France is about to pass the worst surveillance law in the EU.
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The only thing that can stop a bad guy with access to my private phone data is a good guy with access to my private phone data. /s
They only thing that can stop a bad guy with surveillance fetish is the same bad bad guy with suddenly found exhibitionism fetish. OK, that's not new, see "Enemy of the state movie". Doesn't work quite like that IRL, of course.
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It sounds like you haven't observed the conversation.
And it's not the tech companes so much as the Linux community who have pushed for e2e.
Considering how many abuses (pretty clear violations of the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States) have been carved out by SCOTUS during mob investigations and the International War on Terror, no, the people of the US want secure communication. The law enforcement state wants back doors and keep telling tech folk to nerd harder to make back doors not already known to industrial spies, enthusiast hackers and foreign agents.
You're asking for three perpendicular lines on a plane. You're asking for a mathematical impossibility.
And remember industrial spies includes the subsets of industries local and foreign, and political spies behind specific ideologies who do not like you and are against specifically your own personhood.
This is exactly the sort of argument I was talking about
- The forth amendment counts for less than the paper it is written on outside the bounds of the US
- Most of the rest of the world has laws requiring companies that operate in their jurisdiction - even if they aren't based in that country - to prove access to law enforcement if requested
- If complying with the law is truly actually impossible, then don't be surprised if a country turns around and says "ok, you can't operate here". Just because you are based in the US and have a different set of cultural values, doesn't mean you get to ignore laws you don't like
To illustrate the sort of compromise that could have been possible, imagine if Apple and Google had got together and proposed a scheme where, if presented with:
- A physical device
- An arrest warrant aledging involvement in one of a list of specific serious crimes (rape, murder, csam etc)
They would sign an update for that specific handset that provided access for law enforcement, so long as the nations pass and maintain laws that forbid it's use outside of a prosecution. It's not perfect for anyone - law enforcement would want more access, and it does compromise some people privacy - but it's probably better than "no encryption for anyone".
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Basically, all encryption multiplies some big prime numbers to get the key
No, not all encryption. First of all there's two main categories of encryption:
- asymmetrical
- symmetrical
The most widely used algorithms of asymmetrical encryption rely on the prime factorization problem or similar problems that are weak to quantum computers. So these ones will break. Symmetrical encryption will not break. I'm not saying all this to be a pedant; it's actually significant for the safety of our current communications. Well-designed schemes like TLS and the Signal protocol use a combination of both types because they have complementary strengths and weaknesses. In very broad strokes:
- asymmetrical encryption is used to initiate the communication because it can verify the identity of the other party
- an algorithm that is safe against eavesdropping is used to generate a key for symmetric encryption
- the symmetric key is used to encrypt the payload and it is thrown away after communication is over
This is crucial because it means that even if someone is storing your messages today to decrypt them in the future with a quantum computer they are unlikely to succeed if a sufficiently strong symmetric key is used. They will decrypt the initial messages of the handshake, see the messages used to negotiate the symmetric key, but they won't be able to derive the key because as we said, it's safe against eavesdropping.
So a lot of today's encrypted messages are safe. But in the future a quantum computer will be able to get the private key for the asymmetric encryption and perform a MitM attack or straight-up impersonate another entity. So we have to migrate to post-quantum algorithms before we get to that point.
For storage, only symmetric algorithms are used generally I believe, so that's already safe as is, assuming as always the choice of a strong algorithm and sufficiently long key.
That's a comment I was hoping for, thanks
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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/56769139
cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/23170564
Correction. The worst surveillance law in the EU so far
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Signal, Tuta, Proton. And that Apple bullshit.
This push to know everything about everyone is outrageous, expected, and depressing.
I don't even really want to ask, but... what happened with Tuta? I know what happened with the other 3.
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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/56769139
cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/23170564
a crosspost from privacy cross posted from Europa -
I don't even really want to ask, but... what happened with Tuta? I know what happened with the other 3.
Tuta would also be required to implement a backdoor in their encryption if this law passes. In this post they've stated they will refuse to do so, because it's not possible.
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Huh? I don't think you understand my comment. You're just agreeing with me and I'm already agreeing with you.
I don't agree with you.
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I don't agree with you.
So then you're in favor of these government backdoors? Because your comment suggests the opposite.
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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/56769139
cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/23170564
Ah yes, for the upcoming Ministry of Love.
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I don't agree with you.
I think you do, you just misread their comment.
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Signal, Tuta, Proton. And that Apple bullshit.
This push to know everything about everyone is outrageous, expected, and depressing.
What happened with Signal?
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I think you do, you just misread their comment.
Nope. I didn't and I don't.
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So then you're in favor of these government backdoors? Because your comment suggests the opposite.
No, I don't agree that a want of privacy is an American thing.
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No, I don't agree that a want of privacy is an American thing.
So you misread my comment but you're one of those types who can't admit when they're wrong. I'd say it's our little secret but I see someone else pointed it out too.
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Yup, they are trying to put a backdoor into signal, even though their military advised against it.
Isn't that the CIA app?
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So you misread my comment but you're one of those types who can't admit when they're wrong. I'd say it's our little secret but I see someone else pointed it out too.
Nope. You're the one refusing to admit being wrong.
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Nope. I didn't and I don't.
Telling someone who says government access will be used to spy on citizens but will be useless for combating serious crime that they want telescreens doesn't make any sense. Either you don't know what a telescreen is, you have poor reading comprehension, or you're a fairly clever troll. Maybe some of all the above.
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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/56769139
cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/23170564
But they're not the good guys either
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Telling someone who says government access will be used to spy on citizens but will be useless for combating serious crime that they want telescreens doesn't make any sense. Either you don't know what a telescreen is, you have poor reading comprehension, or you're a fairly clever troll. Maybe some of all the above.
I'm telling someone who says that a want for uncompromising privacy is a US thing that it's not, and that these compromises they speak of would be akin to telescreens if applied to a non-digital situation.
