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EU funds are flowing into spyware companies and politicians demanding answers
- Simulacra 1y agoThis isn't good, but it's not uncommon. My concern is if this behavior has led the European Union into the digital ID fiasco. All of this data monitoring can be used to manipulate politicians into supporting.
- mrtksn 1y agoWhat is the EU digital ID fiasco?
- Simulacra 1y agoApologies, Britain is forcing digital ID for all citizens for Internet access. This is also been discussed at the European Parliament level, and there's a significant amount of public black lash. That's the fiasco, I should've been more specific.
- norman784 1y agoAFAIK the digital ID will also be required when getting a new job.
- hkt 1y agoIn the UK's case, ID has been required to get a new job or rent a house for a decade.
- whywhywhywhy 1y agook so why the need for the digital one if we already have one
- ajsnigrutin 1y agoBecause requiring an ID to register for eg. a facebook account is hard... how do you input your physical card into a computer? There's potential for abuse when taking a photo of it, and as soon as one photo of an ID appears online, everyone can use that. By having people get digital IDs, you can require them to use it when registering for social network accounts, etc., because it's already in their phones and requires just one tap to 'sign' the account with your real identity. Want to complain about a local politician on r/uk on reddit? You'll need a valid UK account to even post there, and it'll be tied to your real name. Want to join a discord? You need UK ID and your real identity tied to it. Organizing a protest? Well, your real name is there, the police will be visiting soon.
- pjc50 1y agoVery good question, isn't it. The point of the policy is to make headlines. Implementation is a messy detail for the future.
- Nab443 1y agoEasier to store more information while preventing any non authorized to access them, like signing keys and biometrics ?
- wizzwizz4 1y agoYou're still conflating a few things. The UK government wants to require digital ID for employment, with housing etc to follow. People on HN suspect the plan is to combine that with the Online Safety Act internet identification requirements, but no such plans have been announced as far as I'm aware.
- masfuerte 1y agoWhen Starmer announced digital ID he also talked about the regulation of social media. Sure, nobody has confirmed the plan, but the two things are clearly connected in the prime minister's thinking. On the other hand, according to The Times yesterday the cabinet isn't happy with digital ID. It's as obvious to them as it is to everyone else that digital ID won't make a jot of difference to illegal working. And may well lose them votes.
- octo888 1y agoYes the idea is to get ahead of things you are opposed to instead of waiting for it to be law already, so you can try to prevent or shape it
- graemep 1y agoThe UK is also shortly going to require all children to have a digital identifier to be used across government services. That also clears a path to a digital ID. The government has also talked about making drivings licences digital (i.e. apps) People suspect a lot more than it being used in conjunction with the OSA. it can be extended in all sorts of ways. Once available it will be used for more and more. It is not necessary for employment and housing as there are already documents that can be checked on the rare occasions people rent housing or get a new job. It is only worth doing if it is something people will use daily. Essentially people will be coerced into carrying a Google or Apple smartphone with the ID app on it.
- wizzwizz4 1y ago> The UK is also shortly going to require all children to have a digital identifier to be used across government services. I hadn't heard about that one. Source?
- pjc50 1y agoIn case you missed it, the UK is no longer part of the EU. It is doing this under its own steam, or perhaps that of lobbyists.
- harvey9 1y agoThe current UK PM campaigned to remain in the EU and I doubt he has ever done anything under his own steam. The lobbyists in this case are led by the Tony Blair Institute - Mr Blair tried to introduce id cards when he was PM.
- hopelite 1y agoI sometimes wonder what people think who previously would have verbally accosted and ridiculed others who warned of this very state of things coming about, being made identifiable online in a country/society where the government has already also rolled out a panopticon of surveillance and clandestine perception and thought control, where privacy does not exist in public either anymore. It doesn’t really matter either way because the tyranny and authoritarian control will descend upon people regardless; but do they at least have some kind of guilt, maybe shame, or even realize they are also guilty, not just in basically helping their own enemy, the people in charge of the government implementing these things? Or do they simply in a somewhat typical narcissistic way just hand wave it away and generously absolve themselves of any guilt and responsibility for the misery they are/will be responsible for? Turns out the “…fools, and even the ambitious…” were also the “…traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely…”. It was a stroke of genius to psychologically and emotionally manipulate and wage war on the minds of the folks who were fools, i.e., the majority in a “democracy” who gleefully voted themselves into a trap under influence of the created reward system that had them getting feedback that told them they are the good people.
