eIDAS is a Pass Towards Oppression Disguised as Technological Advancement
THIS article was originally planned for yesterday (perhaps with an accompanying long video), but there was a major incident near us and now it's a weekend, perhaps a little late for this topic.
So here's just the gist of it. Written in a hurry at 4AM on a Saturday. As noted in Soylent News and elsewhere (not "official" media), there's some awful idea being trotted out by misguided politicians (if not actually malicious politicians). No news in the local media (about the legislation) can be found, according to one reader. Tech, or anything hidden behind tech, is just not on the radar. The reader presumes it is the same or similar in other countries. Moreover, politicians have been totally silent on that one.
Henrik Alexandersson is the only one in Sweden covering tech and his blog has probably 10 readers. He does point to an old EFF link, but that contains a dead link regarding this policy. It's not even a Web page. ec.europa.eu is a Webapp and has been for years - a huge accessibility issue. As a reader put it: "They don't care about accessibility, rather gain from obfuscation."
Here's one concise summary of it: "The Mozilla Corporation, known for applications like the Thunderbird e-mail client and the Firefox web browser, has issued a warning statement about some EU legislation sneaking its way through the back rooms. The text of the legislation is slated for approval in a non-public meeting in Brussels on November 8th. [...] Romana JERKOVIĆ is responsible for the eIDAS file. It goes without saying that the race to the bottom affects both sides of the pond because each time damage is done, the other side quickly adapts the same policies for the sake of "harmonization". Everyone has a stake in this."
We've already added material related to this to Daily Links and there's some additional information in Tux Machines (more may be added over time, due to the nature of that site). It seems like American corporations have a near-monopoly nowadays over EU policy! Same as the EPO!
Here is Adobe's role and shameless marketing disguised as a paper (being paywall). "The construction of self-sovereign identity: Extending the interpretive flexibility of technology towards institutions" says the title, but it's not self-sovereign. It's corporations. Companies that put back doors in everything...
Speaking of companies that put back doors in everything, how about Microsoft?
Someone has told us that some European elements are now just "bullshitters / microsofters posing as security advisors" and that we're meant to trust proprietary software to do this in spite of repeated data/security breaches.
Watch out for a Microsoft-funded false narrative regarding security, as it was parroted in recent days in Microsoft-funded media. This one says: "Microsoft Corp. today announced the Secure Future Initiative, a broad internal effort aimed at increasing the security of its products."
It's a PR move, boosted by Microsofters, and no actual substance there.
Reminder that Microsoft cannot do security and got its own 'Crown Jewels' breached? This one says "[p]olicymakers and researchers have sharply criticized Microsoft’s security practices after an illicitly obtained key enabled a wide-ranging espionage operation." There'a also this one which says "Microsoft is overhauling its software security after major Microsoft trap Azure cloud attacks..." (what is "cloud" anyway?)
It says: "In an internal memo to Microsoft’s engineering teams today, the company’s leadership has outlined its new cybersecurity approach. It comes just months after [Abusive Monopolist] Microsoft was accused of “blatantly negligent” cybersecurity..."
So basically we're meant to give away European identities to companies such as these? No way. Security issues aside, what about human rights aspects? Some are explored in the links here. █