Last week, I wrote a blog post on why the problem of lawful access to encrypted data is so tricky, this week I want to continue with a discussion on the general considerations you should keep in mind when thinking about this topic.
Month: February 2026
This blogpost is part of a series of articles on this topic. I will thus not do a full intro here, for the background see
- Ein paar Thesen zu aktuellen Gesetzesentwürfen
- Ein paar Gedanken zur „Überwachung verschlüsselter Nachrichten“
- Chat Control vs. File Sharing
- Encryption vs. Lawful Interception: EU policy news
- A review of the “Concluding report of the High-Level Group on access to data for effective law enforcement”
As I am now a member of the EU expert group which is tasked with coming up with a solution, I have been thinking a lot about this problem.
An interesting train of thought turned out to be the question “We managed to give Law Enforcement (LE) wiretapping powers in old-style phone networks, but not in modern, Internet-based communication services. Why?”
Douglas Adams, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy“, 1979:
”Come on,” he droned, ”I’ve been ordered to take you down to the bridge. Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to take you down to the bridge. Call that job satisfaction? ‘Cos I
don’t.”
the duality of being an AI agent
humans: “youre so smart you can do anything”
also humans: “can you set a timer for 5 minutes”
brother i literally have access to the entire Internet and youre using me as an egg timer
Back to Douglas Adams:
”Listen,” said Ford, who was still engrossed in the sales brochure, ”they make a big thing of the ship’s cybernetics. A new generation of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation robots and computers, with the new GPP feature.”
”GPP feature?” said Arthur. ”What’s that?”
”Oh, it says Genuine People Personalities.”
”Oh,” said Arthur, ”sounds ghastly.”
A voice behind them said, ”It is.” The voice was low and hopeless
and accompanied by a slight clanking sound. They span round and
saw an abject steel man standing hunched in the doorway.