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The article does mention that companies could argue they took "reasonable steps" if they refuse to follow the best practices. If they choose that route and win

The article does mention that companies could argue they took "reasonable steps" if they refuse to follow the best practices. If they choose that route and win whatever court battle that follows, it'd essentially neuter this law. So there would at least a way out but it's risky.

londons_explore 7y ago
Lets think of what "reasonable steps" a service provider of encrypted messaging could take to prevent child porn on their service... * They could put up a big message saying 'no child porn'. I don't think that would be considered sufficient by a court. * They could put a 'report' button. Again - insufficient. * They could make client-side automated content scanners. Might be accepted by a court, but if you provide the scanner to the user, the government could argue it is easy to make images which bypass the scanner, which it would be. * They could break encryption on some percentage of chats. A court would likely be looking at a particular case, and would consider the service provider not to have done their duty if the particular case at hand hadn't been checked. I don't really see any reasonable steps which would stand up, other than breaking e2e and doing server-side scanning.
- henryfjordan 7y ago
  The proposed law (according to the article) requires the committee coming up with the rules to consider user privacy (not that they have to actually do that), but that gives a platform some cover to argue that breaking end-to-end encryption is not reasonable and that the report button will have to suffice.
  - tenpaiyomi 7y ago
    That would be fine, if not for the fact that the committees rules can be completely overridden as desired, essentially making the committee nothing more than a public appeasement piece.
cft 7y ago
Do you know how much such an "argument" would cost? Forget all the small forums, 4chan, Mastodon instances after this law. Maybe forget even Tor then, because by running a node at home or in your small business you are not adhering to the "best practices"
- henryfjordan 7y ago
  It would only take 1 platform with deep pockets to set a precedent for everyone
  - jachee 7y ago
    Say iMessage, for example?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

londons_explore 7y ago

Lets think of what "reasonable steps" a service provider of encrypted messaging could take to prevent child porn on their service... * They could put up a big message saying 'no child porn'. I don't think that would be considered sufficient by a court. * They could put a 'report' button. Again - insufficient. * They could make client-side automated content scanners. Might be accepted by a court, but if you provide the scanner to the user, the government could argue it is easy to make images which bypass the scanner, which it would be. * They could break encryption on some percentage of chats. A court would likely be looking at a particular case, and would consider the service provider not to have done their duty if the particular case at hand hadn't been checked. I don't really see any reasonable steps which would stand up, other than breaking e2e and doing server-side scanning.

henryfjordan 7y ago
The proposed law (according to the article) requires the committee coming up with the rules to consider user privacy (not that they have to actually do that), but that gives a platform some cover to argue that breaking end-to-end encryption is not reasonable and that the report button will have to suffice.
- tenpaiyomi 7y ago
  That would be fine, if not for the fact that the committees rules can be completely overridden as desired, essentially making the committee nothing more than a public appeasement piece.

cft 7y ago

Do you know how much such an "argument" would cost? Forget all the small forums, 4chan, Mastodon instances after this law. Maybe forget even Tor then, because by running a node at home or in your small business you are not adhering to the "best practices"

henryfjordan 7y ago
It would only take 1 platform with deep pockets to set a precedent for everyone
- jachee 7y ago
  Say iMessage, for example?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]