As is discussed in the article, their identities were leaked. A portion of them came from companies that would commercially benefit from content scanning contracts.
“Scolded” for blatant corruption? There needs to be firings and banning from public office built into law around this one. If there’s no consequences, corruption is inevitable.
Attempt to undermine the fundamental right to privacy, create a surveillance state that Stalin could only dream of, and openly seek to sell your constituents out to external powers.
Result: Scolding, "Naughty EU, very bed don't do it again"
Seriously where are the French in all this, I thought you're guys whole thing was rioting. I mean last time someone tried to do something like this in Europe there was quite a significant resistance.
The french are very pro EU, maybe more so than the rest of the continent. The french pay attention to strategic things and that's why they project their will into the EU hoping the bigger demography will help keep fighting against the super powers.
Yet they totally fail to realize that the rest of the continent doesn't always think like them. That some countries will never accept a majority vote, that some others just take the EU for it currently is: an economic free exchange zone with democratic requirement.
Still today, for a french commoner, the solution the contradictions of EU, in social, economic or strategic matters is always more europe and be damn if you don't.
Le Pen is not "quite popular". Except in the rich neighborhoods where she's from, it's hard to find anyone supporting her views. However, even in the poor neighborhoods where i'm from, it's more and more common to find disillusioned youths who'll happily announce they will vote Le Pen just to put an end to the current political system. I personally believe that view to be naive and concerns people who watch television, but still, that's not exactly what i'd call being "popular". Except for actual fascists from the big cities, i've yet to find a single person telling me they appreciate Le Pen's racist ideas or even just her person.
To be fair, when i'd say it's naive to vote for Le Pen, i think it's naive to vote for any candidate except maybe for Melenchon who's still on the center of the political spectrum. Otherwise, whether it's Hollande (who was elected with "finance is our enemy" then named Macron the banker as minister) or Macron (who was only elected due to looking less worse than Le Pen but ends up having exactly the same racist/capitalist policies) there's really noone on the political spectrum to propose "progressive" policies and actual implement them. I guess that's something we french people have in common with the US which has a very similar political system and is just as a corrupt and genocidal.
If that was the design, it produced the opposite effect! Lol.
But seriously, there is no grand design. The EU is the result of 60 years of compromises between larger and larger groups of countries which understand that, alone, they count for nothing in the age of continent-sized superpowers.
Did you read those pieces? They say the factors pushing up the French economy are one-offs that will soon fan out, and Germany has massive fiscal resources still to be deployed.
I don't have a dog in this fight, TBH I don't even think it's a fight - the two countries fundamentally need each other.
I don’t have anything to gain either from my position.
The issue with the articles (I can find more from earlier years) is that they’ve been saying the same thing using a variety short term rationale for decades.
imo The EU in general and even internally within Germany itself has fears of a resurgent Germany given its past, which makes sense
When German reunification was being discussed, right after the Wall fell, other European governments (France, Italy, UK) agreed not to oppose it in exchange for German commitment to the European Economic Community (as it was then called) and to adopt the common currency that was then being designed (the ECU was still a virtual currency). This was seen as "straight jacketing" Germany, forcing it to share its economic fortunes with the whole continent, impeding a resurgence of all-out competition with France, and hence ensuring peace. This has been reported by then-leaders who were literally in the room with Helmut Kohl as things were agreed: they called it "reunification (in exchange) for peace".
This approach has fundamentally worked: Germany doesn't, and cannot, see itself in any future that does not involve the EU, and them adopting the Euro ensured its short-term success. It did, however, work a bit too well for the German economy, which now benefits from a large market where other players cannot fix trade imbalances with currency devaluation. That is a structural advantage that they will enjoy for a very long time (possibly forever), enshrining their role as the biggest economy in the bloc. I don't see this changing anytime soon, as long as the Euro is around.
