10 ms·

Germany is not supporting ChatControl – blocking minority secured

1128 points by xyzal 1y ago

timpera 1y ago
It's not the end of the fight, but it's great to see that the efforts are working! I sent a handwritten letter to my MPs a few weeks ago about this issue but no answer so far...
- riedel 1y ago
  They oppose breaking encryption, however, I see no true opposition to on device scanning, which is a bit worrying. >The BMI representative explained that they could not fully support the Danish position. They were, for example, opposed to breaking the encryption. The goal was to develop a unified compromise proposal – also to prevent the interim regulation from expiring. [0] Edit: source [0] https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1108356 https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1108356
  - lukan 1y ago
    "Es sei klar, dass privater, vertraulicher Austausch auch weiterhin privat sein müsse." "Private communication needs to stay private" I interprete this as not having a dumb police bot installed on my devices checking all my communication. That sometimes by misstake sends very private pictures away, because it missclassified. This is what chat control means and I believe if most people would understand it, they would not be in support of it. It is no coincidence, that the outcry mainly happens in tech affine groups.
    - Dilettante_ 1y ago
      I bet what the politicians mean is "we have to make sure our surveillance is safe, like our digital health data, so that no bad actors can tap it". The only one who should be reading your messages is you, the sender, and the government.
  - silverliver 1y ago
    There is no on-device scanning without compromising privacy. Scanning that can detect child abuse can also detect human rights activists, investigative journalists, and so on. I imagine this technology can be easily used by the government to identify journalists by scanning for material related to their investigation. On-device scanning is a fabrication that Apple foolishly introduced to the mainstream, and one that rabid politicians bit into and refuse to let go.
    - ACCount37 1y ago
      Some say "Apple got too much shit for on device scanning". I think they didn't get nearly enough. If you as much as give the "think of the children" crowd an inch, they'll take a mile. And giving them on device scanning was way more than "an inch".
      - immibis 1y ago
        Apple has never supported your privacy though, not really. Spyware company issues spyware, news at 11. They're better than Google, but they're not good.
    - riedel 1y ago
      That is exactly the problem. I still can imagine that they come up with some scheme as a compromise, that particularly targets particularly encrypted group chats along with all kind of server side automatic scanning, that as you mention could be abused at least by intelligence to track non CSAM content. I wonder what other 'compromise' will actually be effectively possible.
- CjHuber 1y ago
  I know in the US it's very common to write emails or letters to their governor, but still I see it somewhat cynical. Like a popular tweet mattering much more than letters that probably won't be opened at all, and if it is opened I cannot imagine a MP reading all of them, more likely a clerk saying "You've got x citizens sending you letters about y", which would then again be somewhat valuable but I also can't imagine they have clerks opening every letter.
  - alphazard 1y ago
    > common to write emails or letters to their governor, but still I see it somewhat cynical. Yes, writing letters to these people is unlikely to help. The only language they speak is in votes. They have to be convinced that they will lose reelection over the issue. A conditional prediction market for their reelection given they vote a certain way would be the most effective tool.
  - rsynnott 1y ago
    Sometimes making a politician aware that "if you vote for this, it may annoy people" can be enough. Your average politician votes on a _lot_ of things, many of which they know little or nothing about. They will take only a small number of them seriously, and a big factor in what gets taken seriously is what people are moaning about. The first step really is just getting the politician to think about what they're voting on. They also don't actually necessarily get _that_ many letters.
- HexPhantom 1y ago
  Politicians notice when enough people take the time to reach out, especially in such a personal way
- addandsubtract 1y ago
  I used the online form at fightchatcontrol.eu to send an e-mail to all of my representatives. Of the 90ish contacts, 4 replied – all agreeing to be against the proposal. One of them even mentioned the influx of mails they were receiving about the topic. So that gives me hope.
- port11 1y ago
  The fight shouldn't have to be fought continuously. If legislation is shot down repeatedly, there should be a delay before it can be brought back again.
inglor_cz 1y ago
Yesss. It seems that public pressure pays off. During the first iterations of Chat Control, I was pretty much the first source (a poor blogger with about ten thousand irregular readers!!) that wrote about it in Czech. It was surreal to break news on something THAT important (and blatantly unconstitutional in Czechia), while all the bigger media just slept ... and slept ... and slept ... Almost bizarre, I felt as if I was watching news from a parallel universe where that thing just does not exist. The latest round was already much better covered by the media, including the publicly paid TV and radio. It took them three years, but they noticed. It was also more discussed on the Internet. Slovakia flipped its position precisely due to grassroots pressure.
- andrepd 1y ago
  > It was surreal to break news on something THAT important (and blatantly unconstitutional in Czechia), while all the bigger media just slept ... and slept ... and slept ... Unfortunately it's the pyramid of Maslow. It's hard to make people care about something that seems academic when there are much more pressing political problems crushing people and making sure they don't have space to think about anything else. It's hard to make people care about privacy principles when they can't afford a house anymore.
  - inglor_cz 1y ago
    That too, but my experience was that a huge part of the problem was sheer ignorance. When informed about those plans, most people actually react with some disgust. But the European Commission was really trying to be low-key around this, and the media usually jump on loud scandals first. Too few journalists are willing to poke around in the huge undercurrent of not-very-public issues and fish for some deadly denizens there. More publicity definitely helped the freedom's cause here.
- kriro 1y ago
  Thank you for doing that nad being a voice for liberty.
- sunaookami 1y ago
Kelteseth 1y ago
Proud to be a German today, for sure :)
- inglor_cz 1y ago
  Yay for Dobrindt and vdL losing this fight :) She is not called Zensursula without a reason.
  - riedel 1y ago
    I think the front lines are not that clear. Zensursula was actually a termed coined because she wanted the German equivalent of the online safety act in Germany back in the days. The 'Stasi 2.0' initiative (data retention at ISPs and online 'raids') was backed by some people in CDU and SPD (current ruling coalition). IMHO online safety (censorship) and chat control (privacy invasion) are different beasts, with different lobby groups as well.
    - Dilettante_ 1y ago
      I mainly remember the Zensursula title in connection with the ISP-level DNS-blocking initiative (the Stopsign thing) which was to combat CSAM. I remember all the nerds going "That's a slippery slope to blocking other stuff as well though", and being dismissed. Now we got the CUII blocking libgen, scihub, piracy sites and as I recently read on HN, russia today(that's not the cuii I'm pretty sure, but same mechanism).
      - riedel 1y ago
        You are right, I had to look it up again : Zugangserschwerungsgesetz [0] But the law did not feature any kind of data collection afaik. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugangserschwerungsgesetz https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugangserschwerungsgesetz Edit: I think I mixed it up with her game censorship [1] (which I guess also contributed to her nick name). [1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/von-der-leyen-sofortprogramm-gegen-killerspiele-angekuendigt-1.836575 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/von-der-leyen-sofortp...
Hamuko 1y ago
Glad that my country (Finland) is also on the correct side of this. Disappointed that our Nordic and Baltic neighbours are not though. Would've expected more, especially from Estonia.
- jeltz 1y ago
  Sweden and Denmark are some of the main drivers of this proposal. As a Swede I am a bit unclear why as while our politicians are quite pro-survelliance they have spent much more political capital than reasonable. One possible reason seems to be lobbyism and shady connections to surveillance tech companies and various shady non-profits https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the-eus-fight-over-scanning-for-child-sex-content/ https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...
