[HN Gopher] Germany: New government plans 'right to encryption'
___________________________________________________________________
Germany: New government plans 'right to encryption'
Author : Audiophilip
Score : 416 points
Date : 2021-12-03 18:22 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tutanota.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tutanota.com)
| Hamuko wrote:
| Does it matter if strong encryption is being eroded on the EU
| level?
| AnssiH wrote:
| Despite some people pushing for it, I'd say we are very far
| from EU eroding strong encryption. The support just isn't
| there.
|
| I know there are claims that EU is on the verge of banning E2E,
| but they seem to be, AFAICS, exaggerated or unfounded.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| It is a recurring topic on Hacker News though recently.
|
| Here's a story from Mailbox.org which is another German email
| provider focused on Privacy, just like Tutanota:
| https://mailbox.org/en/post/chat-control-the-latest-eu-
| plans...
|
| And here a more detailed site: https://www.patrick-
| breyer.de/en/posts/messaging-and-chat-co...
|
| Not sure if this is indeed exaggerated or unfounded and I
| hope it is. I heard it was taken off the agenda but that was
| more of a "for now", with plans to revisit it next year.
| cm2187 wrote:
| My thinking. Not sure how they will translate "right to
| encryption" into law, but if they mean right to E2E encrypted
| correspondence, then german law will be on a collision course
| with EU laws in development. If that happens it will be
| interesting to compare the debate with what happened with
| Poland this year.
| mantas wrote:
| There's already a case where EU and German law clashed.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/21/german-court-dismisses-
| legal...
| throwawayfear wrote:
| Was this before or after Merkel brought back tyrannical lockdowns
| on her last day in power? I will at least credit her for
| including immunity from past infection as an escape from the
| lockdowns unlike the tyrant Daniel Andrews in Australia. But the
| point still stands that Germany having any pretense of leading
| the way in rights, for encryption or anything else, is laughable
| until such a time that Germany abandons its covid lockdowns and
| passports and does away with plans to require everyone to get the
| covid vaccine. It should be optional.
|
| Until these conditions are met, everyone should laugh at the idea
| of German government knowing anything or caring about rights.
|
| Where are all the antifascist activists? Tech had lots of those.
| What happened? Why aren't they staging marches and protests? Why
| aren't they standing up to authoritarianism, and fascism as it
| rears its ugly head again?
|
| They presume to tell you and mandate how many people can gather
| in your own home now.
|
| " Under rules announced Thursday, gatherings are limited to "one
| household" plus two other people, if those among them include
| people who are unvaccinated or who have not recently recovered
| from covid-19"
|
| Source:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/12/03/germany-vacc...
| aronpye wrote:
| I agree, it's bizarre the German government wants to enshrine
| the right to encryption in law, but is mulling whether to
| violate individual sovereignty and control over one's body by
| imposing mandatory vaccinations.
| melff wrote:
| I agree that a lot of theses restrictions are serous
| restrictions to civil liberties, but they are not fascistic in
| nature and our attitude towards the government is quite
| different than the attitude of ppl from the USA towards their
| government. I see the power of social media platforms and
| political radicalization as greater problems than pressure or
| even mandates for vaccines. What bugs be though is that when
| people voiced concerns about "indirect vaccine
| mandates"(=pressuring people to get vaccinated by excluding
| them from social gatherings, etc) the political mainstream
| claimed that that won't happen and that that are just right-
| wing conspiracy theories. I think these kinds of lies smell far
| more like fascism than vaccine mandates themselves
| throwawayfear wrote:
| If it quacks like a duck, smells like a duck, tastes like a
| duck, looks like a duck, and assaults your personal bodily
| autonomy like a duck...it's a fucking duck. If you see that
| they lied about how far they'd go once, why continue to trust
| them or bother with pointless distinctions on to what extent
| it can be called fascism? It is what it is - resist it and
| vote out these politicians while you still have the
| opportunity to do so. The same political orthodoxy which
| prohibits wronghthink on covid vaccinations and passports is
| going to lie about the extent of its reach forever, until it
| doesn't need to lie anymore because it will just put
| political dissidents into prison.
| zoe4883 wrote:
| Good! German opposition and political activists desperately need
| good encryption to organize! Large opposition party was placed
| under surveillance before election, its leaders wiretapped. Today
| activists are monitored on Internet by secret services.
| qwertox wrote:
| Just today the German online IT magazine heise.de published an
| article [0] claiming that the interior ministers (home
| secretaries?) will expect from social platforms like WhatsApp
| to implement backdoors so that the government can access a copy
| of the data. This is a wish they've been having for ages.
|
| So, there's clearly an opposition.
|
| [0] https://www.heise.de/news/Innenminister-Angriff-auf-
| Verschlu...
| JCWasmx86 wrote:
| > There is [...] a prohibition of state authorities to keep
| vulnerabilities a secret.
|
| This is another great thing. It is simply unethical to hoard
| vulnerabilities, as this will eventually backfire[0]
|
| > On top that all future security legislation will be subject to
| an evaluation by a panel of independent experts who have to look
| into issues with any potential restrictions on freedom.
|
| I really hope this will be people from the CCC.
|
| [0]: https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/28/nsa_backdoor_wyden/
| oytis wrote:
| > prohibition of state authorities to keep vulnerabilities a
| secret
|
| It doesn't mean companies whose software the government buys
| can't do it, right?
