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The same EU that's doing Chat Control?

rf15 11mo ago
The same EU of which parts are trying to make chat control work and are once again abandoning it. Politician get this particular fancy idea every other year in all kinds of countries, not just EU. Overreach out of desperation for a problem that cannot simply be solved is wrong but understandable.
- igor_akhmetov 11mo ago
  Desperation for what exactly? More control?
  - ForHackernews 11mo ago
    They are trying to stop crime, including sex/drug trafficking and child exploitation. If you want to have an intellectually honest debate, you need to be clear that private communication apps do make it more difficult for police to conduct legitimate investigations. You do yourself no favours painting all politicians as power-hungry caricatures.
    - ipaddr 11mo ago
      So do private in person conversations. Going the route of North Korea putting two way speakers in each house would help make those conversations available to the government. Think of all of the child exploitation you could stop by removing any sense of privacy. Of course they would figure a way around this and everyday citizens would have to deal with the lack of privacy but at least they thought of the children so we should keep voting them in.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 11mo ago
      If chat control is a good-faith effort to stop crime, why can't Android developer verification be a good-faith effort to stop cybercrime? If politicians are not all power-hungry caricatures, is it possible that the same is true for businesses? Android has millions of users worldwide, many of whom are far less computer-literate than HN users. I think it's very reasonable for Google to put speed bumps in front of malware developers trying to distribute through the Play Store. If you're a half-decent dev, $25 is nothing compared to the opportunity cost of your time in developing your app. This whole thing seems to be a fairly recent announcement on Google's part, so it's unsurprising they're still hammering out details for hobbyist devs? How about making constructive suggestions for ways that Google can protect ordinary people without stopping power users?
      - ForHackernews 11mo ago
        I think the issue is not about distribution in the Play Store (I don't actually have any problem with that: their playground, their rules) but the fact that they are going to break sideloading and alternative app sources like F-Droid. I struggle to see any good-faith need to erect additional barriers to protect users from running the programs they want on devices they own, when you already have to be fairly expert to enable developer mode, install via adb, etc.
        0xDEAFBEAD 11mo ago
        That's fair.
deaux 11mo ago
The same EU that's doing NL Labs, the org mentioned in the comment you're replying to.
exe34 11mo ago
The EU is a big place, run by a lot of different people, with true separation of powers. They don't have a president-king who can just ignore court decisions.
- jmnicolas 11mo ago
  So we're gonna get access to Von Der Layen Pfizer sms right? Were you offered to vote for Von Der Layen by the way?
  - StopDisinfo910 11mo ago
    For all the disdain I have for her, Von Der Layen is the candidate put forward by the PPE, the majoritarian party in the EU parliament. So, yes, people were indeed allowed to vote.
    - wqaatwt 11mo ago
      She was primarily nominated by the EU council. The parliament would have picked Weber, but nobody cared since its just there to rubber stamp predetermined decisions. He was the leader of the party which won the plurality in the elections and had its support. EU had a real chance to move towards becoming a real parliamentary democracy if it went that way.
      - StopDisinfo910 11mo ago
        That was the election before the current one. She was the one out forward by the PPE this time and even then she was the second candidate put forward by the PPE after Weber was vetoed by France the previous time. That’s the new Spitzenkandidate system. The council is supposed to pick the candidate put forward by the main political force in the parliament. The EU is a real democracy anyway. All the members of the council are themselves democratically elected. It has a weird three parts political system but everyone in it is elected or appointed by people elected.
  - Certhas 11mo ago
saubeidl 11mo ago
The same EU that shut down another attempt at Chat Control. Bad legislation gets written everywhere, the difference is, in the EU it doesn't pass.
supermatt 11mo ago
It appears that you are an American who has conveniently forgotten about FISA, EARN IT, CLOUD act, PATRIOT act, LAED, etc, etc, and wants to take a dig at the EU for what, exactly? NOT passing Chat Control? Seriously..
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- 0xDEAFBEAD 11mo ago
  It's interesting how so many online discussions of internet privacy devolve into nationalist chest-beating. I'm beginning to suspect that people don't inherently value privacy all that much -- they just want to brag about how their country is the most private. Recall that the premise of this thread is that the EU should sponsor an alternative to Android. The EU vs US question isn't really topical, since no one suggested that the US government should sponsor an alternative to Android instead.
- closeparen 11mo ago
  I do not think it is righteous or enlightened when the American government flexes control over the tech sector. I can see how Europeans might have thought this about the EU when it was just GDPR, but subsequent developments have recast all of this as being about government control and keeping the tech industry “in its place” rather than a commitment to privacy and freedom in and of themselves. I think that ought to temper the righteousness.
  - supermatt 11mo ago
    What subsequent developments? It sounds like you are alluding to the DMA. The DMA is an attempt to reclassify what “market” means in the modern age where we have a global tech oligopoly. This is because a simple “test” for monopolism doesn’t work in this world of multinational megacorps. Again, your complaint is a double standard. You are doing similar in the USA - albeit without an actual structured act - as per the recent rulings on the Google Play store. The EU has simply codified the rules for their vision of the future where people aren’t beholden to a handful of tech overlords, whereas the USA is making similar incremental “changes” through case-law. I’m not saying either way is correct, but it seems like they are both headed in the same direction.

