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The real challenge is that none of the ones screaming "protect my privacy" can offer a solution to "protect the children" as well.

by pif 3y ago

jermaustin1 3y ago
The real challenge is getting people screaming "protect the children" to provide evidence that "the children" actually need protection in a meaningful way that also reduces the privacy of everyone.
- seanw444 3y ago
  We continue to put responsibility on the government to fix our problems, when many of them nowadays are societal and cultural. You can't slap on a law to fix immorality and lack of wisdom. All you do is restrict the moral and wise. I hope we return to holding parents responsible for raising their kids properly. The world they face now is a terrifying and disgusting colossus, and facing it cannot be done without moral and wise future generations.
  - kelseyfrog 3y ago
    We've been asking the pedophiles to stop, but that hasn't been working so far.
    - seanw444 3y ago
      I don't see the relevance to my point here.
vb-8448 3y ago
So, since there is not a good solution[1] to "protect the children", let's screw up everyone's privacy (and security) ... seems a reasonable tread off to me. [1] actually I don't think that is true, but let suppose so
- eimrine 3y ago
  So the children are going to be both less protected and... ought to be educated enough not to produce photos which might cast CSAM willing to protect them from themselves. [1] Let me guess, the "good solution" you claimed as existing has been described by you already.
  - Freak_NL 3y ago
    With the current batch of proposals the child (teenager usually) making home-made porn¹ would get flagged and in the worst case scenario get marked as a CSAM producer or end up on some indelible list of sexual predators depending on the jurisdiction. Can you imagine what will happen next? For what? Doing what their hormones made them do without harming anyone? Educate them, absolutely. Monitor their every move online because they might do something stupid? That's an option I would like to limit to their parents/guardians, if it all, not any state or bigtech corporation, and certainly not any automated flagging system. 1: Not CSAM; let's limit this line of thought to consensually made porn.
    - toast0 3y ago
      Afaik, scanning approaches are checking images against known images. It's not an image classifier, it's a perceptual hash. Of course, possessing or distributing images of underage naked people can get you on a sex offender list, even if that naked person is you. That's a different issue.
      - Freak_NL 3y ago
        It's a black-box, and unverifiable by design. With a false flag sufficing to ruin your life, I'd rather take no chances for a nebulously defined benefit. In the end all this does is mark those apps participating as unsafe for people who do, incredibly, feel safe now to post such images through a service like WhatsApp or IMessage (do these people even exist?). They'll use something else, and the people you do catch are just idiots and teenagers. And that false flag event is hardly far-fetched with the extremely broad definition CSAM has. I'm pretty sure that if a parent photographs their 13 year old daughter proudly posing in her new bikini on the beach, and sends it to grandma who naively posts it on Facebook, where someone downloads it for their personal sexual gratification, then posts it on some image hosting site for bragging rights, where it gets hoovered up for the great CSAM database because that site was filled with photos of scantily clad children, and now when the partner of the above parent asks them to send those photos they took of their daughter on the beach for the holiday photo-album they're making, and boom, they are on a list. Unlikely? With unaccountable processes and black-box databases things like this will happen, and that is excluding the likelihood of bugs happening (which is inevitable).
jeltz 3y ago
Protecting the children is easy. Just have parental controls which can be installed by the parents. The real problem they want to solve is most likely organized crime and terrorism, plus on son countries political dissent.
LudwigNagasena 3y ago
Protect the children from what? There are lots of solutions for concrete problems.
johngladtj 3y ago
A solution isn't required.
pif 3y ago
To the downvoters and commenters who do not get that "the children" is just a straw man: The issue at hand can be described very, very easily: law enforcement agencies' mission is going to get harder to fulfil if they lose the possibility to wiretap suspects. The solution is, unfortunately, not that easy! Now, HNers can cry their lungs out that mathematics forbid a perfectly safe backdoor and what not, but they are missing the point: they are simply ignoring the question and lacking any respect for the people posing it in the first place. The issue exist; and it makes sense. Furthermore, wire-tapping has always been accepted, at least as a necessary evil, by democracies all over the world. At the same time, absolute remote privacy has never existed, much less been guaranteed. E2EE is a big game changer, and you expect people with governing responsibility to just ignore it?
- Kalium 3y ago
  At the risk of being very directly contrarian: is it? Is it actually getting harder for law enforcement? Do we have evidence of E2EE harming cases, hurting conviction rates, or similar? At this point in time law enforcement has been routinely dealing with and lawfully overcoming encryption for several decades. Encryption is no longer a novelty law enforcement has no idea how to deal with. I understand that law enforcement officers may sincerely believe that encryption makes their jobs more difficult and thus the public less secure. Since they are public officials, I am happy to accept their claims as truth. I just need to see supporting evidence. At that point we can begin to weight public safety against privacy. Until then, I can only consider a demonstrable loss of privacy against a purely hypothetical impairment of law enforcement functionality. Speaking only and solely for myself, I in no way expect people with governing responsibility to ignore end to end encryption. I do expect them to ask questions when people with a demonstrated capacity to function in the presence of E2EE claim it is making their jobs too difficult.
  - pif 3y ago
    > At the risk of being very directly contrarian Please, be! Discussion is welcome. What I despise is only immature people ignoring important societal issues with a sweep of their hands, while crying a void "because privacy".
caskstrength 3y ago
> The real challenge is that none of the ones screaming "protect my privacy" can offer a solution to "protect the children" as well. Sure we do! Use parental controls to prevent your children from using any e2e messaging services.
- seanw444 3y ago
  Parents taking responsibility for what their kids do online, and taking their protection into their own hands? Blasphemy. That's what we have the government for.
- Kim_Bruning 3y ago
  What makes (E2E)E so special that it protects adults, spies, dissidents, police, soldiers, politicians, people under police protection ... but doesn't protect children? It protects children. Removing protection doesn't protect children.
Kim_Bruning 3y ago
Remember that teenagers also count as children. They occasionally do -ah- dumb things. Do you really want to rip back the veil of privacy on teenagers?