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| I'm genuinely a bit confused and suspicious. The german state
| is known for it's contradictions regarding security and
| privacy, e.g., mapping sites cannot record "street level"
| images in public view, but the government will decree what is
| and is not allowed speech and has been caught compromising
| systems to monitor that.
|
| Now the government that is obsessed with making sure everyone
| thinks only approved things is going to codify a right to
| encryption and prohibit state authorities (Is there a 5+1 eyes
| workaround prohibition) from building in or maintaining
| vulnerabilities?
|
| Maybe this really is just a bone for the peasants that will
| fool them into feeling like they have rights, while the Ol' 5+1
| Eye Switcheroo is used to keep vulnerabilities and compromise
| encryption anyways.
| monopoledance wrote:
| > The german state is known for it's contradictions regarding
| security and privacy
|
| 16 years of CDU. It's not been contradiction, but good
| intentions with reliably poor execution by the coalition
| partner SPD, and the usual CDU SNAFU.
|
| Otherwise we pride ourselves with pretty incompetent
| intelligence agencies, so please keep your NWO conspiracy
| narratives to yourself.
| [deleted]
| mainframed wrote:
| Google street view is not illegal. People just have the right
| to request that Google blurs their house. And because so many
| people requested it in Germany, Google said it's too much
| effort and disabled it completely. They still drive through
| Germany and collect images to improve their navigation
| services.
|
| Also, I don't understand the discussion: Why is limiting free
| speech contradicting privacy efforts? Allowing people to
| prevent that their house being displayed on the internet is
| completely independent of stopping people writing racist
| slurs on the internet.
|
| In Germany it's not about some extremist scalar ideology of
| freedom or control. You have basic rights and in daily life
| the rights of people collide.
|
| In the case of Google Street view, there is the right of
| Google to choose their work (Art. 12 GG) vs. the right for
| privacy (derived from Art. 2 Abs. 1 GG) of people. Courts
| then have to follow a defined procedure to weigh those rights
| against each other. Apparently, it was ruled that the
| additional effort of blurring does not hinder Google's right
| to follow its occupation.
|
| In the case of NetzDG (the law which enforces big social
| platform to delete criminal posts, such as racial slurs,
| which you probably refer to), you have the right of free
| speech of the poster (Art. 5 GG) and the right of human
| dignity of the guy who receives human dignity. Additionally,
| Art. 5 GG defines boundaries for free speech:
|
| "These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of
| general laws, in provisions for the protection of young
| persons and in the right to personal honour. (Art. 5 Abs. 2
| GG)."
|
| I learned how the constitution works in detail in uni, and I
| think it's beautiful. To me, this is a recipe to have a
| healthy democratic society. And a democratic society has to
| be able to defend itself against anti-democratic, racists.
| Otherwise, it'll just collapse sooner or later.
| Zak wrote:
| Mapping sites can and do record street level images in
| Germany. They are required to blur certain personally-
| identifiable details recorded in those images.
|
| https://goo.gl/maps/D81WK7JT9muHXwHa8
| sneak wrote:
| They also have to blur entire buildings on request, even if
| they don't have personally identifying details.
|
| ...even if those same buildings can be seen by anyone
| standing in the street.
|
| It's privacy theater. (Or maybe theatre, because Europe.)
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >mapping sites cannot record "street level" images in public
| view, but the government will decree what is and is not
| allowed speech
|
| This isn't a contradiction unless you view everything through
| an American cultural lens. There is no conception of absolute
| freedom of speech in Germany. The public sphere in Germany is
| not the Wild West, never has been, never will be and has
| always been subject to considerations about what is in the
| public interest. In public you're not just an individual,
| you're a _" Staatsburger_", a citizen of the state, and you
| have not only privileges but obligations to maintain public
| life.
|
| Right to your data, your own body, your private
| communication, your own image, and so forth is part of the
| private sphere and personal, and as such enjoys much more
| protection.
| [deleted]
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| Let's hope that right to own body holds up against push for
| mandatory vaccination.
| phkahler wrote:
| Remember that other part about... what did PP say? A
| member / part of the state?
|
| That's not about privacy.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| Exactly. They can't mandate a vaccine if you just sit at
| home your whole life. But if you enter the public sphere
| there are certain rules you need to follow, and the state
| can mandate those.
| krylon wrote:
| There already were mandatory vaccinations (against
| smallpox) in Germany, up to the 1970s, and there is a
| current vaccine mandate against measles for children.
| That cat has been out of the bag for a long time.