- StopDisinfo910 1y ago> tyranny and authoritarian control Care to explain how a state providing an official way to allow its citizen to prove they are who they say they are and avoid identity usurpation on the internet is somehow tyrannical and authoritarian? That seems like a valuable public service to me.
- graemep 1y agoI have come across people arguing that it is fine because a lot of European countries have ID cards and its not a problem because "no one is suffering" (to quote one person).
- randunel 1y agoEU's digital ID depends on EU citizens having either a Google account, or an Apple account https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-doc-technical-specification/discussions/19 https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-doc-technic...
- isodev 1y agoTo be clear, the digital wallet app is just a way to manage your government issued eID. Both the wallet app you link to and eID are based on the EIDAS spec. The wallet doesn't supersede or replace your country's apps unless the country opts for that. For example in Belgium, we have a robust selection of apps and the non-phone approach using a USB card reader. The use-case for age verification is not a law yet, the EC has only produced a blueprint which means that this will probably not be adopted by everyone before EIDAS is fully implemented.
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- ozgrakkurt 1y agoThis has to be one of the funniest things I read. People who approved this have to be soft in the head. Also saw some of my countries government’s webpages have google analytics scripts. I’m guessing they didn’t even get a bribe for that, it is really ..
- mariusor 1y agoI think that presenting this as "fait accompli" is incorrect. I don't think actual development even started on anything.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoAnother way to manipulate politicians: "Gee, dat dere shore is a nice marriage ya gots dere. It'd shore be a shame, if da wifey wuz t' find out about ya mistress..." That was pretty much how J. Edgar Hoover was able to grab Congress by the short hairs for years.
- trolleski 1y agoEuropean politicians are great at pretending to do stuff, not newsworthy.
- markus_zhang 1y ago“One of your officials pays farmers to produce surplus food, while on the same floor, the next office is paying them to destroy the surpluses.” —- the late venerable Prime Minister Jim Hacker
- ajsnigrutin 1y agoThis is at least a bit understandable... if something bad happens, a (trade, or a 'classic') war, some large catastrophe somewhere, you want local farmers with all the equipment, knowledge, fields and warehouses ready to take over. Yeah, sure, today maybe you have a surplus of potatos, more than your people want to eat, and still more expensive from imported ones from some other country, but subsidizing the farmers means that in such extreme cases, you at least have the infrastructure to grow potatos to feed the people at home.
- troupo 1y agoThe New Deal used this tactic to (a very simplified description) raise prices on farm products and let farmers get out of poverty during The Great Depression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Farm_and_rural_programs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Farm_and_rural_progra...
- actionfromafar 1y agoNow we use the opposite tactic! Brilliant times ahead.
- harvey9 1y agoThe EU also used to have wine surpluses like this. I suppose you could make a witty argument that wine will be needed in a crisis.
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- pjc50 1y agoThere's a lot wrong with the EU but at least that particular scenario is, fortunately, impossible. Still somewhat possible at the national level where the real power lies, such as Orban.
- graemep 1y agoI agree no-one needs and Elon. On the other hand, i think comments like this illustrate how frustrated people are. It is also exactly the opportunity people like Musk (or worse) will grab to gain more power.
- lesuorac 1y agoOnly so frustrated though. Not frustrated enough to actually bother to check if Trump exploded the deficit during his first term and think hey is he going to do this again? Or hey, Musk says he's going to save 2 trillion but never clarified how; maybe he's not a reliable source. Frustration without thinking just leads to more frustration.
- caconym_ 1y agoEven this is a charitable description of what they did. It seems like it was more of a data exfiltration play, forcing their way into agencies' IT departments with armed thugs and scraping data to be joined and shared with ICE, etc. Possibly the Russians if that one whistleblower is to be believed. I don't think the EU needs anything of the sort!
- actionfromafar 1y agoIt must be easier to infiltrate when security clearances aren’t a requirement.
