[daniel-s]

These aren't dumb people. They know exactly what they're asking for. Privacy and security of the public's data is not a priority to them, surveillance and power is. Politicians would much prefer all communication in plaintext, to hell with individual freedoms and privacy, especially European politicians that don't come from the same traditions of freedom as the anglophone countries.

What politician do you expect to openly confess the above in public. These are world-leading politicians, i.e., professional athletes of lying and obfuscation.

[whatshisface]

>especially European politicians that don't come from the same traditions of freedom as the anglophone countries.

Have you been reading English-language news? Attempts at limiting privacy and advancing surveillance have been nonstop in the anglophone world over the past decades. What may even have been the first attempt at having a backdoor mandate was American: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

[bananalychee]

The UK and Australia are ahead of countries like France in restricting freedom, so this sounds like a poor attempt to avoid complimenting the US specifically.

[thomasfedb]

What freedoms are you referring to wrt Australia?

[chgs]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-46463029

https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/14/identify_and_disrupt_...

[bambax]

> These aren't dumb people.

Yes, they absolutely are. I agree with the rest of your comment, they aren't interested in privacy or security, want generalized surveillance, and are world-class liars.

But they are also pretty dumb and extremely ignorant of anything technical.

[econ]

I sort of agree with them. I want all privacy abolished for politicians. Think about it, if we live stream them in the shower we might get some much needed young people to take the job. Let them keep the ad revenue. Only fans suggests it should be the best paid job out there and the workers are all about public approval.

no more naughty business!

[verisimi]

That is not how it works. Politicians will vote for special measures for themselves, but citizens need to have their data easily presentable for inspection by government agencies. Think of the children/terrorists.

[tonyhart7]

"These aren't dumb people."

they are, most tech worker didn't know how cryptography works under the hood and yet you expect politician to know it??? nah its just intelligence agency make a request to parlement of some shit

[usrnm]

Are you actually trying to say that understanding cryptography is a prerequisite for intelligence?

[palata]

In the context of a discussion where the two propositions are "they take bad decisions because they don't understand" or "they take those decisions by malice", I think the parent is trying to say "they most probably don't understand cryptography, given that most tech workers don't either and those politicians are less into tech than tech workers".

[anthk]

You mean UKUSA? Echelon? Patriot Act? SSL and encryption 'bans' making the vendors get OpenSSL from the Canadian OpenBSD?

[mrweasel]

OpenSSL = OpenSSL Software Foundation Inc / OpenSSL Software Services Inc (In the US)

OpenSSH = OpenBSD (In Canada).

OpenBSD does maintain a fork of OpenSSL, called LibreSSL.

[anthk]

OpenBSD had a SSL stack too, not bound to US licenses and restrictions on exporting.

[mrweasel]

Before the LibreSSL fork? I did not know that. They've shipped OpenSSL for as long as I can remember, and then forked it, in 2014.

How long ago was that?

[anthk]

OpenSSL built on Canada was fine. Get NetBSD from US mirrors and you got a TLS-challenged OS until the 00's when the restriction exports on tech 'as weapons' were nonsense.

[mrweasel]

No dumb perhaps, but very very short sighted and it pretty clear how other decisions can be so very wrong, once you hear them get quizzed on encryption.

"We should have a backdoor for law enforcement", okay but what if that abused by some regime that doesn't like Jews, Muslims, Christians, homosexuals, communists, authors, journalists... you? Obviously THOSE people shouldn't have access to a backdoor. Okay, but if you do it EU wide then Hungary will have access to it. Okay, only Western European nations should have access. What if AFD wins in Germany or Groupe Rassemblement National in France? Okay, in THAT case the backdoor access should be revoked. Who decides that?

It's very clear that politicians want backdoors in encryption, but only under a very specific set of circumstances. Those circumstances are almost completely tied to their own parliamentary seats. If questioned long enough, most of them will see it issue, they probably won't admit it though.

So no, not dumb, just incredibly short sighted on almost irreversible decisions that can and will hurt the wrong people.