  - ahartmetz 1y ago
    > Johansson, however, has not blinked. “The privacy advocates sound very loud,” the commissioner said in a speech in November 2021. “But someone must also speak for the children.” Literal "Won't anybody think of the children" moment.
    - deleted 1y ago
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- deleted 1y ago
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- supermatt 1y ago
  > Disappointed that our Nordic and Baltic neighbours are not though Why do you think the Baltics are in favour? Are there some announcements they have made?
  - BoredPositron 1y ago
    Edit: You were totally right Matt. Brain fart.
ur-whale 1y ago
Funny how the map shows a clear north/south divide (modulo some nordics). Looks like latin cultures don't really care about being spied on by they governments.
- monegator 1y ago
  * There is absolute ZERO information about this in the news, not even from the privacy authority * There is little to no faith in our elected officials, especially from _that_ side * Also people don't seem to care, all invested in the "i have nothing to hide" mentality
- andrepd 1y ago
  "Latin cultures" is a really wild way to put it, when Denmark has been the most prominent promoter of the initiative. This is a map of the government's positions, not even the parliament much less the public, and therefore a picture of whatever happen to be the parties in charge at the current time.
  - riffraff 1y ago
    ireland and latvia, classic latin shenanigans.
    - reorder9695 1y ago
      In Ireland this isn't something the public really even knows was proposed, I highly doubt the public would be in support of this, although can't be sure about it. You would think given the country's history they wouldn't be in favour of government overreach in this way but you never know.
- izacus 1y ago
  "Some nordics" are MOST of the nordics, meaning - all the north though.
- xeonmc 1y ago
  Where do Switzerland fall on the map?
egorfine 1y ago
Excellent win! See you next time.
- teekert 1y ago
  Next time, when the proposal is worse, when less people care, and the methods to stop it no longer exist.
  - portaouflop 1y ago
    The struggle never stops, that is part of the human condition - you should embrace this endless cycle with confidence instead of cynical defeatism
    - antonvs 1y ago
      Dormammu, I've come to bargain
  - latexr 1y ago
    “Next time” is preferable to now. Giving up and bringing others down is not the answer. If you want to give up, that’s your prerogative, but please don’t drag others down with you, you’re working against your own best interests. The thing you said right now is exactly what the bad actors want, don’t play into their hands. Thankfully not everyone has that defeatist attitude, or the law would have passed the first time. And the proposal has not been worse, it’s more crippled with every attempt. Maybe we can’t stop the problem indefinitely, but we can mitigate the harm. Or maybe we can stop it long enough that the people making these proposals are replaced and we eventually win. Don’t give up. You don’t have to fight along every one else, but if you’re not actively helping, I humbly ask that you also don’t actively make it worse.
jansan 1y ago
Even if they did, I am sure this would have been toppled by our constitutional court. You have to know that our police is not allowed to scan number plates of cars entering or leaving the country due to privacy concerns. How on earth would anyone think that lifting our dearly held fundamental right of "mail privacy" is ok?
- uyzstvqs 1y ago
  Even if it's EU regulation? My experience is that you get told that EU regulation and international treaties are "above our national democratic/justice system", and that we can't do anything about it.
  - klinch 1y ago
    IANAL - but when EU regulation and national law regarding civil rights conflict then the citizen has the "union set" of all guaranteed rights. Or in other words: A member state can grant additional civil rights (on top of the EU charta) but can't take them away.
  - nickslaughter02 1y ago
    That's how it works. > Primacy of European Union law > European law has priority over any contravening national law, including the constitution of a member state itself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law
  - 3np 1y ago
    Germany specifically seems to have an out if it comes down to it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law#Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_la...
- ManBeardPc 1y ago
  It would probably be toppled by courts, yes. Anyway, meanwhile they already start implementing it, developing the technology and infrastructure they can base on the next time where they basically reintroduce the same illegal laws in a new name. So companies and governments already have to spent huge sums of resources to introduce it and may fall into the sunken-cost fallacy. "If we now already have it we can also use it (for something else)"?
ManBeardPc 1y ago
Glad we could delay it for now. It will come back again and again with that high of support though. Also the German Bundestag is already discussing a compromise: https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1108356 https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1108356. They are only unhappy with certain points like breaking encryption. They still want to destroy privacy and cut back our rights in the name of "safety", just a little less.
- mrktf 1y ago
  Yes, sad part it will be implemented and I betting even in worse form than it is proposed... And worst part of it "safety" it for current governing party to destroy any opposition. My wild guess it will voted for with overwhelming majority using "times changed" argument.
  - FinnLobsien 1y ago
    Let's hope it will be implemented in typical "Germany does anything on the computer" fashion where they endlessly debate into a theoretically comprehensive, but impossible to implement solution.
  - latexr 1y ago
    > it will be implemented and I betting even in worse form than it is proposed That doesn’t seem likely, because every time this fails the new version is compromised from the previous one. For example, in the last revision you would be able to refuse the monitoring but it would mean you would be unable to send files or links. Still bad, but not worse.
- ta1243 1y ago
  The only way to win the argument is to win the argument with the public. In the UK the public overwhelmingly support the age controls, so even political parties who would otherwise oppose it just stay silent, because the public narrative You have to shift the narrative. Farage does this - he's finally after 20 years managed to get elected to parliament, he's head of a company with 4 MPs, same say as the Greens, about the same as the nationalists, yet for 20 years he has steered the conversation and got what he wants time after time
PicassoCTs 1y ago
[dead]
liendolucas 1y ago
Apparently Italy will support it. This is absolutely infuriating and it will fail miserably. Encryption can't he stopped no matter what law gets out there and any politician voting in favor shows how ignorants they are. Instead of discussing WHY "owned" mobile phones have a short lifespan and we can't truly do whatever we want with them (be at the hardware/software level) and forced to choose between the apple and google duopoly, we get into these lousy law debates about privacy. Why doesn't the EU put effort in paving the way for a more open and free tech world when we rely 100% on propietary technology that comes from the other side of the Atlantic?
- guappa 1y ago
  Because USA sends their ambassadors to threaten you if think the free market is free and decide to no longer buy from them. https://lwn.net/Articles/1013776/ https://lwn.net/Articles/1013776/
- arlort 1y ago
  > Instead of discussing WHY "owned" mobile phones have a short lifespan and we can't truly do whatever we want with them (be at the hardware/software level) and forced to choose between the apple and google duopoly, we get into these lousy law debates about privacy. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240419IPR20590/right-to-repair-making-repair-easier-and-more-appealing-to-consumers https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240419IP... https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/digital-services-act_en https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-...
- AlgebraFox 1y ago
  Encryption cannot be stopped. But Android and iOS can be backdoored. These evil companies lock down our devices, does not allow apps to run without their approval, and selectively push updates from their servers to our devices. This is a wet dream for governments.
mrtksn 1y ago
IIRC It's Denmark that keeps pushing for this. Is there anyone here to give more background on that?
- BSDobelix 1y ago