- alephnerd 1y agoThis saga has been going on for a couple years now [0]. A number of CEE and Southern European countries like Spain, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Czechia, Romania, and others heavily leverage this kind of tooling [1] and continue to have extremely strong interior ministries and weak democratic controls. It's also helped create a boom in the cybersecurity industry, and helped build the hiring pipeline most American and Israeli cybersecurity firms are using in the CEE today. [0] - https://www.politico.eu/article/parliament-defense-subcommittee-phones-checked-for-spyware/ https://www.politico.eu/article/parliament-defense-subcommit... [1] - https://vsquare.org/pegasus-spyware-poland-hungary-slovakia-romania/ https://vsquare.org/pegasus-spyware-poland-hungary-slovakia-...
- lifestyleguru 1y ago> It's also helped create a boom in the cybersecurity industry, and helped build the hiring pipeline most American and Israeli cybersecurity firms are using in the CEE today. Huge part of my decades long IT career is linked with Polish IT industry and I have no idea what are you talking about. Poland is most likely spending heavy millions on Israeli and American spyware mostly used to consolidate power internally.
- alephnerd 1y agoPoland isn't the only country in the CEE. Try visiting Czechia sometime. That's where exploit dev is largely consolidated thanks to the OS dev teams MS and RedHat offshored there decades ago plus Avast which developed a OS dev and detections engineering pipeline, and the Israeli FDI boom that started a decade ago to take advantage of that. Poland's scene is mostly Incident Response and SOC, but the Polish talent pool has started climbing up the ladder.
- lifestyleguru 1y ago> Try visiting Czechia sometime Linked with US and Israel even tighter, now because of let's call it "a family connection". > OS dev teams MS and RedHat offshored Their pinnacle achievement is antivirus for Windows and MS Teams.
- wim 1y agoIt's good they look into this, but if we're talking about spyware, I'd like to see more MEPs urging the Council to oppose ChatControl. If that passes that's not just EU funds being misused but the EU directly mandating spyware on a continental scale!
- Sharlin 1y agoWhich would, of course, primarily benefit… spyware companies.
- alephnerd 1y agoWhat the MEPs in SEDE mean by spyware in this case is exploit and root kits being deployed by member states Interior/Home Affairs ministries and targeted at MEPs - not "mass surveillance" (which SEDE is largely indifferent about). Spyware in EP parlance means rootkits and zero-day exploits. This is largely a result of Predator which was co-developed in Czechia and Israel.
- port11 1y agoChat Control is being heavily lobbied for by a… spyware company. Cof, sorry, cof, a for-the-good-of-the-children company.
- hulitu 1y agoThe only error in your post is this "by a… spyware company". There are, unfortunately, more than one company (paying for) lobbying this.
- molticrystal 1y ago> I'd like to see more MEPs urging the Council to oppose ChatControl They are exempt, but exemption won't help if they get hit by spyware.
- PeterStuer 1y agoWhile at the same time we still do not have von der Leyen's FOI dodging SMS messages.
- analog8374 1y agoSince the beginning of time wealthy people spy on poor people. They hunger for the power, burning in their heart eternally. There is no stopping it.
- lucasRW 1y agoThis is not related to wealth. And I am not sure than the EU leaders are that "wealthy". This has all to do with the authoritarian tendencies of Europeist movements/ideology.
- ajjahs 1y ago[dead]
- analog8374 1y agoThe EU leaders serve the wealthy. Obviously.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- lucasRW 1y agoBut up to now they didn't ?
- mc32 1y agoI don’t doubt this is the case in modern times but I doubt they have spied on the poor since the beginning of time since there was little reason to spy on powerless illiterates. They spied on known enemies or rivals sure but not on the masses since there was little reason to do so. It was also costly to do so.
- stronglikedan 1y agoMaybe not "spying" per se, but oppressors have always kept enough tabs on the oppressed to keep them oppressed for as long as possible, often without the oppressed knowing exactly how. Maybe "spying" after all.
- zelphirkalt 1y agoLets get rid of Microsoft abos/subscriptions directly financing spyware! Away with all the shitty Outlook and MS Teams! Yes! Finally! Oh wait ... That's not what the article is about ...
- yupyupyups 1y agoExactly.