I'm all for a secure E2E for all private communications, but not through prohibitions encoded into laws. Unless it's wartime or similar kind of emergency, it's best to never let the government of any kind to be in control of what[1] you can create (and share with others) and what you can't. No matter how benevolent current one looks like, such capability will be abused by the next one. Better have a constitution-level protection that no government can dictate what technology you must or must not use.
Not to say that it's not uncommon for legislatures to be quite awkward when trying to describe technology. And stay up-to-date with possible future breakthroughs.
In my opinion, if someone has an idea (and implementation) of something amazing that won't be E2E, it doesn't make any sense to ban that. Label as "doesn't provide end-to-end security"? Okay, I'm not fan of this stuff, but knowledge gap is significant, so that may be well-justified. Prohibit advertising as "100% secure"? Sure, as long as that's not one-time pads stuff, that's most likely misleading advertising claims worth investigation. But banning the software or the service? That's nuts. And it impedes on freedom to create things.
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[1] Okay, as long as that's not a nuke. Obvious exceptions apply. (Cryptography is not munitions or a hazardous material, right?)
Can a 'land of the free' encompass the concept of a territory where laws are made by unelected officials working behind closed doors? Some folk across the EU especially in the eastern European countries are now seriously wondering what they've signed up to.
Well, apart from the protection racket aspects of it that are going on at the moment.
Ah, this is a nice country. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it. I'm so sorry you were thinking of leaving, and stopping paying us billions per year. We really must ask you to hand over a hundred billion before we'll talk about any kind of trading relationship with you -- it would be such a shame if we happened to design the barriers in such a way that would accidentally maximise harm to your economy. But you know you're always welcome to stay and keep paying us just a few billion each year.
Racket? Sorry, but this is nonsense that Daily Mail spreads. The £100bn is not a Brexit divorce bill, it's UK's financial commitments as a member state.
Just because you leave to live in another country, doesn't mean you can stop your mortgage payments and still expect to have a relationship with the lender.
Leave if you wish, but honour your financial commitments you agreed and signed by either paying the whole mortgage upfront or agree to pay over the X period (which is what will most likely happen during negotiations).
I don't want to get bogged down in Brexit politics, but someone should point out that the £100B figure is not something to take seriously.
Firstly, it's not an official figure but rather an estimate by outside observers of the maximum bill the UK could be landed with given the worst (for the UK) interpretation of a wide range of plausible criteria about what might or might not be included in any settlement. You have to make some quite one-sided assumptions to get to a figure this high, and typically the reports where these kinds of figures come from do show this, though of course headline writers don't tend to incorporate such nuance.
Secondly, even if it were some sort of official figure, it would be politically untenable for the UK to accept it. The UK's net contribution to the EU as a member enjoying full membership benefits is about an order of magnitude smaller. The EU plans budgets on a 7-year cycle (the current one is 2013-2020) but the actual budgets are made annually. Those budgets normally do commit to future spending with quite a long tail, but the curve is very front-loaded and most money committed in any given year's budget is usually to be spent within 2-3 years.
So a figure in the region of £100B would be like asking the UK to pay for around another decade of full membership after it's left, a period far beyond most current spending commitments the EU is making. Moreover, the current EU position is that this needs to be negotiated independently, before any deal on any benefits the UK might retain in some form as a result of any future agreement or payments, so there would be little if any guarantee about the UK getting anything in return for that extra financial support to the EU.
Personally I'm still hoping for the professionals to take over from the politicians and come to a reasonable agreement. I don't think they have much chance of doing that in less than 2 years, but with an extra 2-3 years of some sort of transitional arrangement, it doesn't seem impossible. They could deal with the budgeting issues and current financial commitments at that notice, allowing a more graceful withdrawal by the UK without either anyone feeling they'd had funding cut off abruptly on the EU side or the UK putting up either a huge lump sum or any sort of ongoing financial support to the EU without getting something worthwhile in return.
With a mortgage the bank gives you the money and you're paying them back.
With the EU, you give them money (£200bn net subsidy over the last few decades) and then they demand you give them more money, somehow to balance the money you've already given them...
Though there are aspects of the EU I strongly support, in this regard, it's the layabout of the political world, demanding that because you gave it a subsidy, you have to do it's washing and pay its rent forevermore.
You're probably being downvoted for hyperbole, but IMO there's undeniably a palpable undercurrent of petty vengefulness in EU leadership - as evidenced for example with Gibraltar. It doesn't inspire confidence, and is probably counterproductive : honey is generally more effective than vinegar.
I think you're misreading the interests and positions of the parties.
Giving the UK the shaft absolutely serves the EU's interest in deterring other members from trying to leave.
Further, the EU hardly needs an advantaged trading relationship with the UK, so they have little interest in sweetening any deal. In fact, major elements in both France and Germany wish for there to be no advantaged trade, at least in financial services, explicitly to steal that tax base for themselves.
The UK, on the other hand, desperately needs such an advantaged relationship and will likely face a choice between reverting the Brexit decision or taking a very bitter swill of vinegar, indeed.
