EU Proposes Enforcing Data Encryption and Banning Backdoors

[Tech198]

Probably need more of a balance. A "better balance" not the one that gives full access to governments as they see fit.

We all look to one side when it comes to encryption and security as ma "no one should have access regardless who uses it" while at the same time we cry of cyber issues...
Well,,, which direction do u wanna go ? up or down?

 

[manu chao]

I don't trust the EU with its unelected elites deciding on our lives.

Yeah, that is the proper reaction to a proposal by the European Parliament.
[doublepost=1497874762][/doublepost]

smells fishy to me. if there is one thing eurocrats like it is pressing the thumb on the little people.

Sure, true populists have no need for parliaments, they need one strongman (or woman) they can make responsible for everything. Everything else is just too complicated for their gut thinking.

 

[Carnegie]

I would generally be opposed to regulations which would require private parties (e.g. product makers and service providers) to implement greater encryption or privacy safeguards.

But I would be very much in favor of regulations which prohibited governments from requiring private parties to compromise or circumvent such measures.

On a more general note: When are we humans, both as individuals and collectively in our policy (and other) considerations, going to accept the inescapable reality that those things which make life worth living and which facilitate that which is good will also facilitate that which is evil? Life - with all that is wonderful and beautiful about it - facilitates evil. Living facilitates evil. We can't get around that reality. And we should not sacrifice the former out of fear of the latter. To the extent we do, what's left - what's the point? That is how evil wins - by scaring us into giving up that which is good, by scaring us into diminishing the experience of living.

There are often things which can be done to combat evil which don't also undercut the general value in living or those things which are good about it. Generally speaking, we should do those things. However, and generally speaking, we should not - in the name of combating evil - do those things which do undercut the general value in living. Doing them represents submission to evil, not resistance of it. It doesn't represent strength in the fight against evil, it represents weakness in that fight. It represents cowardice. We aren't fighting the bad guys when we do things which harm ourselves or diminish our own lives. Rather, we are turning their isolated and limited successes into general and grand victories.

 

[MentalFloss]

I don't trust the EU with its unelected elites deciding on our lives.

Whenever I read that nonsense about those supposed "unelected elites" in the EU, I basically stop reading, as nothing smart can follow after that.

The crazy part is that the whole Brexit thing is based on that. People like Nigel Farage have derived their whole political career from talking about some imaginary "unelected elites". And people actually believed it. Perhaps Theresa May should have campaigned on an anti-bogeyman platform. Or with a campaign slogan like "Santa Claus's toy factories are destroying jobs in the UK!" Seems to work well enough.

 

[nebo1ss]

What does "reverse engineering" mean in this context? They don't intend to make unofficial third-party chat clients illegal, do they?


They weren't asking for a backdoor. They were asking for an exploit tool. Those are entirely different things with different implications. Backdoors are built in ahead of time and pave the way for exploit tools.

They were asking Apple to create a new version of IOS with the limit of three attempts at passcode input remove that could retrospectively be installed on the phone. That is a backdoor if I ever heard of one.

 

[MentalFloss]

smells fishy to me. if there is one thing eurocrats like it is pressing the thumb on the little people.

I hope your location is supposed to be some kind of joke, because an Australian guy trying to act like an expert on European politics by regurgitating an old and tired cliche looks kinda silly.

How did the EU ban on roaming charges harm the little people? Just curious.

 

[manu chao]

Sounds fishy. This goes pretty much against the current course of tight control, regulation and omnipresent surveillance. I'm definitely not believing there isn't some hidden agenda behind this, to the tune of "only one method of encryption allowed, everything else banned, new Encryption Enforcement Bureau created, unfortunately the operation costs €332 000 000 000 000 daily, internet service providers, web hostings, developers, infrastructure owners bullied to adopt appropriate new technologies and forced to deploy expensive hardware"

One reason why this seems so different from the current trend of government activity is that the European Parliament (or to be precise, the majority in it) is not joined at the hip with an executive body (ie, government). It is much more independent then, eg, the UK parliament.

 

[StevieD100]

Macron was fairly anti encryption during his campaign. Wonder if he will follow up on it now that he is in power.

30 years ago, France banned the use of all Encryption outside banks etc. A good number of fines from Brussels eventually got things changed. I wonder if the old law is still on the statue book?
Macron won't do a FREXIT unlike Mdme Le Pen.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

OK as much as I like the sentiment it's all fairy dust until there's a realistic chance of passage and the article already says it's been tabled. This is non-news. And that hasn't even gotten to the technical challenge of "end to end" encryption of all metadata; how will clients find each other the first time or after any change in address?

 

[djlythium]

Sounds fishy. This goes pretty much against the current course of tight control, regulation and omnipresent surveillance. I'm definitely not believing there isn't some hidden agenda behind this, to the tune of "only one method of encryption allowed, everything else banned, new Encryption Enforcement Bureau created, unfortunately the operation costs €332 000 000 000 000 daily, internet service providers, web hostings, developers, infrastructure owners bullied to adopt appropriate new technologies and forced to deploy expensive hardware"

Yep, this. Sounds great; I don't trust it.

