12 ms·

Europol sought unlimited data access in online child sexual abuse regulation

217 points by t0bia_s 3y ago

intunderflow 3y ago
Even if it might have been eventually struck down under the Charter of Fundamental Rights that would take years to arrive at, and by then their access would be de-facto entrenched. They know this as much as anybody.
ryandrake 3y ago
> In the same meeting, Europol proposed that detection be expanded to other crime areas beyond CSAM, and suggested including them in the proposed regulation. And there it is, just as anyone would expect. It’s never just about Protecting The Children™.
- tomohelix 3y ago
  I was wondering why there are suddenly so much vitriol online lately about "protecting the children". I guess it is just the same old social engineering trick. Like the war on terror and drug war and all kind of "icky things" previously. Just excuses and a red herring to implement something dubious.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    Children are the perfect political weapon to get people to accept any tyranny. If you oppose this stuff, they'll treat you like a pedophile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
  - johnnyworker 3y ago
    There's plenty to actually protect children from. Doesn't mean it doesn't also get used as a fig leaf for other things, but if you think it's only ever a fig leaf you are sorely mistaken.
p-e-w 3y ago
Always keep in mind that such oppressive legislation backed by silly arguments is possible because the people at large are essentially OK with this, and many of them even support it outright if it means getting "tougher on crime" or whatever. The true enemies of freedom aren't shadowy cabals scheming in back rooms – they are your neighbors, your coworkers, some of your friends, and possibly even some of your family members.
- jjulius 3y ago
  >The true enemies... The "true enemies" are the folk scheming in backrooms who hope to succeed by the ignorance of the rest of the folk you listed. Are my neighbors, coworkers, etc. a problem in this battle? Yes, absolutely, but they're not the ones acting with malicious intent.
  - p-e-w 3y ago
    It's not ignorance, it's malice. "The people" are much smarter, but much more evil, than commonly assumed. And ironically, the false idea that the population is ignorant of every important issue is yet another argument for invasive, controlling regulation of everything...
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      The majority of the population does not have the background to consider the implications of say, banning E2EE, they do have the background to understand that CSAM is bad. Thus, when told that banning E2EE might make CSAM harder to distribute, of course they're going to prefer it. That doesn't make them malicious or evil. The entire point of representative democracy is that the elected representatives are the ones who work with subject matter experts to reach solutions that work best for the people. Thus, it is the representatives who are, at worst, malicious/evil for not listening to subject matter experts in favor of their political games.
      - tekla 3y ago
        That is, of course, the banality of evil.
intunderflow 3y ago
This is part of why I think politically there is no point trying to co-operate with these people and convince them to maybe not collect so much. The only way to stop them doing this is for folks in the right places to make it technically impossible. In a similar note: The fact that its taken years to roll out TLS ECH and DoH which would make a lot of passive surveillance of the internet much more difficult is only enabling bad faith actors like Europol et al.
- p-e-w 3y ago
  > The only way to stop them doing this is for folks in the right places to make it technically impossible. Sure. Then they'll pass legislation making it a crime to implement technical measures preventing such data collection, and simply lock up everyone you are talking about. What's the real solution?
  - rustymonday 3y ago
    The solution is to do it before it's made illegal.
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      Politician 1: We will pass this legislation to make Technology X illegal. Politician 2: Look! The RustyMondayCo startup already made Technology X! Politician 1: Drat! Foiled again! Now we can’t possibly outlaw it!
      - ronsor 3y ago
        The solution is more like making sure Technology X is ubiquitous before they can do anything. That makes it significantly harder to outlaw without undesirable political and economic side effects.
        vaylian 3y ago
        Agree. This is precisely why they have stopped attacking cryptography itself like in the previous crypto wars. Now they aim for bypassing cryptography so that they can still claim that the data is kind of end-to-end encrypted.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
harshreality 3y ago
What are authorities going to do when there's an image generation AI model that can output infinite amounts of CSAM? Are they going to keep trying to enforce these laws, which have good intent (at least by some advocates) but end up being a disaster that barely puts a dent in the problem, while massively increasing government power and decreasing privacy?
