17 ms·

Messaging and chat control

643 points by kristjank 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
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kristjank 5y ago
I think this isn't getting nearly enough traction, especially considering how undemocratic EU's legislative procedures can get. Considering the lack of direct democracy in the European Union, exposure and public protest is the only viable way to oppose this legislature. There's also an ongoing petition against the legislature: https://www.openpetition.eu/petition/online/preserve-eprivacy-protect-childrens-rights-stop-chatcontrol https://www.openpetition.eu/petition/online/preserve-eprivac...
- zibzab 5y ago
  Hold your horses, put down the pitchforks. You realise the author is a _member of the European Parliament_?? And at least in my corner of EU we vote on who to send to EU parliament. You can vote on whoever you want in the national elections and then vote for the pirate party for the EU seat. Edit: from your comment history I guess you vote far right, which is usually the part of EU pushing hardest for these measures??
  - herbst 5y ago
    It's still no and far from a direct democracy.
    - loriverkutya 5y ago
      Can you please be sensible? Direct demoracy is not working with 445 million people.
      - bondarchuk 5y ago
        Mathematically it's not more difficult to determine the majority vote among 400 million people, than among 10 million. What would prevent it from working for you?
        tchalla 5y ago
        > it's not more difficult to determine the majority vote among 400 million people Democracy is not majority voting.
        thegrimmest 5y ago
        "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives." Basically it is. You don't need representatives to be democratic.
      - herbst 5y ago
        Yes? Any data for that?
        loriverkutya 5y ago
        No direct democracy existed in known history with 445 million people.
      - effie 5y ago
        It could work, just do referendum in every country and then implement the result. It would require that people in power in all countries wanted to give power to their people, and implemented it securely. Which is why it won't happen.
      - lwn 5y ago
        In my opinion it's impossible for a small group of people/ politicians to determine what's good for 445 million people.
    - toxik 5y ago
      Direct democracy is not a panacea. In fact, it can be quite the opposite. Fair and effective governance is a very difficult thing to achieve, tending either to be subvertible, or totalitarian.
      - herbst 5y ago
        Not saying that is not true. Yet living in one of the few direct democracies it is the very best we have in terms of democracy. On a bigger scale liquid democracy may is more interesting. Edit:// the EU or even the US has shown multiple times that it will act against the majority of they can.
      - bondarchuk 5y ago
        I think representative democracy specifically does not work to stave off totalitarianism. When the issue under consideration is about increasing the power of politicians over the citizenry, many politicians will switch from voting as representatives of citizens, to voting as politicians. A binding referendum that can only retract proposed laws, like we have/had/will have (sorry, I don't know exactly) in NL, seems like it could largely solve this issue, provided it gets sufficient traction.
      - tacocataco 5y ago
        Direct democracy is best when the amount of people voting stays small. Think local government.
      - t0bia_s 5y ago
        Democracy cannot work without free acces to information. However, most people wont care about it. Especially nowadays when public opinions are shaped by social networks with censorship and sensations. We can implement all kind of ideologies on masses very fast. So direct democracy could be more dangerous than you can imagine.
    - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
      > far from a direct democracy. And? Direct democracies are far worth than representative democracies in practically everyway. The Covid crisis should have made clear to all that people are not policies experts. Given than no country in the UE significantly uses direct democracy (referendums are pretty much never used and always devolve into a ridiculous race to who can say the most outrageous thing in front of the media), I don't see how that can be leveraged against the institution.
      - herbst 5y ago
        You realize that Switzerland hasen't voted to wear masks and get restrictions? Having a direct democracy does not mean the gov can't make their own decisions at times.
        WastingMyTime89 5y ago
        Yes, I do realize Switzerland doesn't actually use direct democracy for things that matter and when they do they often end up with xenophobic laws. I don't even want to talk about town assemblies voting on naturalisation decisions.
        hhlbf 5y ago
        So if they want to be xenophobic, what's the problem? It's their country and they can do whatever they want with it.
        MauranKilom 5y ago
        "So if they want to kill all the Jews, what's the problem? It's their country and they can do whatever they want with it." Creating laws based on popularity makes populism rule. Hence why democracy usually has an explicit legislative branch abstracting over individual sentiments. That helps prevent policy from being devised through an overly greedy algorithm. That is not to say it prevents all these problems. But it evidently helps.
  - kristjank 5y ago
    It's not my fault that I was too young to vote at the last EU elections. That's changed since and you bet your ass that I'll vote for the right people when I'm able to. Also raising awareness and promoting a petition about an issue isn't the same as raising pitchforks. I'm thinking there's a subtext here...
    - dmos62 5y ago
      I chuckled when you said "the right people". Like, there's the right people, and then what's left. Get it? Right and left. Puns.
      - Zenst 5y ago
        The whole polarization of political issues into right and left is and always will distract from the issues being debated and more so, ends up derailing any debate and discourse about the issues as they get drowned out by the labels. Very easy to label something right wing or left wing to distract from the issue at debate and it has become very much a political tool in much the same way the "think of the children" card is played.
        dmos62 5y ago
        You get no argument from me. I just really enjoyed the pun.
        dmos62 5y ago
        You could turn it around: right assholes and what's left.
        dmos62 5y ago
        I'll show myself out...
  - tomxor 5y ago
    > we vote on who to send to EU parliament. You are describing a representative democracy, the parent pointed out the lack of direct democracy in the process. And I would tend to agree that there needs to be more direct democracy involved at some point in the policy making process to accommodate just such a scenario where it's clear the vast majority are not happy with the result. Representative democracy has it's place, but the reality is that you cannot pick and choose - most people want privacy, but most people are also aware of the wider issues and concerned if the fringe parties are competent enough in making decisions in other areas. Perhaps a good compromise is to be able to shoot down their propositions, so that even though they may not further the ideals the majority want in all areas, they will at least be prevented from eroding them. But as the parent pointed out, there is no mechanism in place to do this currently, so people are limited to protests and petitions.
    - toshk 5y ago
      Even a representative democracy is a far fetched idea with the EU. Nobody really understand how the EU works, except for a few bureaucrats. There are too many proxies. You vote for a local party, then you find out they go into a coalition because the parliament is huge: over 700 seats. And those parties in one coalition have very different agenda's. Then you look deeper, and the parliament's power is very limited, and most of the power lies with the council and commission. Both are not chosen in an election but in negotiations by the governments, which tends to mean certain countries like Germany and France have a very big say. Of course in a very indirect way these are somewhat chosen by certain part you of the people in the EU.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - marcus_holmes 5y ago
        This got really apparent in the discussions around Brexit. Lots of people saying "I vote in EU elections", assuming that the EU elections work the same as all the other elections they vote in. It really doesn't. The EU is very much an oligarchy controlled by a small number of unelected bureaucrats. They've been very careful to not let the curtain slip too far, and preserve the appearance that popular opinion can change policy. But there's no legislative connection. This kind of legislation is an interesting case in point. Who wants this? Who benefits from this? Is it actually going to make a dent in child abuse? Generally the EU is keen on privacy, so what changed that for this? Are there any states really pushing for this so they can read their citizens' mail (Poland, maybe, I guess, but they're not having a great time in the EU at the moment so probably not)? As TFA says, this is not a popular move, and there's no popular wave of anti-pedo sentiment at the moment, so why now? The suspicion of palm-greasing (sorry, "lobbying") remains. Reading our messages means more data for the AI, means better ad targeting.
  - olodus 5y ago
    Yup. Have done and will continue to do exactly this. While I don't find the Pirate party's policies comprehensive enough for my national government, I do find the EU parliament the perfect level of government for the issue they address to be handled at.
  - ant6n 5y ago
    You realize a single or even multiple MPs cant block the passing of laws in parlaiment, since laws are passed by majorities, not consensus/unanimiusly. So please do get out those pitch, especially since this is the next level of surveillance.
    - hutzlibu 5y ago
      What you are in effect saying is, since your (our) positions have not the majority in parliament, we need to resort to violence? Can we try other established democratic ways, like voting, petitioning, demonstrating, etc. before that?
  - cjfd 5y ago
    The EU parliament has far too little power to come anywhere close to the EU being a democracy. The problem being that in second reading there has to be a 2/3 majority to approve amendments.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - playguardin 5y ago
    I won't argue with you that democracy sucks.
  - dang 5y ago
    Please keep name-calling and personal attacks out of your comments here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - zibzab 5y ago
      Exactly where is this name calling? Please unflag this so we can continue the discussion.
      - dang 5y ago
        "Hold your horses" and "put down the pitchforks" count as name-calling in the sense that the HN guidelines use that term, because they are swipes that don't reply to the actual argument. Ultimately they're just putdowns. Please omit those from your posts to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- suction 5y ago
  The lack of direct democracy in the EU is the only thing that keeps it from becoming the UK.
  - richardwhiuk 5y ago
    Most major democratic governments don't have direct democracy.
- ceilingcorner 5y ago
  I wish people understood the origins and structure of the EU. It grew out of a trade association (ECSC) and has very little to do with direct or even representative democracy in the standard sense of the word, i.e. representative of the populace. It is an external political class with only tangential connections to individual citizens. This is an issue, because it gives opponents of European integration a fairly legitimate position to be critical.