 

[diipii]

This is typical of the EU's "everyone's lovely" point of view and only one of the reasons why the UK should exit asap. There are way too many garbled thinking, woolly headed lovvies over here that need a sharp dose of real worldliness as if Manchester and London were not enough.

Oh and what the hell has this got to do with Apple ?

 

[Gudi]

Why are so many Brits commenting on an EU proposal? You're out, good bye!

 

[Eraserhead]

Once again, I love how human-facing the EU and their policies are. Be a shame to leave the UK.

Apart from all the treaties they jammed through in the middle of the night.
[doublepost=1497876706][/doublepost]

This is typical of the EU's "everyone's lovely" point of view and only one of the reasons why the UK should exit asap. There are way too many garbled thinking, woolly headed lovvies over here that need a sharp dose of real worldliness as if Manchester and London were not enough.

Oh and what the hell has this got to do with Apple ?

Banning encyprtion wouldn't help. For starters terrorists could just do it illegally.

 

[Sasparilla]

Nice to see this. The EU is the only place on earth that is pushing privacy rights for its citizens (at the same time, some of its members - UK in particular, Germany recently - are wanting the surveillance state...) and its good to see them. Hopefully this gets put into law and might give a nudge to the other democracies (U.S. etc.) that (at this point) only appear to be sliding towards a world of total mass surveillance (and no privacy rights).

Seems the E.U. is young enough to not be totally corrupted by business interests the way the U.S. government is (at the Federal Level) - as this shows - surveillance capitalism does not want people to have the ability to have privacy like this (the commercial side of the mass surveillance coin).

 

[mark-vdw]

As much as I like the idea of this proposed rule the reality is that it is not in the best interest of governments. Whether benevolent or not, governments want to keep tabs on people and will abuse such power. It's human nature. In the end it will be watered down to the point that it doesn't mean as much as people think.

Anything that we do to give legitimate police more power of terrorists in terms of information security will inevitably also give much less legitimate hackers more power over the general population. Even if there is some type of "golden key" approach that would only allow law enforcement to hack a device after a court order, the mere existence of such a system would eventually allow someone to recreate the key and use it for nefarious purposes. And statistically speaking, there are a LOT more hackers than police and a LOT more general population to target than terrorists.

 

[nnoble]

With our current dictator in power (Theresa May) I doubt we’d see these measures, since she wants to lock down the UKs internet and open encryption North Korea style.

And that is your considered opinion?

 

[Glideslope]

Why are so many Brits commenting on an EU proposal? You're out, good bye!

LOL, dissing Brits on Brexit while Nationalism flourishes in "Mein Land." Don't get too comfy.

 

[vkd]

Cooko will be rejoicing.

 

[Thunderhawks]

For starters, if that prevents any government to tell corporations how to implement their encryption and force them to give that up "as seen fit", it is a good thing.
What I don't understand is that after centuries of experience and proven facts anybody thinks that criminals or terrorists won't know how to get around laws.
Governments sell us "if we only can save one life" blah , blah and in reality it's about controlling the masses.

 

[69650]

I can see the arguments on both sides but in the end I simply don't trust governments around the world not to misuse any backdoor.

 

[whooleytoo]

Anything that we do to give legitimate police more power of terrorists in terms of information security will inevitably also give much less legitimate hackers more power over the general population. Even if there is some type of "golden key" approach that would only allow law enforcement to hack a device after a court order, the mere existence of such a system would eventually allow someone to recreate the key and use it for nefarious purposes. And statistically speaking, there are a LOT more hackers than police and a LOT more general population to target than terrorists.

Unfortunately, exactly this. There is no such thing as "a backdoor for law-enforcement". There's either no backdoor, or a backdoor for everyone.

The very best scenario is that such a move to mandate encryption backdoors might catch low-level, amateurish terrorist communications. At a higher level of sophistication, you'd expect any such group to use their own encryption methods; so the sole effect of the backdoor would be the government(s) mandating that their citizens and companies are more vulnerable to privacy invasions, identity theft and industrial/corporate espionage.

 

[miknos]

I don't trust the EU with its unelected elites deciding on our lives.
It's the same EU that wastes billions, lets in (or even (let) picks up at the other side of the Mediterranean Sea) illegal immigrants by the thousands, ...

You seem like those right-wing extremist, racist, xenophobic, evil, etc who don't like people (politicians) sharing YOUR stuff!
Guess you're those kind of greedy capitalist who want better stuff for yourself!

/s

 

[TheShadowKnows!]

What will happen when Quantum computing comes to the fore?

This because the fundamental mathematics behind all encryption makes all NP algorithms breakable in polynomial time.

And, Quantum computing will be available to the few.

The equivalent of a modern-day Enigma Machine of the past century.

 

[0098386]

I'm just hoping the whole Brexit thing collapses in some way. I very much doubt it though sadly.

Most do these days.

 

[nnoble]

polynomial time.

Is that + or - GMT?