- rpmisms 3y ago
  I've used this example (CSAM-making AI models) as an illustration of the difference between ethics and morals many times. It would be theoretically ethical to use these models. It would, however, be immoral. Since governments are allergic to morality these days, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
  - smabie 3y ago
    Why would it be immoral?
    - Try1275 3y ago
      I think the argument is that the models are trained on real pics? The other argument could be that it increases the chances of someone moving on from the consumption state to the abuse state.
      - jeltz 3y ago
        The second part could also be the other way round. If there is easy access to CSAM maybe there will be less abuse. I could see either case be true, or that the availability of such material does not change incidence of abuse st all. But having to train models on real materials is a major moral issue.
        Try1275 3y ago
        > The second part could also be the other way round. If there is easy access to CSAM maybe there will be less abuse. I could see either case be true, or that the availability of such material does not change incidence of abuse st all. This is actually my opinion but I have no hard data on this. Is it feasible to apply the same logic as with video games where realistic killing is depicted and the argument is that this doesn't make people killers in real life?
AnonC 3y ago
Apple’s ill thought out on-device CSAM detection and thankfully, the removal of it from its plans after heavy pushback comes to mind. Any time a specific ability is granted or is available to law enforcement, it will expand to broaden surveillance on everything. CSAM is horrific, despicable and devastating. But the way law enforcement treats it as an easy “in” to push for more surveillance and more powers for itself is shameful.
- dcow 3y ago
  It’s not shameful that people try to grab power to stop evil, it’s natural. What’s shameful is that we don’t have more political checks against these type of power grabs. And that citizens who could stand up and fight against abusive surveillance are increasingly apathetic.
  - errantmind 3y ago
    The statement is that it is shameful to grab for powers that invade the privacy of law abiding citizens.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      The quandary is that powers that "invade the privacy of law abiding citizens" are also powers "to stop evil." Pretending they aren't is part of the problem, as it empowers those who would push them to publicly advertise the latter good in a vacuum of silence from the tech side. Something like 'Personal privacy is more important than maximizing law enforcement efficiency, including of CSAM' is a more honest, complete position.
      - qwytw 3y ago
        > to stop evil It's not at all obvious whether stopping CSAM is really the primary goal of some of the people who are pushing these regulations. It seems just like a justification to invade personal privacy.
dbmikus 3y ago
It's ironic to me that the EU led the charge in cookie notices and is now pushing this. Although one is privacy from corporations and the other is privacy from the government.
- userbinator 3y ago
  It's called authoritarianism.
  - personomas 3y ago
    Definitely, it's this. The EU treats companies like they're horrible monsters, and then looks away when it does far worse shit. It's (the EU's) authoritative to companies by suppressing them with penalties and bueacratic laws, but allows itself (the governments and states) unending tolerance in whatever it does.
    - brabel 3y ago
      > then looks away when it does far worse shit. > but allows itself (the governments and states) unending tolerance in whatever it does. Could you clarify what are these horrible things the EU has done that you're referring to?
      - personomas 3y ago
        https://www.privacyaffairs.com/gdpr-fines/ https://www.privacyaffairs.com/gdpr-fines/ And soon what's coming is even worse: digital markets act. Which allows the EU to fine companies up to 10% of their yearly revenue. That's just the obvious stuff that I can write about. I live here and have experienced it personally how Germany treats businesses.
        brabel 3y ago
        Ah, thanks for clarifying it: you're against GDPR! Difficult to sympathize, sorry. Being against encryption backdoors is very different from being against any legislation meant to actually protect privacy, and I find that the two are actually conflicting positions.
Jigsy 3y ago
On the topic of scanning a device for CSAM, even if this were extended to computers, and Microsoft/Linux/etc. coded it into the OS, how would this even work when it comes to RAM where an image isn't directly touching a hard drive? (Though I'm not sure how that would work exactly.) Esp. in cases like isolated virtual machines running old versions of say Windows or Linux where child molesters and pedophiles don't have to worry about the scanning software. I can't pretend to be an expert on the subject, but isn't a VM in a separate area of RAM where it doesn't bleed out?
- dcow 3y ago