|
| And with good reason. Smallpox, rabies, tetanus, and
| tuberculosis are practically extinct in Western Europe
| because of vaccines. Let's try to add Covid to that list,
| please?
| pc86 wrote:
| There is no absolute freedom of speech in the US, either.
| zhengyi13 wrote:
| I think it's worth pointing out that that's a
| specifically _legal_ distinction, and one frequently
| ignored by, well, some parts of the US populace, some of
| the time.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| I mean, not forgetting that possession of nmap is technically
| a crime in Germany..
|
| Which also makes any cybersec company operating in Germany
| also illegal.
|
| Although, no one has been prosecuted for this, it makes
| getting insurance impossible...
|
| https://iclg.com/practice-areas/cybersecurity-laws-and-
| regul...
| Sukera wrote:
| Which part of that long list of things specifically rules
| out possession of nmap, a tool used by sysadmins all over
| the world to help ensure that their own systems are more
| secure, by ensuring that only specific ports are open for
| communication?
|
| Mapping a network is not an activity exclusive to
| criminals.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| Dual use tools are not exempt. If it can be used for
| nefarious haxxoring then you're out of luck. Let alone
| having something like msf on your box...
| melff wrote:
| Yeah, that's pretty much a "Karteileiche" though, nobody
| takes that law seriously. This has less to do with germany
| being overly restrictive in that domain and more with
| incompetence: The law says something like "possessing
| hardware/software suitable for hacking is illegal" those
| who have written this law probably barely knew what
| software even is. They wanted to make sure they can get
| those evil "hackers" convicted but misunderstood the nature
| of what they are dealing with.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| It's a dumb law but not how it works.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| How does it work then? I was stonewalled by various banks
| investors and insurers over this in berlin...
| orangeoxidation wrote:
| That shouldn't have happened. The law is super
| problematic and they can, for example (try to) hit you
| for finding (or even stumbling over) and responsibly
| disclosing security vulns, if you were not hired to do
| so.
|
| But the part about hacker-tools applys only for tools
| that cannot be used legally (basically none) or are
| explicitly and knowingly made or acquired to be used
| illegally (as in you explicitly stated you are
| downloading this tool in order to get into a computer you
| do not have permission to get into). They have to prove
| you are not intending to use it legally (like checking
| your own network or one you were hired to check).
| mandelbrotwurst wrote:
| How did that happen, did they ask you for a complete list
| of all software that you run?
| JCWasmx86 wrote:
| > but the government will decree what is and is not allowed
| speech
|
| Do you mean "free speech"? Here in germany have free speech,
| except for denying the holocaust (And this makes really
| sense, as this is simply wrong)
| oytis wrote:
| My impression is that most restrictions to the freedom of
| speech in Germany are rather in civil law than in criminal
| law. It is very easy to get (successfully) sued for saying
| things that is.
|
| It is nearly impossible to speak about sexual harassment -
| because the perpetrator can sue you for intruding his
| private life.
|
| More generally it is basically impossible to say anything
| negative about someone if you can't prove it true - it is
| considered slander. By contrast in the U.S. as far as I
| know it's up to whoever accuses you of slander to prove
| that what you say is untrue.
|
| That creates a whole large area where you can speak freely
| about someone while not being able to accuse them legally
| before the court - in Germany that would either fall into
| "slander" bucket (if what you say has public significance
| but you can't prove it) or "private life" bucket (if what
| you say has allegedly no public significance even if you
| can prove it true).
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| Free speech in Germany exists only in theory. Just try
| opposing official government measures in public and you
| quickly get cancelled.
| [deleted]
| ben_w wrote:
| > cancelled
|
| What do you mean by this word? I've seen it used as a
| political meme, but the usage always makes it seem like
| the supposed victim has some kind of entitlement to be a
| widely admired public figure regardless of what they say
| or do, without regard to the fleeting nature of fame and
| the fickleness of public admiration.
| vanviegen wrote:
| Thank you. That gives clear and concise words to my
| qualms about 'cancel culture'.
| rightiousrob wrote:
| How does it makes sense to put any truth into stone by law?
| _jal wrote:
| Read some history of how that came to be. You might still
| disagree when you're done, but I suspect you'll at least
| be able to answer your own question.
| rightiousrob wrote:
| I know the history very well, but the law telling me
| what's true and what not, that rubs me the wrong way.
| hobofan wrote:
| You do realize that the law at its core is a collection
| of assertions (= truths) that a society lives by?
