shot down thus far, thankfully. But it's a never-ending battle. And one day people will most likely become complacent enough to let go and feel the liberty melt away.

Just like the last couple generations have gotten increasingly soft on our right to bear arms. They've been conditioned to believe that it's dangerous, and boomer-like, and no longer important.

It's already illegal to not disclose passwords when ordered to do so in the UK.

Sure, the US freedom of speech amendment protects more powerfully than in most countries. But I wouldn't be so confident once the rest of the world has given up

No, that's not how you should be thinking. You say nothing, you give no access, and you demand a lawyer and a search warrant. You do not need to cooperate. You cannot trust any police or investigators. This isn't about whether you are guilty of anything or not, this is about basic human rights, the right to privacy, and due process of law.

  > due process of law

That is exactly what I want. Not having committed any such crimes, and having been incredibly lucky to be born into the sort of life where I feel like I can trust the process being fair and just, I am not particularly worried about an investigation.

This is the precise inverse of how I feel about the general permanent monitor and analysis that is now being proposed. These systems are inaccurate, opaque, and uncontrollable. It makes me feel like cattle being driven towards the man with the rod.

Most (all?) restrictions where imposed by the governments. Can you give us more details or some example on that “total control” the European Commission actually exercised.

The COVID pass is one such example, it has recently been extended until summer 2023.

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022...

And the national government excuse usually is, that they do it according to EU rules, directive or whatever.

Denying responsibility at all levels at its finest.

There are rare examples of resistance, like the attempt of Czech government to resist the EU firearms directive by putting the right to self-defense with a gun into the constitution. But mostly they just fold over.

There was no such thing from the EU; travel restrictions were imposed by individual countries first and foremost.

You call it "fold over", but if you think of a positive thing, it's cooperation. Because we have open borders - which, if you look at Brexit, is a huge advantage for trade and the like - it doesn't make sense to allow firearms in one country but ban them in another. It's a give and take situation. The UK decided they didn't want any part in it and... it decimated their economy, their imports and exports, their properties owned abroad, and any companies operating under an .eu domain name; it's caused an economic shift in Ireland which may very well be on the way to unification now, and it may trigger Scotland to leave the Commonwealth and join the EU.

UK was never in Schengen; as an EU citizen, I had to go through ID check all the time. The only difference now is that I have to show passport, national ID is not enough anymore.

Guns were never allowed to circulate freely; even in Schengen countries, you need both export and import permit from both countries to bring it into another country. Fun when you attend competitive events ;). You could argue that you could do it lawlessly, without permit, but then, you could own gun lawlessly, without permit too; the criminals won't bother, only the lawful citizens, who is targeted by the regulation, will.

It would be "cooperation", if there was a consent of the governed. Now it is just diktat. This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lHVcvJdWIs is not so funny when you realize, how true it is.

Please inform the IMF of this decimation. They seem to be unaware. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_...

Imposed by governments that miraculously took all the same measures at the same time (except Sweden, somehow).

> full control in the name of COVID

Apart from closing bars and restaurants etc what sort of full control did the EU impose?

Even closing of bars and restaurands was not imposed by the EU because it does not have the legal powers required to do that.

Please read up on competences of institutions before directing blame, everyone.

The EU has exclusive power in customs, openness of the internal market, monetary policy, internal commercial policy and some selected international treaties.

Member states are furthermore prevented from interfering from EU regulation - if it exists - in some areas of agriculture, environment and consumer protection, transport and energy and meta directives in legal fairness and security.

There is no competency for regulating health, that is solely member state responsibility.

Regulation of digital markets needs to attach to these powers, and so is derived mostly from a need to protect competition and internal markets.

nothing, it was in countries jurisdiction, actually people were calling for more central response from EU, but they didn't have any means/rights.

Only thing EU did afaik, was EU covid certificates, which I'm eternally grateful for.

Grateful why? They served to restrict our rights.

Because EU recogniced certifcates made travel within the EU possible and, besides some funny rules for border crossings, almost pain free.

Just imagine going from Geany to France would require to get your German vaccination certificate recognised by the French first, as one example.

When one set of government-imposed policies artificially inhibits travel, another set of government-imposed policies that artificially adds exceptions to that first set of policies shouldn't be seen as providing salvation.

"Travel within the EU" would have been "possible" and "pain free" if the various governments had just not imposed any travel restrictions in the first place.

Yeah exactly! But at least like this, you just have one certificate, and not 5.

> Just imagine going from Geany to France would require to get your German vaccination certificate recognised by the French first, as one example.

Just imagine going from A to B without having to show a useless certificate.

I am old enough to remember passport controls when going skiing in Austria, which was 30 km away from my home. Hell, imagine to show documentation at nation borders! The audacity!

Even then it was national governments, not the EU, imposing those controls.

I’m not aware of any COVID measures that was bought in solely via powers the EU has. I assume that would take far too long, as every new directive from the EU needs to implemented by each member state separately.