  >>Return of chat control: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/08/08/return-of-chat-control-something-is-rotten-in-the-state-of-denmark https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/08/08/return-of-chat-cont...
- tucnak 1y ago
  The unfortunate reality is that a single largest lobbyist for Chat Control in the EU is, ironically, the US, namely the US intel community-affiliated orgs like Thorn, WeProtect, etc. The EU bureaucrats are gullible, and it's no excuse of course, however there's a reason why every time there's a new driver, a new country behind Chat Control proposals. This has been part of coordinated U.S. signals collection strategy. Nobody in Europe stands to gain anything from this besides the US as all tech solutions for this are provided by US companies and agencies alone. The boards of these orgs are crawling with Washington guys, & their activity is limited to foreign countries. Not once have they attempted anything of the sort on US soil. See https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=44929535 https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=44929535
  - mrtksn 1y ago
    Hmm, maybe the anti-chatControl movement should add some anti-Americanism in it then?
    - tucnak 1y ago
      I reckon that would only serve to play into their hands. There is just enough plausible deniability for conspiracy-theory optics. Moreover, European politicians really hate to be publicly humiliated like that, so it might as well achieve the opposite from desired effect. The Balkan Insight findings, among other journalistic results, were published years ago, and it had little, if any effect. The audience that would resonate with anti-American messaging on the subject are already catalysed contra ChatControl, and the undecided would just read this as conspiracy theory...
nabla9 1y ago
As long as I remember there has been these initiatives in EU. They have been all blocked so far, or turned into something reasonable, but there will always be a new try. "Think of the children" will never die.
- tannhaeuser 1y ago
  It's easy to blame EU lobbyism, but as the situation in UK shows, the EU legislative process can also used to save us from ourselves. That said, how come we haven't seen massive antitrust action against the likes of Google? You only have to follow the money here.
- rsynnott 1y ago
  Oh, not just the EU. This sort of thing is about as old as generally available public key encryption. An early example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip
- krunck 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
Raed667 1y ago
Unless there is a law that says that the fundamental right to privacy is protected then we're bound to repeat this ordeal every couple of years.
- BSDobelix 1y ago
  Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948): No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks
  - tgv 1y ago
    Sounds like the European Court of Human Rights would annul it, but you can't be sure.
  - _ink_ 1y ago
    It's also in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). But that has a big loop whole. Article 8: Right to privacy 1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. 2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
    - poly2it 1y ago
      > Everybody has a right to privacy (except where inconvenient).
    - blazarquasar 1y ago
      They could have just left out Article 8. Its a “no interference by a public authority unless it want’s to.” “Well-being of the country”, “protection of health or morals” are terms that make this statute irrelevant and dependent on the current mood of the EU. Privacy needs to be an absolute right. Any invasion of privacy of any individual is a violation of their rights and needs to be treated as such with actual repercussions following misconduct.
tcldr 1y ago
With a warrant from a judge people should be compelled to provide access to their encrypted files or be in contempt of court with all that entails. Anything else is overreach.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- heikkilevanto 1y ago
  Wonderful idea. All I need to is to create an encrypted file with pedo pictures or terrorist plans or just white noise, send a copy to all my enemies, and tip off the authorities.
  - boxed 1y ago
    And what happens when your enemies can't produce the decryption key?
    - alexey-salmin 1y ago
      In many countries it's prison time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law
      - boxed 1y ago
        Yea that's extra fun if someone else sent it then. Government puts them in jail for not having the encryption key for something someone else encrypted.
  - fauigerzigerk 1y ago
    No, that's not all you need to do unless your only goal is to harass your enemies and cause inconvenience.
- schroeding 1y ago
  You cannot prove the absence of e.g. a Veracrypt hidden volume or similar, though. Even if you honestly give up your key, you could still be either A) held in contempt of court, if the authorities do not find what they expect for some reason and accuse you of using such techniques or B) if you specify that such behaviour by law enforcement is overreach, have a clean way out for criminals, codified in law, heavily damaging the impact you may expect of such a law.
zarzavat 1y ago
Between this and Google locking down Android, one day the only way to get secure communications will be to buy Huawei etc. Thank God for China, bastion of free speech.
- tenacious_tuna 1y ago
  Can you elaborate on how Google is locking down Android? I'm not familiar
  - zarzavat 1y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45017028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45017028
    - tenacious_tuna 1y ago
      ty
- rapind 1y ago
  But I have nothing to hide! /s
- NikxDa 1y ago
  Yes, China, the bastion of free speech... https://freedomhouse.org/country/china/freedom-world/2025 https://freedomhouse.org/country/china/freedom-world/2025
  - bcraven 1y ago
    I know HN takes a dim view on them, but that post was a joke. Of _course_ China isn't a bastion of free speech, that is why the joke is funny.
    - N_Lens 1y ago
      I think HN has a higher than average number of people who are unable to detect irony or sarcasm.
mutkach 1y ago
Why would you really need something like that in a non-totalitarian state? Basically, it follows the russian playbook (essentially the same 'language' - safety concerns), but instead of the FSB, who is the beneficiary actor in this case?
- pembrook 1y ago
  Many people working in government wish they were administering a totalitarian state, and would be the beneficiary actors. Government is a job that self-selects for people who either want safety (non elected jobs) or power (elected jobs) more than anything else, given it pays far less than the private sector. Both the safety people and the power people want to reduce public freedom and the ability to do things. The only way we keep these people from this is the threat of voting them out of their jobs. But they are more motivated than we are, so they usually win over time.
wtbdbrrr 1y ago
someone has to prove illicit connections to private companies and potentially black markets. the data is guaranteed to end up in the wrong hands which will have a worse impact on the lives of citizens, workers as much as educated ones, and definitely officials; how to better gain dirt on someone if the law supports breaking encryption and they falsely believe their state of the art messaging app is worth more than the skeletons in their closets? at the least the basic human rights and privacy laws should be on everyones' side ... except rapists, the many kinds of violent abusers, murderers, especially the genocidal kind, drug punchers, and these fuckers roofying kids in clubs and bars just to have sex ... I probably forgot some ... sorry I didn't stay on topic. As Freud wanted to let us know, the ageing rich are perverts with enough means to hide any crime ... then they made him bend over and invent the Oedipus complex, ffs the only way for them to create an argument for ChatControl is more terrorism or some fucked up crimes against children so this damn thing is a sure-fire shitstorm with recursive, bad yields.
- nickslaughter02 1y ago
  https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the-eus-fight-over-scanning-for-child-sex-content/ https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...
  - wtbdbrrr 1y ago
    big thanks.
deafpolygon 1y ago
Happy to see the NL here in opposition to ChatControl! The political climate here is slowly pushing to the right, which I'm not happy about. But there seems to be voices getting louder from the left. So that leaves me with hope!
HexPhantom 1y ago
Honestly, this whole ChatControl proposal reeks of the "think of the children" excuse being used to push through mass surveillance
- palata 1y ago
  I think many genuinely just want to increase security for their people. Not mass surveillance and orwellian control. They just don't understand why it's technically not possible to achieve what they want without unacceptable risks. Similar to the climate change issue: no politician is aiming at having their children die before retirement age from the consequences of climate change. They just don't understand that they are pushing us there (like most of the people, to be fair).