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Maybe go read the law then.
| rightiousrob wrote:
| Which basically says that openly challenging:
|
| - the exact number of 6M victims.
|
| - the singularity of this event.
|
| - that this event is incomparable to any other historical
| event
|
| Is a crime.
|
| Given that the number of victims is an estimate and might
| even be higher and also there were events in history like
| china's cultural revolution, Stalin's great cleansing and
| the killing fields in Cambodia (to name a few) that law
| does not sound to be that reasonable as it might sound
| initially
| okl wrote:
| That's not what the law says. Btw, not only in Germany: h
| ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_Holocaust_denial
| _jal wrote:
| > Given that the number of victims is an estimate
|
| I'm very used to engineers' quibbles, very focused views
| ending up being very narrow views, clever/stupid
| explanations of why various laws can't be enforced, and
| so on.
|
| But this has the be the biggest instance of missing the
| point, intentionally or not, I've seen in quite some
| time.
| tpush wrote:
| > [...] and also there were events in history like
| china's cultural revolution, Stalin's great cleansing and
| the killing fields in Cambodia (to name a few) [...]
|
| Under the assumption that is meant to be a sincere
| argument:
|
| The difference between the holocaust and those crimes is
| that Germany's the country primarily responsible for the
| former, giving special meaning to the denial of that
| crime and the law banning its denial.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| None of these things are in the law, so gg to you for
| lying on the internet while trying to defend lying about
| the holocaust. Well played.
| gary_0 wrote:
| No legal system anywhere can be absolute about not
| determining what the "truth" is, even when it comes to
| speech. The most common example is yelling "fire!" in a
| crowded theatre and causing a panic. Or posting a bomb
| threat to social media. That kind of mischief is illegal
| in most places as there's actual harm. And the law will
| have to determine the truth that there _was_ no fire or
| no bomb, and that your speech had no purpose except to
| cause harm.
|
| Another example is speech used to commit fraud or
| extortion. Were your profitable lies to exploit the
| vulnerable based on a genuine belief, or did you have
| criminal intent? The law will have to decide, and the
| situation will not always be clear, and often it comes
| down to determining intent.
|
| In the case of holocaust denial, in Germany the potential
| harm of allowing it is seen as _more genocide_ , so
| they've calibrated their free speech laws in respect of
| that. But there's never an exact place to draw the line;
| _every_ legal system is going to have to make such
| judgment calls.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| >except for
|
| Ok, so you don't have free speech.
| ywain wrote:
| What country does? Even the US has laws against libel,
| hate speech, etc.
| freemint wrote:
| Are you aware of difference between iterated and non
| iterated games in game theory?
|
| Good. Now play the free speech game in an iterated manner
| where there exist a chance that a Nazi party comes to
| power and that likelihood is being lowered by a making
| holocaust denial illegal. From history you should now
| that there is no free expression under Nazis and that it
| takes them losing a world war to oust them (unlike
| communist regimes which collapse easier).
|
| Does the US model really have free speech if it allows a
| nazi party getting to power in the future?
|
| That is the paradox of tolerance and is what people
| learned from the fate of Weimar and what people
| incorporated into democratic constitutions made after 45.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| Iterated games and future Nazis you say... How can you
| tell that banning holocaust denial won't result in a
| reactionary movement in the future that will result in
| Nazis getting into power again, as people might start
| questioning the holocaust precisely because they're not
| allowed to question it?
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Just like the field of philosophy, the parent comment
| appears to be making guesses based on feelings
| pc86 wrote:
| Thinking that making holocaust denial illegal decreases
| the odds of a Nazi party coming to power is almost as
| idiotic as holocaust denial.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| In practice it's pretty hard to get convicted for that,
| because the law does not outlaw merely denying the
| holocaust.
| rightiousrob wrote:
| But it does doing so publicly. There was a recent trail
| where an 80 year old woman got sentenced for publicly
| expressing her believes
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Haverbeck
| martin8412 wrote:
| Did you read the article? She's been a vocal Holocaust
| denier since the end of the war. She's not a random
| person doubting the Holocaust and stupidly saying it in
| public. She was the wife of one of the higher ups in the
| Nazi party.
| okl wrote:
| > Another article by Haverbeck-Wetzel in the Voice of
| Conscience (November/December 2005) posited a thesis that
| Adolf Hitler was "just not to be understood from the
| believed Holocaust or his alleged war obsession, but only
| by a divine mission in the world-historical context."
|
| > In the Hamburg court, she insisted the status of
| Auschwitz as a place of death is "not historically
| proven" and is "only a belief".
|
| I think she deserved her 10 months in prison.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Here in germany have free speech, except for denying the
| holocaust"
|
| Well, technically, there are also a lot of other things you
| cannot say (like with most states).
|
| Insults, false accusations, hate speech, riot speeches etc.
|
| But interestingly we still also have a blasphemy law, even
| though it is very soft now, from what it used to be.
| gremloni wrote:
| Germany does a lot of things right. Why can't we achieve anything
| reasonable in the US anymore?
| melff wrote:
| I think the main issues are polarization and the two party
| political landscape for you guys across the pond. Don't forget
| that the grass often seems greener on the other side, we here
| in germany also have a lot of polarization going on esp. in
| recent times. Also these coalition agreements are not reliable,
| politicians talk a lot if the day is long, we'll have to wait
| and see what actually comes of it.
