[huygens6363]

Criminals are using specialty phones or should I say, were using, because this was recently cracked and thus became useless. Catching Taghi in NL was a famous result of that.

Point is that dangerous people will use specialty devices/services and being legal is certainly not one of the requirements.

[Freak_NL]

Again, not what this law is about. This is all about wanting to gather signal intelligence on millions of people automatically. About being flagged when someone uploads CSAM or uses certain keywords. They know it won't stop anyone with the skills and means to use some other encrypted solution.

[huygens6363]

So they explain it to people as being able to catch criminals, but they known it won’t work against that?

How can you maintain such a position? At some point you’ll have to explain your reasons for draconian measures like this.

That’s why I’m spamming people with “it won’t work” because so many seem fooled by this. You will catch exactly zero people with this. The only people you’ll catch will be the ones that you would have caught anyway, because of their nonchalance.

I don’t know anything about law but I know tech.

[Freak_NL]

> So they explain it to people as being able to catch criminals, but they known it won’t work against that?

Why a law is enacted is more complex than just the here and now. Some of these law-and-order types dream of the day they can order Apple or Samsung to completely lock down their smartphones and forbid any user controlled cryptography. Some just want to be able to feel that they are doing everything in their power to prevent children from being harmed, even if the measures only cover naive users. Some just want people to know that they are being watched, and have these laws act as deterrent.

And as a bonus: some parents really like the idea that none of their children or any of their mates are sharing (their own) underage nudes and that this is enforced automatically.

The law will likely work for some of these points, to some extent. It's still a bad law, but the people pushing it aren't idiots; just dangerous.

[huygens6363]

OK thank you for elaborating. I tend to assume that such laws - "let's listen in on everything you do" - need firm and solid justification. Coming up with a simple counter-example on first try signals to me the problem has not been handled effectively (understatement of the year). I'm not talking about having the perfect solution, just.. something that does not immediately fall down on first try within a few minutes.

This world confused me sometimes.