> No.
Without going into whatever context the original quote has: doch — encryption does both. There is no technology so pure it only helps the "good guys", from fire to firearms[0] there are things we can't possibly survive without, and yet criminals can use them for crimes.
I don't know the best way to handle this with crypto, mainly because the problem is much deeper than the crypto itself: even if absolutely everyone without exception or equivocation agrees everyone gets unbreakable cryptography, it is getting ever easier to just spy directly — laser microphones on drones, using software to repurpose a WiFi antenna as a wall-penetrating radar, IR cameras, using AI for gaze detection and 3D scene reconstruction to figure out who (or what) you were looking at when you blushed — that's all coming to a blackmailer near you. (Caveat: fake images and potentially at some point 3D bioprinted fake bodies will make the evidence invalid in courts of law, but that's a whole different discussion).
The only thing I can even think to suggest is a radical liberalisation of almost every law and punishment such that we can as a society survive when everyone's crimes, misdemeanours, and administrative infractions/regulatory offences are cataloged and dealt with in real time.
The only thing I am sure of is that the future can't look anything like the examples from history — while it might be much better or much worse, it won't be even close to the same.
[0] I don't mean in the American 2nd amendment sense though, I mean an army with no firearms will loose to one that has them.
So? Cars also help the bad guys escape from robberies faster, but we don't seem to ban those...
Not to mention knives... those can be deadly if somebody stubs you with one.
And what about clothes? Naked criminals would be much less effective...
The thing is anything can assist criminals. Why single out encryption (besides the government wanting to snoop at will)?
Bad example. We definitely do ban carrying large knives (blade length >X), butterfly knives etc. around with you. Relatedly Germany even punishes carrying around lockpicking tools (unless that is your job) -- just carrying them.
A 5cm screwdriver is more than enough to give brain damage to someone.
A flexible extension hose like the ones that go under the sink (with the nuts attached) is perfect for knocking someone out.
A titanium tipped pen is quite good if you aim for ears, temple or throat.
A tightly rolled newspaper makes a very good blunt weapon.
Breaking/banning encryption like would have minimal benefits while exposing the whole society. Don't think that only the gov't will have the secondary keys if they decide to "only" have back doors. Anyone motivated enough will have them.
If chat encryption is banned... let's say it's not hard to reintroduce it on top of existing layers for anyone motivated enough or with enough money.
Whether the balance is good or bad, we will see. But society is all about balancing the good and the bad.
Which can only be done through spyware installed universally if encryption isn't going to be broken. Because that certainly isn't ripe for abuse..
That's why I can only see a plausible outcome involving radical reductions in penalties for basically everything.
There is no balanced middle with encryption. Things are either encrypted or their not.
"Encrypted but a third party has access" or "Encrypted, but with breakable encryption" is as good as non encrypted.
Yes, but the "bad" tends to become "good", as the members of the society becomes weaker and weaker.
My general point is that even though crypto is necessary (despite criminals using it), keeping it available isn't sufficient.
Indeed, food is also helpful to criminals, without proper nourishment they would be less capable
It's not just EU but UK, USA, China and every single entity that collects intelligence for their goals. They all would love to have encryption braked in their favor because we created vast communication networks with enormous data stored that can be reached at instant but they can't reach those due to encryption.
Consider that you are in charge of defending your community against straight out criminals and foreign influence or actors who have other goals than you do. How amazing would be for you to be able to check out each and every citizen or each and every device relevant to you at click of a button, right? It's the ultimate society debugger, you will be able to do your job so much more easily.
The problem with that is, we as a society, don't have a definitive good or bad or truth or allies or enemies and we constantly change our minds on all these things and this is not a bug but a feature.
Let's say some kind of anomaly happens and the encryption is removed and government officials have total access and none of them are corrupt and they do their jobs perfectly. Instantly you removed progress in the society and everything will stay the way it is, good luck if you are on the wrong side of things because the only way anything changes from now on will be possible only through discussion from within the community of those who happened to be in control when the encryption no longer worked.
I don't want this to happen because I don't live in country where the mainstream policies are aligned with my ideas on how the world should work. What about criminals you say? Well, catch them through police work and other means - it doesn't have to be completely effortless for you to do your job.
Demolition Man called this. How did the police catch criminals before bio-engineered trackers were attached to every citizen? "We worked for a living, this fascist crap makes me want to puke".