| Zak wrote:
| Germany and the US have completely different electoral and
| legislative systems.
|
| The US, notably has single member districts with plurality
| voting, which is extremely likely to produce two dominant
| parties. That's combined with a Senate that requires a
| supermajority to pass most legislation. Add a little more
| polarization than usual to that mix and the government can't
| legislate.
|
| Neither plurality voting nor the filibuster rule are in the
| constitution. States have the authority to determine their own
| voting systems, and two states, Maine and Alaska have adopted
| instant-runoff voting for some elections. The Senate has the
| authority to change its rules, and has chosen to keep the
| filibuster in something resembling its present form since the
| 1970s with a small number of exceptions.
| bserge wrote:
| Besides the nationalism and pride, you also need the majority
| of people to trust the government and the government to
| actually do things for the majority.
|
| Imo, that's why Germany gets a lot of things right in that
| regard.
|
| It seems like the majority in the US don't like their
| government and the government couldn't care less about them.
|
| This is the same disconnect seen in many other countries, and
| clearly it affects the nation as a whole.
| dividuum wrote:
| Not really. It's mostly a clown show orchestrated by old people
| that have never touched a computer and still think the internet
| is a new thing in 2021. Sometimes by pure chance something good
| happens, but is then soon attacked again. Examples: The
| Vorratsdatenspeicherung (metadata surveilance) is suggested
| again and again but then gets shut down by some court. Only to
| be revived again when Football distracts the masses. The
| Hackerparagraf puts you at legal risk working or developing
| exploits, upload filters supposedly check everything you upload
| for copyright infringement, Leistungsschutzrecht tries to keep
| obsolete paper based business models alive. There are public
| projects that tried to use 5 blockchains and other embarassing
| nonsense. It's tiring.
| Cu3PO42 wrote:
| One thing I, personally, find very interesting is that a lot of
| wording from the coalition contract on this and related matters
| is apparently taken from or at least based on [0] a document [1]
| released by the CCC for that very purpose. I haven't personally
| carefully verified this to be true, but I have no reason to
| distrust the linked report.
|
| [0] https://blog.fefe.de/?ts=9f60b12e
|
| [1] https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2021/ccc-formulierungshilfe-
| re...
|
| (both in German)
| majewsky wrote:
| Well yeah, after years of seeing lobbyists slipping their
| suggested phrasing into bills, it was about time we took a page
| from their playbook. :)
|
| (Disclosure: I volunteer in a local CCC chapter, mostly in
| public relations.)
| pyuser583 wrote:
| The history of encryption it includes doesn't dwell West Germany.
|
| The West German government had a reputation for supporting strong
| crypto (unlike the East Germans and Nazis).
|
| They were aware that many of their day-to-day communications were
| being intercepted by the East Germans (much as they intercepted
| East German communications).
|
| Many West Germans had loved ones in East Germany who could at
| least in theory face negative consequences for the actions of
| West Germans.
|
| West Germany simply couldn't be free without strong crypto.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| This is great, of course, but ~50 years of hesitant,
| schizophrenic legislation regarding digital security leaves me
| hesitant that Germany will actually be a forerunner on this one.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| It's neat how many genuinely good points regarding information
| security and privacy made it into the coalition agreement, but
| everyone knows that just because it says in the paper that a new
| gov't wants to do something does not mean they do it.
| [deleted]
| monopoledance wrote:
| While that's true, the Green party and FDP seem to mean it,
| when they pushed for these rights and progressive legislation -
| and combined, they have the majority within the coalition. Here
| is to hope.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| quotemstr wrote:
| I approve of constitutionally guaranteeing that people can keep
| their communications secure, but as an American, I think the
| rhetorical framework surrounding the movement could be improved.
| We need negative rights, not positive ones.
|
| People don't have a right _to_ encryption, or a right _to_ a
| specific computing environment, or really, a right _to_ anything
| at all. What people do have is a right to be free of government
| limitations on the freedom of individuals to run whatever
| software they want on devices they own.
|
| When you make something a positive right, that means it's
| something the government has to give you, and a government that
| can give you rights can take them away.
|
| The American perspective is that people have rights just by
| virtue of existing, and the state can only illegally and
| immorality interfere with rights that you always possess,
| unconditionally, no matter what.
|
| IMHO, the right framing isn't that people have a right to
| encryption, but that the state has no business interfering with
| the math people do on their own computers.
| [deleted]
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| "We need negative rights, not positive ones."
|
| That is already the case, however certain players that have an
| incentive, have actively undermined not just negative rights in
| general, but they have also been undermining people's ability
| to understand the topic, let alone support it.
|
| Most people don't really understand, especially today, is that
| the bill of rights does not establish rights at all, it is
| really a bill of laws that prohibit the government and all
| subordinate jurisdictions from impeding on right in the
| enumerated manner.
