Comment by dalbasal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dalbasal | Hacker News Reader

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Where did I "claim" anything. You demanded evidence from a blog post commenting on a wide discussion, that they have been involved in for years.

There are plenty of arguments by plenty of people making this point. You can agree or disagree with that, but you can't demand that they convince you.

If I say that a free press is important to democracy, you cannot demand that I "prove it."

OTOH, If a (my) legislating body has officially resolved something, as they have, I do get to demand that they tell me what it is. Telling me that they expect big tech to implement a system where police can gain lawful access to my data without circumventing encryption is... pissing on me while telling me it's raining.

And yes, Orwellian, in the simplest and most iconic way. This is a resolution to ban encryption. Plain and simple. The resolution's language is all about how they respect privacy and encryption. This is Ministry of Love language, and it's Orwell all the way down. The only way to progress as they clearly wish is by changing the definition of the term "encrypted." More precisely, taking away the "end-2-end" caveat or some other way of encrypting while circumventing encryption.

Incidentally, instead of "police," the resolution refers to them (5 times) as "competent authorities." This is like an Orwell homage... maybe an intentional wink. If I ever write a 1984 knock-off, the police will be called CAs.

> This is a resolution to ban encryption. Plain and simple.

Yes I do know that this is your viewpoint - thank you for repeating it. But, as I also repeatedly said, I have a hard time seeing it because, well, the resolution does in fact not explicitly ban (E2E) encryption.

So can you please help convince me and fellow ignorami by providing a link or two? Is there maybe a statement by a council member? A proposal for the type of backdoor/encryption type the council would like to see implemented?

I think something like that would really move the discussion forward.

>I have a hard time seeing it because, well, the resolution does in fact not explicitly ban (E2E) encryption.

If you need the actions of the government to be explicit then you'd have a difficult time to prove any case.

Let's turn this back towards you, based on the evidence of previous actions by the government of the EU (and EU), how can you claim anything prevents this malicious behavior? Nothing explicitly prevents these abuses. This is an intentional design. Does the right to E2E exist in this resolution? It doesn't, so please don't assume they won't use a roundabout way to remove this human right.

Please don't ignore abuses of governmental power, they weld their power with little recourse. Let's not be quick to encourage their poor legislation.

You seem to have upgraded the claim that "banning encryption is implicit in the resolution" for a far broader claim that I can probably summarize as "assume malice". But yet again, all I find to support the latter claim are sweeping statements without evidence.

Can you provide me with examples of EU law that you consider abuses of power and that remove human rights?

(Also, the "EU government" does not exist, so with "governmental power" you maybe mean the power of the Commission?)

> Can you provide me with examples of EU law that you consider abuses of power and that remove human rights?

Their previous attempts to making encryption illegal. I believe encryption is a fundamental human right.

You never answered my question. You seem bogged down on my characterization.

Let me ask again without the characterization.

What EU laws ensure the human right to encryption?

> What EU laws ensure the human right to encryption?

Article 7 of the Charter of fundamental rights of the European Union: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:12...

> Article 7

> Respect for private and family life

> Everyone has the right to respect for his or her private and family life, home and communications.

See also ECHR Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms article 8 https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf

> ARTICLE 8

> Right to respect for private and family life1.

> Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

I appreciate your citations.

What court cases prove your interpretation of the law? That's the rub.

I can answer your question: unlike the great sibling comment, let me state that I do (or did) not know of such laws.

But now what? Have you proved the point that I need to "assume malice"? Or have you now successfully argued for the narrower claim, that the resolution is indeed a proposed ban on encryption?

I am very sorry but I really do not believe you have - which was, of course, the reason that I ignored your question in the first place.

> Have you proved the point that I need to "assume malice"?

Catch up to the conversation. I moved on from my characterization to repeat my question without the malice. You said 'i can answer your question', yet your entire comment is devoid of such answer.

You're Sybil'ing this issue. Only obstructing the real issue at hand.