Do you think that criminals will care that it is 'illegal' to send messages when they're plotting more heinous acts? In such a scenario you'll have to radically enforce what programs may or may not be run on everyone's computer. If you do that, you're worse than the criminals.
If that sort of logic were to be applied what's the point in any law? Deterrence, making it harder, and punishment. Rolling your own crypto is hard, just like building your own gun for a robbery is. Not impossible, but it will certainly deter less motivated individuals. If all crypto was broken with law enforcement owned escrow keys (not in any way advocating for this, just playing devil's advocate, criminals would know not to rely on it and would have to first build a reliable safe method of communication (like physical meetings). Not the end of the world, just a deterrent.
> In such a scenario you'll have to radically enforce what programs may or may not be run on everyone's computer. If you do that, you're worse than the criminals.
That's a wild exaggeration. All sorts of things radically enforce what software can run on anyone's computer (DRM, antiviruses, licenses, etc.) and that's not great, but comparing that to an actual violent crime for instance is just stupid and honestly insulting.
Compromising everyone's security to target a few seems backwards.
Let's not forget, that the government is doing this to keep us nice and safe. It knows what 'nice' really means, and what 'safe' is too! (You don't)
Sometimes it needs to keep you safe even from yourself!!
So, it turns out, that government (an imaginary concept that only exists in our minds) actually cares about us even more than we care about ourselves! Right?
End to end encryption / Trust No One encryption setups are much simpler in that regard - only you have the keys, so you don't have to worry nearly so much about the provider being compromised or just not giving a fuck about paying customers. Plus you just don't have to worry about monitor people creeping on your photos and such.
Actually, Osama Bin Laden relied on trusted couriers; not phones, networks or encryption.
> There is no point in denying the facts - that encryption and the ease of use of the Internet enable everyone to coordinate more easily.
Since it’s easier for everyone, it’s also easier for criminals. But we don’t have to deny it to everyone just because the subset of people called criminals benefit too.
The only bloody reason people use WhatsApp and Skype etc. is because it is "free". Take away that aspect, apply the same laws and rules applicable to telecom companies to them, and we will find they will lose their appeal very fast. (I do believe offering a product for "free" should be considered an anti-competitive behaviour as it hugely increases the barrier to entry in any field. Google, Facebook, Microsoft etc. continue to have a monopoly on the internet solely because competing with them for "free" is a losing proposition for anyone - in fact, if they were not backed by CIA and NSA funds and programs like PRISM, even they would have collapsed a long time ago).
We can see "AI" at work. And even if a human checks it you are doomed, because you don't fit in the business plan. Therefore never upload private data on a strangers computer. The cloud is by definition a strangers computer! It is nice that you can find your lost phone with their website but you shall not store any private data on the computer of someone else. If you want keep data in sync across multiple devices multiple providers providers and tools allow for that:
* https://syncthing.net/ (recommend: everyone)
* https://git-scm.com/ (recommend: it-professionals)
* https://mailbox.org (recommend: everyone, including mail, calendar, contacts, notes)
* https://posteo.de/ (see above)
* https://nextcloud.com (recommend: hobby and it-professionals)
Does someone have recommendations for US based E-Mail providers which are reliable and "not free"?
Buy a refurbished server rack and mount it anywhere in US, install and configure email software with everything else that you need.
> The situation changes somewhat if you pay with money for service instead with data
Yeah, now company is profiting not only from your data, but from your bank account aswell, that's the difference.
> Buy a refurbished server rack and mount it anywhere in US
Not anywhere. You won't get very far trying to host an email server on a residential Internet connection.
In most cases that means you pay and they still monetize your data to the fullest
Article 10 of the Basic Law:
(1) The privacy of correspondence, posts and telecommunications shall be inviolable.
(2) Restriction to this are only permitted if required by law.
Which is used to force postal operators to report and investigate suspicious letters that might contain drugs.
Well, now we can counter "Think of the children" with "Think of the Ukrainians"
repetita iuvant: secrecy is not privacy.
encryption makes conversation private but not totally secret, WhatsApp knows if I write to the person named "dentist" on my address book only when the phone number connected to "wife" is out of town.
Or if I dial the number of a tow truck service at 4 am after my phone has been for hours inside a club and my CC was used to pay for half a dozen alcoholic drinks.
that's more than enough to imply what everyone is implying by reading this.
no need to know the content.
on that matter cheating was easier and safer before encryption was a common thing, nobody actually listened to our calls, and we did not leave around clues strong enough to rebuild our entire life in exchange for a messaging platform.
