This appears to be a rather sensationalist headline for a move that is admittedly boneheaded on Orbán's part. To ensure the state's ability to surveil, the government had a plan to enforce the inclusion of backdoors.
However, it appears that after some consultation with people that had a clue - of which Hungary actually has a large number - the government has decided that would be a Bad Idea and has tabled the plans.
This is actually very typical of Fidesz (Orbán Viktor's ruling party). They love making abrupt and sweeping changes to the law, then leaving everybody else to pick up the pieces. Occasionally, cooler heads prevail before the law is actually broken, but normally there's just a mess.
For international readers, in US English 'table' means 'postpone', whereas in British English it means 'to present for discussion' which has almost the opposite meaning!
Interesting, first time I hear it (I'm not a native speaker, but I have a lot of meetings with Americans), but Mr. Merriam and Mr. Webster definitely seem to agree with you:
I've never seen 'table' being used as 'postpone' by any American, either in literature or on the intertubes; is it some sort of professional / niche usage?
Winston Churchill wrote about a misunderstanding during World War 2 which was caused by the different meanings for this expression:
The enjoyment of a common language was of course a supreme advantage in all British and American discussions. The delays and often partial misunderstandings which occur when interpreters are used were avoided. There were however differences of expression, which in the early days led to an amusing incident. The British Staff prepared a paper which they wished to raise as a matter of urgency, and informed their American colleagues that they wished to "table it." To the American Staff "tabling" a paper meant putting it away in a drawer and forgetting it. A long and even acrimonious argument ensued before both parties realized that they were agreed on the merits and wanted the same thing.
Interesting bit of history. The usage I've heard is that 'tabling' means to postpone, putting something on the table means to present something. Generally just 'table' means, well a table. Then again, Canadian here.
I'm a Canadian too, but my understanding matched the British usage. Newspapers are full of stuff like this quote from The Globe and Mail: "Mr. McCallum told reporters Tuesday that the government will table its annual immigration report before March 9."
Hmm, guess I need to read more newspapers. I do find though that as time goes on our language tends to use both American and British spellings/meanings seemingly at random, due to the various influences (plus a few Canadianisms).
I'm american, and I've definitely seen it used "Alright, let's just table the issue" implying "let's come back to that issue later". I can't say that the slang makes any sense, but that's slang for you heh
I'm an American. The use of "table" in colloquialisms while participating in meetings has many different distinctions/meanings.
"let's put it all on the table" - I would like for you and I to be completely honest with each other, even if I don't like what you are about to say.
"let's table that" - I would like for you to remember what you wanted to say, but please don't say it now. Also, talk to me later in a separate discussion if what you wanted to say is still relevant.
"it's off the table" - That particular item/thought is no longer relevant to the discussion, please ignore it.
"clear the table" - Please get ready to discuss something entirely new of a higher priority. Or, I would like to start the same discussion over, but this time I have a better understanding of what I would like to communicate.
I'm American, and I generally understand 'to table a debate' to mean 'suspend discussion'. Use of the word 'suspend' is probably more common in informal use, but I often hear 'table' used to mean 'suspend discussion' when the point of the discussion is to reach a formal decision.
For instance, my local paper might report that 'discussion on the proposed ordinance was tabled after hours of heated debate at City Council'. If we've been talking about a point for too long without reaching a conclusion at work, somebody might suggest we table it.
I first encountered the 'present for discussion' meaning in Model U.N., which I found very confusing. The BBC World Service uses that meaning, which is extremely confusing when they are reporting on American politics.
No. That is specifically what it means for parliamentary proceedings in the US. Any discussion that's postponed for another time under Robert's Rules of Order is done so with a "motion to table."
(BTW: what's the British counterpart to Robert's Rules?)
Yes, in formal meetings, to "Table the issue" means to agree to stop talking about it until later. It then becomes part of "unfinished business" on future agendas.
It comes from our legislature, but it's been adopted into somewhat common parlance in business. Normal people wouldn't say it in casual conversation, though.
I'm Hungarian. This bullshit is actively being reverted.
Originally there was a plan to put encryption app users in jail for up to two years.
But not all communication apps would be treated equal: mainstream applications already using encryption, such as Skype or Viber, would be perfectly okay. Only using those applications specifically written to encrypt communication, primarily CryptTalk, would have been punishable.
Edit: Our speculation is that this is the same strategy seen with the internet tax. Spreading FUD and stealing state wealth while everybody runs in circles.
Edit 2: They did ban using CryptTalk and similar products (all communication services with encryption as their main selling point). No information on how they plan to enforce this decision: their only tool is to ask mobile app stores nicely to hide these apps from plain sight.
Pretty sure Microsoft never advertised Skype as something they couldn't intercept, so you probably shouldn't have been using it for anything you wouldn't say over the phone line in the first place.
I don't think it did, but when Microsoft bought it, Skype was still considered "hard to eavesdrop" due to its P2P architecture.
Microsoft left everyone to believe that it's still secure even after it centralized its nodes and would constantly refuse to respond to questions about whether Skype can be intercepted. I remember at one point about 50 civil liberties groups sent an open letter to Microsoft about it, and it refused to answer it then, too.