The real issue is whether the laws (via court cases ensure interpretation is correct) says it's allowed or banned. The good faith in the government or bad faith in the government is moot. The intention/malice distracts from the actual point. Which is why I moved on from it because I'm trying to engage you in the actual issue.

Nothing explicitly protects citizens right to encryption. No law. No court case. And until that's plainly laid out, we shouldn't be offering our trust to any ruler over us. Whether their intent is positive or negative, it's entirely moot.

Whether citizens have a human right. That's the issue and you've spoken to distract from the issue. I encourage you, prove your case that EU provides this human right.

> we shouldn't be offering our trust to any ruler over us

But that is exactly the claim I tried to summarize two comments ago as "assume malice"...

> I encourage you, prove your case that EU provides this human right.

This is a basic tenet of law: it is not forbidden, hence you are free to use encryption everywhere in the EU. QED :)

You probably want to argue that in an ideal world, the right to use encryption should be written into the EU treaties. (Another option would be the ECHR, but good luck getting Russia on board!) That might be laudable, but until such is done we seem to have to (unfortunately!) give some bit of trust to the law-makers here and ask whether or not they will actually move and introduce a law that bans encryption.

For example, someone can claim that EU lawmakers want to forbid us from eating cake. As a cake-lover I would be tempted to protest, but should I not maybe first check if the claim is actually reliable? That is what I am trying to do here. If the claim is not reliable, there might be no need to call for an amendment to the treaties to ensure cake-eating remains legal.

>> (me) I encourage you, prove your case that EU provides this human right.

> (you: prof-dr-ir) This is a basic tenet of law: it is not forbidden, hence you are free to use encryption everywhere in the EU. QED :)

Interesting. You went with proof by assumption. There is the rub. If you're going to assume cognitive bias, I can't argue with your irrational belief. Instead, I'm writing for others to realize the error in this mental structure.

> (you) You probably want to argue that in an ideal world,...

Actually, on the contrary, I think you're arguing in an ideal world that those is power don't circumvent the goodwill intents of the law due to accidental reasons, or negligent reasons or even nefarious purposes (notice these circumventions to the law happen with a positive motive or negative motive. Which is why I went away from that when you got caught up in charactizations).

Assuming you have a right because it doesn't explicitly state it, is logically equivalent to your gripe with the ban of E2E.

> (you) I have a hard time seeing it because, well, the resolution does in fact not explicitly ban (E2E) encryption.

Said in reflection to your assumption: I have a hard time seeing it because, well, the resolution [nor any other EU law/resolution/court-case] does in fact explicitly state we have a right of E2E as citizens.

A side note: Since you're using assumptions for your human right. I feel you've not learned history. Laws can and should be explicit (I don't argue against your logical battle but I argue against where your focus is). A region of the world that had Hitler doesn't recognize this assumption could cause dire consequences? It's an absolutely fair point since you're focusing on the EU. (I'd quote other local atrocious leaders if we were debating a different location)

A final point, laws should be able to hold the powerful into account. So, even if it's stated in the law explicitly and even if the court cases confirm our cultural interpretations of the law, then this is still not what is necessary. We need one more aspect included. Consequences to law breaking. So my conclusion is that prof-dr-ir you're a far cry away from having all three aspects QED. I hope others realize and not take this situation lightly. Especially if we don't want to accidentally, negligently or even maliciously fall into a dystopian society.

The full text of the proposed resolution is here: https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-13084-2020-...

Relevant part:

"Competent authorities must be able to access data in a lawful and targeted manner,in full respect of fundamental rights and the relevant data protection laws, while upholding cybersecurity. Technical solutions for gaining access to encrypted data must comply with the principles of legality, transparency, necessity and proportionality including protection of personal data by design and by default."

So, what they are saying here is: encryption is allowed but it has to be weak or backdoored. They want "Technical solutions for gaining access to encrypted data". They do want to ban strong encryption (which is the only kind of encryption worthy of the name).

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