ktosobcy 1y ago
Maybe an ECI (european citizens' initiative) that would burry the thing for good? :)
- arlort 1y ago
  That's not how laws work. New laws always override old laws so an ECI (or any law) won't ever replace active participation in the res publica
  - ktosobcy 1y ago
    That's true, but that would be a huge signal of a rejection. What's more - changing such law would be slightly more complex than just introducing the backdor IMHO.
    - arlort 1y ago
      > would be slightly more complex than just introducing the backdor Not really, both things need to be done by a law. So it's the same signal and complexity as just rejecting the law when it's proposed And the second option at least does away with the pretension of permanence people like to use as an excuse to wash their hands of interest in politics
dathinab 1y ago
Maybe, just maybe, (probably not) they learned something from the NSA/FBI (I don't remember) tricking the BSI into helping them with industry espionage against a large Germany company[^1]. and pretty much any technology widely used in chat control would be under tight US control, or Israel which in recent times also isn't exactly know to be a peace seeking reasonable acting country. [^1]: Which I think was about car companies and pre-trump, pre-disel-gate. Also not the only time where it's known that the US engaged on industry espionage against close allies or Germany specifically.
Kim_Bruning 1y ago
Instead of playing defense, I think we need to take positive steps. Secrecy of Correspondence[1] is something that desperately needs to be extended fully to mobile devices. Compare how many letters you get vs how many chat messages you send. Secrecy of (mobile) communications should be recognized as a (natural?) right. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence (edit: unbreak formatting)
- Ericson2314 1y ago
  Agreed that we can just do defense so close to loosing, we need a proper buffer, not just hoping nothing changes.
nickslaughter02 1y ago
Just think for a moment how broken the EU model is. You don't want something to pass. Other citizens of your country don't want the thing to pass. Your politicians don't want that thing to pass. Your euro politicians don't want that thing to pass. Yet in the current model that doesn't matter one bit because your SOVEREIGN country may still be overruled by foreign countries and politicians. It's unbelievable that we have allowed EU to spread into this all encompassing monster that deals with anything but economic cooperation among member countries. ------------------- > European law has priority over any contravening national law, including the constitution of a member state itself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law
- fabbbbb 1y ago
  Is this a EU thing? Replace Country by municipality, province, state.
- seabass-labrax 1y ago
  That is factually untrue. While governments of member states of the EU no longer have a direct veto against proposed EU legislation in many cases, the EU does not claim any sovereignty over member states. If a member state fails to block a proposal, all that simply means is that the qualified majority[1] of representatives of other member states believes the legislation to be so important that the union would not work without it. Dissenting member states can seek to reverse or temper the legislation later, or simply leave the union - see Brexit. No sovereignty is violated at any point. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_E...
  - nickslaughter02 1y ago
    > Primacy of European Union law > The primacy of European Union law (sometimes referred to as supremacy or precedence of European law[1]) is a legal principle of rule according to higher law establishing precedence of European Union law over conflicting national laws of EU member states. The principle was derived from an interpretation of the European Court of Justice, which ruled that European law has priority over any contravening national law, including the constitution of a member state itself.[2][3][4] For the European Court of Justice, national courts and public officials must disapply a national norm that they consider not to be compliant with the EU law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law
whiterock 1y ago
Austria opposing, meanwhile planning their own version of it nationally lol.
- cenamus 1y ago
  Wish I knew wtf they are cooking up for us
  - Ylpertnodi 1y ago
    Whatever it is, history is not on your side.
sensanaty 1y ago
I'd support this if and only if we ran a trial where all public officials had all their messages and emails publicly readable by citizens. Surely the good people adamant on spying on their constituents en-masse has nothing to hide, right?
GardenLetter27 1y ago
This is good, but we do need some sort of progress somehow. As that case with the fake drug dealer "privacy-focussed" mobile phone company was crazy, when they had all the messages from Swedish death squads, etc. - https://www.404media.co/watch-inside-the-fbis-secret-phone-company/ https://www.404media.co/watch-inside-the-fbis-secret-phone-c... Obviously monitoring everyone's messages is making things way too easy for authoritarian dictatorships later on, but there does need to be some progress so these groups can't keep acting with complete impunity.
listic 1y ago
How is the blocking minority counted? 8/27=0.296 (29.6%), and I thought it has to be 35% (65% supporters to pass)
- caeruleus 1y ago
  A qualified majority needs (1) 55% of countries [15 atm] (2) representing 65% of EU population. If one of the above is not met, a blocking minority (usually) needs >=4 countries to vote against a proposal. Germany voting against CSAR would mean (2) is not met in this case. Source: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/voting-system/qualified-majority/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/voting-system/...
dev1ycan 1y ago
The real question to me is, why is Europe and Europeans okay with America and American software companies having access to their logs (encryption can be bypassed take whatsapp for example, do you honestly bellieve that Facebook does not have access to whatever is typed on whatsapp and/or can give it to authorities if necessary?) or discord, which if you are on mobile tells you via a title what the conversation you're having is about, is automatic message scanning not involved there? but the EU and or European countries cannot? If we go by the idea that America should not either, then go ahead and do something about it, all this seems to me is just some weirdly motivated "activism" that may or may not be originated from the source that actually has access to said data at the moment. I am going to go with the belief that people are not naive and instead they are acting maliciously about this knowing very well that this already occurs, but only for a specific side.
darqis 1y ago
The fascists will continue to bring it back again and again, just like Microsoft TCPA and TPM different name same shit
- palata 1y ago
  I'm against ChatControl like most tech-savy people. But because someone is in favour doesn't mean they are a fascist. Usually they just don't understand why it is a problem. "If it helps the good guys, I don't see a problem" is easy to say. And if you tell them "yeah but if it helps the good guys, it helps the bad guys", they will simply answer "well, make it such that it doesn't help the bad guys".
munksbeer 1y ago
What should actually happen is that adversaries of this policy should challenge those backing chat control to a test. Those backing it get to attempt to make it work for a year in a control environment, and if at the end of that year, they still can't read every message that actors within that control environment send to each-other (which they won't), we abandon the whole thing for good. "Bad guys" will always find a way around any attempt to stop them communicating privately. And the rest of the population will be left with governments spying on all of our interactions. The fact that this is even getting this far is absurd.
- Anamon 1y ago
  Why not? They should then also be forced to red-team the heck out of it. If they claim so confidently that it can be done securely, ask them to prove it and set up a bug bounty program. Then watch them scramble for excuses when the first person releases all recorded messages within an hour of the system going up.
another_twist 1y ago
I dont get it, what problem are they trying to solve ? This kind of regulation stirs up a lot of shit and just wastes everyones time.
rasz 1y ago
Opposition from biggest victims of russian occupation and KGB invigilation. Germany - Das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Stasi). Poland - Służba Bezpieczeństwa (SB) Czech and Slovakia - Státní bezpečnost (StB)
dcabot 1y ago
[dead]
lofaszvanitt 1y ago
Just replace politicians with AI. As soon as the systems are reliable.
DerWOK 1y ago
Time to buy a MeshTastic node?

