
Encryption under fire in Europe as France and Germany call for decrypt law - ammonammon
https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/24/encryption-under-fire-in-europe-as-france-and-germany-call-for-decrypt-law/
======
sevenless
> The context here is that France and Germany have suffered a spate of
> terrorist attacks over the past year, including a co-ordinated attack in
> Paris in November 2015 that killed 130; a July 2016 attack in Nice where a
> truck driver ploughed into crowds celebrating Bastille Day; and a stabbing
> in a church in Northern France that killed an elderly priest.

To put this in perspective, about 700 people would die from homicide in France
in a normal year, and about 600,000 would die of all causes
([http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=fr&v=26](http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=fr&v=26)).
The unusually high amount of terrorism in the last year, accounts for 0.03% of
all deaths.

That terrorism is seen as an urgent problem just highlights the irrationality
of decision-making in a democracy. It poses no significant mortality risk to
Europeans.

~~~
mafribe

       no significant mortality risk to Europeans.
    

This is "Whataboutism".

The rational behind being wary about terrorism is as follows.

1\. Normal homicides are random individual actions, and they are under
reasonable control by standard policing. In other words, if we continue
policing as we do now, normal homicide rate will remain constant.

2\. Terrorism is not random individual action, but rather organised violence
by large groups seeking power. If we continue policing as we do now, terrorism
will increase, up to a point where the terrorists take over and are the new
rulers.

(Compare for example with the reaction to the AIDS epidemics in the early
1980s. The lazy whatabout-ist could have said (and indeed did say): "Oh AIDS
just affects a few gays and needle-sharing heroin addicts, whatabout the
orders of magnitude more who die of the flu and cancer, no need to worry about
AIDS".)

If you believe the two 'axioms' above, then it's perfectly reasonable to adapt
policing in the light of the current wave of terrorism that's been spreading
in Europe (and not only there).

Note that I'm not saying that encryption should or should not be banned, or
that either way is/isn't a good way of fighting terrorism. I'm just pointing
out the weakness of the "but whatabout XYZ" argument.

~~~
joering2
> If we continue policing as we do now, terrorism will increase, up to a point
> where the terrorists take over and are the new rulers.

I hate to be this guy, but with enough knowledge about our ancestors going far
into the past, how do we know similar acts did not take place?? Look at USA
alone - they were asian tribes that got wiped by indians with arrows. Indians
got wiped by whites with guns.. whoever comes for us now... I say... let it
be! We will of course arm to teeth and defend, but if its written somewhere in
stars that we are doomed to fail, no amount of policing will change that.

Whatever will happen today, it will happen and those living in year 2,500
would not see it any other way. Just as empires fell before, who says Isis or
other ideology will not fail similarly one day?

> Oh AIDS just affects a few gays and needle-sharing heroin addicts

Correct me if I'm wrong but that's still the case today, no?

Unless I have unprotected sex with multitude of partners (stats shows
homosexuals tens to spread AIDS more than hetero) and won't inject stuff with
borrowed needles, my chances of getting AIDS are still super drastically slim.

I mean sure I can be a virgin and never even smoke a joint, and get affected
by riding a subway with infected person who happened to touched a pole with
their bloody finger and I happened to touch it after him/her with open wound
in a short period of time before the virus dies given there was enough blood
to get affected in the first place. But again chances are probably the same as
walking in random park in a random European country at a random day and being
blown up into peaces by a random person, who happens to randomly stand next to
me and turn out to be a terrorist. I sure take my chances.

~~~
mafribe

       how do we know similar acts 
       did not take place?? 
    

We are pretty sure that many pre-democratic changes of political power did
come about in this way. Revolutions and other political power-struggles have
been studied very carefully e.g. [1], the Marxist tradition is pretty full of
such studies, e.g. [2, 3].

    
    
       but that's still the case today, no?
    

Yes, precisely because of the intense counter-measures taken to prevent AIDS
from spreading further. Need-sharing has mostly disappeared, at least in
western Europe, because taking Heroin has been effectively decriminalised.
Moreover, free Methadon substitution for addicts, and the provision of free
needles (and space to shoot up) are all reactions to the AIDS epidemic.

So the fact that "that's still the case today" is a great success of _not_
going whatabout-flu-and-traffic-deaths when AIDS arrived.

[1] E. N. Luttwak, Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook.

[2] Võ Nguyên Giáp: People's war, people's army.

[3] S. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals.

------
vbezhenar
I don't think that it's possible to ban encryption. I can use gpg to encrypt
anything and send it as a text via any channel. I can do anything in my
computer.

They could ban encryption for wide audience, that's true. But those who need
to hide something, they will have access to encryption.

