The European Commission has far too much power, and answers far too little to the populace. In reality, they want to be dictators.
If you don't know, the unfortunate way thf EU is structured, the Parliament cannot initiate legislation. They can only vote on whatever the Commission puts in front of them.
If the Parliament votes "wrong", the Commission just repackages the idea in a new bill, pulls a couple of dirty tricks, and tried again. They only have to succeed once. See ChatControl for a prime example.
So the EU will eventually require backdoors in encryption. It's only a question of how many tries it takes...
And, of course, no thought is given to the implications this could have in conjunction with the next Orban. Europe is aligning against Russia as a threat, while at the same time shooting itself in the foot by disabling basic rights like privacy with absolutely no memory of how much more basic lack of privacy (enabled by Facebook) was leveraged with relatively simple tools (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Cambridge_Analytica_d...) to help Brexit happen (effectively breaking Europe apart).
This quote from Apocalypto stuck with me
"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."
More effective tools for law enforcement and stronger JHA agencies
Law enforcement needs the right tools to be effective. And with 85% of criminal investigations relying on digital information, this includes lawful access to data:
…
· A Roadmap on lawful and effective access to data for law enforcement,
· A Technology Roadmap on encryption, and an impact assessment with a view to updating the EU's data retention rules.
This is pushing for encryption backdoors in eurocrat speech: lawful access to data, roadmap, impact assesment, updating rules.
"Law enforcement need lawful ways to enter a home"
"See! The government is trying to pick all our locks"
Okay dude. Taking off the tinfoil hat for a second here, but maybe they're just trying to do the thing they say they are doing, namely, lessen friction to obtain things like camera footage, financial data, and internet usage.
Maybe. I think that strengthening laws that force servers to be more diligent would be unpopular (especially with this crowd), but it's a lot different from forcing backdoors.
The idea of backdoors needs to be drawn and quartered, and the pieces buried under crossroads.
Indeed. This is also why we should resist getting locked further into the Apple/Google duopoly. In such closed systems it will be straightforward to require backdoors. Much harder if we have general-purpose computers that we can run our own software on.
I came from the oldschool cypherpunk cryptogeeks when it meant secure comms and not shitcoin.
There was a subset of us who thought that encryption wasn't the final goal, but steganography was needed to HIDE the encrypted comms. Else simple encryption could be attacked legally, or with a crowbar.
And with every bloody week a large government is "let's backdoor encryption haha" its high time to really develop stego that can overlay on top of text, pictures, audio, and video. Only then can they play fuck-fuck games about spying on our comms, and they'll see innocuous banter - but its really stego'd comms overlay.
The point was never to make it impossible to have E2E communication. They just want to make it too inconvenient so that they can spy on the ordinary people. Criminals will, of course, find a way to have secure conversations – this is just a pretext.
Only a fascist like totalitarian government would keep pushing for more and control and les freedoms.
Their biggest ploy was they convicted people 1984 was a description of a communist dictatorship, and not an execution manual for European democracies on how to strengthen their grips.
I'm so tired of reading stuff like this under any article covering the political struggle over surveillance in EU. While US posts about surveilling journalists, letting 'law' enforcement run wild with no oversight, and so on, either gets flagged to death or talked down.
It has nothing to with EU itseld and a lot of to do with far right trying to turn people against EU. EU in general is the last hope for democracy and it is kinda at risk. They want to push it over the line and break down.
Just a few months ago, there was push to call European countries vasals of USA - exactly when they said "no". Somehow Venezuela is not a vassal state and somehow Saudi completely dependent on USA were "standing on own feet".
That disappeard, now EU is fascist. Somehow Orban never was tho.
The European Commission has far too much power, and answers far too little to the populace. In reality, they want to be dictators.
If you don't know, the unfortunate way thf EU is structured, the Parliament cannot initiate legislation. They can only vote on whatever the Commission puts in front of them.
If the Parliament votes "wrong", the Commission just repackages the idea in a new bill, pulls a couple of dirty tricks, and tried again. They only have to succeed once. See ChatControl for a prime example.