  They hypervisor or host OS can just read the memory.
  - Jigsy 3y ago
    I see. That said, continuous RAM scanning would be incredibly resource intensive.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    Don't AMD server class processors have some way to encrypt VM memory so the host can't read it? Looking around quickly, it seems to be Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV): https://www.amd.com/en/developer/sev.html https://www.amd.com/en/developer/sev.html
- vaylian 3y ago
  The chatcontrol law does not require scanning on the OS level. The chatcontrol law requires scanning on the ISP level and on the internet service level. That means: * ISPs are required to check for connections to flagged servers. They also have to check for illegal URLs (yes, HTTPS will make that pointless) * Services like chat/e-mail/file-sharing services need to effectively check if a user is sending illegal material (no, the law doesn't take into account the complexity of open source ecosystems and the many options you have for client software and server hosting options)
beebeepka 3y ago
> “All data is useful and should be passed on to law enforcement, there should be no filtering by the [EU] Centre because even an innocent image might contain information that could at some point be useful to law enforcement. Aha, you first. Oh, this lady only meant our data, not theirs. Stuff like this happens because people at large lose their shit, or at least pretend to, when it comes to "child safety". Impossible to even have a straight conversation. It's straight up dangerous
catoc 3y ago
It’s naive to think this is about child-abuse. That’s just there to frame the discussion. Interpol is not going to stop at analyzing images for csam - it’s not even the real goal. The goal is complete government oversight. And no I am not into conspiracy theories. It’s same as with attempts at “breakable encryption”, it’s offered up under the guise of fighting child-abuse/terrorism/<insert-terrible-thing-everybody-has-to-agree-is-terrible>, but the goal is to increase government access to all communications between civilians.
- verisimi 3y ago
  You are so conspiratorial! I just can't believe that anyone would want total control of everyone else's data, while remaining entirely anonymous and unaccountable themselves! /s I actually think that it's coming to the point that the gains of technology, even large bits such as 'the internet' or mobile phones, are so inhuman that it's not worth it. I think modern tech can easily be characterised an almost entirely subsumed for governmental and corporate control. If we thought giving banks licenses to print money was bad, giving these nefarious entities control over everyone's data will be far worse.
- Kim_Bruning 3y ago
  I'm not even sure complete oversight is the goal. All of the individuals involved might even have the purest of intentions. But time and time again the outcome of such actions (when left un-countered) does seem to end up with more spying on civilians.
  - Sakos 3y ago
    Even the purest of intentions can't justify by itself any particular decision or action taken. The decision or action itself must be evaluated on its own merits. Or you find yourself excusing everybody from abusive partners to dictators (which we see everywhere, unfortunately).
  - lozenge 3y ago
    Complete oversight is a pure intention to some people.
experimenting 3y ago
Good. If you don't have online child sexual abuse to hide, you have nothing to worry about, since for all the other things people do have to hide, such access will ignore that (up to direct threats to safety and national security concerns). Criminals get easier access to online CSAM, then law enforcement should get easier access to user data. If you think that trade is unfair, take it up with the criminals.
- jacooper 3y ago
  No, I have much to worry about. I dont want people to read my private conversations, private photos and anything i don't want to be public. They can catche them without such stupid measures, that will make any secure communication impossible for the masses.
  - experimenting 3y ago
    I am fine with people (especially if they are licensed professionals) reading my private conversations and photos, but I worry about people (especially licensed law enforcement) accessing my data on online child abuse. We can not always get what we want. Instead, we entrust the police a monopoly on violence, physical detainment, and violation of privacy, and hold them accountable if they can be shown to disregard their duty and responsibilities. As a civilian, your duty is to weigh your personal sense of discomfort against the societal benefits of improved child abuse detection.
    - kbelder 3y ago
      >As a civilian, your duty is to weigh your personal sense of discomfort against the societal benefits of improved child abuse detection. No. Not your personal sense of discomfort... this isn't a case of privileging one person's selfishness versus the whole world. You have to weigh the harm to _all_ of society from loss of privacy, against the societal benefits of improved child abuse detection. Including the future harm to those children as they live their lives with lost privacy.