1128 points by xyzal 1y ago

It's not the end of the fight, but it's great to see that the efforts are working! I sent a handwritten letter to my MPs a few weeks ago about this issue but no answer so far...

riedel 1y ago
They oppose breaking encryption, however, I see no true opposition to on device scanning, which is a bit worrying. >The BMI representative explained that they could not fully support the Danish position. They were, for example, opposed to breaking the encryption. The goal was to develop a unified compromise proposal – also to prevent the interim regulation from expiring. [0] Edit: source [0] https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1108356 https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1108356
- lukan 1y ago
  "Es sei klar, dass privater, vertraulicher Austausch auch weiterhin privat sein müsse." "Private communication needs to stay private" I interprete this as not having a dumb police bot installed on my devices checking all my communication. That sometimes by misstake sends very private pictures away, because it missclassified. This is what chat control means and I believe if most people would understand it, they would not be in support of it. It is no coincidence, that the outcry mainly happens in tech affine groups.
  - Dilettante_ 1y ago
    I bet what the politicians mean is "we have to make sure our surveillance is safe, like our digital health data, so that no bad actors can tap it". The only one who should be reading your messages is you, the sender, and the government.
- silverliver 1y ago
  There is no on-device scanning without compromising privacy. Scanning that can detect child abuse can also detect human rights activists, investigative journalists, and so on. I imagine this technology can be easily used by the government to identify journalists by scanning for material related to their investigation. On-device scanning is a fabrication that Apple foolishly introduced to the mainstream, and one that rabid politicians bit into and refuse to let go.
  - ACCount37 1y ago
    Some say "Apple got too much shit for on device scanning". I think they didn't get nearly enough. If you as much as give the "think of the children" crowd an inch, they'll take a mile. And giving them on device scanning was way more than "an inch".
    - immibis 1y ago
      Apple has never supported your privacy though, not really. Spyware company issues spyware, news at 11. They're better than Google, but they're not good.
  - riedel 1y ago
    That is exactly the problem. I still can imagine that they come up with some scheme as a compromise, that particularly targets particularly encrypted group chats along with all kind of server side automatic scanning, that as you mention could be abused at least by intelligence to track non CSAM content. I wonder what other 'compromise' will actually be effectively possible.
CjHuber 1y ago
I know in the US it's very common to write emails or letters to their governor, but still I see it somewhat cynical. Like a popular tweet mattering much more than letters that probably won't be opened at all, and if it is opened I cannot imagine a MP reading all of them, more likely a clerk saying "You've got x citizens sending you letters about y", which would then again be somewhat valuable but I also can't imagine they have clerks opening every letter.
- alphazard 1y ago
  > common to write emails or letters to their governor, but still I see it somewhat cynical. Yes, writing letters to these people is unlikely to help. The only language they speak is in votes. They have to be convinced that they will lose reelection over the issue. A conditional prediction market for their reelection given they vote a certain way would be the most effective tool.
- rsynnott 1y ago
  Sometimes making a politician aware that "if you vote for this, it may annoy people" can be enough. Your average politician votes on a _lot_ of things, many of which they know little or nothing about. They will take only a small number of them seriously, and a big factor in what gets taken seriously is what people are moaning about. The first step really is just getting the politician to think about what they're voting on. They also don't actually necessarily get _that_ many letters.
HexPhantom 1y ago
Politicians notice when enough people take the time to reach out, especially in such a personal way
addandsubtract 1y ago
I used the online form at fightchatcontrol.eu to send an e-mail to all of my representatives. Of the 90ish contacts, 4 replied – all agreeing to be against the proposal. One of them even mentioned the influx of mails they were receiving about the topic. So that gives me hope.
port11 1y ago
The fight shouldn't have to be fought continuously. If legislation is shot down repeatedly, there should be a delay before it can be brought back again.

inglor_cz 1y ago

Yesss. It seems that public pressure pays off. During the first iterations of Chat Control, I was pretty much the first source (a poor blogger with about ten thousand irregular readers!!) that wrote about it in Czech. It was surreal to break news on something THAT important (and blatantly unconstitutional in Czechia), while all the bigger media just slept ... and slept ... and slept ... Almost bizarre, I felt as if I was watching news from a parallel universe where that thing just does not exist. The latest round was already much better covered by the media, including the publicly paid TV and radio. It took them three years, but they noticed. It was also more discussed on the Internet. Slovakia flipped its position precisely due to grassroots pressure.

andrepd 1y ago
> It was surreal to break news on something THAT important (and blatantly unconstitutional in Czechia), while all the bigger media just slept ... and slept ... and slept ... Unfortunately it's the pyramid of Maslow. It's hard to make people care about something that seems academic when there are much more pressing political problems crushing people and making sure they don't have space to think about anything else. It's hard to make people care about privacy principles when they can't afford a house anymore.
- inglor_cz 1y ago
  That too, but my experience was that a huge part of the problem was sheer ignorance. When informed about those plans, most people actually react with some disgust. But the European Commission was really trying to be low-key around this, and the media usually jump on loud scandals first. Too few journalists are willing to poke around in the huge undercurrent of not-very-public issues and fish for some deadly denizens there. More publicity definitely helped the freedom's cause here.
kriro 1y ago
Thank you for doing that nad being a voice for liberty.
sunaookami 1y ago

Kelteseth 1y ago

Proud to be a German today, for sure :)

inglor_cz 1y ago
Yay for Dobrindt and vdL losing this fight :) She is not called Zensursula without a reason.
- riedel 1y ago
  I think the front lines are not that clear. Zensursula was actually a termed coined because she wanted the German equivalent of the online safety act in Germany back in the days. The 'Stasi 2.0' initiative (data retention at ISPs and online 'raids') was backed by some people in CDU and SPD (current ruling coalition). IMHO online safety (censorship) and chat control (privacy invasion) are different beasts, with different lobby groups as well.
  - Dilettante_ 1y ago
    I mainly remember the Zensursula title in connection with the ISP-level DNS-blocking initiative (the Stopsign thing) which was to combat CSAM. I remember all the nerds going "That's a slippery slope to blocking other stuff as well though", and being dismissed. Now we got the CUII blocking libgen, scihub, piracy sites and as I recently read on HN, russia today(that's not the cuii I'm pretty sure, but same mechanism).
    - riedel 1y ago
      You are right, I had to look it up again : Zugangserschwerungsgesetz [0] But the law did not feature any kind of data collection afaik. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugangserschwerungsgesetz https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugangserschwerungsgesetz Edit: I think I mixed it up with her game censorship [1] (which I guess also contributed to her nick name). [1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/von-der-leyen-sofortprogramm-gegen-killerspiele-angekuendigt-1.836575 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/von-der-leyen-sofortp...