- dmos62 5y ago
  You sure are throwing words around. Undemocratic, lack of direct democracy. Are you confusing the two, or are these different complaints? Sounds like you're trying to say that any representative democracy isn't really a democracy.
slickrick216 5y ago
It’s the same people who believe in medical apartheid that are bringing this in. All under the guise of the greater good. Who is it good for because it’s not for the publics. Law enforcement brutality exists online too and all over the world. It’s not simply a US phenomenon. Sickens me that they use children as an excuse. If they really gave a crap about kids there is so much that could be done right now.
- czzr 5y ago
  Medical apartheid? What’s that referring to?
  - ForHackernews 5y ago
    Presumably they're referring to requirements for vaccinations to attend large public gatherings. I think it's an absurd hyperbole, myself.
    - the-dude 5y ago
      > large public gatherings. In some counties it is much broader than that. Painting it as hyperbole sounds hollow if you are downplaying it yourself.
      - petre 5y ago
        If the gathering is large enough they can't stop it and will back down. See the yellow vests movement.
        the-dude 5y ago
        That only works for gatherings not associated with a legal entity. For example a sports club ( football? ) can't ignore the rules or it will be fined / closed.
        petre 5y ago
toadi 5y ago
Question is always what is suspicious ?
- contravariant 5y ago
  Surely everything is suspicious until proven otherwise? Although if something is 100% without a doubt not suspicious, that's also somewhat suspicious.
kleiba 5y ago
Privacy is something that people usually only care about on a theoretical level. Practically speaking, they're often happy to not care so much at all if they get something more tangible in return. --- Company: Excuse me, would you mind us profiling you through an accurate survey of most of your everyday purchases? Customer: Heck no! Company: What if we let you collect "points" that will maybe someday safe you a little bit of money on one of these purchases? Customer: Sign me up! --- Company: Excuse me, would you mind us recording everywhere you go all day every day and store that information for at least six months? Customer: Heck no! Company: What if you get a pocket computer with fast mobile internet connection in return, the corner stone of modern life? Customer: Sign me up!
- kristjank 5y ago
  True. Although nothing-to-hiders will chime in quickly, stating that their shopping history isn't really that important to their sense of privacy.
  - dylkil 5y ago
    They wouldn't like their neighbors knowing their shopping history, the principle should be the same.
    - hutzlibu 5y ago
      But their neighors do not know it, and if amazon or the government knows it(pr their browser histpry, emails, ...) it has the same effect to them, that god knows it all. Can't do anything about it. Too distant to care. Thats my conclusion of privacy discussions with "normal" people.
- avsteele 5y ago
  Yes, users are price sensitive when it comes to selling their privacy. They also have a different sensitivity upon consideration of who the other party is and their perceived/intended use of the data. To me, this isn't so surprising and is fully consistent with a greater willingness to give personal info to e.g. Amazon than e.g. the government.
cwizou 5y ago
Assuming this is correct (I only followed a couple of links, but it would be the EU planning to mandate content scan for CSAM on all e-mail and messaging platforms, after making it legal/optional already to do so earlier this year), I guess this answer the question of why Apple released their tech. While it made little sense on iCloud Photos, they can add the exact same client-side scanning to iMessage and keep it (mostly) e2ee. Certainly not judging the merits of this, such mandates would be the end of e2ee via third party companies (there seems to have been a concerted worldwide effort around that), but at the very least, I can see the impetus from Apple's point of view to release this right now.
- sneak 5y ago
  iMessage has an e2e backdoor on by default in the form of plaintext escrow via iCloud Backup (not e2e). iMessage is, in practice today, no longer e2e. Apple knows this and intentionally preserves this backdoor for the FBI: https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1ZK1CT https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1ZK1CT
  - bkm 5y ago
    Just like WhatsApp 'conveniently' integrated Google Drive backups by default. That is why it's funny to see the fake outrage of WhatsApp's team over this.
  - foerbert 5y ago
    For a little more context, see https://www.howtogeek.com/710509/apples-imessage-is-secure...-unless-you-have-icloud-enabled/ https://www.howtogeek.com/710509/apples-imessage-is-secure..... For those unfamiliar, as I was, it appears iCloud backup is enabled by default. I think the above statement about iMessage not being e2e in practice is very fair.
    - sneak 5y ago
      Note that even if you disable iCloud/iCloud Backup, all of your iMessages will still be leaked unencrypted to Apple via the phone on the other end of the conversation that still has iCloud Backup enabled.
White_Wolf 5y ago
I'm wondering how long until inconvenient people(or people with inconvenient opinions) are targeted for blackmailing material with a system like this.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Zenst 5y ago
  As in send them an email that will trigger the system in a way to cause grief or induce further evasive exploration of the recipients life. Show me a guarantee that will never happen as that is the fear as we all know - any system can be gamed for good or bad.
- xtracto 5y ago
  What's stopping someone from buying a used computer at the city street market, taking it to one public park with internet access and sending child porn to a huge list of MEPs[1] or one of the countless leaked emails lists (from Facebook and other providers) [1] https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/list_of_meps_and_their_offices_e_4 https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/list_of_meps_and_their_o... )
- effie 5y ago
  That kind of assassination of inconvenient people is already being used for a long time. Just plant the evidence and tip off the cops. This kind of legislation is for a different reason: to introduce pervasive surveillance of people activities and speech, and normalize the concept.
avnigo 5y ago
This report [0] is all I could find. I would have expected this to be more widely reported, and I'm surprised to see it isn't. [0]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2021-0319_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2021-0319...
- pimterry 5y ago
  That link shows the existing legislation, approved in July. Today it doesn't mandate anybody to scan anything but effectively _allows_ service providers to scan for CSAM, if they wish, by defining "combating online child sexual abuse" as a legitimate reason to process personal data within the limitations of the EU's various privacy & data protection directives (GDPR being the obvious one, but there's others too). It's worth noting that this was legal everywhere else in the world already (Google are free to scan a US user's Gmail for CSAM with no problem, if they want to). The motivating concern was that service providers who do already scan for this kind of abuse material (everywhere in the world) were at risk of having to disable such scanning entirely for EU citizens due to privacy laws. This is 'temporary', in that it's a quick fix to avoid service providers immediately disabling all those systems, until more concrete rules on how/when/if service providers should scan content for CSAM are put in place. That part is not a big problem (imo). The risk is that future legislation goes much further. The article here seems to be largely lobbying and pushing general awareness of the issue, rather than reporting on any real news (not that that's necessarily bad). So far, there's no concrete proposal AFAICT, let alone a planned vote on such legislation. The EU Commission (who propose legislation, which is then voted on by the parliament etc) have previously said they're looking into mandatory scanning, but given the pushback it's unclear whether that's still the plan. In the end, it's probably not widely reported because the mandatory part doesn't appear to have a concrete proposal in motion yet. Articles like this are appearing anyway because it _might_ be proposed legislation soon (there's mentions of Autumn 2021) and it's important to mobilize to inform the public and make their opinions visible as early as possible, rather than waiting until the last minute.
  - zerkten 5y ago
    >> The motivating concern was that service providers who do already scan for this kind of abuse material (everywhere in the world) were at risk of having to disable such scanning entirely for EU citizens due to privacy laws. I'm curious if this was a situation where they might have decided that scanning was more important given the implications of processing CSAM? It seems like this is a way for authorities to influence any data processor. The Apple news last week seemed to come out of the blue and it felt a bit like a trade-off to get out from under the authorities to some degree. This is just conjecture though.
effie 5y ago
It's agendas like these when you realize submitting your country laws to legislation from Brusel was a fatal error.
- kristjank 5y ago
  Right on. Looking into ways of stopping this from happening has given me a very real feeling of desperation. There's no real way for an EU citizen to stop laws like these from getting accepted. No option for a referendum, no option for a veto, the best bet is getting the EU court to annul it, but that takes decades.
  - fabbari 5y ago
    EU citizens CAN block this! Make your representative in the Council of the EU accountable. If 4 members veto this the legislation will not pass. If you can't move your country representative to veto the bill, then the issue is not the EU: it's your government. As Europeans we have to stop this very sneaky campaign of "citizens can't do anything" - it's a self fulfilling prophecy and the sharpest tool the lobbies have in the EU. Your country's government has a say on it, and you have a say on your country's government. Make them accountable.
    - effie 5y ago
      > Make your representative in the Council of the EU accountable. How would I do that? He is already in that position, I have zero influence on his decisions.
- dTal 5y ago
  I'm sorry, what country were you from again, that has a human rights record so much cleaner than the EU? It sounds like a lovely place.
  - effie 5y ago
    This is not substantive. Please read the HN guidelines.
Proven 5y ago
Easy solution to this and many other problems: leave the EU. The UK did it and they're still alive.
q-rews 5y ago
Looking forward to the 2050 Asshole Control Act that will mandate daily colonoscopies in case someone is hiding a pendrive with CP on it. Just in case. You wouldn’t be opposed, would you? What are you a nonce? Arrest the downvoter.
- effie 5y ago
  Citizen, show me child protector greenpass on your phone. You don't have it? We will have to search your phone and your cavities.
- aj3 5y ago
  Try stuffing pendrive there and going through airport securiyt. We're already checking for this (effectively).
qwerty456127 5y ago
I wonder how much people there actually are who don't yet know child porn is a classic bullshit excuse governments use every time they want more control over the Internet. It's so classic, so blatant it feels cringy already. Not even for a second I would believe they do this to actually protect children.