I also remember that some people were noticing that their https links would get blocked on Skype, which also meant Microsoft can MITM the Skype chats between users and it was no longer P2P (if I remember correctly Microsoft also tried to hide the fact that Skype was no longer P2P for quite a while, again leaving people to believe their chats could not be intercepted).
Microsoft also killed TOM-Skype in China, which was specifically designed to allow interception and censorship that bypassed Skype's P2P architecture. At the time, everyone who was paying attention knew that this meant Skype could now be intercepted everywhere, otherwise Microsoft wouldn't have deprecated TOM-Skype for China.
But Fidesz does this with everything. I mean, look at the tobacco sales permit thing. It's just that threatening the Internet threatens one of the few industries where Hungary is actually making good money, so there's some pushback.
There is a now a growing awareness of the unhealthy level of obsession governments have about citizens communications.
This is in effect the same as the Burr-Feinstein encryption bill, one penalizes users, the other service providers. The bottom line is there is a lot of posturing about privacy but little commitment. All governments without exception are obsessed with your communications and data. It is unsettling and creepy.
I really think some users will have to take 'secure communications' into their own hands depending on the level of need and address metadata exposures. If its remotely life threatening or impacting it would be foolish to depend on any service provider or technology.
You can't win an encryption 'arms race' against state level actors with near endless resources, capabilities and the will. And the law and willingness to arm twist service providers and projects with secret courts, orders, intimidation, harassment.
One can't help feeling current technologies however committed fall way short and are only lulling us into a false sense of privacy and complacency. A solution that does not acknowledge a state actors sheer range of capabilities and clearly articulate how it is addressed is not a solution. Perhaps something that completely randomizes metadata and makes it too expensive to break per user.
This is what happens when someone that do not know anything about internet architecture tries to make something illegal. Good luck in enforcing this law.
They intend to jail anyone who uses GMail, WhatsApp, or any other encrypted service? Such a effort will fail, if only because there isn't enough space in the jails...
The second interpretation is that the point is to create state power to imprison anyone they do not like while giving plausibly legal excuse for this.
The pattern typically goes like this:
1. Create an inane law that no-one obeys
2. Do not enforce the law
3. People forget the law, and behave as they've always done
4. Now, to jail anyone you don't like, just set a police to watch over them and observe any number of the every day tasks declared illegal
5. Congratulations, you now have a seemingly legal mechanism to jail anyone you don't like. Good job!
Lot's of legislation end up stupid because people are not perfect, but since silly all-encompassing laws have been used historically as a tool for oppression one should have as little as possible charity in the interpretation when a silly law is observed.
It's more common than you might think, even in the US. A common example I see is major cities where the freeway speed limit is 45 or 55, but everyone is doing 70 or 80mph, even the police officers. Most of the time that cop will drive right past you even if you're doing 20mph or 30mph over the speed limit, but if they want to pull you over, now they have a free reason to arrest you and impound your car. But if you're driving the speed limit while everyone else flies by you, you could be pulled over because driving too slow is suspicious.
It seems that, given enough time, governments will find ways to implement enough contradictory laws that everyone is a criminal.
You should beware, as GMail isn't an "encrypted service", only your communication with their servers is. This prevents MitM attacks from small adversaries, until the government forces their own root certificate on every citizen that is. But given Google has business and representation in Europe, they are susceptible to governmental requests for mass surveillance (especially because of the good cooperation the NSA has with foreign intelligence agencies), plus for individuals (like specific enemies of government) all it takes is a subpoena.
Even if the Govt forces their own certificates on people it won't work with modern browsers because they support certificate pinning (and hence will refuse to visit a site with the wrong CA).
So then they'd need to force Govt browsers on people while also trying to censor browsers from the rest of the world.
None of the above is viable in the short, medium or long term.
Is that "close" as in an imperative ("close those Hungarians inside their borders") or as in a description that borders are "closed" ("the Hungarians have closed their borders")?
I have seen a lot of Orban-bashing because he wants does not accept the uncontrolled immigration policies of EU (of people from outside EU, particularly Middle East) but there the "borders are closed" is for outsiders coming in, not for Hungarians leaving (which would actually make the country a jail). Two very different things.
Right to emigrate out of a country is a fundamental human right, right to immigrate in to a particular country is not. People who advocate for the latter tend to (intentionally) confuse it with the former.
I mean the first. If you want to jail everybody using encryption, you have to jail everybody. So, the best action for that is to close the borders so the Hungarians can't leave. It is a ridiculous solution for a ridiculous plan.
> Right to emigrate out of a country is a fundamental human right
Yes, obviously; being in jail means that some fundamental human rights (right of free movement) are removed.
However, which do you mean, that others should lock Hungarians in a country-wide jail as a retaliation for having elected a leader you don't like, or that Hungarians themselves should do it for some reason even if they don't want to?
I mean: If Hungary wants to jail everybody who uses encryption, and everybody uses encryption, it's "more efficient" to make the country itself the jail, because that many Hungarians don't fit inside the jails.
Governments don't need to be able to catch everyone with such a law. The fear is that it could be used to "get rid of" targeted people whom the government don't like for political or ideological reasons.
