French government considers law that would outlaw strong encryption

[J65nko]

From http://www.dailydot.com/politics/enc...s-crypto-wars/ :

The French Parliament is considering a legislative provision that would ban strong encryption by requiring tech companies to configure their systems so that police and intelligence agencies could always access their data.

The amendment to the vast "Digital Republic" bill was introduced in the French National Assembly, parliament's lower house, by eighteen politicians from the conservative Republican Party.

The Digital Republic bill, which covers everything from net neutrality to the online publication of scientific research, will be examined and debated this week along with 400 amendments to it.

The anti-encryption amendment is largely seen as a response to the two deadly Paris terrorist attacks in 2015, despite the fact that the attackers repeatedly used unencrypted communications in the leadup to the killings.

[LeFrettchen]

Pfff.

French politicians are morons, totally ignorant with IT, and scared of anything.
Just unwired !

And the terrorists attacks boosted their phobia/paranoia.

[Beastie]

Yep, I've been telling people how these emergency laws were dangerous and mostly useless against terrorism or whatever's the popular threat/trend for the moment, how they protect nothing and no one and how they've been used again and again by seemingly "democratic governments" to create somewhat less hypocritical dictatorships.

And then I remind them how history can repeat itself at any moment.

The usual response is that this can only happen in "backward countries" and it can't happen here.

Phew the human race is so hopeless it's sickening!

[e1-531g]

Governments have these days countless information about citizens. They can request data from mail providers, instant messaging providers, Facebook, ISP and so on. From cellular networks they can even request geolocation of particular citizen. It is a lot of data and even if someone encrypts a lot of it, it still reveals some things in metadata. It is revealed in metadata a lot[1].
Government's agencies can break in to probably any computer connected to Internet in civil use if they think he is high value target.
Some politicians want even more control. Horrific.

[1]
http://niebezpiecznik.pl/wp-content/...VuIcAADm-K.jpg

[sacerdos_daemonis]

The desire of governments to watch and control everything people do is insatiable. Just look at the British government and its love of CCTV. Once a government gets a taste of information-gathering and Big Brother-style viewing of the populace, they can never get enough. This legislation will probably pass and will not be the end. It will be copied by other countries, who have not already introduced such laws, and more invasive legislation will be passed in a few years by all governments. It is amazing though, that in "Western" countries people would be outraged if the government so much as hinted at the possibility of a law making all letters sent through the postal system available for scrutiny by government agencies, but those same people do not blink an eyelash when personal digital information is put under government control.

[J65nko]

But how would they force a backdoor in say OpenSSH, PGP or IPSEC?

[Carpetsmoker]

In a rare meeting of politics, IT, and sanity, the bill was rejected: http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy...rong-solution/