French Government May Ban Strong Encryption

17308987 said:

they just aren't a big enough market to influence global product development at the likes of Apple and Google.

Except they aren't just talking about Google and Apple here. In fact they are probably irrelevant. But imagine if every piece of telecom equipment your message (voice, sms, data, etc) went through could be tapped and decrypted! They are targeting companies like Cisco that are building the backbone.

Sure, Google and Apple might not care about France and just tell people to go to Denmark to buy their Nexus or iPhone. But Cisco et al. aren't going to pull out of the market, because someone else will step in and sell French telecoms the equipment they want to build their network. Companies, especially the national telecom provider, can't and won't circumvent this law.

In fact, some enterprising handset manufacturers will step-in too, with modified version of Android that meet the French requirements just to capture the segment of the market that doesn't know and/or doesn't care but just wants a phone right now.

But honestly, any one who seriously wants to protect their communications isn't going to rely on some one else's encryption. They are going to use their own - either apps on the phone that encrypt messages which you can copy & paste or good 'ol codes and ciphers like the old days, simply transmitted via mobile phone.

Meanwhile Newsflash: Banks and ecommerce fraud and hacking in france increases by 20,000 percent...

As New Scientist recently pointed out, banning encryption means the end of online commerce. Doing business online without it simply isn't safe or viable, and preventing ordinary people from using it has all sorts of knock on consequences, eg. anonymous whistle blowers within corrupt organisations, companies, and indeed governments, also people who wish to discuss distressful issues online without revealing their identity, such as spousal abuse forums.

Worse, such measures won't make the slightest bit of difference to catching terrorists or preventing terrorist acts, certainly not any that's islamic related anyway. It's a stupid knee jerk reaction to a populist outcry which politicians don't have the guts to stand up against, despite the evidence already being available that it won't work. The problem we face is and has always been the nature of the religious dogma itself that supports and encourages violent thinking; meddling with how our information systems function will have no impact at all in that regard. It's sticking-plaster politics at its most ludcirous. As usual, western govts keep picking about the edges, rather than facing up to the inevitable near term confrontation which will occur if the wider islamic community doesn't stand up and fight for a peaceful, reformed, enlightened version of what is atm an incredibly brutal belief system (they don't because they're either too afraid to speak out or they agree with the daft ideas their faith promotes); I don't know if serious reform is remotely possible, but without a doubt, our ditching basic notions of what democratic nations are built on is not going to make any difference at all.

It's sad that a Republic such as France, given its history, would be one of the first nations to consider such silly measures.

Also, as NS stated, one cannot undo the basic math that underpins encryption, so anyone can make use of the same methods from the ground up if need be, via 3rd party tools, or their own coding.

17309830 said:

17308987 said:

they just aren't a big enough market to influence global product development at the likes of Apple and Google.

Except they aren't just talking about Google and Apple here. In fact they are probably irrelevant. But imagine if every piece of telecom equipment your message (voice, sms, data, etc) went through could be tapped and decrypted! They are targeting companies like Cisco that are building the backbone.

Sure, Google and Apple might not care about France and just tell people to go to Denmark to buy their Nexus or iPhone. But Cisco et al. aren't going to pull out of the market, because someone else will step in and sell French telecoms the equipment they want to build their network. Companies, especially the national telecom provider, can't and won't circumvent this law.

In fact, some enterprising handset manufacturers will step-in too, with modified version of Android that meet the French requirements just to capture the segment of the market that doesn't know and/or doesn't care but just wants a phone right now.

But honestly, any one who seriously wants to protect their communications isn't going to rely on some one else's encryption. They are going to use their own - either apps on the phone that encrypt messages which you can copy & paste or good 'ol codes and ciphers like the old days, simply transmitted via mobile phone.

There's also the work arounds like purchasing a phone in germany, switzerland, or Italy, then taking it back to france. Aswell this wouldn't cover the 'cloud' encrypted data. Setup a secure connection to America for example, they use 10 billion bit encryption. The french laws couldn't apply to things over seas. It's a horrible implementation/suggestion of a fix, that wouldn't even fix the problem.

17309876 said:

As New Scientist recently pointed out in its editorial, not allowing encryption means the end of online commerce. Doing business online without it simply isn't safe or viable, and preventing ordinary people from using it has all sorts of knock on consequences, eg. anonymous whistle blowers within corrupt organisations, companies, and indeed governments, also people who wish to discuss distressful issues online without revealing their identity, such as spousal abuse forums.

Worse, such measures won't make the slightest bit of difference to catching terrorists or preventing terrorist acts, certainly not any that's islamic related anyway. It's a stupid knee jerk reaction to a populist outcry which politicians don't have the guts to stand up against, despite the evidence already being available that it won't work. The problem we face is and has always been the nature of the religious dogma itself that supports and encourages violent thinking; meddling with how our information systems function will have no impact at all in that regard. It's sticking-plaster politics at its most ludcirous. As usual, western govts keep picking about the edges, rather than facing up to the inevitable near term confrontation which will occur if the wider islamic community doesn't stand up and fight for a peaceful, reformed, enlightened version of what is atm an incredibly brutal belief system (they don't because they're either too afraid to speak out or they agree with the daft ideas their faith promotes); I don't know if serious reform is remotely possible, but without a doubt, our ditching basic notions of what democratic nations are built on is not going to make any difference at all.

It's sad that a Republic such as France, given its history, would be one of the first nations to consider such silly measures.

Exactly; and as google and most intelligence agencies will confirm, you don't even need the content; you need the metadata.. which the french should already have,

Steward Baker (NSA) “metadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody’s life. If you have enough metadata, you don’t really need content.” ... “We kill people based on metadata.”

They don't need the content; they need the metadata, which they already have, unless their intentions are something else than which is stated, like illegally tapping phone lines for example, which in cases like the 'silk road' incident, obviously the proper way to deal with these is by court order with a judge. Not by allowing law enforcement unrestricted access to private domain.

This is what happens when lawmakers are tech-illiterate.