So the EU will eventually require backdoors in encryption. It's only a question of how many tries it takes...
And, of course, no thought is given to the implications this could have in conjunction with the next Orban. Europe is aligning against Russia as a threat, while at the same time shooting itself in the foot by disabling basic rights like privacy with absolutely no memory of how much more basic lack of privacy (enabled by Facebook) was leveraged with relatively simple tools (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Cambridge_Analytica_d...) to help Brexit happen (effectively breaking Europe apart).
This quote from Apocalypto stuck with me "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."
Europe has learned the lesson that extremists are bad, but it has not learned the lesson that the tools shouldn't exist.
Meanwhile the latest gen ai agents are able to crack everything not nailed down. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49494301
Leaving holes might not be the best plan atm
Is the actual text of the workplan somewhere? The linked article refers to the text
more effective tools for law enforcement
in the press release and then infers or implies that this means more encryption backdoors, but I could not find that in an actual EU text?
(Edit: I'm not doubting that they want to make backdoors mandatory, I'd just like to see the actual text.)
It's linked in the second paragraph of article.
This is pushing for encryption backdoors in eurocrat speech: lawful access to data, roadmap, impact assesment, updating rules.What you are citing from is an older press release from April 2025.
"Law enforcement need lawful ways to enter a home"
"See! The government is trying to pick all our locks"
Okay dude. Taking off the tinfoil hat for a second here, but maybe they're just trying to do the thing they say they are doing, namely, lessen friction to obtain things like camera footage, financial data, and internet usage.
Maybe. I think that strengthening laws that force servers to be more diligent would be unpopular (especially with this crowd), but it's a lot different from forcing backdoors.
The idea of backdoors needs to be drawn and quartered, and the pieces buried under crossroads.
Google "security despite encryption" etc. It is some good rhetorical manipulation a'la EU over again.
We see it in the EU here but the groups pushing for that are everywhere, including the US, UK, Australia, etc
So frustrating to go though that exact same debate every few years
Indeed. This is also why we should resist getting locked further into the Apple/Google duopoly. In such closed systems it will be straightforward to require backdoors. Much harder if we have general-purpose computers that we can run our own software on.
That's why for wallet features only Apple and Google are allowed. Condition everyone picking only iOS or Android, but not Linux, or others.
I came from the oldschool cypherpunk cryptogeeks when it meant secure comms and not shitcoin.
There was a subset of us who thought that encryption wasn't the final goal, but steganography was needed to HIDE the encrypted comms. Else simple encryption could be attacked legally, or with a crowbar.
And with every bloody week a large government is "let's backdoor encryption haha" its high time to really develop stego that can overlay on top of text, pictures, audio, and video. Only then can they play fuck-fuck games about spying on our comms, and they'll see innocuous banter - but its really stego'd comms overlay.
The point was never to make it impossible to have E2E communication. They just want to make it too inconvenient so that they can spy on the ordinary people. Criminals will, of course, find a way to have secure conversations – this is just a pretext.
I think people use emoji for this
Rare AI slop use case
Only a fascist like totalitarian government would keep pushing for more and control and les freedoms.
Their biggest ploy was they convicted people 1984 was a description of a communist dictatorship, and not an execution manual for European democracies on how to strengthen their grips.
I'm so tired of reading stuff like this under any article covering the political struggle over surveillance in EU. While US posts about surveilling journalists, letting 'law' enforcement run wild with no oversight, and so on, either gets flagged to death or talked down.
When you stop seeing it is when you know there is a real problem.
It has nothing to with EU itseld and a lot of to do with far right trying to turn people against EU. EU in general is the last hope for democracy and it is kinda at risk. They want to push it over the line and break down.
Just a few months ago, there was push to call European countries vasals of USA - exactly when they said "no". Somehow Venezuela is not a vassal state and somehow Saudi completely dependent on USA were "standing on own feet".
That disappeard, now EU is fascist. Somehow Orban never was tho.
Funny, I see something completely opposite.