The real challenge is that none of the ones screaming "protect my privacy" can offer a solution to "protect the children" as well.

by pif 3y ago

The real challenge is that none of the ones screaming "protect my privacy" can offer a solution to "protect the children" as well.

jermaustin1 3y ago

The real challenge is getting people screaming "protect the children" to provide evidence that "the children" actually need protection in a meaningful way that also reduces the privacy of everyone.

seanw444 3y ago
We continue to put responsibility on the government to fix our problems, when many of them nowadays are societal and cultural. You can't slap on a law to fix immorality and lack of wisdom. All you do is restrict the moral and wise. I hope we return to holding parents responsible for raising their kids properly. The world they face now is a terrifying and disgusting colossus, and facing it cannot be done without moral and wise future generations.
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  We've been asking the pedophiles to stop, but that hasn't been working so far.
  - seanw444 3y ago
    I don't see the relevance to my point here.

vb-8448 3y ago

So, since there is not a good solution[1] to "protect the children", let's screw up everyone's privacy (and security) ... seems a reasonable tread off to me. [1] actually I don't think that is true, but let suppose so

eimrine 3y ago
So the children are going to be both less protected and... ought to be educated enough not to produce photos which might cast CSAM willing to protect them from themselves. [1] Let me guess, the "good solution" you claimed as existing has been described by you already.
- Freak_NL 3y ago
  With the current batch of proposals the child (teenager usually) making home-made porn¹ would get flagged and in the worst case scenario get marked as a CSAM producer or end up on some indelible list of sexual predators depending on the jurisdiction. Can you imagine what will happen next? For what? Doing what their hormones made them do without harming anyone? Educate them, absolutely. Monitor their every move online because they might do something stupid? That's an option I would like to limit to their parents/guardians, if it all, not any state or bigtech corporation, and certainly not any automated flagging system. 1: Not CSAM; let's limit this line of thought to consensually made porn.
  - toast0 3y ago
    Afaik, scanning approaches are checking images against known images. It's not an image classifier, it's a perceptual hash. Of course, possessing or distributing images of underage naked people can get you on a sex offender list, even if that naked person is you. That's a different issue.
    - Freak_NL 3y ago
      It's a black-box, and unverifiable by design. With a false flag sufficing to ruin your life, I'd rather take no chances for a nebulously defined benefit. In the end all this does is mark those apps participating as unsafe for people who do, incredibly, feel safe now to post such images through a service like WhatsApp or IMessage (do these people even exist?). They'll use something else, and the people you do catch are just idiots and teenagers. And that false flag event is hardly far-fetched with the extremely broad definition CSAM has. I'm pretty sure that if a parent photographs their 13 year old daughter proudly posing in her new bikini on the beach, and sends it to grandma who naively posts it on Facebook, where someone downloads it for their personal sexual gratification, then posts it on some image hosting site for bragging rights, where it gets hoovered up for the great CSAM database because that site was filled with photos of scantily clad children, and now when the partner of the above parent asks them to send those photos they took of their daughter on the beach for the holiday photo-album they're making, and boom, they are on a list. Unlikely? With unaccountable processes and black-box databases things like this will happen, and that is excluding the likelihood of bugs happening (which is inevitable).

