The unprecedented case of the attack on Telegram via the arrest of Pavel Durov - and the nature of the charges against him - has clearly emboldened not only the lovers of censorship (such as the EU) but also the enemies of encryption (the EU).
Encryption itself has long been in the crosshairs in the bloc, but also in various individual countries in Europe individually, and others around the world. This push to undermine encryption - despite it being the
key component of security, and privacy online - is habitually justified as necessary for law enforcement to do its job.
Now EU member Denmark is trying to come for end-to-end encryption, and not only Telegram, but also Signal, WhatsApp, and others. In this particular instance, Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard's preferred course of action would be to just block these apps (perhaps as a stopgap measure) rather than taking the much longer path of building encryption backdoors.
Judging by reports in the Danish press, Hummelgaard wants to use this moment to further increase pressure on encrypted services, unsurprisingly giving "fighting crime" as the reason.
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