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The exclusion includes politicians because there would suddenly be a paper trail. Especially in the EU there were lots of suddenly lost messages.

Security is just the scapegoat excuse.

> It's ridiculous that they keep trying this absolutely ridiculous plan over and over again.

There is a certain group of politicians who are pushing for this very hard. In this case, the main thrust seems to be coming from Denmark, but from what I understand there are groups (eg. europol) pushing this from behind the scenes. They need the politicians to get it done.

Trolltrace is becoming real

Maybe we should scan their communications for corruption and undue influence. I'm sure it's all above board, so it should be fine if we get an independent group to review them right? (Just following to their reasoning..)

Our current minister of justice in Denmark, Peter Hummelgaard, says "yes" to everything proposed by the police and intelligence agencies. Meanwhile, he has demonstrated no ability whatsoever of understanding the technical challenges of implementing something like this, and he firmly insists on the false claim that it is possible to let the police read encrypted communication without compromising the security model. He also directly spreads misinformation and downplays the significance of this by falsely claiming that Meta and others already scan E2EE chats to show us advertisements. He has said that he wants a crime-free society, and I don't doubt that that is his goal. I just also think he is too stupid to understand that a crime-free society has never existed, and if it is attainable, then it is probably not a very free society.

All in all, he seems to be a scared, stupid sock-puppet of Europol.

And I doubt you achieve it by taking away people's privacy. There are bigger issues that need to be addressed and have nothing to do with E2EE. If they cannot address that, then ...? They just do not seem to care about what they are claiming to care about.

I think that one problem is that politicians defer too much to "experts" in decisions like this.

I cannot remember who it was, but one British prime minister, when told by intelligence services that they needed greater surveillance powers, told them essentially, that of course they would claim that, and firmly refused.

Politicians now mostly lack the backbone. That does not stop them ignoring expert advice when it is politically inconvenient, of course.

The problem is not they ask experts. Politicians are so utterly incompetent on the thing they are putting law on, at the level they will believe openoffice is a firewall[1]. That doesn’t mean all of them are that blatantly unaware of the basics for which they are supposed to decide of some rule, but that is definitely a thing.

The next thing is, do they know how to rely efficiently on a diverse panel of expert, or do they take only yes-man/lobby-funded experts around them?

On a deeper level, are they accountable of the consequences of their actions when they enforce laws which any mildly skilled person in the field could tell will have disastrous side effects and not any meaningful effect on the (supposedly) intended goal?

What we need is direct democracy, where every apt citizen have a duty to actively engage in the rules applied without caste exception.

Let’s protect children, yes. What about making sure not any stay without a shelve to pass the winter[2]? Destroying the right of private conversation except for the caste which decide to impose that for everyone else is the very exact move to offering children a brighter future.

[1] https://framablog.org/2009/04/02/hadopi-albanel-pare-feu-ope... [2] https://www.nouvelobs.com/societe/20240919.OBS93798/en-europ...

> The next thing is, do they know how to rely efficiently on a diverse panel of expert, or do they take only yes-man/lobby-funded experts around them?

Unfortunately, I know the answer to that!

> The problem is not they ask experts

I think with with IT they do realise that they do not know. They also believe someone who says something is feasible, or a good solution over someone who says it is not.

> I think with with IT they do realise that they do not know.

We are no longer living in the 2000's. They know. Many are simply evil or have competing interests and want to loose their income/career.

Regarding your parent, "direct democracy" is a euphemism for mob rule.

>Regarding your parent, "direct democracy" is a euphemism for mob rule.

Anything that pretend to be democracy without imposing active participation of citizen in ruling is an euphemism for some other system which doesn’t dare to present itself for what it is.

Oligarchy is not democracy. Aristocracy is not democracy.

Assimilating the only actual form of democracy to its degenerated ochlocratic form, and pretending that whatever undemocratic political regime that officially brand itself as democratic is so: thus are the two basic strategy of newspeak control. War is peace.

Yes there is a risk with actual democracy. The full truth however is that there are risks of degeneration with any political system. Pseudo-representative systems used in western side have by far cross the threshold of mere theoretical possibility to degenerate into oligarchic plutocracies.