jeltz 3y ago

Protecting the children is easy. Just have parental controls which can be installed by the parents. The real problem they want to solve is most likely organized crime and terrorism, plus on son countries political dissent.

LudwigNagasena 3y ago

Protect the children from what? There are lots of solutions for concrete problems.

johngladtj 3y ago

A solution isn't required.

pif 3y ago

To the downvoters and commenters who do not get that "the children" is just a straw man: The issue at hand can be described very, very easily: law enforcement agencies' mission is going to get harder to fulfil if they lose the possibility to wiretap suspects. The solution is, unfortunately, not that easy! Now, HNers can cry their lungs out that mathematics forbid a perfectly safe backdoor and what not, but they are missing the point: they are simply ignoring the question and lacking any respect for the people posing it in the first place. The issue exist; and it makes sense. Furthermore, wire-tapping has always been accepted, at least as a necessary evil, by democracies all over the world. At the same time, absolute remote privacy has never existed, much less been guaranteed. E2EE is a big game changer, and you expect people with governing responsibility to just ignore it?

Kalium 3y ago
At the risk of being very directly contrarian: is it? Is it actually getting harder for law enforcement? Do we have evidence of E2EE harming cases, hurting conviction rates, or similar? At this point in time law enforcement has been routinely dealing with and lawfully overcoming encryption for several decades. Encryption is no longer a novelty law enforcement has no idea how to deal with. I understand that law enforcement officers may sincerely believe that encryption makes their jobs more difficult and thus the public less secure. Since they are public officials, I am happy to accept their claims as truth. I just need to see supporting evidence. At that point we can begin to weight public safety against privacy. Until then, I can only consider a demonstrable loss of privacy against a purely hypothetical impairment of law enforcement functionality. Speaking only and solely for myself, I in no way expect people with governing responsibility to ignore end to end encryption. I do expect them to ask questions when people with a demonstrated capacity to function in the presence of E2EE claim it is making their jobs too difficult.
- pif 3y ago
  > At the risk of being very directly contrarian Please, be! Discussion is welcome. What I despise is only immature people ignoring important societal issues with a sweep of their hands, while crying a void "because privacy".

caskstrength 3y ago

> The real challenge is that none of the ones screaming "protect my privacy" can offer a solution to "protect the children" as well. Sure we do! Use parental controls to prevent your children from using any e2e messaging services.

seanw444 3y ago
Parents taking responsibility for what their kids do online, and taking their protection into their own hands? Blasphemy. That's what we have the government for.
Kim_Bruning 3y ago
What makes (E2E)E so special that it protects adults, spies, dissidents, police, soldiers, politicians, people under police protection ... but doesn't protect children? It protects children. Removing protection doesn't protect children.

Kim_Bruning 3y ago

Remember that teenagers also count as children. They occasionally do -ah- dumb things. Do you really want to rip back the veil of privacy on teenagers?