      - 3y ago
throwaway290 3y ago
It seems like the thread is split between those who value privacy more than preventing child abuse and people who don't believe child abuse and crime in general can actually (gasp) motivate lawmakers to pass laws. Actually, the view of those lawmakers in this thread seems to be some sort of caricature of self-interested future despots, as if most of commenters here are not living in democracies. It would be astonishing if it was not routine on HN... Sure maybe the moral tradeoff is worth it and privacy is top priority. Then I'd recommend to focus on all other areas of life that violate privacy first. Ban airport security, CCTVs etc. After that feel free to move on to banning measures that protect victims, who unlike most of you grown-up functioning adults, can't even stand up for themselves. And address the gravity of that tradeoff, or you're just making nonces out of yourselves.
- akomtu 3y ago
  If this was 1023 A.D. we would be talking about heretics, and Inquisition that must oppress every man and woman to protect them from themselves.
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    Thankfully it isn't.
    - eschaton 3y ago
      Depends greatly on where you live. Furthermore, a lot of the same forces that are trying to get rid of end to end encryption are explicitly trying to take their parts of society back to that.
      - throwaway290 3y ago
        This is conspiratorial nonsense in democratic countries where most of this audience lives.
sylware 3y ago
The problem is the music and movie industries which will want to use the technical systems setup for human trafficers, child abuse, murderers, you know, the real nasty. A line must be clearly drawn in the usage of such "military" grade systems.
ExoticPearTree 3y ago
The police should be laughed out of a courtroom if any case they are trying to investigate is based solely on the potential evidence found on a mobile device, or only through the interception of encrypted communications.
Aerroon 3y ago
I thought General Monitoring was illegal in the EU? How could this not run afoul of that? I thought the EU had learned something from the Data Retention Directive. >What does the Prohibition of a General Monitoring Obligation mean? The prohibition of a general monitoring obligation means that companies cannot be obliged to introduce measures that will result in blanket monitoring of the activity of users of their service, nor obliged to seek out illegal activity.
- cccbbbaaa 3y ago
  It is, according to the EDPS. https://www.euractiv.com/section/law-enforcement/news/eu-watchdog-online-child-abuse-draft-law-creates-illusion-of-legality/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/law-enforcement/news/eu-wat... Unfortunately, the commission doesn’t care about passing illegal legislation (DRD, the 3 EU-US transfer agreements, etc.), and the CJUE is not fast.
johndunne 3y ago
Blackbeltbarrister [1] has a good overview of what these regulations are attempting to do; legislate end to end encrypted inspection tech into existance. Either it's a smokescreen for something more sinister (require backdoors or weaker encryption) or its a delusional attempt by regulators to enforce oversight over encrypted traffic. Either way, something has to give. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUPeyqsVcU4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUPeyqsVcU4
chimen 3y ago
> When Lauren McCluskey, a University of Utah senior and track star, first alerted campus police to the fact that someone had accessed compromising photos of her and was attempting to extort her for $1000 in 2018... But she forwarded the photos and threatening messages she’d received to campus police anyway, and now, nearly two years after her death, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that the officer who received them saved them to his personal cell phone and later flaunted the photos to male coworkers. Can't wait for the competent police officers at my local station to call me in order to have full access to my phone based on some photos I sent to my mom regarding her niece (my daughter). This will have a Streissand effect like no other.
- extraduder_ire 3y ago
  > my mom regarding her niece (my daughter) Is this a typo? I can't imagine how this would work without some familial intermingling.
lost_tourist 3y ago
Police (in basically all countries) have the goal for their job to be as easy and efficient as possible. That will be priority one, like it is with most of this. You can't really blame Europol for this. They will ask for as much as they can get, as they seem themselves as the ultimate good guys. They "could never abuse their power". However as citizens, politicians and the rest of us peasants have to push back, that's just part of the contract, anything else is living in a dream world. It's not about child abuse, it's about concentrating power and making their lives as easy as possible.
xchip 3y ago
It is known which priests were kid rapist and the police didn't do much about it. Despite of their low interest in the past now they are very concerned about child sexual abuse and they want mass surveillance.

