Brussels faces privacy crossroads over encryption backdoors(www.theregister.com)
96 pointsby jjgreen2 days ago5 comments
  • coderatlarge2 days ago
    seems to me this alone is a show-stopper besides all the other terrible implications:

    “the best estimates show around a 10 percent false positive rate for client-side scanning – which could see a huge number of people accused of crimes they didn't commit.”

    • ben_w2 days ago
      10% is massive regarless, but of what? 10% of messages being false positive flags would mean almost everyone getting flagged within a day.

      Upsetting statistic for other reasons: Even if it's "10% of all flags are false, 90% are correct", if there's also no false negatives, then the 10% false positives alone gets you to about the current total incarceration rate — offenders are estimated to be a few % of the population, prison population is about 0.1% of the total population.

      • Spivak2 days ago
        10% of messages flagged, which ought to be a minuscule number given nothing other than the sheer volume of messages.
  • skeezyboy2 days ago
    >If passed, the legislation would require encrypted app makers ... to find ways to enforce such scanning – something they have neither the ability nor the desire to do.

    100% they could add client side scanning, why do they think its impossible?

    • xoa2 days ago
      >>"something they have neither the ability nor the desire to do."

      >100% they could add client side scanning, why do they think its impossible?

      I think you've misread that sentence. It's saying that they don't have the ability right now, as-in this is not a feature they've written in their software, and that further they do not wish to do so (in the same way that Apple did not want to write a backdoor for the FBI previously). Obviously as a matter of programming of course backdoors can be written and have been. But software developers don't want to be forced at gun point to do so like the EU proposes, which seems perfectly understandable.

      And fwiw with open source software it actually would be arguable that they "don't have the ability" on a more technical level since that couldn't actually be enforced on the users and the EU's jurisdiction ends at its borders. Obviously many of the most popular messengers are proprietary, but not all. And even for the proprietary vendors that probably does factor into their arguments, as it'd put them at a commercial disadvantage.

    • Eddy_Viscosity22 days ago
      Perhaps its more along the line of it being impossible to have privacy if privacy invading scanning is required. Its impossible to have secure encryption if there is a requirement to be not secure so that every message can be read by any government that wants to.
    • graemep2 days ago
      What apps can access can be restricted by the OS.

      All you need to do to avoid it would be to encrypt outside the app, something most people would not bother to do, but criminals would be motivated to do.

      • skeezyboy2 days ago
        whats that got to do with whatsapp scanning the photo youre about to send?
        • ivan_gammel2 days ago
          1. Client-side scanning of the content that is externally encrypted is impossible. So if you are a criminal, you just don't share the photo, you share the encrypted file to circumvent this restriction.

          2. Reliable client-side scanning of images is impossible (you cannot download illegal content to client devices for exact matches, so it will be only signatures and collisions are possible), so there will be false positives that will be reported, which will inevitably result in violation of privacy, possibly persecution etc.

          • skeezyboy2 days ago
            1. Of course its possible, youd just get back encrypted data. This doesnt make it impossible

            2. You mean "Reliable classification of client-side scanned images is impossible", although you dont actually define reliable. This is besides the point, Im not talking about the actually feasibility of this on a political level, Im asserting a specific technical point that client-side scanning is 100% possible for e2e apps

            • ivan_gammela day ago
              That specific technical point is trivial and is not worth discussing it. Of course you can „scan“ a data stream, but what’s the point if it doesn’t yield any meaningful results?

              The only acceptable scanning process here is the one that produces only true positives, no collateral damage. This is what I call reliable.

              • skeezyboy19 hours ago
                > The only acceptable scanning process here is the one that produces only true positives, no collateral damage. This is what I call reliable.

                well then reliability is impossible, you must accept errors

                • ivan_gammel18 hours ago
                  > well then reliability is impossible, you must accept errors

                  Nobody should accept errors. Client-side scanning simply must not happen. It’s mathematically dumb idea.

            • fluoridation2 days ago
              1. If the client application is hashing ciphertext, its hash will not match any known offending hashes, even if the plaintext is a known file.

              I don't understand why someone would go through the trouble of using WhatApp to pass around separately-encrypted files instead of using anything else, though.

              2. It's also "technically possible" to do the scanning server-side, on the encrypted stream, and flag anything that by chance matches a known hash.

    • whatevaa20 hours ago
      Wait until you get accussed of shit because of false positive. Happened in the story with Google and photo of boy to a doctor, Google refused to revoke it's automated crap even when false positive was proven.
    • raverbashing2 days ago
      Cool are you happy to run a hash of all your files and if it matches a certain hash you're accused of a crime?

      BTW the hash is a CRC32 one

    • lupusreal2 days ago
      They can't do it without false positives stochastically decrypting perfectly legal conversations without a warrant or any sort of due process. Of course, the EU elites don't care, but the leadership of Signal/etc obviously do.
  • Insanity2 days ago
    EU taking a page out of China's playbook, after years of 'complaining' about what China was doing, is kind of wild. And sad.
    • anonzzzies2 days ago
      It is a few lobbying entities and many non tech politicians. Who trust other companies to inform them who are in lobbyist pockets.
    • Am4TIfIsER0ppos2 days ago
      The same ideology runs both.
      • rcruzeiro2 days ago
        How so? Do you have sources or is this a matter of opinion?
        • 372927372012 days ago
          Glad the EU regime can count on their useful idiots.
        • Am4TIfIsER0pposa day ago
          It's my opinion. Much like liberals and democrats consider trump's america to be a fascist state I consider myself to be living under a communist one.
  • nakamoto_damacy2 days ago
    I understand Brussels is the de facto capital of the EU in terms of the EU institutions located there. One random association that came up when I read this is that Brussels is where the Session team is located (Session is the P2P version of Signal) and I'm sure they have a stake in this. Just not sure if they're involved in lobbying against encryption backdoors or just watching it unfold like the rest of us.

    I'm one of those people who over-share and never comfortable keeping secrets (other than login credentials) while also being paranoid that we are relying on a certificate authority based system that's supposed to protect us but is fundamentally designed to enable state surveillance - a suspicion I've always had despite certificate transparency, pinning, etc) - You can downvote me for having this suspicion, but it won't make me more trusting of the security theater business.

    • Jaxan2 days ago
      Over-sharing is compatible with privacy. Privacy means that you are in control of who knows what about you!
  • ChrisArchitect2 days ago
    Related:

    Germany is not supporting ChatControl – blocking minority secured

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45209366

    Chat Control Must Be Stopped

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45173277