|
| The reason the founders quickly realized they needed the Bill
| of Rights is because humans are scoundrels and if you don't set
| hard boundaries, especially the attorneys will start
| convoluting everything into knots; hence why they felt strong
| enough to put the scoundrels on a leash regarding certain
| rights, e.g., free speech, right to keep and bear arms, etc. As
| it turns out, even those laws making it illegal, prohibiting
| government from infringing on those specific things, was not
| enough to keep the scoundrels at bay. They have still twisted
| us up in knots to the point where people are and do gaslight
| others by saying things like that basic things like suppressing
| free speech only applies to the government. Don't worry folks,
| slavery is only prohibited when the government does it ... you
| are free to enslave.
| xxpor wrote:
| >People don't have a right to encryption, or a right to a
| specific computing environment, or really, a right to anything
| at all
|
| This is an incredibly American libertarianish view, and
| essentially completely unheard of in Europe. The Europeans
| frame things in terms of positive rights all the time.
| harpersealtako wrote:
| Well, in this case the difference is between two statements:
|
| * The state grants citizens the right to encrypt data
|
| * The state cannot infringe upon the right of people to
| encrypt data.
|
| These two statements have important differences.
| Philosophically, the difference is that in the positive
| rights model, government is the source of rights, and if the
| government did not exist, you would not have this right. In
| the negative rights model, the source of rights is man's
| natural free will, and the government's declaration of rights
| is an enumeration of an existing right he already had (and
| yes, I'm conflating negative and natural rights, I apologize,
| but the point is still true).
|
| It seems pretty obvious that encryption is more accurately a
| negative right -- if you were the last human on earth, alone
| in the desert, you would of course have the right to encrypt
| a message you carve into a stone (who could stop you?).
|
| This is in contrast to a positive right like "the right to
| housing". The "right to housing" is an entitlement that the
| government promises they are going to provide to all
| citizens. All citizens, even those who cannot afford or build
| one on their own, are given a home if they want one.
|
| It is further clear when you look at what would happen if
| these two examples were reversed. If government grants the
| right to encrypt data, then what would happen if there was no
| government? Do you suddenly stop being able to do encryption?
| This would make no sense.
|
| Similarly, if you were too weak or lacked the materials to
| build a house yourself (as the last man alive wandering the
| desert), nobody would naturally grant it to you. A house does
| not simply materialize through free will alone.
|
| This suggests to me without a doubt that the right to
| encryption should be considered a negative right (and you
| should certainly believe this too). The only debate is
| whether the distinction matters in a practical sense -- this
| is where the libertarians will probably argue that it does,
| and I would certainly agree with them, but that argument is a
| lot more complex and subjective. In this case it's a little
| easier since the specifics/vagueries of this specific law
| leaves _quite_ a bit to be desired over the obvious negative
| rights version of it.
| quotemstr wrote:
| Yes, although you can also see the libertarianist approach in
| also some strains of British thinking.
|
| All I'm doing is claiming that the American approach leads,
| in the end, to greater and more permanent personal liberty. I
| don't have anything against Europeans or their approach --- I
| just disagree with them on how to form a basis for
| limitations on state power.
| tpush wrote:
| > All I'm doing is claiming that the American approach
| leads, in the end, to greater and more permanent personal
| liberty.
|
| Well, that's just it: Europeans would look to America and
| claim the same for them. (Specifically with emphasis on "in
| the end".)
| cblconfederate wrote:
| It's not a matter of positive / negative really, it's not like
| encryption will be mandatory. The right to not have their
| encryption backdoored sounds negative enough to me
| ersii wrote:
| Well that sure makes up for being forcefully vaccinated, quite a
| tit for tat.
| babypuncher wrote:
| If we had to start over on eradicating Smallpox today, we would
| be completely screwed. The only reason vaccine mandates are
| necessary is because people are apparently considerably more
| stupid than they were 70 years ago.
| jjgreen wrote:
| The smallpox vaccine lasts a lifetime, the covid vaccine 3-6
| months.
| pille wrote:
| A vaccine mandate has about 80% support in Germany. OP is
| axe-grinding for a pretty small minority here.
|
| I don't know if people are generally any more stupid now. I
| think it's just that our media elevates these uninformed
| voices and amplifies these stupid points of view, treating
| both sides as possibly right, when one is so obviously wrong.
| babypuncher wrote:
| I used to believe this, until one of our political parties
| officially adopted the position that the 2020 election was
| stolen from them, and states like Florida and Alaska put
| vaccine and mask skeptics in charge of their health
| programs.
|
| The people who believe this nonsense still aren't a
| majority, but they are now a large enough constituency to
| affect actual public policy. They are enabled by another
| large group who choose to ignore the insanity because it is
| politically convenient for them. I find all of this beyond
| terrifying. I stand by my statement: Smallpox could never
| be eradicated in 2021.
| [deleted]
| pille wrote:
| I think we agree on all of this. I was just pointing to
| what I think is the mechanism that promotes the
| stupidity.
|
| It's certainly worse in the US than it is in Germany.
| That much is clear.
