France rejects backdoor mandate

eff.org

1043 points by hn_acker a month ago


palata - a month ago

Just like for other big challenges like biodiversity and climate change, it feels like it often boils down to the politicians just not understanding enough to take rational decisions. Of course they can't all have a PhD in cryptography, but they should also not have no clue at all.

Over an over again, politicians are asking for backdoors. To me it just proves that they don't understand the very basic of how encryption works.

Especially these days in Europe, it seems completely insane: it is already a problem that most companies use US services, given that the US have become hostile to Europe. The sane way to go is to try to get better privacy for European companies/people, not worse. Adding backdoors just makes it easier for adversaries to access private data.

buybackoff - a month ago

I've found the original debates video on the National Assembly website. My French is good enough for that (not enough for cooking et al. though), so I believe I understood. I'm positively surprised by some deputies remarks. But Bruno (interior minister) Retailleau is either totally incompetent technically, with his advisors as well, or is a liar. "We will apply the math selectively, only for those that are a threat and when the big brother approves"... In every country it's the same narrative. This time it was not about children, but "Freeing France from the drug trafficking trap" ("Sortir la France du piège du narcotrafic"). And it looks like it was not the main point and they tried to pass it as a minor subnote or something. ... They will find dozens of other issues to cancel the math.

https://videos.assemblee-nationale.fr/video.16453163_67dc786...

phtrivier - a month ago

Though it is a good piece of news (and those are not that common nowadays), some caution about the political context is warranted here.

The National Assembly is very divided a the moment, and the Minister defending the backdoor amendment is from a minority party at the AN, that just happens to have majority in the other chamber.

Also, he is preparing for a presidential bid, and has a fair share of ennemies, both in and out of his party.

So, all in all, it was a relatively "cheap" move from the MP who voted against it :

- it's screwing up with a powerful opponent

- it's easy publicity given that "spyping in whatsapp" would made bad headlines

- there has not been a massive terrorist attack recently, so the measure will not look urgent.

I'm pretty sure that some of those MPs, asked to vote the same thing by a president of their party, after a terror attack, would vote for the backdoor.

nickslaughter02 - a month ago

France has rejected this backdoor but keep in mind that France is still in favor of chat control (mandatory on device scanning of your communication). There's now a majority among EU countries and the proposal is expected to pass. The next meeting is April 8th.

aucisson_masque - a month ago

The backdoor mandate was part of an anti organized criminality law, Bruno Retailleau (interior minister) pretend criminals use encrypted chat to communicate and so backdoor is required to intercept their communications.

makes sense to the average non tech people.

The sad truth however is that it wouldn't even solve the issue, criminals will always be able to use encrypted communications: there are open source software that can't be tampered with, software that doesn't use a single server where backdoor can be put, or they could even simply encrypt their text message.

i could do that from my mac terminal, encryption is basically mathematics. Bruno Retailleau isn't somehow going to put a backdoor in every device that could be used to encrypt. People even used to encrypt communications before computer.

The only looser of that law is the normie, you and me, who use whatsapp or signal to chat and couldn't ever push their relative to use things like pgp encrypted email.

thomassmith65 - a month ago

If the general public is given a choice between super secret internet messaging, or the current status quo, they will go for the latter. This is because the former hampers law enforcement's ability to track down criminals and terrorists.

And the better informed non-techies are about the tech, the more they will support backdoors.

No large service will survive providing E2EE. In the near future, there is bound to be some widely publicized incident where E2EE plays a pivotal role in a big atrocity or financial calamity. Then the public will demand that government, for whom it is already a worry, do something about it.

It just seems like a pipedream to me that unfettered E2EE will last in big tech.

spapas82 - a month ago

> provision that would have forced messaging platforms like Signal and WhatsApp to allow hidden access to private conversations.

The fact that this could have been possible is the reason why the pgp/gpg way (you manage your certificate and you choose whose certificates to trust) is still the only way to have true encrypted communications.

Using centralised services to encrypt important data is a joke.

ziofill - a month ago

I’ve lived and worked in France for three years. There are many things I’ve learned about it, some good some bad, but certainly one of them is that France is a country that can show real leadership.

zkmon - a month ago

Any grouping (such as nation) of individuals arises from some loss of freedom, income and privacy for the individuals. The loss of individuals or the contribution is the element that powers the nation or a community. 100% privacy means zero privacy-related contribution towards legal enforcement. So the question is all about striking a balance between loss of privacy and the need for legal enforcement. The negotiations would continue, to arrive at the acceptable/needed level of privacy loss.

AceJohnny2 - a month ago

Tangentially, France has had the CNIL [1] since ~1978, following a scandal about creating a national citizen's database, and exists to prevent exactly that. (I believe the objection stemmed from memories of the Petainist fascist regime during WW2)

The CNIL is why France (and now Europe) has "Right to Forget" laws. It is the direct ancestor of stuff like GDPR.

Unfortunately, I feel like the CNIL is fairly neutered nowadays. Nevertheless, it serves as historical precedent, for those who remember it exists.

[1] "Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes" ~= "National Commission of Computing & Liberties"

neycoda - a month ago

Backdoors are too much of a security risk for the people. The solution is to provide the data upon a search warrant from a judge who determines a reason for suspicion of a crime. That's it. The government pushing for more than that is becoming a new security problem.

ulrikrasmussen - a month ago

> The proposed law was a surveillance wishlist disguised as anti-drug legislation.

So the fact that people break one law which violates their basic human rights, the right to privacy and to decide over what they put in their own bodies, suddenly becomes an excuse to violate their right to privacy even further.

rr808 - a month ago

The dumb thing is you know the USA has a backdoor onto everything, probably including Tiktok by now. European states are trying to play fair when everyone else broke the rules a long time ago.

What we really need is a European social media company to use instead of this US dominated **show.

dfawcus - a month ago

Chat Control may well give them a second bite at the cherry, if it get through.

It keeps getting resurrected with slight variations, and if passed, then they'd be obliged to implement some form of back door.

So I guess all one can say is that the war continues, just one battle has been won.

smogcutter - a month ago

I would reject a backdoor man date too, but to each their own.

grej - a month ago

France is shining brightly on many levels at the moment.

isaacremuant - a month ago

They keep trying to impose an all seeing all knowing state and people here have already bought into the "age verification, think of the children" rethoric.

After seeing how gleefully people accepted totalitarian anti constitutional covid laws, It's omly a matter of time. Wait for the next "crisis".

Good one for France, though.

hoseja - a month ago

Just don't ask what happened to Telegram :)

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rixed - a month ago

Probably just step one of a multi step journey toward European wide mandatory backdoor.

Etheryte - a month ago

This is a good reminder that regardless of what country you hail from, freedom and liberty are like love — continuous activities that you do every day, not something that you achieve once and then you're done. There will always be those who wish to consolidate more power to themselves than is good and always those who wish to impose their will on others. These people win if you, specifically you reading this, don't do something. So always choose to do something.

dickersnoodle - a month ago

Am I the only person giggling at this headline?

econ - a month ago

I forsee that the future will bring us LLMs that can reasonably precisely find incriminating chats while keeping everything perfectly unreadable for those naughty untrustworthy humans.

roschdal - a month ago

Vive La France!

ingohelpinger - a month ago

this was a battle not the war, they will come back sooner or later.

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_rm - a month ago

Seems so many in government are incapable of asking "are we the baddies?".

Scum rises to the top in our system