So, does this make (for example) visiting a website over HTTPS illegal? Or does it compel Hungarian ISPs to MITM their customers? It seems to imply one in one sentence, then the other in the next.
I can't access the article right now. But I'm fairly certain that a couple of stupid deputies who don't understand anything about technology/cryptology want to introduce a law against it and everyone is going ape shit "Hungary want to criminalize the use of encrypted services".
The same thing happens in France from time to time.
That's not stupid. That's chaotic evil, almost by definition: "let's just float this thing again and again, see if we can get away with it. If not, just pretend we didn't see it coming and retry sometime later. Repeat until law passes."
The proposition to mandate backdoor is http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/amendements/3318/CION_L... . It was supported by Mme Kosciusko-Morizet, M. Martin-Lalande, M. Cinieri, Mme Duby-Muller, M. Sermier, Mme Rohfritsch, M. Straumann, M. Abad, M. Salen, M. Morel-A-L'Huissier, M. Ginesy, M. Mathis, M. Degallaix, M. Hetzel, Mme Grosskost, Mme Lacroute, Mme Genevard et M. Saddier.
NKM is not ignorant in technology. IMHO, she is evil.
You need to know that Hungarian politics is often very low quality and caters to stupid people. They said that encrypted phone apps (specific apps designed for encrypted communication like CryptTalk) should be banned due to terror threat. Terror threat is a very new idea in Hungarian politics since the migration crisis and the recent Western European terror attacks.
So now they also tried to say something big and bold like those ideas they read about in the newspapers. These politicians are mostly old people, most of whom studied law (or economics). They have no idea about technology. The prime minister is a digital illiterate. He doesn't use computers in his work, he writes pen on paper and reads everything printed. In 2007, he didn't even have a mobile phone. (He has one since he's prime minister again, a Nokia dumbphone)
They truly didn't have a clue, when they proposed this. We are a small country and we have some incompetent politicians. It's not comparable to the US government stating something like this.
They also tried to introduce an Internet tax based on gigabytes of traffic. They like to throw in ideas like this so the press has some bullshit to dwelve on. Then they back off.
So news about what the Hungarian government plans to do should not be taken too seriously, because they like to drop topics around.
I'm Hungarian. This is just another populist act of the Fidesz government. They recently went full retard with anti-terrorism and this is part of their action plan.
I doubt they are serious, but it would be potentially used against the enemies of the state or it's perfect to distract the media so they could carry on stealing.
Indeed. These nonsense plans makes the journalists busy, so they don't have remaining resources to investigate and make as loud the things happening in the shadows.
I would say encryption is somewhat of a red herring. It is the introduction of similar surveillance policy that is quickly becoming widespread, I don't even think Hungary is an early adopter here. The sources even citing roughly 'granting powers other governments already have' and establishing an agency TIBEK with similar access to data (without warrant IIRC) as common 3 letter agencies. They even use the same terrorism/ISIS/Brussels/France reasoning.
I guess in the end everyone can pick their surveillance point on the safety - freedom graph.
"The sources even citing roughly 'granting powers other governments already have'" - do you think that government bullshits not? I do remember a similar way of reasoning "but Iraq has WMDs aplenty", coming from a Prime Minister or somesuch.
> anyone caught using encrypted software can be punished by 2 years of prison
> The providers would be obliged to ensure access to the content of the encrypted messages
I am not sure if users can be punished. I could only confirm that providers have obligation to provide data under penalty.
European countries are pretty benevolent to end users, for example in some it is legal to download copyright protected music and videos for personal use. And providers already have obligation (by EU law) to provide information and archive it for some time.
But the general question is this: would companies rather exit from such country and protect some values, or provide a non-encrypted version of their services to secure their userbase?
Ok, so people in the government realised, that there exist encryption methods, which can not be "decrypted", and technology makes encryption accessible to everyone.
When will they realise, that there is no way to detect, whether a message is encrypted or not-encrypted, and there may be multiple levels of "tunneling". It is not possible to find out the original form or the source (app) of information.
Monitoring online communication is in not any simpler, than monitoring verbal communication between every 2 people.
This case points out an interesting difference between Hungary and the US: In the US, surveillance is real, and when policy-makers get briefed about what the surveillance state wants, that's based on things they have, or plan on implementing.
This law in Hungary appears to be based on a wish list. Otherwise they would have known what is practical and what isn't. So, DO governments spend all day spying on us? Only the ones that have the budget and technical means to make it real. The rest are just authoritarian wankers.
Orban has no idea about any technology, let alone encryption. He probably can't even use email. Seriously, the guy only got a mobile phone in the last few years. He has no computers in his office.
However, it appears that after some consultation with people that had a clue - of which Hungary actually has a large number - the government has decided that would be a Bad Idea and has tabled the plans.
Source: Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (http://tasz.hu/en/news/hungarian-government-plans-enforce-en...).
This is actually very typical of Fidesz (Orbán Viktor's ruling party). They love making abrupt and sweeping changes to the law, then leaving everybody else to pick up the pieces. Occasionally, cooler heads prevail before the law is actually broken, but normally there's just a mess.