| exo762 wrote:
| There is a huge difference between smallpox (CFR > 60%) and
| covid (CFR < 2%).
| babypuncher wrote:
| I'm not really sure how that is relevant. Both diseases are
| transmissible and deadly enough to completely overwhelm our
| hospitals for months at a time. Covid isn't just a random
| cold or flu. It is destroying our healthcare system, and
| the only way it will stop is with herd immunity.
|
| We are closing in on 780,000 total deaths from Covid in the
| US. More than a quarter of those were working age adults
| two years ago.
| [deleted]
| pille wrote:
| It was either forcefully vaccinated or forcefully infected by
| the unvaccinated. I'm thankful we're making the right choice.
| ospzfmbbzr wrote:
| > It was either forcefully vaccinated or forcefully infected
| by the unvaccinated. I'm thankful we're making the right
| choice.
|
| False dichotomy.
|
| Also what if you are wrong? You seem very certain. Why? No
| meaningful discussion is allowed, so how is it that you feel
| you have all the information you need to make the decision --
| first for yourself, and second, for every other person in
| your country? It seems like you are just thankful your fears
| about your neighbors have been tranquilized? Where did those
| fears come from again?
| pille wrote:
| It's been discussed to death, literally. It's hard to
| believe you're asking for a discussion in good faith, when
| there's clearly no evidence on your side, and your baseless
| "skepticism" has been indulged for almost 2 full years by
| the government and media. The outgoing German government
| bent over backwards for you Querdenker, and that's why
| we're still in this mess.
|
| You're simply wrong. You're entitled to your wrong opinion,
| but you're no longer entitled to force the rest of us to
| suffer for it.
| ospzfmbbzr wrote:
| The list of times when scientists and politicians have
| been wrong or just lied is a long one.
|
| Are you so sure they are right this time? You are
| probably no expert so it seems like you are just taking
| their word for it. Good thing they are telling you it's
| the right thing to do!
|
| > You're simply wrong. You're entitled to your wrong
| opinion, but you're no longer entitled to force the rest
| of us to suffer for it.
|
| The only one making you suffer is you not some 'other'.
| You are choosing to let fear become a wedge.
|
| As a moral exercise, consider that when you force people
| against their will to do anything, you necessarily assume
| responsibility for the results, unless you are an immoral
| person. Are you willing to assume that responsibility?
| The manufacturers of the products are not. This in
| particular is a big red flag.
|
| How would you feel if the roles were reversed and it was
| you who did not want some medical procedure? What if
| others just discounted your position out of hand?
| AtNightWeCode wrote:
| "We require all government agencies to report security
| vulnerabilities they are aware of to the Federal Office for
| Information Security (BSI) and to undergo regular external audits
| of their IT systems."
|
| If some well known agencies done this, loss of billions of
| dollars could have been avoided.
|
| "In the future, development contracts will be regularly
| commissioned as open source, and the software will be made public
| as a matter of principle. There will be a right to encryption,
| and the state must also offer the option of genuine encrypted
| communication."
|
| Personally I have a hard time to trust anything after heart
| bleed. A very basic attack that caused havoc. It proved that the
| quality of open source is nowhere close to the promises of OSS.
| It also tells that the automatic tests are too simple, if there
| are any. Fact is that a student in any class about the network
| stack probably already been targeted about far more complex
| attacks than heart bleed.
|
| Encryption is mandatory for most things in EU. But the quality is
| difficult to evaluate.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Is it a right to End-to-end encryption or a right to "encryption
| from everyone except government" ?
| volta83 wrote:
| Ideally it would be a constitutional ammendent, stating that
| privacy is a right of every citizen, and a human right.
|
| Legislation to the right to encryption would then just follow
| from it, but having it in the constitution would make it harder
| for future governments to pass certain kinds of legislation, or
| if they pass them, the supreme court would declare them
| inconstitutional.
| quotemstr wrote:
| The problem is defining "privacy" though, isn't it? What,
| specifically, would the amendment require or prohibit under
| the banner of "privacy"? How could this definition, if
| enshrined into nearly immutable law, be modified to account
| for a changing technological environment? How do you prevent
| such an amendment from suffering from the fate of the US
| second amendment, which in many places is honored mostly in
| the breach?
| xxpor wrote:
| The Germans have a completely different legal system that
| isn't based on court decided precedent, so the comparison
| doesn't make any sense.
| JCWasmx86 wrote:
| > human right
|
| This should be the goal. In the days of the internet, mass
| surveillance, nearly eradicated privacy we need a right to
| have and use strong encryption without any backdoors.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| To be clear, it is already a human right, right of expression
| association privacy etc. Just nobody defends it
| monopoledance wrote:
| > constitutional ammendent
|
| They don't have the necessary majority to make constitutional
| changes without the CDU, I think. And the CDU is why we can't
| have nice things.
| dunefox wrote:
| Knowing german politicians, it's the latter.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| It's Germany of course it's the second.
