The current internet is essentially so secure, it doesn't need or have a properly walled-off of underground of people who value secure communications. In the west few people outside actual criminals practice it strictly.

> EFF warns incoming rules may return web 'to the dark ages of 2011'

I don't want this law to pass, but I have fond memories of some of the communities that existed back then. If it passes, I at the very least hope like-minded people find a reason to congregate and practice fuckery again.

Obviously (for now) this law is easy to "opt out of" as a user - just download your browser from a mirror outside the EU, or remove the EU certs manually on your end. It's also a dumb law because it makes traffic interception trivially detectable by the end user - the EU is telling you that they're going to use these root certs for it! If they think nobody is going to modify their browser to POST not-safe-for-life imagery whenever such a cert is detected, they're probably wrong.