tinc - Apr 2017 - Upcoming laws and the state of privacy in Europe?

Hi, I'm not trying to rock any boats or make noise and I'm not
interested
in discussing politics either, but I just wanted to get a general feel for
what the rest of the tinc community felt in regards to how the EU looks
like it wants to completely break encryption and make tools like
tinc unfeasible.
Both Germany and France want this to happen and in the UK the snoopers
charter has provisions for this (although not tested in court yet).
I think Netherlands, Norway and Finland are considering similar laws.
Not sure which country isn't doing this.

Any ideas on how we can keep tinc safe if for instance tomorrow the
majority of countries in Europe decided that encryption is no longer
allowed without government keys being used.

I think simply saying that tinc is open source isn't exactly an answer, it
would mean we individually have to read every line of source, understand
and continue to read every patch that is made going forwards.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
<http://www.tinc-vpn.org/pipermail/tinc/attachments/20170412/fdd926a1/attachment.html>

On Wed, Apr 12, 2017 at 11:28:02AM +0000, Martin Eskdale Moen wrote:
> Hi, I'm not trying to rock any boats or make noise and I'm not
interested
> in discussing politics either, but I just wanted to get a general feel for
> what the rest of the tinc community felt in regards to how the EU looks
> like it wants to completely break encryption and make tools like
> tinc unfeasible.
> Both Germany and France want this to happen and in the UK the snoopers
> charter has provisions for this (although not tested in court yet).
> I think Netherlands, Norway and Finland are considering similar laws.
> Not sure which country isn't doing this.
> 
> Any ideas on how we can keep tinc safe if for instance tomorrow the
> majority of countries in Europe decided that encryption is no longer
> allowed without government keys being used.
If that would really become the law, then there is nothing technical
that we can do about it. Tinc would still work as it does. You can
either comply with the law, and perhaps give your tinc keys to the
government in escrow, or disobey the law and keep the keys to yourself.
Each option has its own consequences, and it's up to you to decide which
ones you prefer.
> I think simply saying that tinc is open source isn't exactly an answer,
it
> would mean we individually have to read every line of source, understand
> and continue to read every patch that is made going forwards.
I don't think that tinc being open source is in any way relevant here,
such laws would most likely impact both open and closed source software.

-- 
Met vriendelijke groet / with kind regards,
     Guus Sliepen <guus at tinc-vpn.org>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 819 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL:
<http://www.tinc-vpn.org/pipermail/tinc/attachments/20170413/17556d75/attachment.sig>

In my humble opinion, a law written in such a way would be impossible 
to enforce, especially when talking about companies. I think they are 
made just for the show.




On Wed, Apr 12, 2017 at 1:28 PM, Martin Eskdale Moen 
<martinmoen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, I'm not trying to rock any boats or make noise and I'm not 
> interested in discussing politics either, but I just wanted to get a 
> general feel for what the rest of the tinc community felt in regards 
> to how the EU looks like it wants to completely break encryption and 
> make tools like tinc unfeasible.
> Both Germany and France want this to happen and in the UK the 
> snoopers charter has provisions for this (although not tested in 
> court yet).
> I think Netherlands, Norway and Finland are considering similar laws.
> Not sure which country isn't doing this.
> 
> Any ideas on how we can keep tinc safe if for instance tomorrow the 
> majority of countries in Europe decided that encryption is no longer 
> allowed without government keys being used.
> 
> I think simply saying that tinc is open source isn't exactly an 
> answer, it would mean we individually have to read every line of 
> source, understand and continue to read every patch that is made 
> going forwards.