Hamuko 1y ago

Glad that my country (Finland) is also on the correct side of this. Disappointed that our Nordic and Baltic neighbours are not though. Would've expected more, especially from Estonia.

jeltz 1y ago
Sweden and Denmark are some of the main drivers of this proposal. As a Swede I am a bit unclear why as while our politicians are quite pro-survelliance they have spent much more political capital than reasonable. One possible reason seems to be lobbyism and shady connections to surveillance tech companies and various shady non-profits https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the-eus-fight-over-scanning-for-child-sex-content/ https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...
- ahartmetz 1y ago
  > Johansson, however, has not blinked. “The privacy advocates sound very loud,” the commissioner said in a speech in November 2021. “But someone must also speak for the children.” Literal "Won't anybody think of the children" moment.
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supermatt 1y ago
> Disappointed that our Nordic and Baltic neighbours are not though Why do you think the Baltics are in favour? Are there some announcements they have made?
- BoredPositron 1y ago
  Edit: You were totally right Matt. Brain fart.

ur-whale 1y ago

Funny how the map shows a clear north/south divide (modulo some nordics). Looks like latin cultures don't really care about being spied on by they governments.

monegator 1y ago
* There is absolute ZERO information about this in the news, not even from the privacy authority * There is little to no faith in our elected officials, especially from _that_ side * Also people don't seem to care, all invested in the "i have nothing to hide" mentality
andrepd 1y ago
"Latin cultures" is a really wild way to put it, when Denmark has been the most prominent promoter of the initiative. This is a map of the government's positions, not even the parliament much less the public, and therefore a picture of whatever happen to be the parties in charge at the current time.
- riffraff 1y ago
  ireland and latvia, classic latin shenanigans.
  - reorder9695 1y ago
    In Ireland this isn't something the public really even knows was proposed, I highly doubt the public would be in support of this, although can't be sure about it. You would think given the country's history they wouldn't be in favour of government overreach in this way but you never know.
izacus 1y ago
"Some nordics" are MOST of the nordics, meaning - all the north though.
xeonmc 1y ago
Where do Switzerland fall on the map?

egorfine 1y ago

Excellent win! See you next time.

teekert 1y ago
Next time, when the proposal is worse, when less people care, and the methods to stop it no longer exist.
- portaouflop 1y ago
  The struggle never stops, that is part of the human condition - you should embrace this endless cycle with confidence instead of cynical defeatism
  - antonvs 1y ago
    Dormammu, I've come to bargain
- latexr 1y ago
  “Next time” is preferable to now. Giving up and bringing others down is not the answer. If you want to give up, that’s your prerogative, but please don’t drag others down with you, you’re working against your own best interests. The thing you said right now is exactly what the bad actors want, don’t play into their hands. Thankfully not everyone has that defeatist attitude, or the law would have passed the first time. And the proposal has not been worse, it’s more crippled with every attempt. Maybe we can’t stop the problem indefinitely, but we can mitigate the harm. Or maybe we can stop it long enough that the people making these proposals are replaced and we eventually win. Don’t give up. You don’t have to fight along every one else, but if you’re not actively helping, I humbly ask that you also don’t actively make it worse.

jansan 1y ago

Even if they did, I am sure this would have been toppled by our constitutional court. You have to know that our police is not allowed to scan number plates of cars entering or leaving the country due to privacy concerns. How on earth would anyone think that lifting our dearly held fundamental right of "mail privacy" is ok?

uyzstvqs 1y ago
Even if it's EU regulation? My experience is that you get told that EU regulation and international treaties are "above our national democratic/justice system", and that we can't do anything about it.
- klinch 1y ago
  IANAL - but when EU regulation and national law regarding civil rights conflict then the citizen has the "union set" of all guaranteed rights. Or in other words: A member state can grant additional civil rights (on top of the EU charta) but can't take them away.
- nickslaughter02 1y ago
  That's how it works. > Primacy of European Union law > European law has priority over any contravening national law, including the constitution of a member state itself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law
- 3np 1y ago
  Germany specifically seems to have an out if it comes down to it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law#Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_la...
ManBeardPc 1y ago
It would probably be toppled by courts, yes. Anyway, meanwhile they already start implementing it, developing the technology and infrastructure they can base on the next time where they basically reintroduce the same illegal laws in a new name. So companies and governments already have to spent huge sums of resources to introduce it and may fall into the sunken-cost fallacy. "If we now already have it we can also use it (for something else)"?

ManBeardPc 1y ago

Glad we could delay it for now. It will come back again and again with that high of support though. Also the German Bundestag is already discussing a compromise: https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1108356 https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1108356. They are only unhappy with certain points like breaking encryption. They still want to destroy privacy and cut back our rights in the name of "safety", just a little less.

mrktf 1y ago
Yes, sad part it will be implemented and I betting even in worse form than it is proposed... And worst part of it "safety" it for current governing party to destroy any opposition. My wild guess it will voted for with overwhelming majority using "times changed" argument.
- FinnLobsien 1y ago
  Let's hope it will be implemented in typical "Germany does anything on the computer" fashion where they endlessly debate into a theoretically comprehensive, but impossible to implement solution.
- latexr 1y ago
  > it will be implemented and I betting even in worse form than it is proposed That doesn’t seem likely, because every time this fails the new version is compromised from the previous one. For example, in the last revision you would be able to refuse the monitoring but it would mean you would be unable to send files or links. Still bad, but not worse.
ta1243 1y ago
The only way to win the argument is to win the argument with the public. In the UK the public overwhelmingly support the age controls, so even political parties who would otherwise oppose it just stay silent, because the public narrative You have to shift the narrative. Farage does this - he's finally after 20 years managed to get elected to parliament, he's head of a company with 4 MPs, same say as the Greens, about the same as the nationalists, yet for 20 years he has steered the conversation and got what he wants time after time

PicassoCTs 1y ago

[dead]

liendolucas 1y ago

Apparently Italy will support it. This is absolutely infuriating and it will fail miserably. Encryption can't he stopped no matter what law gets out there and any politician voting in favor shows how ignorants they are. Instead of discussing WHY "owned" mobile phones have a short lifespan and we can't truly do whatever we want with them (be at the hardware/software level) and forced to choose between the apple and google duopoly, we get into these lousy law debates about privacy. Why doesn't the EU put effort in paving the way for a more open and free tech world when we rely 100% on propietary technology that comes from the other side of the Atlantic?

guappa 1y ago
Because USA sends their ambassadors to threaten you if think the free market is free and decide to no longer buy from them. https://lwn.net/Articles/1013776/ https://lwn.net/Articles/1013776/
arlort 1y ago
> Instead of discussing WHY "owned" mobile phones have a short lifespan and we can't truly do whatever we want with them (be at the hardware/software level) and forced to choose between the apple and google duopoly, we get into these lousy law debates about privacy. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240419IPR20590/right-to-repair-making-repair-easier-and-more-appealing-to-consumers https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240419IP... https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/digital-services-act_en https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-...
AlgebraFox 1y ago
Encryption cannot be stopped. But Android and iOS can be backdoored. These evil companies lock down our devices, does not allow apps to run without their approval, and selectively push updates from their servers to our devices. This is a wet dream for governments.

mrtksn 1y ago

IIRC It's Denmark that keeps pushing for this. Is there anyone here to give more background on that?