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| If I had to bet, I would put money on "you have a right to
| encrypt, but we can't stop the 5+1 eyes from breaking the
| encryption for us and giving us the information" ...
| Encryptocon?
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Then it is a sham
| cryptonector wrote:
| Let me guess: as long as there's key escrow or equivalent.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| What about the EU working on mandating a backdoor though? EU law
| supersedes local law..
|
| I remember another German email provider raising this last week:
| https://mailbox.org/en/post/chat-control-the-latest-eu-plans...
|
| And https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/messaging-and-chat-
| co...
|
| Other posts here mentioned it as exaggerated but it sounds pretty
| detailed there. It worries me a bit because it would instantly
| move the EU from one of the best on privacy protections to one of
| the worst in the western world.
| max-ibel wrote:
| I think this is all fine and dandy until the new Innenminister is
| starting his or her work early next year.
|
| They will project the concerns of the civil service and somehow
| carve out enough special regulations that will all but hollow out
| any such rights.
|
| I really want to believe that the majority of the coalition
| parties believe that they are saying, but that's not how politics
| are made or put into practice.
|
| E.g., after Zimmermann, there was great hope that Germany would
| be a lot less conservative in it's interior policy, but following
| interior ministries have not really become much less
| conservative.
|
| Here's to hope, though - Cheers.
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| Innenminister ... dude, have some respect - it's secretary of
| interior
| hammock wrote:
| Wonderful how many good changes are happening so quickly with the
| new government. Merkel held power uninterrupted for over 18 years
| straight. The new leadership is basically Trump's campaign
| promise, for Germany (anti-globalist elite), but without all the
| backlash and manufactured outrage.
|
| I guess these anti-globalist ideas have had enough time to
| percolate that even HN is supporting their fruits now.
| oytis wrote:
| Well, these are not changes yet, these are intentions (though
| good ones). Let's see what they can achieve, and whether they
| will stick to their promises when confronting tough problems.
| officeplant wrote:
| Germany often makes me wish I could just show them my family
| history of when we immigrated to the US so they can let me back
| in.
| bserge wrote:
| Isn't there some sort of way to reclaim citizenship? Lots of
| Nazi offspring from ex-USSR have done it.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| Find a job in Germany and you can start packing. There are
| plenty of English-speaking companies here and shortage of
| skilled workers.
| yyyk wrote:
| What does 'right to encryption' actually mean in this new plan?
| Can anyone explain in English?
|
| For example, Google Translate (always dubious) gives the
| following*: "The state must also offer the possibility of real
| encrypted communication". Which may mean either 'e2e
| communication' or 'e2e communication except government' or even
| merely 'the state must create an encrypted messaging solution and
| allow everyone to use it, but nothing else will change' (and no
| one will actually use it due to scale effects Whatsapp etc.
| have).
|
| * From Cu3PO42's excellent comment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29434183
| melff wrote:
| The Google Translation is accurate in this case, it's just as
| vague in German as it is in English
| namibj wrote:
| I suggest Deepl for DE=>EN translation, it's significantly
| better than google translate.
| btdmaster wrote:
| https://fsfe.org/activities/publiccode/publiccode.en.html is
| finally taking shape!
| verisimi wrote:
| In all honesty, I don't/can't value government provided rights.
| The reason is governments have no basis to grant anything more
| than an individual.
|
| If you think about it, if I grant you a right to privacy - what
| can that possibly mean to you? If not just I, but I and 10 others
| (or 100, or 10000) agree to grant you a right, still - what does
| that mean? Do you now have that right?
|
| In fact, the position is nonsense.
|
| The question then, is at what point do a bunch of people become a
| government? What is the magic number? And on what basis does a
| government have greater rights than the individuals it purports
| to represent?
|
| The answer in reverse, is that government does not have greater
| rights than individuals. It does not determine morality. A
| majority of people might decide to rule over others - and they
| may be successful via their greater or co-ordinated force - but
| at no point does that use of force become a right. Put simply, if
| someone or a group or a government initiate force, that is a
| wrong. Re rights, you can do whatever as long as you are not
| harming another.
|
| Governments are not greater than individuals. While we might go
| along with government dictats or government 'granting of rights',
| there is no moral basis for it. It is just the labouring under an
| illusion. The government illusion is powerful, for sure, and
| there is malign threat therein, but at no point can government
| create a right that is not already existent for the individual.
| If some people believe it can, they are mistaken. If those people
| undertake the dictats of government, acting forcibly against
| other that have done them no wrong, they are acting immorally.
|
| In answer to the main post then, individuals have always had a
| right to encryption, if it is not harming anyone. Governments
| have never had the (moral) 'right' to decrypt as that is stealing
| someone's privacy. Governments can of course write laws to
| justify whatever they like, but these laws themselves need to
| align with morality to be 'right'.
|
| PS I seriously don't mind being down-voted, but would rather
| understand what the objections are to my argument.
| [deleted]
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