Secondly, that article clearly states, as any other deliberation of the EU, that the law can override the right to secrecy and that's what happens all the time: the authorities ask the permission to a judge that can grant it or deny it.
It's not like the CIA that breaks your SSL certs and wiretaps on your communications without asking anyone if they can or cannot.
It's absolutely hilarious that you believe America is the only country that does this.
where did I say it's the only one?
But would you deny that its the one spending more on it and with the most advanced technologies to do it?
I don't know many other "free" countries that spied the political leaders of allied Nations.
“Allies” are only allies for reasons of national interest, not because they are genuinely friends, whatever that would mean between countries.
Of course, there’s still outrage when they get caught. Here, for example, is Germany being outraged that the US spied on them. [1] And here’s Germany spying on France [2]. But they all know it’s going on.
And here’s a good quote from French intelligence:
> “If Hollande was genuinely shocked by these allegations, that would mean he wasn’t aware that this kind of thing is normal,” he said. “But of course he is aware. Hollande has to satisfy the feelings of the general public by expressing some indignation, but the truth is all countries spy on their friends and the only limitation is the means at their disposal.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/31/europe/denmark-us-nsa-merkel-...
[2] https://www.france24.com/en/20151113-germany-spying-france-h...
no.
they have sources and intelligence officers share information, for various reasons, not excluding political beliefs.
but spying the way USA was doing it on Merkel (for example) is not common, at all.
It would also mean that American intelligence is more incompetent than French or Italian intelligence, never caught spying an ally, which cast some doubts on why CIA is so highly praised...
I really don't believe it's true.
And frankly "former intelligence officer says that" it's more information warfare than something newsworthy.
If we believed "former intelligence officers" flying saucers should be filling our skies.
https://www.france24.com/en/20130702-france-usa-spying-snowd...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/04/france-electro...
Beyond just spying, French intelligence services even blew up a Greenpeace ship in New Zealand. They don’t have a moral problem with messing with allies.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warri...
Allies negotiate with each other all the time. Of course it helps them to have inside knowledge of what’s going on behind the scenes. Why do you think any country would handicap itself?
why do you think I think that?
As a person from Rome I have no respect for France.
The point is not that secret services spy on each other, but that mass surveillance of the scale US has built has no equivalent in the west.
They have been spying their citizen too.
Televisions, smartphones and even anti-virus software are all vulnerable to CIA hacking, according to the WikiLeaks documents released Tuesday. The capabilities described include recording the sounds, images and the private text messages of users, even when they resort to encrypted apps to communicate
Add to that most of the corporations amassing people data are American and manufacture the most popular devices around (not limited to but including clouds, voice assistants, even roomba now) and have close relations with NSA (they have to or are willing to do it it doesn't matter) and the only logical conclusion is that they either are incompetent and got caught or they have been doing it too aggressively and the allies got pissed. Right now I believe they simply stepped up their game and catching them is just gone be harder.
Wiretapping looks like child's play in comparison.
But in the end my comment was about the fact that EU Parliament is not the CIA and it's not advocating for mass surveillance.
There's a reason why secret services are called secret, because they are not doing it because the laws permits it.
Stop saying things you can't prove.
> French mass surveillance program in detail.
not remotely in detail and not remotely close to what we call mass surveillance and not remotely close to what NSA does
from the article (which I have to suppose you haven't read, because it's in the first paragraph)
The agency intercepted signals from computers and phones in France as well as between France and other countries, looking not so much at content but to create a map of "who is talking to whom", the paper said.
The metadata from phone and internet use was stocked in a "gigantic database" which could be consulted by six French intelligence and security agencies as well as the police.
NSA don't simply look for metadata, they can simply ask Face.. ehm Meta for that (WhatsApp).
They actually look closely at the content.
The article also goes on saying that France haven't protested much about Prism because they have (assumingly) the largest system in Europe, after the Brits (that come way after the US)
So not "multiple countries in Europe" but a couple countries have put in place system that rivals with WhatsApp abilities to collect metadata, but WhatsApp obtain it from willing users.
Imagine what MS, Amazon, Apple, Google, Netflix, Oracle, and many other american corporations can collect for the NSA while hiding those activities as legit businesses and what that means for NSA: being free to focus only on everything else.
