this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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So I'm going to get down voted to hell for this, but: this kind of legislation is a response to US tech companies absolutely refusing to compromise and meet non-US governments half-way.
The belief in an absolute, involute right to privacy at all costs is a very US ideal. In the rest of the world - and in Europe especially - this belief is tempered by a belief that law enforcement is critical to a just society, and that sometimes individual rights must be suspended for the good of society as a whole.
What Europe has been asking for is a mechanism to allow law enforcement to carry out lawful investigation of electronic communications in the same way they have been able to do with paper, bank records, and phone calls for a century. The idea that a tech company might get in the way of prosecuting someone for a serious crime is simply incompatible with law in a lot of places.
The rest of the world has been trying to find a solution to the for a while that respects the privacy of the general public but which doesn't allow people to hide from the law. Tech has been refusing to compromise or even engage in this discussion, so now everyone is worse off.
I can invite someone over to my house and talk about anything I want with no risk of government meddling. Why should it be any different in online communication regardless of the country?
Continuing the analogy, government agencies can absolutely eavesdrop on in-person conversations unless you expend significant resources to prevent it. This is exactly what I believe will happen - organized crime will develop alternate methods the government can't access while these backdoors are used to monitor less advanced criminals and normal people.
Spending significant resources to prevent it is exactly what encryption is. What the government wants is to completely eliminate online private communication. Continuing with the analogy: you want telescreens.
Huh? I don't think you understand my comment. Except for the last line, you're just further agreeing with me and I'm already agreeing with you.
I don't agree with you.
I think you do, you just misread their comment.
Nope. I didn't and I don't.
Telling someone who says government access will be used to spy on citizens but will be useless for combating serious crime that they want telescreens, a fictitious device used for government spying, doesn't make any sense. Either you don't know what a telescreen is, you have poor reading comprehension, or you're a fairly clever troll. Maybe some of all the above.
I'm telling someone who says that a want for uncompromising privacy is a US thing that it's not, and that these compromises they speak of would be akin to telescreens if applied to a non-digital situation.
But their comment doesn't say or suggest that.
And they don't say anything about the compromises except that they'd be used for spying on citizenry.
This isn't my fight, I saw you were confused and thought I'd help. My mistake, you really are one of those double down or die types.
Wow. Seems like you missed an entire comment.
Wow indeed. We're only a few comments deep, so you can see the comment. This one:
I challenge you to show where it suggests a "want for uncompromising privacy is a US only thing." Then point out where they show support for government access to communications.
The literal first comment.
You're responding to a follow-up comment from a different user who is disagreeing with the first comment as if they're the author of the original comment and their clear dissent is actually them agreeing with themselves somehow. Of course, you're arguing with anyone who points out you're confused.
Literal fucking insanity, mate.
Oh, I didn't see they were different users. Live and learn.
So then you're in favor of these government backdoors? Because your comment suggests the opposite.
No, I don't agree that a want of privacy is an American thing.
So you misread my comment but you're one of those types who can't admit when they're wrong. I'd say it's our little secret but I see someone else pointed it out too.
Nope. You're the one refusing to admit being wrong.
Edit: I was totally in the wrong here. Someone else just pointed out you're not the original commenter.
It sounds like you haven't observed the conversation.
And it's not the tech companes so much as the Linux community who have pushed for e2e.
Considering how many abuses (pretty clear violations of the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States) have been carved out by SCOTUS during mob investigations and the International War on Terror, no, the people of the US want secure communication. The law enforcement state wants back doors and keep telling tech folk to nerd harder to make back doors not already known to industrial spies, enthusiast hackers and foreign agents.
You're asking for three perpendicular lines on a plane. You're asking for a mathematical impossibility.
And remember industrial spies includes the subsets of industries local and foreign, and political spies behind specific ideologies who do not like you and are against specifically your own personhood.
This is exactly the sort of argument I was talking about
To illustrate the sort of compromise that could have been possible, imagine if Apple and Google had got together and proposed a scheme where, if presented with:
They would sign an update for that specific handset that provided access for law enforcement, so long as the nations pass and maintain laws that forbid it's use outside of a prosecution. It's not perfect for anyone - law enforcement would want more access, and it does compromise some people privacy - but it's probably better than "no encryption for anyone".