BSDobelix 1y ago
>>Return of chat control: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/08/08/return-of-chat-control-something-is-rotten-in-the-state-of-denmark https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/08/08/return-of-chat-cont...
tucnak 1y ago
The unfortunate reality is that a single largest lobbyist for Chat Control in the EU is, ironically, the US, namely the US intel community-affiliated orgs like Thorn, WeProtect, etc. The EU bureaucrats are gullible, and it's no excuse of course, however there's a reason why every time there's a new driver, a new country behind Chat Control proposals. This has been part of coordinated U.S. signals collection strategy. Nobody in Europe stands to gain anything from this besides the US as all tech solutions for this are provided by US companies and agencies alone. The boards of these orgs are crawling with Washington guys, & their activity is limited to foreign countries. Not once have they attempted anything of the sort on US soil. See https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=44929535 https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=44929535
- mrtksn 1y ago
  Hmm, maybe the anti-chatControl movement should add some anti-Americanism in it then?
  - tucnak 1y ago
    I reckon that would only serve to play into their hands. There is just enough plausible deniability for conspiracy-theory optics. Moreover, European politicians really hate to be publicly humiliated like that, so it might as well achieve the opposite from desired effect. The Balkan Insight findings, among other journalistic results, were published years ago, and it had little, if any effect. The audience that would resonate with anti-American messaging on the subject are already catalysed contra ChatControl, and the undecided would just read this as conspiracy theory...

nabla9 1y ago

As long as I remember there has been these initiatives in EU. They have been all blocked so far, or turned into something reasonable, but there will always be a new try. "Think of the children" will never die.

tannhaeuser 1y ago
It's easy to blame EU lobbyism, but as the situation in UK shows, the EU legislative process can also used to save us from ourselves. That said, how come we haven't seen massive antitrust action against the likes of Google? You only have to follow the money here.
rsynnott 1y ago
Oh, not just the EU. This sort of thing is about as old as generally available public key encryption. An early example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip
krunck 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...

Raed667 1y ago

Unless there is a law that says that the fundamental right to privacy is protected then we're bound to repeat this ordeal every couple of years.

BSDobelix 1y ago
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948): No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks
- tgv 1y ago
  Sounds like the European Court of Human Rights would annul it, but you can't be sure.
- _ink_ 1y ago
  It's also in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). But that has a big loop whole. Article 8: Right to privacy 1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. 2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
  - poly2it 1y ago
    > Everybody has a right to privacy (except where inconvenient).
  - blazarquasar 1y ago
    They could have just left out Article 8. Its a “no interference by a public authority unless it want’s to.” “Well-being of the country”, “protection of health or morals” are terms that make this statute irrelevant and dependent on the current mood of the EU. Privacy needs to be an absolute right. Any invasion of privacy of any individual is a violation of their rights and needs to be treated as such with actual repercussions following misconduct.

tcldr 1y ago

With a warrant from a judge people should be compelled to provide access to their encrypted files or be in contempt of court with all that entails. Anything else is overreach.

deleted 1y ago
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heikkilevanto 1y ago
Wonderful idea. All I need to is to create an encrypted file with pedo pictures or terrorist plans or just white noise, send a copy to all my enemies, and tip off the authorities.
- boxed 1y ago
  And what happens when your enemies can't produce the decryption key?
  - alexey-salmin 1y ago
    In many countries it's prison time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law
    - boxed 1y ago
      Yea that's extra fun if someone else sent it then. Government puts them in jail for not having the encryption key for something someone else encrypted.
- fauigerzigerk 1y ago
  No, that's not all you need to do unless your only goal is to harass your enemies and cause inconvenience.
schroeding 1y ago
You cannot prove the absence of e.g. a Veracrypt hidden volume or similar, though. Even if you honestly give up your key, you could still be either A) held in contempt of court, if the authorities do not find what they expect for some reason and accuse you of using such techniques or B) if you specify that such behaviour by law enforcement is overreach, have a clean way out for criminals, codified in law, heavily damaging the impact you may expect of such a law.

zarzavat 1y ago

Between this and Google locking down Android, one day the only way to get secure communications will be to buy Huawei etc. Thank God for China, bastion of free speech.

tenacious_tuna 1y ago
Can you elaborate on how Google is locking down Android? I'm not familiar
- zarzavat 1y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45017028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45017028
  - tenacious_tuna 1y ago
    ty
rapind 1y ago
But I have nothing to hide! /s
NikxDa 1y ago
Yes, China, the bastion of free speech... https://freedomhouse.org/country/china/freedom-world/2025 https://freedomhouse.org/country/china/freedom-world/2025
- bcraven 1y ago
  I know HN takes a dim view on them, but that post was a joke. Of _course_ China isn't a bastion of free speech, that is why the joke is funny.
  - N_Lens 1y ago
    I think HN has a higher than average number of people who are unable to detect irony or sarcasm.

mutkach 1y ago

Why would you really need something like that in a non-totalitarian state? Basically, it follows the russian playbook (essentially the same 'language' - safety concerns), but instead of the FSB, who is the beneficiary actor in this case?

pembrook 1y ago
Many people working in government wish they were administering a totalitarian state, and would be the beneficiary actors. Government is a job that self-selects for people who either want safety (non elected jobs) or power (elected jobs) more than anything else, given it pays far less than the private sector. Both the safety people and the power people want to reduce public freedom and the ability to do things. The only way we keep these people from this is the threat of voting them out of their jobs. But they are more motivated than we are, so they usually win over time.

wtbdbrrr 1y ago

someone has to prove illicit connections to private companies and potentially black markets. the data is guaranteed to end up in the wrong hands which will have a worse impact on the lives of citizens, workers as much as educated ones, and definitely officials; how to better gain dirt on someone if the law supports breaking encryption and they falsely believe their state of the art messaging app is worth more than the skeletons in their closets? at the least the basic human rights and privacy laws should be on everyones' side ... except rapists, the many kinds of violent abusers, murderers, especially the genocidal kind, drug punchers, and these fuckers roofying kids in clubs and bars just to have sex ... I probably forgot some ... sorry I didn't stay on topic. As Freud wanted to let us know, the ageing rich are perverts with enough means to hide any crime ... then they made him bend over and invent the Oedipus complex, ffs the only way for them to create an argument for ChatControl is more terrorism or some fucked up crimes against children so this damn thing is a sure-fire shitstorm with recursive, bad yields.

nickslaughter02 1y ago
https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the-eus-fight-over-scanning-for-child-sex-content/ https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...
- wtbdbrrr 1y ago
  big thanks.

deafpolygon 1y ago

Happy to see the NL here in opposition to ChatControl! The political climate here is slowly pushing to the right, which I'm not happy about. But there seems to be voices getting louder from the left. So that leaves me with hope!