217 points by t0bia_s 3y ago

Even if it might have been eventually struck down under the Charter of Fundamental Rights that would take years to arrive at, and by then their access would be de-facto entrenched. They know this as much as anybody.

ryandrake 3y ago

> In the same meeting, Europol proposed that detection be expanded to other crime areas beyond CSAM, and suggested including them in the proposed regulation. And there it is, just as anyone would expect. It’s never just about Protecting The Children™.

tomohelix 3y ago
I was wondering why there are suddenly so much vitriol online lately about "protecting the children". I guess it is just the same old social engineering trick. Like the war on terror and drug war and all kind of "icky things" previously. Just excuses and a red herring to implement something dubious.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  Children are the perfect political weapon to get people to accept any tyranny. If you oppose this stuff, they'll treat you like a pedophile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
- johnnyworker 3y ago
  There's plenty to actually protect children from. Doesn't mean it doesn't also get used as a fig leaf for other things, but if you think it's only ever a fig leaf you are sorely mistaken.

p-e-w 3y ago

Always keep in mind that such oppressive legislation backed by silly arguments is possible because the people at large are essentially OK with this, and many of them even support it outright if it means getting "tougher on crime" or whatever. The true enemies of freedom aren't shadowy cabals scheming in back rooms – they are your neighbors, your coworkers, some of your friends, and possibly even some of your family members.

jjulius 3y ago
>The true enemies... The "true enemies" are the folk scheming in backrooms who hope to succeed by the ignorance of the rest of the folk you listed. Are my neighbors, coworkers, etc. a problem in this battle? Yes, absolutely, but they're not the ones acting with malicious intent.
- p-e-w 3y ago
  It's not ignorance, it's malice. "The people" are much smarter, but much more evil, than commonly assumed. And ironically, the false idea that the population is ignorant of every important issue is yet another argument for invasive, controlling regulation of everything...
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    The majority of the population does not have the background to consider the implications of say, banning E2EE, they do have the background to understand that CSAM is bad. Thus, when told that banning E2EE might make CSAM harder to distribute, of course they're going to prefer it. That doesn't make them malicious or evil. The entire point of representative democracy is that the elected representatives are the ones who work with subject matter experts to reach solutions that work best for the people. Thus, it is the representatives who are, at worst, malicious/evil for not listening to subject matter experts in favor of their political games.
    - tekla 3y ago
      That is, of course, the banality of evil.

intunderflow 3y ago

This is part of why I think politically there is no point trying to co-operate with these people and convince them to maybe not collect so much. The only way to stop them doing this is for folks in the right places to make it technically impossible. In a similar note: The fact that its taken years to roll out TLS ECH and DoH which would make a lot of passive surveillance of the internet much more difficult is only enabling bad faith actors like Europol et al.

p-e-w 3y ago
> The only way to stop them doing this is for folks in the right places to make it technically impossible. Sure. Then they'll pass legislation making it a crime to implement technical measures preventing such data collection, and simply lock up everyone you are talking about. What's the real solution?
- rustymonday 3y ago
  The solution is to do it before it's made illegal.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    Politician 1: We will pass this legislation to make Technology X illegal. Politician 2: Look! The RustyMondayCo startup already made Technology X! Politician 1: Drat! Foiled again! Now we can’t possibly outlaw it!
    - ronsor 3y ago
      The solution is more like making sure Technology X is ubiquitous before they can do anything. That makes it significantly harder to outlaw without undesirable political and economic side effects.
      - vaylian 3y ago
        Agree. This is precisely why they have stopped attacking cryptography itself like in the previous crypto wars. Now they aim for bypassing cryptography so that they can still claim that the data is kind of end-to-end encrypted.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

harshreality 3y ago

What are authorities going to do when there's an image generation AI model that can output infinite amounts of CSAM? Are they going to keep trying to enforce these laws, which have good intent (at least by some advocates) but end up being a disaster that barely puts a dent in the problem, while massively increasing government power and decreasing privacy?

