Belgian data retention law is about to criminalize Signal | Hacker News Reader

Belgian data retention law is about to criminalize Signal

patrick-breyer.de

59 pointsKoffiepoeder12 comments

FBI Searched Data of Millions of Americans Without Warrants - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-29/fbi-searc...

The bill includes a new law proposal that:

- Mandates metadata retention for ALL communication related services (including ISP's, apps like signal, etc), under very vague constraints

- Forbids strong encryption at rest. Failing to cooperate in decryption can also yield imprisonment.

Another, related newspaper article (Dutch, paywalled alas): "Chat app signal to be illegal through new data retention law" [0]

[0]: https://m.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20220429_94515802

> - Forbids strong encryption at rest. Failing to cooperate in decryption can also yield imprisonment.

What the fuck?

Always the same arguments are used to justify invasion of privacy by governments: terrorism, pedo-pornography, human trafficking for sex (especially children).

Which are solid arguments but of course those laws are in 95% of the cases used for everything but the 3 reasonable causes mentioned.

Moreover, most of the time, the law grants access to police without decision by a judge, in the name of efficiency. In France, the proposal to trace what information is accessed by each policewoman or policeman has been rejected. So the misuses of the police databases are daily occurrences with total immunity.

Who knows what are the misuses of NSA databases in the US. I don't know at least but I don't think the Americans' privacy is an issue among NSA staff, nor for Congress. I may be totally wrong and would be happy to be enlightened on the matter.

It is the good old Fascist's playbook. The justifications are variable, the outcome is the same.

>> - Forbids strong encryption at rest. Failing to cooperate in decryption can also yield imprisonment.

> What the fuck?

I mean, Britain already has the second part, and in France failing to cooperate in decryption of your own stuff is an aggravating circumstance (but at least not a separate offense if you otherwise haven’t or can’t be proven to have done anything wrong).

(It’s still extremely short-sighted, just pointing out where the Overton window is at.)

This isn’t just signal: this is every iOS device, and all new macs sold in 5+ years.

I assume android is FDE only for similar amounts of time at this point?

It's an opportunity really. Preemptively put any information related to these politicians out in the open -- names, credit cards, whatever -- and cite this bill; you're assisting law enforcement by ensuring the data can be readily decrypted.

Personally, I think it's debatable. Right up until a law says "including signal" there's a basis to say "we can't"

In the final analysis, just don't put signal infrastructure in Belgium. On handset, it's the individuals obligation to unlock not the service facilitator.

What's debatable? Banning math?

Banning cryptography and encrypted at rest and undecryptable content held by servers, and as I said, if the DC is outside Belgium there's nothing to seize inside their warrant distance except the perps own phone, which is already subject to law.

Yeah what's after Signal? I'm a big believer in divulgation as a form of privacy (post-torture). Spill my guts myself, here on HN, in public, in place of an urchin who swore to do the same on the sidewalk, swearing in front of one hundred witnesses.

And hey, no matter what happens I will still be able to read my own account, and overcome the memory lapses of torture, and see myself for whom I am at some point in the future, when I reread this and whatever else is left.

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