> https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_10.html
Weren't we Germans calling out Poland, because they decided that national law can take precedence over EU law? So I guess our GG < EU Law.
You'll have to back that up a little. Which wars? Which involvement is considered unconstitutional? Because a lot of those have been tested in the constitutional court and found to be covered by the constitution - see the courts judgement from 1994 https://www.servat.unibe.ch/dfr/bv090286.html#
"BVerfGE 90, 286 (286)1. Die Ermächtigung des Art. 24 Abs. 2 GG berechtigt den Bund nicht nur zum Eintritt in ein System gegenseitiger kollektiver Sicherheit und zur Einwilligung in damit verbundene Beschränkungen seiner Hoheitsrechte. Sie bietet vielmehr auch die verfassungsrechtliche Grundlage für die Übernahme der mit der Zugehörigkeit zu einem solchen System typischerweise verbundenen Aufgaben und damit auch für eine Verwendung der Bundeswehr zu Einsätzen, die im Rahmen und nach den Regeln dieses Systems stattfinden.
2. Art. 87a GG steht der Anwendung des Art. 24 Abs. 2 GG als verfassungsrechtliche Grundlage für den Einsatz bewaffneter Streitkräfte im Rahmen eines Systems gegenseitiger kollektiver Sicherheit nicht entgegen."
> Art 2 > (1) Jeder hat das Recht auf die freie Entfaltung seiner Persönlichkeit, soweit er nicht die Rechte anderer verletzt und nicht gegen die verfassungsmäßige Ordnung oder das Sittengesetz verstößt. > (2) Jeder hat das Recht auf Leben und körperliche Unversehrtheit. Die Freiheit der Person ist unverletzlich. In diese Rechte darf nur auf Grund eines Gesetzes eingegriffen werden.
"(2) Everyone has the right to life and physical integrity. The freedom of a person is inviolable. These rights may only be interfered with on the basis of a law."
You kill someone, you bomb someone, you support someone that is bombing someone -> you are inherently violating article 2 of the GG no matter how the VerfG decides to justify the Kosovo or Iraq war or justify it as a act of selfdefense.
EDIT: yes, on the basis of a law - that I retroactively rewrote in order to justify a "defensive war" that is on the other side of the planet. Let's not kid ourselves here. The German and US MIC has done a fantastic job in white washing the violation of something that has been proven to be a false pretence by now. Even assuming that the WMD defence held up in court AT THE TIME(which is a joke TBH, since there was no evidence available), we all know that all the officials admitted that it was a lie by now.
Killing in a war is not in violation of the constitution. The GG itself establishes an army used for territorial defense. Article 24(2) covers the case of integrating that army into a defense and security pact (NATO, EU army, UN) and from that derives the right to deploy german soldiers in NATO and UN missions. And if they have to kill on those missions, they are _not in violation of the GG Article 2_
Edit: When reading the GG, you also need to take into account that there are many fundamental rights that are in contradiction to each other. These need to be balanced out, there's no single right that always trumps the others. Take the case of an armed robbery: My right to my property (which is codified in Art 14) is opposed to the right of the robbers physical integrity (or even life). It would be outlandish to resolve this as "the robbers right to not be hurt trumps my constitutional right" and indeed, there is the Notwehrparagraph (StGB § 32 Notwehr https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__32.html) which codifies your right to self defense with whatever means necessary to stop the attack. (The boundaries of what's necessary are murky and difficult to generalize, but let's leave that aside here)
[1] https://www.roland-rechtsschutz.de/media/roland-rechtsschutz...
Edit: fixed autocorrection typo
In this case "obsessive" is a very desired quality. People's constitutional rights must be guarded from the sweaty paws of the governments that may treat those as a mere annoyance.
Isn't "prohibiting discrimination" something else entirely as "allowing all foreigners to come in without questions asked"? Germans profited from the ability to take refugee during and after WWII themselves.
Also, the data would rather suggest that the average German is far less against migration than your comment suggests: https://www.fes.de/themenportal-flucht-migration-integration...
That’s an absolutely wild claim and I’d like to know where you got this impression from.
It contains paragraphs that prohibit discrimination. It guarantees asylum for people that are prosecuted in their home country for political views [1]. There's also a paragraph that widens the definition of "German citizen" in the GG to those that were german citizens in 1937 or who lost their german citizenship due to the nazis. After the reunion some groups from russia emigrated to Germany (Russlanddeutsche) [2]. That is wildly different from wanting more immigration.