rpmisms 3y ago
I've used this example (CSAM-making AI models) as an illustration of the difference between ethics and morals many times. It would be theoretically ethical to use these models. It would, however, be immoral. Since governments are allergic to morality these days, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
- smabie 3y ago
  Why would it be immoral?
  - Try1275 3y ago
    I think the argument is that the models are trained on real pics? The other argument could be that it increases the chances of someone moving on from the consumption state to the abuse state.
    - jeltz 3y ago
      The second part could also be the other way round. If there is easy access to CSAM maybe there will be less abuse. I could see either case be true, or that the availability of such material does not change incidence of abuse st all. But having to train models on real materials is a major moral issue.
      - Try1275 3y ago
        > The second part could also be the other way round. If there is easy access to CSAM maybe there will be less abuse. I could see either case be true, or that the availability of such material does not change incidence of abuse st all. This is actually my opinion but I have no hard data on this. Is it feasible to apply the same logic as with video games where realistic killing is depicted and the argument is that this doesn't make people killers in real life?

AnonC 3y ago

Apple’s ill thought out on-device CSAM detection and thankfully, the removal of it from its plans after heavy pushback comes to mind. Any time a specific ability is granted or is available to law enforcement, it will expand to broaden surveillance on everything. CSAM is horrific, despicable and devastating. But the way law enforcement treats it as an easy “in” to push for more surveillance and more powers for itself is shameful.

dcow 3y ago
It’s not shameful that people try to grab power to stop evil, it’s natural. What’s shameful is that we don’t have more political checks against these type of power grabs. And that citizens who could stand up and fight against abusive surveillance are increasingly apathetic.
- errantmind 3y ago
  The statement is that it is shameful to grab for powers that invade the privacy of law abiding citizens.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    The quandary is that powers that "invade the privacy of law abiding citizens" are also powers "to stop evil." Pretending they aren't is part of the problem, as it empowers those who would push them to publicly advertise the latter good in a vacuum of silence from the tech side. Something like 'Personal privacy is more important than maximizing law enforcement efficiency, including of CSAM' is a more honest, complete position.
    - qwytw 3y ago
      > to stop evil It's not at all obvious whether stopping CSAM is really the primary goal of some of the people who are pushing these regulations. It seems just like a justification to invade personal privacy.

dbmikus 3y ago

It's ironic to me that the EU led the charge in cookie notices and is now pushing this. Although one is privacy from corporations and the other is privacy from the government.

userbinator 3y ago
It's called authoritarianism.
- personomas 3y ago
  Definitely, it's this. The EU treats companies like they're horrible monsters, and then looks away when it does far worse shit. It's (the EU's) authoritative to companies by suppressing them with penalties and bueacratic laws, but allows itself (the governments and states) unending tolerance in whatever it does.
  - brabel 3y ago
    > then looks away when it does far worse shit. > but allows itself (the governments and states) unending tolerance in whatever it does. Could you clarify what are these horrible things the EU has done that you're referring to?
    - personomas 3y ago
      https://www.privacyaffairs.com/gdpr-fines/ https://www.privacyaffairs.com/gdpr-fines/ And soon what's coming is even worse: digital markets act. Which allows the EU to fine companies up to 10% of their yearly revenue. That's just the obvious stuff that I can write about. I live here and have experienced it personally how Germany treats businesses.
      - brabel 3y ago
        Ah, thanks for clarifying it: you're against GDPR! Difficult to sympathize, sorry. Being against encryption backdoors is very different from being against any legislation meant to actually protect privacy, and I find that the two are actually conflicting positions.