~~~
pif
Actually, banning something doesn't mean to make it impossible, but to declare
it illegal.

Hypothetically, they (actually, _we_ , as governments are just representative
of the voters) _can_ ban encryption. Which means that any communication with
no signal naturally emerging from noise is suspicious, thus they/we can ask
you to justify yourself and keep you locked until you demonstrate that what
you were hiding doesn't represent a threat for the community. And then give
you a fine you anyway, so next time you'll think twice before breaking the
law.

PS: it's not "you" _you_ , it's "you" in general :-)

~~~
ragebol
With steganography [0], you can send encrypted messages embedded in images.
Sending normal looking pictures is not suspicious (at least currently, for
some definition of normal).

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography)

~~~
pif
Yes, you can. But if encryption is illegal, than steganography is illegal,
too. Which means that big companies looking for advertisement money will not
struggle to offer you an out-of-the-box solution. And this will make a huge
difference in itself - I'll let anyone judge whether she considers such a
difference good and worth the hassle.

------
Ianvdl
Here's a reminder why backdooring or otherwise weakening encryption is a bad
idea (PDF): [https://www.schneier.com/academic/paperfiles/paper-keys-
unde...](https://www.schneier.com/academic/paperfiles/paper-keys-under-
doormats-CSAIL.pdf)

------
douche
I think its a losing battle. Let's say you ban end-to-end encryption. Maybe
the next frontier is steganography, where I post some cat-meme on imgur,
except one bit of the blue channel in each pixel is encoding my nefarious
secret message. Do you ban posting images?

With the number of spam emails that look like the output from bad Markov Chain
generators, you could send messages in clear-text, using a simple traditional
code, and it would be drowned in the noise.

------
dirktheman
You can't just ban encryption and expect it to magically go away. I don't
think a suicide bomber will care too much if his encryption is illegal, while
people with good intentions get to suffer the consequences.

Besides, how do they think this will play out with financial transactions?
Government websites? Heck, any website that uses https? Stupid idea.

~~~
pif
> how do they think this will play out with ... ?

It could be done the same as driving or carrying a gun: not banned, but
controlled.

You want to use encryption? OK! Just register yourself with the authorities
and sign a statement that you will provide the keys if a judge asks. Other
than that, you are breaking the law.

------
MrLeftHand
It is easier to find something to blame then actually taking steps to avoid
these attacks.

As far as I remember the Police already had the people behind the attacks on
their radar, but they didn't do anything.

Being able to decrypt the messages wont help if they do it after the attacks
happened. Like the FBI vs Apple? They knew the guy, they were following him.
And did they do anything? Nope.

And what does it matter, if they go through with this? Criminals, terrorists
will create their own encrypted channels.

It's a never ending battle and the only ones loosing will be the rights of the
civilians.

And even if it will help to fight terrorism and save everyone without firing a
gun, what's the promise that these tools, these backdoors wont fall into wrong
hands? What's the promise when a dictatorship rises in one of these countries,
they wont be able to use it for bad things?

Will they close these doors after they won the war on terrorism?

------
hashtagMERKY
I remember watching William Hague on the news using the fact that two girls
had been radicalised via Twitter as justification for more snooping powers.
All the tweets were public and they were even showing them on screen while he
was saying it. Just demonstrates how little logic there can be behind the
extension of snooping powers.

------
guard-of-terra
"Terrorists that we brought to country hurt you so we have to hurt you back to
compensate"

That's how it goes with politicans for the last 15 years.

I used to be wanting interplanetary travel, now my bar is much lower, I'll be
happy enough extracting my revenge.

------
tomhoward
Previous discussion here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12353957](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12353957)

------
Qantourisc
Anyone who knows if they are 2 "rogue" ministers, or if they have some backing
?

~~~
sdoering
At least in Germany, coming from the leading party[1] and pushing the official
party line, the minister is anything but rogue.

The leading party (CDU) even has a sister party (CSU in Bavaria) that is even
more of a law and order type. They have way more extreme ideas on how a state
should be able to control it's citizens. But even the moderate left SPD (in
coalition with CDU as ruling parties in Germany) have their flavor of hawks.

Right now it seems there is no powerful reasonable voice for freedom in
Germany - at least in the higher ranks of power. But maybe this last sentence
is just my selection bias.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_de_Maizi%C3%A8re](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_de_Maizi%C3%A8re)

~~~
Qantourisc
So ... enough reason to start worrying and set-up counter campaigns ?

------
opendomain
How does this help? If a criminal wants a gun, they can get a gun. Encryption
is out of pandora's box - the methods have been published for years. It a
terrorist uses encryption - how can this stop them?