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  Whenever a politician invokes "think of the children", ask them about their funding of Child Protection Services. Any political action that's said to be under the umbrella of "think of the children" that doesn't provide additional funding to existing Child Protection Services is for reasons other than child protection. Additionally, it's actively working against helping children because the funds for "this new thing", if the goal really was for actually protecting vulnerable children, would be better spent on improving the coverage that existing Child Protection Services provide. A close friend of mine is in a position that requires "mandatory reporting" training, and they say it's relatively pointless because Child Services only has the resources to investigate cases in which the child's life is in immediate danger. This may be somewhere along the scale of hyperbole, but I doubt it's too far from reality. Of course, removing children from danger is often removing them from their parents / legal guardians, which comes with its own set of risks. Either way, funding boots-on-the-ground work with leads from local social workers, early childhood educators, teachers has to be the best way to actually protect at-risk children.
  - dqpb 5y ago
    > Of course, removing children from danger is often removing them from their parents / legal guardians, which comes with its own set of risks. What number of false positives would you tolerate?
    - BLKNSLVR 5y ago
      I genuinely do not know the answer. But also, what would you define as false positive? It's blurry definitions all the way down, and that's part of the reason politics doesn't like this problem and would rather argue technology and punishment after-the-fact than actual protection / prevention. Nuance is expensive and doesn't play well to the crowd.
kecupochren 5y ago
The news are pretty depressing these last couple of days. We're marching towards very dystopian future.
- toxik 5y ago
  We have had unprecedented growth and development in the world, it's just that bad news sells more papers. Don't let it bring you down!
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    There is not much to rejoice if all that growth will go in the hands of the few friends of the government, leaving a richer 0.01%, a broken middle class and unstable societies.
  - ailef 5y ago
    I guess this is sarcastic?
  - rapnie 5y ago
    > unprecedented growth .. at unprecedented cost
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    So as long as some KPIs are positive, let's ignore the loss of fundamental freedoms?
    - toxik 5y ago
      "Some KPIs are positive"? I had no idea HN was this backwards. More people have moved out of poverty than ever before. Quality of life is improving in so many places, just not around /you/. Amazingly cynical point of view.
      - ekianjo 5y ago
        > More people have moved out of poverty than ever before. Erm, you are answering with this argument to the wrong person. I am the first person to point out this kind of things. This does not mean you can ignore the erosion of civil liberties.
ciconia 5y ago
Does anybody have an idea how big child pornography is on the internet? Are those measures commensurate with the size of the problem? I'm asking seriously.
- y04nn 5y ago
  On a previous HN submission [1] it's about 0.06%, more than I expeted. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28110159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28110159
  - snakeboy 5y ago
    On a website uniquely designed for photo upload and forensic analysis, CSAM makes up .06% of uploads. But I'd bet on a generic messaging app, the percentage of messages involving CSAM is much, much lower.
- st_goliath 5y ago
  Hi, you must be new to this game. Here's the deal: none of this is about, or for the children. It's just a bullshit excuse to label anyone who opposes it a pedo. Same goes if "think about the terrorists" is used instead, which might come around soon-ish, since we started this round with "think about the children". OT: if somebody does have some statistics, that might actually be interesting; don't let me discourage you from responding, but I'd still call it OT, given that it's not actually about the children.
  - lucb1e 5y ago
    Furthermore, it does not matter in the slightest what number it turns out to be. It's going to be nonzero, it's going to continue to be nonzero no matter what legislation you introduce, and so you can always use this argument for more surveillance because people (especially parents, but mostly just everyone, and understandably) get very upset about this topic.
    - aj3 5y ago
AtticHacker 5y ago
If it becomes mandatory for email providers to screen emails, will services such as Protonmail become illegal in the EU? Since they don't have access to their users' email content because of encryption.
- juniperplant 5y ago
  I'm wondering the same. I suppose they will have to implement some way to scan the emails, or else they will be forced out of business. That said, I wouldn't bet on it.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    Does the EU have some kind of firewall with ISPs to block domains and IP addresses?
    - q3k 5y ago
      No. There are some per-country implementations, but nothing EU-wide.
- effie 5y ago
  That is the probable reason why this is being pushed through.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  > Since they don't have access to their users' email content because of encryption. Regular emails (i.e. without home-brewn encryption that Protonmail provided - and I'm yet to receive such email from any of my contacts who use Protonmail), or any inbound email received from third-party servers are of course not encrypted and Protonmail has pretty easy access to their contents.
  - tedcrilly 5y ago
    Protonmail uses PGP and not "home-brewn encryption" and encryption is on by default between Protonmail users.
collaborative 5y ago
As the developer of an E2EE chat system, how could this affect me? Would I be forced to do something? I fall under a non-EU jurisdiction, and my servers are also outside of the EU. Would this apply to me or my users in the least? Thanks
- ailef 5y ago
  I'm not a lawyer, but I suppose it will apply in the same way GDPR applies to anyone who wants to access the EU market (regardless of where you/your servers are). That is, if you're fine with your system not being accessible from the EU because of non-compliance you should be fine? Don't take my word for it though, I'm just assuming. Maybe somebody with more knowledge chan chime in.
  - fulafel 5y ago
    Systems don't become inaccessible from the EU because of GDPR, there's no great firewall of europe that would make that happen. But depending on circumstances, you could still get fined for violations even if you aren't situated in EU.
    - rednum 5y ago
      > there's no great firewall of europe Not yet, but it seems someone is thinking about one, see: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/648784/IPOL_STU(2020)648784_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/6487...
      - raxxorrax 5y ago
        Authors: FutureCandy - They want to solve CSAM? I might have a tip for them.
  - collaborative 5y ago
    According to https://www.enforcementtracker.com https://www.enforcementtracker.com only EU companies get fined for GDPR violations. I assume a private citizen can sue a foreign company for violating their GDPR rights (??), but am I right in thinking that the EU can only prosecute its own entities? Therefore, unless an EU individual sues me for "violating" his right to be spied on, I should be fine? Or would the blame fall on the EU individual for having used a comms channel that doesn't allow the EU to spy on him? I probably am totally wrong, just trying to understand how this works
stinos 5y ago
Really curious: how and by which layer (ISP? email/chat providers?) does this get implemented practically, on the software level?
lholden 5y ago
Politicians really like to use "child pornography" as a wedge issue for surveillance as it's a topic that people overwhelmingly see as "a bad thing". This screams slippery slope.
- Zenst 5y ago
  Oh I think you will find that the "think of the children" model has been abused more than most emotional heart-string pulling for agenda.
- kahlonel 5y ago
  Exactly. Just like “terrorism” is used as an excuse to take control of oil fields.
  - tacocataco 5y ago
    Just like the drug war is used as an excuse to empower fascists in government, strip citizens of their constitutional rights, and disrupt leftist and minority communities.
progx 5y ago
Perfect timing, the EU can ask now Apple to search their phones.
- probably_wrong 5y ago
  IMHO, it's the other way around: Apple saw that they would likely have to implement this in the near future, and decided to go ahead. The paranoid part of me would also entertain the idea of a singular force pushing both developments forward, but I don't have any evidence for this.
Freak_NL 5y ago
For a complex issue this document does a really good job of listing the various problems with this 'scan everything for CSAM' approach. These two points bear repeating: “You can falsely be reported and investigated for allegedly disseminating child sexual exploitation material. Messaging and chat control algorithms are known to flag completely legal vacation photos of children on a beach, for example. According to Swiss federal police authorities, 86% of all machine-generated reports turn out to be without merit. 40% of all criminal investigation procedures initiated in Germany for “child pornography” target minors. On your next trip overseas, you can expect big problems. Machine-generated reports on your communications may have been passed on to other countries, such as the USA, where there is no data privacy – with incalculable results.”
ho_schi 5y ago
I want to cry if is see such dangerous things. Most European parties send unknown politicians to Strasbourg and let them vote on important topics with low media coverage. Later the local politicians - which act mostly in Bruessels - claim that they have no way but follow Strasbourgs/Bruessels decisions and write even worse state laws upon it. I think we need a new Europe state with a actual parliament in charge, which means the people there are accountable and in power. Without the Commission, Council and Presidency of Council[1]. Instead one actual parliament and one actual government. The Europeans state are integrated part of it, like elsewhere. Next the stuff can be fixed: We just need one army. And one social-security system with one economic policy. And one state department (foreign politics). Most politicians still think of Europe as a economy council but we people expect a sovereign country/state. The former "economy council" could solve economy related issues within Europe in the 1950s. But I think we have much bigger things to do. [1] I don't know how somebody can seriously use something like a rolling presidency. You can do that with a mediator position or referee.
- x2r 5y ago
  Ever more centralisation of power is the EU's prime directive. If you believe power should rest with the people, you should be against the EU.
anfelor 5y ago
The scary thing about this is that many people have images that look like child porn at home: Family photos of naked grandchildren playing at the sea or in the mud, as well as sexting between consenting teenagers. There is no way automatic classification can distinguish these from real child porn, because they look almost identical and thus many private pictures will be shared with the government. This not only infringes the privacy of those people in the most drastic way possible, but might also lead to lawsuits that can tear families apart (think your father being accused of having CP only for it to turn out months later it was an old picture of yourself). The article mentions that 40% of CP investigations in Germany are started against minors (implied: through sexting), which shows that this concern is not purely theoretical at all. This was not an issue with the old approach of comparing checksums against public CP images, but it will increasingly be if we use more AI algorithms for this. EDIT: Probably Apples neural hashes that are currently in the news won't be vulnerable to this since they trained specifically to only detect changes in color/cropping/rotation. But we can't know for sure since the white paper is not that detailed and "naked kid on beach" photos all look really similar usually.
