cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/37443248

Fight Chat Control.

Comments

• Mastodon.
• Reddit.

Answer

Question no. 1425 (General part) from the Danish Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee:

"Will the minister elaborate on the minister's statement to TV2 on the 21st?"

August 2024, where the minister says: "We have to break with the totally mistaken notion that it is every man's freedom to communicate on encrypted messaging services

(…)”?”

Answer:

We know that social media and encrypted services are unfortunately largely is used to facilitate many forms of crime. There are examples on how criminal gangs recruit completely through encrypted platforms young people to commit, among other things, serious crimes against persons. It is an expression of a cynicism that is almost completely incomprehensible.

We therefore need to look at how we can overcome this problem. Both in terms of what the services themselves do, but also what we from the authorities can do. It must not be the case that the criminals can hide behind encrypted services that authorities cannot access access to.

Therefore, we, as a government, will also strengthen the police's capabilities in the area of ​​decryption, of course under appropriate legal guarantees, as is also the case today. In addition, the Ministry of Justice has The Criminal Justice Committee has just started working on a terms of reference that will look at the challenges that technological developments present to the police investigation, including the use of encrypted messaging services.

I also note that steps have been taken within the EU towards a strengthened regulation of, among other things, digital information services and social media platforms.

For example, the European Commission has proposed a new Regulation on rules for preventing and combating sexual abuse of children. The proposed regulation contains rules on obligations for certain online services to minimize the risk of their services being misused for online child sexual abuse, and the services can, if necessary, be required to track down, report, remove and block access to material showing sexual abuse of children.

Romania summoned the Russian ambassador to Bucharest on Sunday after a drone was observed breaching the country's airspace on its way to strike targets in Ukraine on Saturday. Poland also scrambled fighter jets last week to shoot down a number of Russian drones that had entered its airspace.

Germany's interior minister has confirmed direct talks with Afghanistan's rulers to facilitate "regular" deportations. Follow for the latest from Germany.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/48712513

Smaller vehicles that do not need to meet the same safety requirements as existing cars could be Europe's answer to maintaining its automotive industry.

Archived

Schleswig-Holstein only has about 3 million inhabitants, and is far from the richest part of Germany, but for the past several years it’s been following an ambitious strategy to wean itself off Big Tech’s software.

This means switching the workplaces of 30,000 civil servants – a headcount roughly comparable to the European Commission – from Microsoft Office software to open alternatives.

In an interview with Euractiv, digital minister Dirk Schrödter said his state is well on the way to achieving this goal. After getting started last March, Schleswig-Holstein is set to reduce the number of Office licences needed for administration by more than two-thirds by the end of this month, he told us.

[...]

The administration will still need a few Office licences to communicate with other regions and Germany’s federal tax administration, according to Schrödter. But the goal is to be able to get rid of all but a very few Microsoft Office licences by 2029.

Instead of sticking with Word and Powerpoint, the state’s civil servants are migrating to LibreOffice. Emails will go through Open Xchange and Thunderbird, rather than Microsoft’s Outlook, and documents will be edited collaboratively via Nextcloud, not Sharepoint.

The migration goes beyond desktop programmes, too. Schleswig-Holstein is running a Linux pilot to replace Windows itself. Currently around 150 people are testing the new operating system, including the digital minister.

[...]

A major focus for the shift is on making the change seamless. “It’s supposed to change as little as possible,” Schrödter said.

Civil servants will have to get used to new desktop icons and tools that are designed slightly differently, but – in theory – the alternatives should be just as comfortable to use.

But like every tech migration, this one is not going off without some pain. Just last week, an association of judges called for a return to Outlook, saying that outages were plaguing civil servants’ new email clients.

While the alternative software that Schleswig-Holstein is adopting is openly available, a lot of work needs to be done to integrate it with the needs of public administration. The region is mostly handing this work to existing contractors, just with new provisions for supporting open document formats.

[...]

The CHP's presidential candidate is in prison, and the party leadership faces removal from office. Now, a court case is looming. Turkey's largest opposition party is in danger of falling apart.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/48703504

Paywall? https://archive.is/TKAVP

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/51605006

Less than one hour left for the final.

Nearly a decade after Britain quit the E.U., British residents of Gibraltar on the southern tip of Spain, will regain travel and commercial access under a treaty.

Paywall? https://archive.is/mU7Rz

BUCHAREST, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Romania scrambled fighter jets on Saturday when a drone breached the country's airspace during a Russian attack on Ukrainian infrastructure near the border, the defence ministry said.

A threat of drone strikes also prompted Poland to deploy Polish and allied aircraft and close an airport in the eastern city of Lublin, three days after it shot down Russian drones in its airspace with the backing of aircraft from its NATO allies.

The drone did not fly over inhabited areas and did not pose an immediate danger to the population," the statement said.

Archived version

• The European Commission will publish non-binding guidance by December 2025 to tighten Schengen visa handling.
• Guidance urges consulates to apply stricter entry criteria, deeper security checks, and accept fewer travel reasons.
• Applicants from Russia face longer processing times, possible higher fees, and narrower accepted tourism or business reasons.

Eastern members—Poland, Czechia, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania—have led the charge since 2022, sharply limiting or blocking most tourist applications from Russians. Western and southern governments, including France, Spain, Italy, and Hungary, have continued to process requests more broadly, creating uneven practices across the bloc. The Commission wants to narrow those gaps without taking away national control. Spokespersons emphasize that governments will keep the final say on who gets a visa.

The security focus mirrors concerns raised across Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Diplomats and security agencies cite risks tied to espionage, sabotage, and abuse of diplomatic privileges. Border states argue that cleaving to stricter controls is necessary to protect critical sites and curb covert activity. According to diplomats from those countries, the upcoming guidance is “long overdue,” even if they would prefer binding steps.

...