While Roskomnadzor runs a channel on Telegram, which was until recently hated by the government, and the European Union is trying
Following the European attacks in early November, the CouncilThe ministers of the European Union made a decision that obliges operators of mobile services WhatsApp, Signal and others to create master keys for monitoring chats and messages with the E2E encryption format. This is stated in an internal document dated 6 November by the President of Germany and sent to the delegations of member states in the Council, a copy of which was obtained by the Austrian news outlet ORF.at.
Politicians started talking about a ban on safeencryption of these messengers under the pretext of fighting "further steps of terrorism." French President Emmanuel Macron discussed this with the Austrian Chancellor, and the decision itself has already been agreed so much that it can be adopted in a video conference of the Ministers of the Interior and Justice in early December without further discussion.
However, this document is far from talking abouta complete ban on end-to-end encryption, as journalists and social network users have stated, but only access to messages in individual cases, but these cases are not very accurately described. It is very clear that the leaked draft proposal does not yet have any legal force. Despite this, it primarily sets out the political position of the member states of the European Union.
In general, requests for the appearance of various loopholes forlaw enforcement agencies are not uncommon. Spiegel writes that at the beginning of October this year, the interior ministers of five countries – The UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have already approached the largest Internet companies with requests to provide access to user correspondence.
Unsurprisingly, a number of experts and simplesocial media users expressed their dissatisfaction with the proposed changes. According to a spokesman for the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, "there are no proposed solutions or requirements to weaken the encryption systems in the current draft." Rather, the project is intended to be a first step towards building confidence, broader discussion of the issue, and close collaboration between policymakers, business and academia. In some ways, it is a question of striking a balance between protecting company secrets and personal data and the needs of security agencies.
Will E2EE encryption be banned and does the EU know what it is doing?
It would seem that everything seems to be very clear: promise inviolability of correspondence, and then allow the security officials to read them and ban “dissenting” messengers on the territory of the European Union. But what do independent experts say? European cybersecurity researcher Lukasz Oleinik believes the proposed project begins with the approval of the EU's full support for “developing, implementing and using strong encryption” - which would be very strange if it were a complete ban on E2EE.
In addition, the project discusses "problems"public safety that can come from criminals with easy access to the same technologies used to secure the infrastructure of operators. It is assumed that criminals cannot use the E2EE encryption format to gain access to user data. Even with holes in the system, this should be extremely difficult or nearly impossible.
It is interesting that the resolution callsto a discussion on how to ensure that the powers of the competent security and criminal justice authorities are maintained - while ensuring full respect for due process and EU rights and freedoms (in particular the right to respect for private life and communications, and the right to the protection of personal data).
It turns out that the hypothetical law is awaiting widespread public discussion and a lot of debate among politicians, activists, human rights activists and experts in the field of information security.
In which secure messenger to chat now?
I think most of the readers have beenmoved from major social networks to Telegram, leaving VKontakte for correspondence with former classmates or viewing memes, and WhatsApp is used to communicate with relatives and receive postcards for holidays that you did not even know about. But in addition to the usual "Cart", there are several more good, and, most importantly, safe messengers that you can and should use.
To begin with, let's repeat the basic requirements for a “secure” messenger:
- Anonymity.Ability to register an anonymous account and use it without restrictions
- End-to-end encryption (E2ЕE).Encryption technology in which encryption keys are stored only on the user's device and are not sent to the server
- Availability of the main reliable encryption protocol