- aj3 5y ago
  AFAIK, ML image classification is used for checking user-generated content on social networks, forums, etc. Cloud storage, email and IM providers will continue using hashes (either exact or perceptual) to lower false positives.
- rory 5y ago
  Hey, at least we'll be able to "solve" the "problem" of sexts between youths by having a bunch of middle aged men rifle through them.
  - sundvor 5y ago
    Jesus, yep. Big "Brother", always watching. What lives can we destroy today? Privacy is being hit hard now, on multiple fronts - it's very sad, scary.
- mkl95 5y ago
  Not only that, but child porn seems to mean a different thing in every place. The Netherlands and other European countries define the age of consent at 16, meaning some things that are perfectly legal there will be a ticket to prison in many countries. Now you don't just have an engineering problem, you will also have to spend a bunch of money to have some lawyers review your spec.
ceilingcorner 5y ago
I wonder if all of this (Apple, Chatcontrol, etc.) will spark a backlash against computing devices. The government can't rifle through your physical photos to search for [bad thing], at least for the moment. Will we see a resurgence of Instamatic cameras and other offline-first devices? Depressingly, I'm sure most people won't care. But hey, I can hope.
- tpxl 5y ago
  > The government can't rifle through your physical photos to search for [bad thing], at least for the moment. I mean they can, it just takes effort making it not worthwhile. This will make it easy and omnipresent.
- aj3 5y ago
  Analogies between IT and physical world are often less than helpful but before digital photos most people would be developing photos in specialized studios. If these studios noticed what they thought was CSAM they would report it to police. One could of course develop photos themselves (like one can selfhost everything today), but as soon as other parties get involved they can (and should) report problematic material to police.
  - ceilingcorner 5y ago
    Polaroids have been around for quite some time and don't require a photo studio.
- thefr0g 5y ago
  > Depressingly, I'm sure most people won't care. But hey, I can hope. I'm afraid you're right. Nobody cares about their photos being searched for whatever by shady organisations and corrupt agencys. - Facebook: 2.8 billion active monthly users - Google Mail: 1.8 million users - iCloud: >850 million users - Google Drive: about a billion users - Dropbox: >600 million user.
nix23 5y ago
When the EU wants to be like China, but not to control citizens but to protect the children's ;) BTW: The EU wants to implement age restriction to online services into the Operating-system, every device that is not verified by ID is restricted to lets say content for 8yo's
petermcneeley 5y ago
"It's more than Europe they plan to unify" - jc Denton
bartread 5y ago
I voted Remain in the EU referendum here in the UK but, in 2021, a few things have happened that have caused me to question whether that was the right choice and whether, with Brexit, we have the right outcome (albeit for very much the wrong reasons seen through 2016 eyes): 1. Ursula von der Leyen and the EU Commission bullying companies and non-EU countries about vaccine production and provision. A wider point here is that the undemocratic nature of the Commission is something that I have always viewed as a problem. 2. The generally shambolic and inconsistent handling of vaccine procurement and rollout within the EU (which does now at least appear to be running much more smoothly; the UK government did well here but, overall, has handled the pandemic with majestic ineptitude). 3. This[0]. Chatcontrol 2.0 isn't the first ill thought out piece of legislation to get approval in the EU, and it won't be the last, but it is certainly one of the more sinister, and a significant violation of privacy amongst the majority of law-abiding citizens. Overall I would still probably prefer to be in the EU than not, but I'm simply not as certain about that as I used to be. [0] This whole assessment is of course contingent on the UK not simply falling into line with this legislation, a la GDPR, anyway. I'm on board with the spirit of GDPR and related legislation but the way every organisation seems to comply has certainly made the web suck more.
- andreime 5y ago
  m8, to me it seemed like all the news I read in the last years, about England and the road to surveillance state, put your country ahead. I'm sure Boris will soon announce they'll do the same.
  - bartread 5y ago
    Maybe. I think it's actually pretty hard to predict. He's so populist... although that could of course punt him in either direction.
- anfelor 5y ago
  Also, one wonders if EU states would have been better at closing their borders at the start of the pandemic (like Australia or New Zealand did) if it wasn't for the EU. Maybe not, because there are always big trade networks on a landmass on this size, but I do think that the 'free movement' ideology played a part as well. (Free movement is wonderful in general, but why in a pandemic??)
robarker 5y ago
Many users are not aware of this privacy issue unless they are brought up as the topic. The consumers are happy to use the platform as long as they receive the expected return.
ignasurba 5y ago
I wonder how this would apply for "privacy first" email and chat services? And self-hosted ones too?
mark_and_sweep 5y ago
I'm surprised to read about this now. I feel like this issue has received no media coverage. Quick search for "Chatkontrolle" on the websites of some of the biggest German newspapers confirms this suspicion: - spon.de: 2 articles - sueddeutsche.de: 1 article - welt.de: 0 articles - faz.net: 1 article
- effie 5y ago
  You can't rely on big media to report on important things, and even when they report on it, often they push some one-sided narrative. One other example recently are the anti-covidism protests - they never talk to the protestors, instead they just show the reporter in safe space with cops and let him narrate how these protesters are just a bunch of extremists and conspiracy wackos. You need to listen also to smaller, less captured sources f news, and preferably several of them.
- 7373737373 5y ago
  You'd think they would be even capable of journalism that notified people before shit like this turns into legislation Instead I see storywriting
mdp2021 5y ago
Apple come out a few days ago, then there is a thread «Canberra asks to introduce detection capabilities in encrypted communication (zdnet.com)» at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28112827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28112827 , then this one. All of these at the same time?
jsnell 5y ago
Why exactly are we believing the author's claims? The link on the supposed "2.0" announcement on mandatory CSAM scanning leads to no such annoucement. Nor does any of the other 50 links on the page, as far as I can tell.
- prof-dr-ir 5y ago
  If you have been following this site for a while then you know that it is a truth universally acknowledged (well - on HN), that the EU wants to "ban encryption". I keep having the same question as you, and will refrain from joining the pitchfork party until I see actual proof.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    I don't believe they want to ban encryption in the end. But I think it is prudent to make that accusation. This is politics after all.
1337shadow 5y ago
For those of us who need more security, which most of us expect from the state, mass surveillance will surely help. For those of us who insist on breaking the law this will become a problem.
- effie 5y ago
  How many people need more security coming from the state in EU? /rhetorical question
  - 1337shadow 5y ago
    I, for one, have been assaulted with my children, by a guy they took a year to hopefully catch and put in jail, where he currently stays, I even have videos of the guy on youtube if you want to see him, he really looks like a nazi except without the teeth which he lost consuming crack. I hope this won't be your case, living in fear with your children for a year is a bad experience, not to mention the hospital and sequels. I wish "hope" was more that we could do, this new security systems are an answer. If you don't thrust your government with this, perhaps you should apply to work on it in defense - surely, this will create quite some tech jobs - so that you be in charge. Actually, if you have experience working in defense, you might already know that there's plenty of work catching criminals, there's definitely no time for anything less critical, despite whatever grounds you build fear of dystopia on. We are not in a George Orwell dystopia but actually have real lives to save and really dangerous criminals to stop despite what you may think. And I'm really glad that you live in a place where you feel safe and I hope this stays this way, and I'm really happy for you that you have not lost a child to criminality, or a friend to terrorism, but keep in mind it's not the case of everyone. We can't all be like famous french leftist Mathieu Kassovitz and look at a mother in the eyes and tell her that the event of the death of her child is just "a miscellaneous event" and that there's nothing to do about it, that's it's the way it's supposed to be. I mean, go ahead and be my guest, explain to her that mass surveillance will put her into more danger than not. Her dystopia is probably very different than yours, and much more real. I'm sorry, but I'm siding with the victims here, from CP to whatever. If we can save even just 1 child, shouldn't we because you are scared that a government employee would be reading your flirts? I don't understand how you people not only can just be against more security, but also willing to sacrifice children to protect your "privacy" (flirts, dickpics) which nobody working in defense actually gives a flying f** about. And Patrick Breyer, if you're reading me, next time you want to make an argument about "minors sexting", I would suggest you find a way that does not make you look like a pervert who wants to keep it easy for minors to send him nudes, cause it kind of looks like that from where I'm standing. What kind of congressman in their sane mind would vote against this? None. Does that mean it is perfect? No, but it's a start, and I believe we will improve from our mistakes, we have to start somewhere. This is the start of new era of security, which many of us pay taxes for, we deserve this, and hopefully it's not some "pirate party", or "pedo party", or "criminal party", or "human rights defender party" who is going to stop us from getting there.
peppermint_tea 5y ago
this is exactly why I created a chat service you can host on your home pc... I believe centralization by big corporations plus laws passed with various objectives made by various governments is the end of the internet as we know it. A tool meant to connect the humans from different countries, culture and religions to exchange ideas, discuss, share knowledge and empower people against corrupted governments. I believe peer to peer is the way to go and we tech people have a duty to inform and vulgarize technologies and outcomes to our close relatives. This is the digital legacy we will leave to future generations.
matei88 5y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocal... whenever i see this
rapethedang 5y ago
So I can't say "dang, I genuinely hope your family gets raped cunt" that is off limits right?