Jigsy 3y ago

On the topic of scanning a device for CSAM, even if this were extended to computers, and Microsoft/Linux/etc. coded it into the OS, how would this even work when it comes to RAM where an image isn't directly touching a hard drive? (Though I'm not sure how that would work exactly.) Esp. in cases like isolated virtual machines running old versions of say Windows or Linux where child molesters and pedophiles don't have to worry about the scanning software. I can't pretend to be an expert on the subject, but isn't a VM in a separate area of RAM where it doesn't bleed out?

dcow 3y ago
They hypervisor or host OS can just read the memory.
- Jigsy 3y ago
  I see. That said, continuous RAM scanning would be incredibly resource intensive.
- justinclift 3y ago
  Don't AMD server class processors have some way to encrypt VM memory so the host can't read it? Looking around quickly, it seems to be Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV): https://www.amd.com/en/developer/sev.html https://www.amd.com/en/developer/sev.html
vaylian 3y ago
The chatcontrol law does not require scanning on the OS level. The chatcontrol law requires scanning on the ISP level and on the internet service level. That means: * ISPs are required to check for connections to flagged servers. They also have to check for illegal URLs (yes, HTTPS will make that pointless) * Services like chat/e-mail/file-sharing services need to effectively check if a user is sending illegal material (no, the law doesn't take into account the complexity of open source ecosystems and the many options you have for client software and server hosting options)

beebeepka 3y ago

> “All data is useful and should be passed on to law enforcement, there should be no filtering by the [EU] Centre because even an innocent image might contain information that could at some point be useful to law enforcement. Aha, you first. Oh, this lady only meant our data, not theirs. Stuff like this happens because people at large lose their shit, or at least pretend to, when it comes to "child safety". Impossible to even have a straight conversation. It's straight up dangerous

catoc 3y ago

It’s naive to think this is about child-abuse. That’s just there to frame the discussion. Interpol is not going to stop at analyzing images for csam - it’s not even the real goal. The goal is complete government oversight. And no I am not into conspiracy theories. It’s same as with attempts at “breakable encryption”, it’s offered up under the guise of fighting child-abuse/terrorism/<insert-terrible-thing-everybody-has-to-agree-is-terrible>, but the goal is to increase government access to all communications between civilians.

verisimi 3y ago
You are so conspiratorial! I just can't believe that anyone would want total control of everyone else's data, while remaining entirely anonymous and unaccountable themselves! /s I actually think that it's coming to the point that the gains of technology, even large bits such as 'the internet' or mobile phones, are so inhuman that it's not worth it. I think modern tech can easily be characterised an almost entirely subsumed for governmental and corporate control. If we thought giving banks licenses to print money was bad, giving these nefarious entities control over everyone's data will be far worse.
Kim_Bruning 3y ago
I'm not even sure complete oversight is the goal. All of the individuals involved might even have the purest of intentions. But time and time again the outcome of such actions (when left un-countered) does seem to end up with more spying on civilians.
- Sakos 3y ago
  Even the purest of intentions can't justify by itself any particular decision or action taken. The decision or action itself must be evaluated on its own merits. Or you find yourself excusing everybody from abusive partners to dictators (which we see everywhere, unfortunately).
- lozenge 3y ago
  Complete oversight is a pure intention to some people.

experimenting 3y ago

Good. If you don't have online child sexual abuse to hide, you have nothing to worry about, since for all the other things people do have to hide, such access will ignore that (up to direct threats to safety and national security concerns). Criminals get easier access to online CSAM, then law enforcement should get easier access to user data. If you think that trade is unfair, take it up with the criminals.

jacooper 3y ago
No, I have much to worry about. I dont want people to read my private conversations, private photos and anything i don't want to be public. They can catche them without such stupid measures, that will make any secure communication impossible for the masses.
- experimenting 3y ago
  I am fine with people (especially if they are licensed professionals) reading my private conversations and photos, but I worry about people (especially licensed law enforcement) accessing my data on online child abuse. We can not always get what we want. Instead, we entrust the police a monopoly on violence, physical detainment, and violation of privacy, and hold them accountable if they can be shown to disregard their duty and responsibilities. As a civilian, your duty is to weigh your personal sense of discomfort against the societal benefits of improved child abuse detection.
  - kbelder 3y ago
    >As a civilian, your duty is to weigh your personal sense of discomfort against the societal benefits of improved child abuse detection. No. Not your personal sense of discomfort... this isn't a case of privileging one person's selfishness versus the whole world. You have to weigh the harm to _all_ of society from loss of privacy, against the societal benefits of improved child abuse detection. Including the future harm to those children as they live their lives with lost privacy.
    - 3y ago