[1] there's a long laundry list of exceptions to that rule, for example you have to travel straight to germany without passing through a safe country. It's effectively void. See Art 16a https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_16a.html
[2] Article 116 https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_116.html
https://www.merkur.de/politik/asylrecht-oettinger-will-grund...
But here is the counter argument. Europe (if you don’t take the Slavs and the albenians into account) has a negative birth rate. There is no way to sustain current standard of living without immigration. The politicians in Bundestag who control the EU knows that. And if there is one thing that they are afraid of is to encounter the shortage of labour and have to increase wages that comes from that. As the crisis from Covid has shown us.
I think the root cause of the decline of the national and cultural identity of Europe is not because of immigration but because of a local population that has mostly no interest in family formation.
I am in Canada so do not know what the trends are in Europe but I can clearly see that having kids here is quickly becoming a financial burden many people can not afford. Part of it because people want higher living standard while the other is our fucking politicians creating such conditions.
And yes, while Germany and other European countries have great benefits for child rearing, regardless of that a lot of Germans are actually struggling being able to afford living in the cities. Everyone here, myself included probably makes a lot more than an average worker in Germany.
(As a counter-anecdote, I don't personally know a single person in my social circle, in Australia, who is supportive of racial diversity, ranging from indifference to a depressing powerlessness and helplessness to protest what is being done to us by the government, to open and outright racist hostility to the concept.)
I recently left Berlin after over 30 years. I have been outside, but not for long to get to know "other germans". And yes, you are right, the mindset here in the south is a lot more narrow minded and what people say about refugees/foreigners is just mind blowing. Which is kinda sad. I like it here, but I doubt I can live around these people for much longer.
So there's history in Australia of white immigrants trying to force aboriginals to "integrate" with whites. I suppose you could call that "targeted diversification". But you make it sound as if your social circle is white people, objecting to "diversity" in the sense of deviation from whiteness.
Would you mind clarifying?
Well I'm not going to argue with a blood-and-land white nationalist from Oz, telling me how people feel here in Europe. I'm going to butt out, because I have blood-pressure problems. Bye.
Oh, come on. That's QAnon conspiranoid bollocks.
> I don't personally know a single person in my social circle, in Australia, who is supportive of racial diversity
Racial diversity exists. Supporting it or opposing it isn't going to change that.
Assume for sake of argument that it were possible to develop an encryption regime which protected bona fide users, but did not protect criminals. That would be a good thing.
As a matter of public policy, criminals shouldn't be given the right to communicate for the sake of furthering criminal activity without the possibility of lawful interception. It's here that some technologists lose sight of the real world. In the real world, society expects that authorities be able to fight crime using proportionate means.
The real issue is that you can't separate the two from each other - weakening encryption for criminals means weakening it for everyone.
And then if that still doesn't dissuade you, you want to think again even from a position of pure self interest, because you are very likely technically a criminal yourself. (https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp...)
Be very, very careful about handing power to the state, there's a reason they're the largest cause of non natural death in the past century, and it's not their innate benevolence.
Even if such a hypothetical encryption scheme was not intrinsically weaker, it still requires two very strong assumptions:
1. Not a single individual with legal access to the interception system will ever abuse it for their own purposes, or in exchange for a significant bribe or under the threat of blackmail from a powerful and wealthy malignant actor.
2. A future government (democratically elected or not) will never decide that currently legal behaviour is now a crime which warrants interception—say possession of drugs for personal use, "deviant" sex, unpatriotic discourse, etc.(2) in particular is suggesting, effectively, that you should be allowed to circumvent a law you disagree with. In other words, you should be allowed to communicate unlawfully if you don't agree the communication should be unlawful.
That's just not how it works. As a society, your view is one of many. I'm sure many people involved in illicit activity disagree in their activity being characterised as criminal.
(1) undermines the fabric of institutions and assumes that law enforcement targeting criminals may do so for collateral purposes, so they shouldn't be allowed to target criminals just in case.
I don't agree with either.
If you want people to respect the rule of law, you have to offer them a compromise.
Okay.
Encryption is not only important to protect private communication, but would also help perpetrators/criminals
No.
It is there to protect us from perpetrators, criminals and all the people which think they are on the good side. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Authoritarian regimes on our planet always thought they were the "good guys". Encryption is actually there to protect us from you!
The mothers and fathers of the German Grundgesetz (~ constitution) learned that the hard way.
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_10.html