Thanks for enlightening me. Since it wasn’t clear, my question in my first comment was actually a question and not a rhetorical one i.e. I didn’t really know anything
>Yet the European Commission still appears to believe there's a way to have bypassable strong end-to-end encryption while respecting privacy rights and maintaining operational security, flying in the face of mathematics.
There ought to be a requirement that lawmakers be able to demonstrate skills in precalculus. You could probably explain most of it to a smart ten year old and have them see the problem.
Dismissing politicians as stupid is a simple way to feel good about yourself, but does nothing to solve the actual problems. Politicians are just as human as everybody else, and they love money and power more than they love some abstract "greater good". They understand the problem just fine, it's not a very complicated problem. We need a better system, not smarter politicians
I don't believe it is stupidity at all, they are corrupt full-stop
Even if a politician isn't knowledgable they have staff (look up the staff sizes of some powerful US senators) who can get experts on the phone.
The problem is that what the populace wants is not a parallel incentive with what the politicians and their paymasters want. Banning e2ee, the disneyfication of the internet, it's all old power games with a digital twist, can't let ordinary people have force amplifiers like technology because they might actually carve some power away from them.
I think the comment meant that the problem is the political system, not the politicians' personalities, or education, or ignorance per se. Imo, when you build a system that is more prone to pressure and influence by lobbying corporations than from the majority of people, or by those who have expertise and the best societal interests in mind, this is where you get.
That doesn't make them smarter or more knowledgable outside of a very narrow scope, where they knowledge is entirely dependent on what biased experts called by either side tell them.
I’ve tried reading a few Bills and Acts. They’re more legible than patents, but harder than code in a programming language I’ve not learned.
I’d like legislation by sortition, but only if the laws can actually be made simple enough for normal people to follow them. If that can’t be done, it’s very easy to pull wool over people’s eyes in either direction, getting them to pass bad laws they don’t understand and to refuse to pass good laws they don’t understand.
Are they conflating encryption with cryptocurrency? I've forced myself to stop saying crypto and started to use encryption or cryptography with most people for that reason.
I think the point the comment is trying to make is that these politicians are not stupid, they are corrupt. They are not doing it because there is a problem to be solved, they are doing it because there are bags of money to be had. A smarter politician in this context would just mean a smarter burglar.
Most of the major problems would be solved by taking their security and drivers away and make them park a few blocks away from the government buildings.
If you did nothing wrong to "the people", you have nothing to fear.
The problem is, that when talking about advance technology plus appealing to emotions ("think of the children!"), average joe is pretty stupid too, and half of population is even stupider than that.
If you want to understand how the EU works, like really understand how it works, my best advice is to binge watch 2 or 3 season of Yes Minister or Yes Prime Minister.
You'll realize most of it isn't stupidity, it's intentional.
Ex EC employee here. Once you're an official, which really only requires patience with terrible web interfaces and fluency in two of French, German and English, it's almost impossible to get fired. It's also possible to take twelve years of unpaid leave and return to the same job!
It’s no a question of such mathematics, although I would call for this as a prerequisite for other reasons.
If any state requires encryption is only done in a way that allows the state to pierce encryption, that means there is a state that can pierce the encryption. If your agencies can pierce it, agencies of other governments can do it to you, personally, Mr. President. They can find your successor’s skeletons in the closet, Mrs. Prime Minister, and blackmail him or her.
this wouldn't actually fix anything because that's not how politics works. politicians set constraints that maximize their PR points then the job of everyone with a brain is left to scramble for a solution. they also don't actually care about preserving encryption and they generally don't care about collateral damage unless said damage has enough clout to make trouble.
most politicians at the higher levels are lawyers; they are responding to power and hierarchy, enforcement and cash flows.. and importantly, each other. Most of those things do not involve you, the reader, as decision maker. They don't ask, they respond .. and there are stronger signals than yours. That's why it feels infuriating or hopeless to a single reader.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38205743
Originally, a Pirateparty member published it yesterday.