643 points by kristjank 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

I think this isn't getting nearly enough traction, especially considering how undemocratic EU's legislative procedures can get. Considering the lack of direct democracy in the European Union, exposure and public protest is the only viable way to oppose this legislature. There's also an ongoing petition against the legislature: https://www.openpetition.eu/petition/online/preserve-eprivacy-protect-childrens-rights-stop-chatcontrol https://www.openpetition.eu/petition/online/preserve-eprivac...

zibzab 5y ago
Hold your horses, put down the pitchforks. You realise the author is a _member of the European Parliament_?? And at least in my corner of EU we vote on who to send to EU parliament. You can vote on whoever you want in the national elections and then vote for the pirate party for the EU seat. Edit: from your comment history I guess you vote far right, which is usually the part of EU pushing hardest for these measures??
- herbst 5y ago
  It's still no and far from a direct democracy.
  - loriverkutya 5y ago
    Can you please be sensible? Direct demoracy is not working with 445 million people.
    - bondarchuk 5y ago
      Mathematically it's not more difficult to determine the majority vote among 400 million people, than among 10 million. What would prevent it from working for you?
      - tchalla 5y ago
        > it's not more difficult to determine the majority vote among 400 million people Democracy is not majority voting.
        thegrimmest 5y ago
        "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives." Basically it is. You don't need representatives to be democratic.
    - herbst 5y ago
      Yes? Any data for that?
      - loriverkutya 5y ago
        No direct democracy existed in known history with 445 million people.
    - effie 5y ago
      It could work, just do referendum in every country and then implement the result. It would require that people in power in all countries wanted to give power to their people, and implemented it securely. Which is why it won't happen.
    - lwn 5y ago
      In my opinion it's impossible for a small group of people/ politicians to determine what's good for 445 million people.
  - toxik 5y ago
    Direct democracy is not a panacea. In fact, it can be quite the opposite. Fair and effective governance is a very difficult thing to achieve, tending either to be subvertible, or totalitarian.
    - herbst 5y ago
      Not saying that is not true. Yet living in one of the few direct democracies it is the very best we have in terms of democracy. On a bigger scale liquid democracy may is more interesting. Edit:// the EU or even the US has shown multiple times that it will act against the majority of they can.
    - bondarchuk 5y ago
      I think representative democracy specifically does not work to stave off totalitarianism. When the issue under consideration is about increasing the power of politicians over the citizenry, many politicians will switch from voting as representatives of citizens, to voting as politicians. A binding referendum that can only retract proposed laws, like we have/had/will have (sorry, I don't know exactly) in NL, seems like it could largely solve this issue, provided it gets sufficient traction.
    - tacocataco 5y ago
      Direct democracy is best when the amount of people voting stays small. Think local government.
    - t0bia_s 5y ago
      Democracy cannot work without free acces to information. However, most people wont care about it. Especially nowadays when public opinions are shaped by social networks with censorship and sensations. We can implement all kind of ideologies on masses very fast. So direct democracy could be more dangerous than you can imagine.
  - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
    > far from a direct democracy. And? Direct democracies are far worth than representative democracies in practically everyway. The Covid crisis should have made clear to all that people are not policies experts. Given than no country in the UE significantly uses direct democracy (referendums are pretty much never used and always devolve into a ridiculous race to who can say the most outrageous thing in front of the media), I don't see how that can be leveraged against the institution.
    - herbst 5y ago
      You realize that Switzerland hasen't voted to wear masks and get restrictions? Having a direct democracy does not mean the gov can't make their own decisions at times.
      - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
        Yes, I do realize Switzerland doesn't actually use direct democracy for things that matter and when they do they often end up with xenophobic laws. I don't even want to talk about town assemblies voting on naturalisation decisions.
        hhlbf 5y ago
        So if they want to be xenophobic, what's the problem? It's their country and they can do whatever they want with it.
        MauranKilom 5y ago
        "So if they want to kill all the Jews, what's the problem? It's their country and they can do whatever they want with it." Creating laws based on popularity makes populism rule. Hence why democracy usually has an explicit legislative branch abstracting over individual sentiments. That helps prevent policy from being devised through an overly greedy algorithm. That is not to say it prevents all these problems. But it evidently helps.
- kristjank 5y ago
  It's not my fault that I was too young to vote at the last EU elections. That's changed since and you bet your ass that I'll vote for the right people when I'm able to. Also raising awareness and promoting a petition about an issue isn't the same as raising pitchforks. I'm thinking there's a subtext here...
  - dmos62 5y ago
    I chuckled when you said "the right people". Like, there's the right people, and then what's left. Get it? Right and left. Puns.
    - Zenst 5y ago
      The whole polarization of political issues into right and left is and always will distract from the issues being debated and more so, ends up derailing any debate and discourse about the issues as they get drowned out by the labels. Very easy to label something right wing or left wing to distract from the issue at debate and it has become very much a political tool in much the same way the "think of the children" card is played.
      - dmos62 5y ago
        You get no argument from me. I just really enjoyed the pun.
        dmos62 5y ago
        You could turn it around: right assholes and what's left.
        dmos62 5y ago
        I'll show myself out...
- tomxor 5y ago
  > we vote on who to send to EU parliament. You are describing a representative democracy, the parent pointed out the lack of direct democracy in the process. And I would tend to agree that there needs to be more direct democracy involved at some point in the policy making process to accommodate just such a scenario where it's clear the vast majority are not happy with the result. Representative democracy has it's place, but the reality is that you cannot pick and choose - most people want privacy, but most people are also aware of the wider issues and concerned if the fringe parties are competent enough in making decisions in other areas. Perhaps a good compromise is to be able to shoot down their propositions, so that even though they may not further the ideals the majority want in all areas, they will at least be prevented from eroding them. But as the parent pointed out, there is no mechanism in place to do this currently, so people are limited to protests and petitions.
  - toshk 5y ago
    Even a representative democracy is a far fetched idea with the EU. Nobody really understand how the EU works, except for a few bureaucrats. There are too many proxies. You vote for a local party, then you find out they go into a coalition because the parliament is huge: over 700 seats. And those parties in one coalition have very different agenda's. Then you look deeper, and the parliament's power is very limited, and most of the power lies with the council and commission. Both are not chosen in an election but in negotiations by the governments, which tends to mean certain countries like Germany and France have a very big say. Of course in a very indirect way these are somewhat chosen by certain part you of the people in the EU.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - marcus_holmes 5y ago
      This got really apparent in the discussions around Brexit. Lots of people saying "I vote in EU elections", assuming that the EU elections work the same as all the other elections they vote in. It really doesn't. The EU is very much an oligarchy controlled by a small number of unelected bureaucrats. They've been very careful to not let the curtain slip too far, and preserve the appearance that popular opinion can change policy. But there's no legislative connection. This kind of legislation is an interesting case in point. Who wants this? Who benefits from this? Is it actually going to make a dent in child abuse? Generally the EU is keen on privacy, so what changed that for this? Are there any states really pushing for this so they can read their citizens' mail (Poland, maybe, I guess, but they're not having a great time in the EU at the moment so probably not)? As TFA says, this is not a popular move, and there's no popular wave of anti-pedo sentiment at the moment, so why now? The suspicion of palm-greasing (sorry, "lobbying") remains. Reading our messages means more data for the AI, means better ad targeting.
- olodus 5y ago
  Yup. Have done and will continue to do exactly this. While I don't find the Pirate party's policies comprehensive enough for my national government, I do find the EU parliament the perfect level of government for the issue they address to be handled at.
- ant6n 5y ago
  You realize a single or even multiple MPs cant block the passing of laws in parlaiment, since laws are passed by majorities, not consensus/unanimiusly. So please do get out those pitch, especially since this is the next level of surveillance.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    What you are in effect saying is, since your (our) positions have not the majority in parliament, we need to resort to violence? Can we try other established democratic ways, like voting, petitioning, demonstrating, etc. before that?
- cjfd 5y ago
  The EU parliament has far too little power to come anywhere close to the EU being a democracy. The problem being that in second reading there has to be a 2/3 majority to approve amendments.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- playguardin 5y ago
  I won't argue with you that democracy sucks.
- dang 5y ago
  Please keep name-calling and personal attacks out of your comments here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - zibzab 5y ago
    Exactly where is this name calling? Please unflag this so we can continue the discussion.
    - dang 5y ago
      "Hold your horses" and "put down the pitchforks" count as name-calling in the sense that the HN guidelines use that term, because they are swipes that don't reply to the actual argument. Ultimately they're just putdowns. Please omit those from your posts to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
suction 5y ago
The lack of direct democracy in the EU is the only thing that keeps it from becoming the UK.
- richardwhiuk 5y ago
  Most major democratic governments don't have direct democracy.
ceilingcorner 5y ago
I wish people understood the origins and structure of the EU. It grew out of a trade association (ECSC) and has very little to do with direct or even representative democracy in the standard sense of the word, i.e. representative of the populace. It is an external political class with only tangential connections to individual citizens. This is an issue, because it gives opponents of European integration a fairly legitimate position to be critical.
dmos62 5y ago
You sure are throwing words around. Undemocratic, lack of direct democracy. Are you confusing the two, or are these different complaints? Sounds like you're trying to say that any representative democracy isn't really a democracy.