HexPhantom 1y ago

Honestly, this whole ChatControl proposal reeks of the "think of the children" excuse being used to push through mass surveillance

palata 1y ago
I think many genuinely just want to increase security for their people. Not mass surveillance and orwellian control. They just don't understand why it's technically not possible to achieve what they want without unacceptable risks. Similar to the climate change issue: no politician is aiming at having their children die before retirement age from the consequences of climate change. They just don't understand that they are pushing us there (like most of the people, to be fair).

ktosobcy 1y ago

Maybe an ECI (european citizens' initiative) that would burry the thing for good? :)

arlort 1y ago
That's not how laws work. New laws always override old laws so an ECI (or any law) won't ever replace active participation in the res publica
- ktosobcy 1y ago
  That's true, but that would be a huge signal of a rejection. What's more - changing such law would be slightly more complex than just introducing the backdor IMHO.
  - arlort 1y ago
    > would be slightly more complex than just introducing the backdor Not really, both things need to be done by a law. So it's the same signal and complexity as just rejecting the law when it's proposed And the second option at least does away with the pretension of permanence people like to use as an excuse to wash their hands of interest in politics

dathinab 1y ago

Maybe, just maybe, (probably not) they learned something from the NSA/FBI (I don't remember) tricking the BSI into helping them with industry espionage against a large Germany company[^1]. and pretty much any technology widely used in chat control would be under tight US control, or Israel which in recent times also isn't exactly know to be a peace seeking reasonable acting country. [^1]: Which I think was about car companies and pre-trump, pre-disel-gate. Also not the only time where it's known that the US engaged on industry espionage against close allies or Germany specifically.

Kim_Bruning 1y ago

Instead of playing defense, I think we need to take positive steps. Secrecy of Correspondence[1] is something that desperately needs to be extended fully to mobile devices. Compare how many letters you get vs how many chat messages you send. Secrecy of (mobile) communications should be recognized as a (natural?) right. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence (edit: unbreak formatting)

Ericson2314 1y ago
Agreed that we can just do defense so close to loosing, we need a proper buffer, not just hoping nothing changes.

nickslaughter02 1y ago

Just think for a moment how broken the EU model is. You don't want something to pass. Other citizens of your country don't want the thing to pass. Your politicians don't want that thing to pass. Your euro politicians don't want that thing to pass. Yet in the current model that doesn't matter one bit because your SOVEREIGN country may still be overruled by foreign countries and politicians. It's unbelievable that we have allowed EU to spread into this all encompassing monster that deals with anything but economic cooperation among member countries. ------------------- > European law has priority over any contravening national law, including the constitution of a member state itself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law

fabbbbb 1y ago
Is this a EU thing? Replace Country by municipality, province, state.
seabass-labrax 1y ago
That is factually untrue. While governments of member states of the EU no longer have a direct veto against proposed EU legislation in many cases, the EU does not claim any sovereignty over member states. If a member state fails to block a proposal, all that simply means is that the qualified majority[1] of representatives of other member states believes the legislation to be so important that the union would not work without it. Dissenting member states can seek to reverse or temper the legislation later, or simply leave the union - see Brexit. No sovereignty is violated at any point. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_E...
- nickslaughter02 1y ago
  > Primacy of European Union law > The primacy of European Union law (sometimes referred to as supremacy or precedence of European law[1]) is a legal principle of rule according to higher law establishing precedence of European Union law over conflicting national laws of EU member states. The principle was derived from an interpretation of the European Court of Justice, which ruled that European law has priority over any contravening national law, including the constitution of a member state itself.[2][3][4] For the European Court of Justice, national courts and public officials must disapply a national norm that they consider not to be compliant with the EU law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law

whiterock 1y ago

Austria opposing, meanwhile planning their own version of it nationally lol.

cenamus 1y ago
Wish I knew wtf they are cooking up for us
- Ylpertnodi 1y ago
  Whatever it is, history is not on your side.

sensanaty 1y ago

I'd support this if and only if we ran a trial where all public officials had all their messages and emails publicly readable by citizens. Surely the good people adamant on spying on their constituents en-masse has nothing to hide, right?

GardenLetter27 1y ago

This is good, but we do need some sort of progress somehow. As that case with the fake drug dealer "privacy-focussed" mobile phone company was crazy, when they had all the messages from Swedish death squads, etc. - https://www.404media.co/watch-inside-the-fbis-secret-phone-company/ https://www.404media.co/watch-inside-the-fbis-secret-phone-c... Obviously monitoring everyone's messages is making things way too easy for authoritarian dictatorships later on, but there does need to be some progress so these groups can't keep acting with complete impunity.

listic 1y ago

How is the blocking minority counted? 8/27=0.296 (29.6%), and I thought it has to be 35% (65% supporters to pass)

caeruleus 1y ago
A qualified majority needs (1) 55% of countries [15 atm] (2) representing 65% of EU population. If one of the above is not met, a blocking minority (usually) needs >=4 countries to vote against a proposal. Germany voting against CSAR would mean (2) is not met in this case. Source: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/voting-system/qualified-majority/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/voting-system/...

dev1ycan 1y ago

The real question to me is, why is Europe and Europeans okay with America and American software companies having access to their logs (encryption can be bypassed take whatsapp for example, do you honestly bellieve that Facebook does not have access to whatever is typed on whatsapp and/or can give it to authorities if necessary?) or discord, which if you are on mobile tells you via a title what the conversation you're having is about, is automatic message scanning not involved there? but the EU and or European countries cannot? If we go by the idea that America should not either, then go ahead and do something about it, all this seems to me is just some weirdly motivated "activism" that may or may not be originated from the source that actually has access to said data at the moment. I am going to go with the belief that people are not naive and instead they are acting maliciously about this knowing very well that this already occurs, but only for a specific side.

darqis 1y ago

The fascists will continue to bring it back again and again, just like Microsoft TCPA and TPM different name same shit

palata 1y ago
I'm against ChatControl like most tech-savy people. But because someone is in favour doesn't mean they are a fascist. Usually they just don't understand why it is a problem. "If it helps the good guys, I don't see a problem" is easy to say. And if you tell them "yeah but if it helps the good guys, it helps the bad guys", they will simply answer "well, make it such that it doesn't help the bad guys".

munksbeer 1y ago

What should actually happen is that adversaries of this policy should challenge those backing chat control to a test. Those backing it get to attempt to make it work for a year in a control environment, and if at the end of that year, they still can't read every message that actors within that control environment send to each-other (which they won't), we abandon the whole thing for good. "Bad guys" will always find a way around any attempt to stop them communicating privately. And the rest of the population will be left with governments spying on all of our interactions. The fact that this is even getting this far is absurd.

Anamon 1y ago
Why not? They should then also be forced to red-team the heck out of it. If they claim so confidently that it can be done securely, ask them to prove it and set up a bug bounty program. Then watch them scramble for excuses when the first person releases all recorded messages within an hour of the system going up.

another_twist 1y ago

I dont get it, what problem are they trying to solve ? This kind of regulation stirs up a lot of shit and just wastes everyones time.

rasz 1y ago

Opposition from biggest victims of russian occupation and KGB invigilation. Germany - Das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Stasi). Poland - Służba Bezpieczeństwa (SB) Czech and Slovakia - Státní bezpečnost (StB)

dcabot 1y ago

[dead]

lofaszvanitt 1y ago

Just replace politicians with AI. As soon as the systems are reliable.

DerWOK 1y ago

Time to buy a MeshTastic node?