Moreover which caste brandishes the scarecrow of the hypothetical fickle crowd to evict actual democracy? And in support of which system, and what caste will it favor?

The nailing point of democracy is not that it’s perfect and immune of any big issue. The cardinal point of democracy is that people are promised the pains and joys they will self-provide for themselves; so the control feedback loop of changing their own behaviors and rules stay in their power.

# Related resources

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_rule

That one line on its own should be enough put the illegitimacy of this proposal on clear display. Privacy for me (the surveillance state) but not for thee (the populace).

If you read it closely they are not mandating backdoors in encryption.

WhatsApp could still have messages end-to-end encrypted. What they would be mandated to do is for the app to send copies of the messages to WhatsApp for their staff to review the contents.

This obviously breaks the point of end-to-end encryption. Without actually making it illegal for them to use encryption, or add any “backdoor” so it can be reversed.

It’s a weasely way of trying to have their cake and eat it.

So… a backdoor?

Not a backdoor, but a built-in snitch.

isn't that a backdoor?

Backdoor kinda implies it is not used very much or it would be a front door.

But it is available for use. Corruption is not a fantasy but a reality. Usually who reach the top on political scale have seen it all, I mean all. Being polite to describe this reality use cases, (inside trading, political targeting, discrimination, monopoly etc). Who would know, who can stop it, who would dare!

What are the protection mechanisms? Are we suppose to hope that the untouchable/s is 100% honest?

It feels uncomfortable to say the least.

I was arguing if the "backdoor" is not secret or atleast seldomly used it is a ordinary door.

Chat Control would always spy on people and thus not be a backdoor.

To me, a backdoor is passive. There for someone to enter. What's under discussion here is sonething active, so in some sense worse.

I think this is more the entire front of the house being open to the street.

To be honest, I’m starting to consider this more a front door. You don’t need to break encryption if you can just bypass it.

> If it's all very safe and accurate, why is this exception necessary? Doesn't this say either that it's not secure, or that there is a likely hood that there will be false positives that will be reviewed?

Its all a scam! No one cares about you.

They are just setting up the new infrastructure to manipulate & control the docile donkeys more effectively (working class)

Unfortunately, they will be successful.

It is pointless exception. If chat control will pass, everything is vulnerable by design. Or how do you distinguish if WhatsApp is installed on a phone of Joe Nobody or or a phone of a politician? You won't, unless you have some list, which can be leaked and from "do not touch credentials" will turn "target these credentials"

Haha that’s a good point, I guess another sign that they really have no clue what they are doing

The exception means legally, that category of people, can't be prosecuted even if incriminating stuff were collected through such channels.

The next logical step, after a prosecutor or political push, would be for the Highest Order Courts of Member countries to invalidate evidence collected through such channels for those categories of people.

Nope, not in Sweden. Anything can be used as evidence here, even illegally obtained stuff.

You are looking on it from a wrong perspective. You have access to communications of politicians, military and government apparatus. You can effectively control these figures through extortion (I know about your mistress) or blackmail (I picked up your kids from school today next time I may keep them for a while)

Politicians who are pushing these laws are having a feeling that bad things can't happen to them. However they are usually prime targets for bad things happening to them, because they are the ones wielding the power - if you can influence the politician, you can control his power.

“False positives” is the most likely explanation. A common tactic for government agents is to pose as criminals and extremists, either to more effectively infiltrate existing criminal or extremist networks or to run sting/entrapment operations.

> If it's all very safe and accurate, why is this exception necessary?

Because you'd be massively adding an attack surface on to National Security elements for no benefit to National Security.

I mean national security agencies usually have their own extensive internal monitoring.

EU rules typically contain carve outs for national security matters too.

This is a bad law, but these carve outs are normal and expected.

Carve outs for politicians are a different matter.

  Oh Harry, don't worry! Everyone can happen to have bloated his aunt by an accident!

(quoting from memory), and also

  I like Ludo. He was the one who got us such good tickets for the Cup. I did him a bit of a favour: His brother, Otto, got into a spot of trouble — a lawnmower with unnatural powers — I smoothed the whole thing over."