slickrick216 5y ago

It’s the same people who believe in medical apartheid that are bringing this in. All under the guise of the greater good. Who is it good for because it’s not for the publics. Law enforcement brutality exists online too and all over the world. It’s not simply a US phenomenon. Sickens me that they use children as an excuse. If they really gave a crap about kids there is so much that could be done right now.

czzr 5y ago
Medical apartheid? What’s that referring to?
- ForHackernews 5y ago
  Presumably they're referring to requirements for vaccinations to attend large public gatherings. I think it's an absurd hyperbole, myself.
  - the-dude 5y ago
    > large public gatherings. In some counties it is much broader than that. Painting it as hyperbole sounds hollow if you are downplaying it yourself.
    - petre 5y ago
      If the gathering is large enough they can't stop it and will back down. See the yellow vests movement.
      - the-dude 5y ago
        That only works for gatherings not associated with a legal entity. For example a sports club ( football? ) can't ignore the rules or it will be fined / closed.
        petre 5y ago

toadi 5y ago

Question is always what is suspicious ?

contravariant 5y ago
Surely everything is suspicious until proven otherwise? Although if something is 100% without a doubt not suspicious, that's also somewhat suspicious.

kleiba 5y ago

Privacy is something that people usually only care about on a theoretical level. Practically speaking, they're often happy to not care so much at all if they get something more tangible in return. --- Company: Excuse me, would you mind us profiling you through an accurate survey of most of your everyday purchases? Customer: Heck no! Company: What if we let you collect "points" that will maybe someday safe you a little bit of money on one of these purchases? Customer: Sign me up! --- Company: Excuse me, would you mind us recording everywhere you go all day every day and store that information for at least six months? Customer: Heck no! Company: What if you get a pocket computer with fast mobile internet connection in return, the corner stone of modern life? Customer: Sign me up!

kristjank 5y ago
True. Although nothing-to-hiders will chime in quickly, stating that their shopping history isn't really that important to their sense of privacy.
- dylkil 5y ago
  They wouldn't like their neighbors knowing their shopping history, the principle should be the same.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    But their neighors do not know it, and if amazon or the government knows it(pr their browser histpry, emails, ...) it has the same effect to them, that god knows it all. Can't do anything about it. Too distant to care. Thats my conclusion of privacy discussions with "normal" people.
avsteele 5y ago
Yes, users are price sensitive when it comes to selling their privacy. They also have a different sensitivity upon consideration of who the other party is and their perceived/intended use of the data. To me, this isn't so surprising and is fully consistent with a greater willingness to give personal info to e.g. Amazon than e.g. the government.

cwizou 5y ago

Assuming this is correct (I only followed a couple of links, but it would be the EU planning to mandate content scan for CSAM on all e-mail and messaging platforms, after making it legal/optional already to do so earlier this year), I guess this answer the question of why Apple released their tech. While it made little sense on iCloud Photos, they can add the exact same client-side scanning to iMessage and keep it (mostly) e2ee. Certainly not judging the merits of this, such mandates would be the end of e2ee via third party companies (there seems to have been a concerted worldwide effort around that), but at the very least, I can see the impetus from Apple's point of view to release this right now.

sneak 5y ago
iMessage has an e2e backdoor on by default in the form of plaintext escrow via iCloud Backup (not e2e). iMessage is, in practice today, no longer e2e. Apple knows this and intentionally preserves this backdoor for the FBI: https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1ZK1CT https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1ZK1CT
- bkm 5y ago
  Just like WhatsApp 'conveniently' integrated Google Drive backups by default. That is why it's funny to see the fake outrage of WhatsApp's team over this.
- foerbert 5y ago
  For a little more context, see https://www.howtogeek.com/710509/apples-imessage-is-secure...-unless-you-have-icloud-enabled/ https://www.howtogeek.com/710509/apples-imessage-is-secure..... For those unfamiliar, as I was, it appears iCloud backup is enabled by default. I think the above statement about iMessage not being e2e in practice is very fair.
  - sneak 5y ago
    Note that even if you disable iCloud/iCloud Backup, all of your iMessages will still be leaked unencrypted to Apple via the phone on the other end of the conversation that still has iCloud Backup enabled.

White_Wolf 5y ago

I'm wondering how long until inconvenient people(or people with inconvenient opinions) are targeted for blackmailing material with a system like this.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Zenst 5y ago
As in send them an email that will trigger the system in a way to cause grief or induce further evasive exploration of the recipients life. Show me a guarantee that will never happen as that is the fear as we all know - any system can be gamed for good or bad.
xtracto 5y ago
What's stopping someone from buying a used computer at the city street market, taking it to one public park with internet access and sending child porn to a huge list of MEPs[1] or one of the countless leaked emails lists (from Facebook and other providers) [1] https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/list_of_meps_and_their_offices_e_4 https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/list_of_meps_and_their_o... )
effie 5y ago
That kind of assassination of inconvenient people is already being used for a long time. Just plant the evidence and tip off the cops. This kind of legislation is for a different reason: to introduce pervasive surveillance of people activities and speech, and normalize the concept.

avnigo 5y ago

This report [0] is all I could find. I would have expected this to be more widely reported, and I'm surprised to see it isn't. [0]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2021-0319_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2021-0319...

pimterry 5y ago
That link shows the existing legislation, approved in July. Today it doesn't mandate anybody to scan anything but effectively _allows_ service providers to scan for CSAM, if they wish, by defining "combating online child sexual abuse" as a legitimate reason to process personal data within the limitations of the EU's various privacy & data protection directives (GDPR being the obvious one, but there's others too). It's worth noting that this was legal everywhere else in the world already (Google are free to scan a US user's Gmail for CSAM with no problem, if they want to). The motivating concern was that service providers who do already scan for this kind of abuse material (everywhere in the world) were at risk of having to disable such scanning entirely for EU citizens due to privacy laws. This is 'temporary', in that it's a quick fix to avoid service providers immediately disabling all those systems, until more concrete rules on how/when/if service providers should scan content for CSAM are put in place. That part is not a big problem (imo). The risk is that future legislation goes much further. The article here seems to be largely lobbying and pushing general awareness of the issue, rather than reporting on any real news (not that that's necessarily bad). So far, there's no concrete proposal AFAICT, let alone a planned vote on such legislation. The EU Commission (who propose legislation, which is then voted on by the parliament etc) have previously said they're looking into mandatory scanning, but given the pushback it's unclear whether that's still the plan. In the end, it's probably not widely reported because the mandatory part doesn't appear to have a concrete proposal in motion yet. Articles like this are appearing anyway because it _might_ be proposed legislation soon (there's mentions of Autumn 2021) and it's important to mobilize to inform the public and make their opinions visible as early as possible, rather than waiting until the last minute.
- zerkten 5y ago
  >> The motivating concern was that service providers who do already scan for this kind of abuse material (everywhere in the world) were at risk of having to disable such scanning entirely for EU citizens due to privacy laws. I'm curious if this was a situation where they might have decided that scanning was more important given the implications of processing CSAM? It seems like this is a way for authorities to influence any data processor. The Apple news last week seemed to come out of the blue and it felt a bit like a trade-off to get out from under the authorities to some degree. This is just conjecture though.

effie 5y ago

It's agendas like these when you realize submitting your country laws to legislation from Brusel was a fatal error.

kristjank 5y ago
Right on. Looking into ways of stopping this from happening has given me a very real feeling of desperation. There's no real way for an EU citizen to stop laws like these from getting accepted. No option for a referendum, no option for a veto, the best bet is getting the EU court to annul it, but that takes decades.
- fabbari 5y ago
  EU citizens CAN block this! Make your representative in the Council of the EU accountable. If 4 members veto this the legislation will not pass. If you can't move your country representative to veto the bill, then the issue is not the EU: it's your government. As Europeans we have to stop this very sneaky campaign of "citizens can't do anything" - it's a self fulfilling prophecy and the sharpest tool the lobbies have in the EU. Your country's government has a say on it, and you have a say on your country's government. Make them accountable.
  - effie 5y ago
    > Make your representative in the Council of the EU accountable. How would I do that? He is already in that position, I have zero influence on his decisions.
dTal 5y ago
I'm sorry, what country were you from again, that has a human rights record so much cleaner than the EU? It sounds like a lovely place.
- effie 5y ago
  This is not substantive. Please read the HN guidelines.

Proven 5y ago

Easy solution to this and many other problems: leave the EU. The UK did it and they're still alive.

q-rews 5y ago

Looking forward to the 2050 Asshole Control Act that will mandate daily colonoscopies in case someone is hiding a pendrive with CP on it. Just in case. You wouldn’t be opposed, would you? What are you a nonce? Arrest the downvoter.

effie 5y ago
Citizen, show me child protector greenpass on your phone. You don't have it? We will have to search your phone and your cavities.
aj3 5y ago
Try stuffing pendrive there and going through airport securiyt. We're already checking for this (effectively).

qwerty456127 5y ago

I wonder how much people there actually are who don't yet know child porn is a classic bullshit excuse governments use every time they want more control over the Internet. It's so classic, so blatant it feels cringy already. Not even for a second I would believe they do this to actually protect children.

