this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023

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Last Chance to fix eIDAS: Secret EU law threatens Internet security — Mozilla (last-chance-for-eidas.org)

submitted 10 months ago by Masimatutu@lemm.ee to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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[–] Lojcs@lemm.ee 45 points 10 months ago (5 children)

I'm so sick of being stressed about the same thing over and over again. There needs to be a large scale investigation on the people that keeps trying to push this. I'm shocked there isn't a constant media outrage to match these attacks. And I don't hear anybody talking of codifying encryption integrity neither. It's always just privacy experts discovering such attacks at the last minute seemingly by chance and trying to rally people against it in time. Does nobody in positions of power who care to stop these?

[–] zzzzz@beehaw.org 15 points 10 months ago

I'm shocked there isn't a constant media outrage

The media is generally owned by very wealthy people and, as a result, reports in ways that benefit the rich and powerful. Centralization of media is very bad for democracy.

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

Its awfully convenient the news doesnt say anything almost like they are owned by the elite simply to control the masses.

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Media targets the average citizen. Average citizens won't easily understand the ramifications, so the media writes on clickable stories instead.

[–] far_university1990@feddit.de 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Media could just oversimplify it: „the EU wants to know what porn you watch“, „this law allows your country to grab all your passwords“.

[–] Kissaki@feddit.de 1 points 10 months ago

You can simplify and explain without being oversimplifying or lying.

[–] Gutless2615@ttrpg.network 1 points 10 months ago

My dude the Crypto wars get wheeled out again every few years and has for decades at this point. It’s so tiring.

[+] pragmakist@kbin.social -7 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I haven't had a chance to check anything yet, but given who (Mozilla) is reacting and how, I suspect this is just another case of EU authorities acting to protect their citizens from (American) corporate abuse

[–] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I haven’t had a chance to check anything yet, but given who (Mozilla) is reacting and how, I suspect this is just another case of EU authorities acting to protect their citizens from (American) corporate abuse

Not in this case. I suggest you read the open letter (which is signed by 335 scientists and researchers from 32 countries so far).

Or, do you consider it to be corporate abuse when Mozilla prevents governments from using their certificate authorities to launch MITM attacks and impersonate websites for the purpose of intercepting internet traffic? Because that is what we're talking about.

[–] pragmakist@kbin.social -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Until I find the bloody proposal that none of it's detractors seems to dare link to, I'm going to assume that I, as a citizen of EU, has a clear and present interest in not having Mozilla et al using their control of our browsers to block government services.

I can do without my browser suddenly deciding that it doesn't trust the fire department, thank you very much.

(Or the pharmacy, or my doctor, or, or or at lot of things.)

[–] Spotlight7573@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

They haven't released the text publicly but they're voting on it in less than a week. That's also one of the many objections that Mozilla et al has to this whole thing: it's basically being done in secret in a way that won't give the public any time to react or object.

Historically, the browser vendors have only distrusted certificate authorities when they had reason to not trust them, not some arbitrary reason.

One of the examples of them preventing a CA from being trusted is Kazakhstan's, which was specifically set up to enable them to intercept users' traffic: https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2020/12/18/kazakhstan-root-2020/

Even if all of the EU states turn out to be completely trustworthy, forcing browser vendors to trust the EU CAs would give more political cover for other states to force browser vendors to trust their CAs. Ones that definitely should not be trusted.

I think there wouldn't be nearly the same level of objection if it was limited to each country's CC TLD, rather than any domain on the internet.

[–] Spotlight7573@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

How is giving any EU state the ability to be a certificate authority in your browser for issing a certificate for any site, without them needing to follow the rules the browser vendors have for what makes an authority trustworthy, with no option to disable them or add additional checks to their validity, "protecting their citizens from (American) corporate abuse"?

From the Mozilla post:

Any EU member state has the ability to designate cryptographic keys for distribution in web browsers and browsers are forbidden from revoking trust in these keys without government permission.

[...]

There is no independent check or balance on the decisions made by member states with respect to the keys they authorize and the use they put them to.

[...]

The text goes on to ban browsers from applying security checks to these EU keys and certificates except those pre-approved by the EU’s IT standards body - ETSI.

[–] Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago

I suppose a non-compliant browser will need to be build if this comes to pass.