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Germany is planning a new law giving authorities the right to look at private messages and fingerprint children as young as 6, the interior minister said on Wednesday after the last government gathering before a national election in September.
Ministers from central government and federal states said encrypted messaging services, such as WhatsApp and Signal, allow militants and criminals to evade traditional surveillance.
"We can't allow there to be areas that are practically outside the law," interior minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters in the eastern town of Dresden.
It's not even certain that messages will be obvious to be... anything like they don't want to. A quick look how this can be done is the movie "The Saint" from 1997 where the contractor gets jobs that way. The hard quote is "where authorities install software on phones to relay messages before they are encrypted". Suppose the phone contains nothing of value. Not even the destination for the message because another unit transmits this via a analog transmission junk voice modulated with the actual real bits.
This panopticon idea is incredibly stupid technology-wise and a dangerous setup of society. The last time themes like this were current, neighbors told people in Armani uniforms that so-and-so did bad things so they could snatch their belongings or houses for themselves. And the whole society went down the drain. Oh wait, actually it was repeated after the mustache times with the sickle times. Both failed. This also shows why bootloader locking computer phones is detrimental to real security for real users. Because without it, enforced and silent installation will be hard.
And as for the motivation behind these moves. For some mysterious reason Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech, Slovakia, and Hungary seem to have been spared the latest string of violent attacks. How can that be? Nobel prize awaits! ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @08:08PM (4 children)
"It's true that Hungary etc disagreed, but they are supposed to respect the decisions taken even if they disagree (that's the way that democracy works).
that is why EU countries that didn't meet the quota are being punished."
Thanks for the clarification. I thought the EU had to work on consensus. I.e. either all have to agree, or the deal does not go through. A "veto" in essence, to prevent some countries (or inter-EU alliances) running roughshed over other countries (which is anti-democratic in nature). So how can you have some countries who decide what other countries can or cannot do, and punish them accordingly?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @08:36PM (3 children)
That is the entire point of the EU. Same deal in the US with states vs. federal. How can the feds dictate some things to the states? Cause that is the point!
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Thursday June 15 2017, @11:37PM (1 child)
> That is the entire point of the EU. Same deal in the US with states vs. federal. How can the feds dictate some things to the states? Cause that is the point!
Um, no. The point of the EU is the exact opposite. It is not meant to be a federation like the USA is. EU members are not states like in the USA, they are sovereign countries, with their own governments, constitutions, method of rule (monarchy, direct democracy, etc..), foreign policy, foreign affairs, military and border control (as noted by the fact they can shut borders within the EU when they want). And there is a biggie, members of the EU can leave, as the UK is showing (I believe while in theory a US state can secede, the last time they tried they were militarily forced back into the union).
Yes, in return for free trade, and free movement of peoples, some sovereignty is sacrificed, however that is not permanent, countries can withdraw consent for sharing of sovereignty (as certain countries in EE are showing), although the other side will try to punish them for their insolence.
I am sure there are those in the EU that would want to see a political federative union (I guess you can call them "unionists"), and there are those for a more loose, free-trade and co-operation but otherwise not politically unified EU (I guess "confederates" in this context), of which the UK was one of the biggest.
Not sure how the UK leaving will affect the balance between the groups, and it remains to be seen how and it what way the two diametrically opposed views of what the EU should be get reconciled ( As someone in Europe, I would prefer it doesn't get resolved via massive war, but nobody asks me about that).
As for the EE countries that don't want illegal migrants, if push comes to shove and the refugee thing does not get resolved, and the fines and punishments increase, they can always do like the UK and leave, form their own EEU or whatever. At some point they will have to either leave, or acquiesce, unless by some miracle they manage to politically defeat the others who are pushing for their migrants to be resettled on their land.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @04:51PM
I didn't say the EU is the exact same thing as the US federal/state system, just a parallel. Thanks for making my point with more detail!
(Score: 1, Troll) by frojack on Friday June 16 2017, @12:09AM
No, its much worse.
The EU is basically Germany's sock puppet. Oh they let the French paint the lipstick on, but its really Germany's show.
And when the British started realizing that, the threats and doom saying started.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.