throwaway290 3y ago

It seems like the thread is split between those who value privacy more than preventing child abuse and people who don't believe child abuse and crime in general can actually (gasp) motivate lawmakers to pass laws. Actually, the view of those lawmakers in this thread seems to be some sort of caricature of self-interested future despots, as if most of commenters here are not living in democracies. It would be astonishing if it was not routine on HN... Sure maybe the moral tradeoff is worth it and privacy is top priority. Then I'd recommend to focus on all other areas of life that violate privacy first. Ban airport security, CCTVs etc. After that feel free to move on to banning measures that protect victims, who unlike most of you grown-up functioning adults, can't even stand up for themselves. And address the gravity of that tradeoff, or you're just making nonces out of yourselves.

akomtu 3y ago
If this was 1023 A.D. we would be talking about heretics, and Inquisition that must oppress every man and woman to protect them from themselves.
- throwaway290 3y ago
  Thankfully it isn't.
  - eschaton 3y ago
    Depends greatly on where you live. Furthermore, a lot of the same forces that are trying to get rid of end to end encryption are explicitly trying to take their parts of society back to that.
    - throwaway290 3y ago
      This is conspiratorial nonsense in democratic countries where most of this audience lives.

sylware 3y ago

The problem is the music and movie industries which will want to use the technical systems setup for human trafficers, child abuse, murderers, you know, the real nasty. A line must be clearly drawn in the usage of such "military" grade systems.

ExoticPearTree 3y ago

The police should be laughed out of a courtroom if any case they are trying to investigate is based solely on the potential evidence found on a mobile device, or only through the interception of encrypted communications.

Aerroon 3y ago

I thought General Monitoring was illegal in the EU? How could this not run afoul of that? I thought the EU had learned something from the Data Retention Directive. >What does the Prohibition of a General Monitoring Obligation mean? The prohibition of a general monitoring obligation means that companies cannot be obliged to introduce measures that will result in blanket monitoring of the activity of users of their service, nor obliged to seek out illegal activity.

cccbbbaaa 3y ago
It is, according to the EDPS. https://www.euractiv.com/section/law-enforcement/news/eu-watchdog-online-child-abuse-draft-law-creates-illusion-of-legality/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/law-enforcement/news/eu-wat... Unfortunately, the commission doesn’t care about passing illegal legislation (DRD, the 3 EU-US transfer agreements, etc.), and the CJUE is not fast.

johndunne 3y ago

Blackbeltbarrister [1] has a good overview of what these regulations are attempting to do; legislate end to end encrypted inspection tech into existance. Either it's a smokescreen for something more sinister (require backdoors or weaker encryption) or its a delusional attempt by regulators to enforce oversight over encrypted traffic. Either way, something has to give. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUPeyqsVcU4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUPeyqsVcU4

chimen 3y ago

> When Lauren McCluskey, a University of Utah senior and track star, first alerted campus police to the fact that someone had accessed compromising photos of her and was attempting to extort her for $1000 in 2018... But she forwarded the photos and threatening messages she’d received to campus police anyway, and now, nearly two years after her death, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that the officer who received them saved them to his personal cell phone and later flaunted the photos to male coworkers. Can't wait for the competent police officers at my local station to call me in order to have full access to my phone based on some photos I sent to my mom regarding her niece (my daughter). This will have a Streissand effect like no other.

extraduder_ire 3y ago
> my mom regarding her niece (my daughter) Is this a typo? I can't imagine how this would work without some familial intermingling.

lost_tourist 3y ago

Police (in basically all countries) have the goal for their job to be as easy and efficient as possible. That will be priority one, like it is with most of this. You can't really blame Europol for this. They will ask for as much as they can get, as they seem themselves as the ultimate good guys. They "could never abuse their power". However as citizens, politicians and the rest of us peasants have to push back, that's just part of the contract, anything else is living in a dream world. It's not about child abuse, it's about concentrating power and making their lives as easy as possible.

xchip 3y ago

It is known which priests were kid rapist and the police didn't do much about it. Despite of their low interest in the past now they are very concerned about child sexual abuse and they want mass surveillance.