BLKNSLVR 5y ago
Whenever a politician invokes "think of the children", ask them about their funding of Child Protection Services. Any political action that's said to be under the umbrella of "think of the children" that doesn't provide additional funding to existing Child Protection Services is for reasons other than child protection. Additionally, it's actively working against helping children because the funds for "this new thing", if the goal really was for actually protecting vulnerable children, would be better spent on improving the coverage that existing Child Protection Services provide. A close friend of mine is in a position that requires "mandatory reporting" training, and they say it's relatively pointless because Child Services only has the resources to investigate cases in which the child's life is in immediate danger. This may be somewhere along the scale of hyperbole, but I doubt it's too far from reality. Of course, removing children from danger is often removing them from their parents / legal guardians, which comes with its own set of risks. Either way, funding boots-on-the-ground work with leads from local social workers, early childhood educators, teachers has to be the best way to actually protect at-risk children.
- dqpb 5y ago
  > Of course, removing children from danger is often removing them from their parents / legal guardians, which comes with its own set of risks. What number of false positives would you tolerate?
  - BLKNSLVR 5y ago
    I genuinely do not know the answer. But also, what would you define as false positive? It's blurry definitions all the way down, and that's part of the reason politics doesn't like this problem and would rather argue technology and punishment after-the-fact than actual protection / prevention. Nuance is expensive and doesn't play well to the crowd.

kecupochren 5y ago

The news are pretty depressing these last couple of days. We're marching towards very dystopian future.

toxik 5y ago
We have had unprecedented growth and development in the world, it's just that bad news sells more papers. Don't let it bring you down!
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  There is not much to rejoice if all that growth will go in the hands of the few friends of the government, leaving a richer 0.01%, a broken middle class and unstable societies.
- ailef 5y ago
  I guess this is sarcastic?
- rapnie 5y ago
  > unprecedented growth .. at unprecedented cost
- ekianjo 5y ago
  So as long as some KPIs are positive, let's ignore the loss of fundamental freedoms?
  - toxik 5y ago
    "Some KPIs are positive"? I had no idea HN was this backwards. More people have moved out of poverty than ever before. Quality of life is improving in so many places, just not around /you/. Amazingly cynical point of view.
    - ekianjo 5y ago
      > More people have moved out of poverty than ever before. Erm, you are answering with this argument to the wrong person. I am the first person to point out this kind of things. This does not mean you can ignore the erosion of civil liberties.

ciconia 5y ago

Does anybody have an idea how big child pornography is on the internet? Are those measures commensurate with the size of the problem? I'm asking seriously.

y04nn 5y ago
On a previous HN submission [1] it's about 0.06%, more than I expeted. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28110159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28110159
- snakeboy 5y ago
  On a website uniquely designed for photo upload and forensic analysis, CSAM makes up .06% of uploads. But I'd bet on a generic messaging app, the percentage of messages involving CSAM is much, much lower.
st_goliath 5y ago
Hi, you must be new to this game. Here's the deal: none of this is about, or for the children. It's just a bullshit excuse to label anyone who opposes it a pedo. Same goes if "think about the terrorists" is used instead, which might come around soon-ish, since we started this round with "think about the children". OT: if somebody does have some statistics, that might actually be interesting; don't let me discourage you from responding, but I'd still call it OT, given that it's not actually about the children.
- lucb1e 5y ago
  Furthermore, it does not matter in the slightest what number it turns out to be. It's going to be nonzero, it's going to continue to be nonzero no matter what legislation you introduce, and so you can always use this argument for more surveillance because people (especially parents, but mostly just everyone, and understandably) get very upset about this topic.
  - aj3 5y ago

AtticHacker 5y ago

If it becomes mandatory for email providers to screen emails, will services such as Protonmail become illegal in the EU? Since they don't have access to their users' email content because of encryption.

juniperplant 5y ago
I'm wondering the same. I suppose they will have to implement some way to scan the emails, or else they will be forced out of business. That said, I wouldn't bet on it.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  Does the EU have some kind of firewall with ISPs to block domains and IP addresses?
  - q3k 5y ago
    No. There are some per-country implementations, but nothing EU-wide.
effie 5y ago
That is the probable reason why this is being pushed through.
Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
> Since they don't have access to their users' email content because of encryption. Regular emails (i.e. without home-brewn encryption that Protonmail provided - and I'm yet to receive such email from any of my contacts who use Protonmail), or any inbound email received from third-party servers are of course not encrypted and Protonmail has pretty easy access to their contents.
- tedcrilly 5y ago
  Protonmail uses PGP and not "home-brewn encryption" and encryption is on by default between Protonmail users.

collaborative 5y ago

As the developer of an E2EE chat system, how could this affect me? Would I be forced to do something? I fall under a non-EU jurisdiction, and my servers are also outside of the EU. Would this apply to me or my users in the least? Thanks

ailef 5y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but I suppose it will apply in the same way GDPR applies to anyone who wants to access the EU market (regardless of where you/your servers are). That is, if you're fine with your system not being accessible from the EU because of non-compliance you should be fine? Don't take my word for it though, I'm just assuming. Maybe somebody with more knowledge chan chime in.
- fulafel 5y ago
  Systems don't become inaccessible from the EU because of GDPR, there's no great firewall of europe that would make that happen. But depending on circumstances, you could still get fined for violations even if you aren't situated in EU.
  - rednum 5y ago
    > there's no great firewall of europe Not yet, but it seems someone is thinking about one, see: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/648784/IPOL_STU(2020)648784_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/6487...
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      Authors: FutureCandy - They want to solve CSAM? I might have a tip for them.
- collaborative 5y ago
  According to https://www.enforcementtracker.com https://www.enforcementtracker.com only EU companies get fined for GDPR violations. I assume a private citizen can sue a foreign company for violating their GDPR rights (??), but am I right in thinking that the EU can only prosecute its own entities? Therefore, unless an EU individual sues me for "violating" his right to be spied on, I should be fine? Or would the blame fall on the EU individual for having used a comms channel that doesn't allow the EU to spy on him? I probably am totally wrong, just trying to understand how this works

stinos 5y ago

Really curious: how and by which layer (ISP? email/chat providers?) does this get implemented practically, on the software level?

lholden 5y ago

Politicians really like to use "child pornography" as a wedge issue for surveillance as it's a topic that people overwhelmingly see as "a bad thing". This screams slippery slope.

Zenst 5y ago
Oh I think you will find that the "think of the children" model has been abused more than most emotional heart-string pulling for agenda.
kahlonel 5y ago
Exactly. Just like “terrorism” is used as an excuse to take control of oil fields.
- tacocataco 5y ago
  Just like the drug war is used as an excuse to empower fascists in government, strip citizens of their constitutional rights, and disrupt leftist and minority communities.

progx 5y ago

Perfect timing, the EU can ask now Apple to search their phones.

probably_wrong 5y ago
IMHO, it's the other way around: Apple saw that they would likely have to implement this in the near future, and decided to go ahead. The paranoid part of me would also entertain the idea of a singular force pushing both developments forward, but I don't have any evidence for this.

Freak_NL 5y ago

For a complex issue this document does a really good job of listing the various problems with this 'scan everything for CSAM' approach. These two points bear repeating: “You can falsely be reported and investigated for allegedly disseminating child sexual exploitation material. Messaging and chat control algorithms are known to flag completely legal vacation photos of children on a beach, for example. According to Swiss federal police authorities, 86% of all machine-generated reports turn out to be without merit. 40% of all criminal investigation procedures initiated in Germany for “child pornography” target minors. On your next trip overseas, you can expect big problems. Machine-generated reports on your communications may have been passed on to other countries, such as the USA, where there is no data privacy – with incalculable results.”

ho_schi 5y ago

I want to cry if is see such dangerous things. Most European parties send unknown politicians to Strasbourg and let them vote on important topics with low media coverage. Later the local politicians - which act mostly in Bruessels - claim that they have no way but follow Strasbourgs/Bruessels decisions and write even worse state laws upon it. I think we need a new Europe state with a actual parliament in charge, which means the people there are accountable and in power. Without the Commission, Council and Presidency of Council[1]. Instead one actual parliament and one actual government. The Europeans state are integrated part of it, like elsewhere. Next the stuff can be fixed: We just need one army. And one social-security system with one economic policy. And one state department (foreign politics). Most politicians still think of Europe as a economy council but we people expect a sovereign country/state. The former "economy council" could solve economy related issues within Europe in the 1950s. But I think we have much bigger things to do. [1] I don't know how somebody can seriously use something like a rolling presidency. You can do that with a mediator position or referee.

x2r 5y ago
Ever more centralisation of power is the EU's prime directive. If you believe power should rest with the people, you should be against the EU.

anfelor 5y ago

The scary thing about this is that many people have images that look like child porn at home: Family photos of naked grandchildren playing at the sea or in the mud, as well as sexting between consenting teenagers. There is no way automatic classification can distinguish these from real child porn, because they look almost identical and thus many private pictures will be shared with the government. This not only infringes the privacy of those people in the most drastic way possible, but might also lead to lawsuits that can tear families apart (think your father being accused of having CP only for it to turn out months later it was an old picture of yourself). The article mentions that 40% of CP investigations in Germany are started against minors (implied: through sexting), which shows that this concern is not purely theoretical at all. This was not an issue with the old approach of comparing checksums against public CP images, but it will increasingly be if we use more AI algorithms for this. EDIT: Probably Apples neural hashes that are currently in the news won't be vulnerable to this since they trained specifically to only detect changes in color/cropping/rotation. But we can't know for sure since the white paper is not that detailed and "naked kid on beach" photos all look really similar usually.

aj3 5y ago
AFAIK, ML image classification is used for checking user-generated content on social networks, forums, etc. Cloud storage, email and IM providers will continue using hashes (either exact or perceptual) to lower false positives.
rory 5y ago
Hey, at least we'll be able to "solve" the "problem" of sexts between youths by having a bunch of middle aged men rifle through them.
- sundvor 5y ago
  Jesus, yep. Big "Brother", always watching. What lives can we destroy today? Privacy is being hit hard now, on multiple fronts - it's very sad, scary.
mkl95 5y ago
Not only that, but child porn seems to mean a different thing in every place. The Netherlands and other European countries define the age of consent at 16, meaning some things that are perfectly legal there will be a ticket to prison in many countries. Now you don't just have an engineering problem, you will also have to spend a bunch of money to have some lawyers review your spec.

ceilingcorner 5y ago

I wonder if all of this (Apple, Chatcontrol, etc.) will spark a backlash against computing devices. The government can't rifle through your physical photos to search for [bad thing], at least for the moment. Will we see a resurgence of Instamatic cameras and other offline-first devices? Depressingly, I'm sure most people won't care. But hey, I can hope.

tpxl 5y ago
> The government can't rifle through your physical photos to search for [bad thing], at least for the moment. I mean they can, it just takes effort making it not worthwhile. This will make it easy and omnipresent.
aj3 5y ago
Analogies between IT and physical world are often less than helpful but before digital photos most people would be developing photos in specialized studios. If these studios noticed what they thought was CSAM they would report it to police. One could of course develop photos themselves (like one can selfhost everything today), but as soon as other parties get involved they can (and should) report problematic material to police.
- ceilingcorner 5y ago
  Polaroids have been around for quite some time and don't require a photo studio.
thefr0g 5y ago
> Depressingly, I'm sure most people won't care. But hey, I can hope. I'm afraid you're right. Nobody cares about their photos being searched for whatever by shady organisations and corrupt agencys. - Facebook: 2.8 billion active monthly users - Google Mail: 1.8 million users - iCloud: >850 million users - Google Drive: about a billion users - Dropbox: >600 million user.

nix23 5y ago

When the EU wants to be like China, but not to control citizens but to protect the children's ;) BTW: The EU wants to implement age restriction to online services into the Operating-system, every device that is not verified by ID is restricted to lets say content for 8yo's

petermcneeley 5y ago

"It's more than Europe they plan to unify" - jc Denton

bartread 5y ago

I voted Remain in the EU referendum here in the UK but, in 2021, a few things have happened that have caused me to question whether that was the right choice and whether, with Brexit, we have the right outcome (albeit for very much the wrong reasons seen through 2016 eyes): 1. Ursula von der Leyen and the EU Commission bullying companies and non-EU countries about vaccine production and provision. A wider point here is that the undemocratic nature of the Commission is something that I have always viewed as a problem. 2. The generally shambolic and inconsistent handling of vaccine procurement and rollout within the EU (which does now at least appear to be running much more smoothly; the UK government did well here but, overall, has handled the pandemic with majestic ineptitude). 3. This[0]. Chatcontrol 2.0 isn't the first ill thought out piece of legislation to get approval in the EU, and it won't be the last, but it is certainly one of the more sinister, and a significant violation of privacy amongst the majority of law-abiding citizens. Overall I would still probably prefer to be in the EU than not, but I'm simply not as certain about that as I used to be. [0] This whole assessment is of course contingent on the UK not simply falling into line with this legislation, a la GDPR, anyway. I'm on board with the spirit of GDPR and related legislation but the way every organisation seems to comply has certainly made the web suck more.

andreime 5y ago
m8, to me it seemed like all the news I read in the last years, about England and the road to surveillance state, put your country ahead. I'm sure Boris will soon announce they'll do the same.
- bartread 5y ago
  Maybe. I think it's actually pretty hard to predict. He's so populist... although that could of course punt him in either direction.
anfelor 5y ago
Also, one wonders if EU states would have been better at closing their borders at the start of the pandemic (like Australia or New Zealand did) if it wasn't for the EU. Maybe not, because there are always big trade networks on a landmass on this size, but I do think that the 'free movement' ideology played a part as well. (Free movement is wonderful in general, but why in a pandemic??)

robarker 5y ago

Many users are not aware of this privacy issue unless they are brought up as the topic. The consumers are happy to use the platform as long as they receive the expected return.

ignasurba 5y ago

I wonder how this would apply for "privacy first" email and chat services? And self-hosted ones too?

mark_and_sweep 5y ago

I'm surprised to read about this now. I feel like this issue has received no media coverage. Quick search for "Chatkontrolle" on the websites of some of the biggest German newspapers confirms this suspicion: - spon.de: 2 articles - sueddeutsche.de: 1 article - welt.de: 0 articles - faz.net: 1 article

effie 5y ago
You can't rely on big media to report on important things, and even when they report on it, often they push some one-sided narrative. One other example recently are the anti-covidism protests - they never talk to the protestors, instead they just show the reporter in safe space with cops and let him narrate how these protesters are just a bunch of extremists and conspiracy wackos. You need to listen also to smaller, less captured sources f news, and preferably several of them.
7373737373 5y ago
You'd think they would be even capable of journalism that notified people before shit like this turns into legislation Instead I see storywriting

mdp2021 5y ago

Apple come out a few days ago, then there is a thread «Canberra asks to introduce detection capabilities in encrypted communication (zdnet.com)» at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28112827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28112827 , then this one. All of these at the same time?

jsnell 5y ago

Why exactly are we believing the author's claims? The link on the supposed "2.0" announcement on mandatory CSAM scanning leads to no such annoucement. Nor does any of the other 50 links on the page, as far as I can tell.

prof-dr-ir 5y ago
If you have been following this site for a while then you know that it is a truth universally acknowledged (well - on HN), that the EU wants to "ban encryption". I keep having the same question as you, and will refrain from joining the pitchfork party until I see actual proof.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  I don't believe they want to ban encryption in the end. But I think it is prudent to make that accusation. This is politics after all.

1337shadow 5y ago

For those of us who need more security, which most of us expect from the state, mass surveillance will surely help. For those of us who insist on breaking the law this will become a problem.

effie 5y ago
How many people need more security coming from the state in EU? /rhetorical question
- 1337shadow 5y ago
  I, for one, have been assaulted with my children, by a guy they took a year to hopefully catch and put in jail, where he currently stays, I even have videos of the guy on youtube if you want to see him, he really looks like a nazi except without the teeth which he lost consuming crack. I hope this won't be your case, living in fear with your children for a year is a bad experience, not to mention the hospital and sequels. I wish "hope" was more that we could do, this new security systems are an answer. If you don't thrust your government with this, perhaps you should apply to work on it in defense - surely, this will create quite some tech jobs - so that you be in charge. Actually, if you have experience working in defense, you might already know that there's plenty of work catching criminals, there's definitely no time for anything less critical, despite whatever grounds you build fear of dystopia on. We are not in a George Orwell dystopia but actually have real lives to save and really dangerous criminals to stop despite what you may think. And I'm really glad that you live in a place where you feel safe and I hope this stays this way, and I'm really happy for you that you have not lost a child to criminality, or a friend to terrorism, but keep in mind it's not the case of everyone. We can't all be like famous french leftist Mathieu Kassovitz and look at a mother in the eyes and tell her that the event of the death of her child is just "a miscellaneous event" and that there's nothing to do about it, that's it's the way it's supposed to be. I mean, go ahead and be my guest, explain to her that mass surveillance will put her into more danger than not. Her dystopia is probably very different than yours, and much more real. I'm sorry, but I'm siding with the victims here, from CP to whatever. If we can save even just 1 child, shouldn't we because you are scared that a government employee would be reading your flirts? I don't understand how you people not only can just be against more security, but also willing to sacrifice children to protect your "privacy" (flirts, dickpics) which nobody working in defense actually gives a flying f** about. And Patrick Breyer, if you're reading me, next time you want to make an argument about "minors sexting", I would suggest you find a way that does not make you look like a pervert who wants to keep it easy for minors to send him nudes, cause it kind of looks like that from where I'm standing. What kind of congressman in their sane mind would vote against this? None. Does that mean it is perfect? No, but it's a start, and I believe we will improve from our mistakes, we have to start somewhere. This is the start of new era of security, which many of us pay taxes for, we deserve this, and hopefully it's not some "pirate party", or "pedo party", or "criminal party", or "human rights defender party" who is going to stop us from getting there.

peppermint_tea 5y ago

this is exactly why I created a chat service you can host on your home pc... I believe centralization by big corporations plus laws passed with various objectives made by various governments is the end of the internet as we know it. A tool meant to connect the humans from different countries, culture and religions to exchange ideas, discuss, share knowledge and empower people against corrupted governments. I believe peer to peer is the way to go and we tech people have a duty to inform and vulgarize technologies and outcomes to our close relatives. This is the digital legacy we will leave to future generations.

matei88 5y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocal... whenever i see this

rapethedang 5y ago

So I can't say "dang, I genuinely hope your family gets raped cunt" that is off limits right?