rf15 11mo ago

The same EU of which parts are trying to make chat control work and are once again abandoning it. Politician get this particular fancy idea every other year in all kinds of countries, not just EU. Overreach out of desperation for a problem that cannot simply be solved is wrong but understandable.

igor_akhmetov 11mo ago
Desperation for what exactly? More control?
- ForHackernews 11mo ago
  They are trying to stop crime, including sex/drug trafficking and child exploitation. If you want to have an intellectually honest debate, you need to be clear that private communication apps do make it more difficult for police to conduct legitimate investigations. You do yourself no favours painting all politicians as power-hungry caricatures.
  - ipaddr 11mo ago
    So do private in person conversations. Going the route of North Korea putting two way speakers in each house would help make those conversations available to the government. Think of all of the child exploitation you could stop by removing any sense of privacy. Of course they would figure a way around this and everyday citizens would have to deal with the lack of privacy but at least they thought of the children so we should keep voting them in.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 11mo ago
    If chat control is a good-faith effort to stop crime, why can't Android developer verification be a good-faith effort to stop cybercrime? If politicians are not all power-hungry caricatures, is it possible that the same is true for businesses? Android has millions of users worldwide, many of whom are far less computer-literate than HN users. I think it's very reasonable for Google to put speed bumps in front of malware developers trying to distribute through the Play Store. If you're a half-decent dev, $25 is nothing compared to the opportunity cost of your time in developing your app. This whole thing seems to be a fairly recent announcement on Google's part, so it's unsurprising they're still hammering out details for hobbyist devs? How about making constructive suggestions for ways that Google can protect ordinary people without stopping power users?
    - ForHackernews 11mo ago
      I think the issue is not about distribution in the Play Store (I don't actually have any problem with that: their playground, their rules) but the fact that they are going to break sideloading and alternative app sources like F-Droid. I struggle to see any good-faith need to erect additional barriers to protect users from running the programs they want on devices they own, when you already have to be fairly expert to enable developer mode, install via adb, etc.
      - 0xDEAFBEAD 11mo ago
        That's fair.

deaux 11mo ago

The same EU that's doing NL Labs, the org mentioned in the comment you're replying to.

exe34 11mo ago

The EU is a big place, run by a lot of different people, with true separation of powers. They don't have a president-king who can just ignore court decisions.

jmnicolas 11mo ago
So we're gonna get access to Von Der Layen Pfizer sms right? Were you offered to vote for Von Der Layen by the way?
- StopDisinfo910 11mo ago
  For all the disdain I have for her, Von Der Layen is the candidate put forward by the PPE, the majoritarian party in the EU parliament. So, yes, people were indeed allowed to vote.
  - wqaatwt 11mo ago
    She was primarily nominated by the EU council. The parliament would have picked Weber, but nobody cared since its just there to rubber stamp predetermined decisions. He was the leader of the party which won the plurality in the elections and had its support. EU had a real chance to move towards becoming a real parliamentary democracy if it went that way.
    - StopDisinfo910 11mo ago
      That was the election before the current one. She was the one out forward by the PPE this time and even then she was the second candidate put forward by the PPE after Weber was vetoed by France the previous time. That’s the new Spitzenkandidate system. The council is supposed to pick the candidate put forward by the main political force in the parliament. The EU is a real democracy anyway. All the members of the council are themselves democratically elected. It has a weird three parts political system but everyone in it is elected or appointed by people elected.
- Certhas 11mo ago

saubeidl 11mo ago

The same EU that shut down another attempt at Chat Control. Bad legislation gets written everywhere, the difference is, in the EU it doesn't pass.

supermatt 11mo ago

It appears that you are an American who has conveniently forgotten about FISA, EARN IT, CLOUD act, PATRIOT act, LAED, etc, etc, and wants to take a dig at the EU for what, exactly? NOT passing Chat Control? Seriously..

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
0xDEAFBEAD 11mo ago
It's interesting how so many online discussions of internet privacy devolve into nationalist chest-beating. I'm beginning to suspect that people don't inherently value privacy all that much -- they just want to brag about how their country is the most private. Recall that the premise of this thread is that the EU should sponsor an alternative to Android. The EU vs US question isn't really topical, since no one suggested that the US government should sponsor an alternative to Android instead.
closeparen 11mo ago
I do not think it is righteous or enlightened when the American government flexes control over the tech sector. I can see how Europeans might have thought this about the EU when it was just GDPR, but subsequent developments have recast all of this as being about government control and keeping the tech industry “in its place” rather than a commitment to privacy and freedom in and of themselves. I think that ought to temper the righteousness.
- supermatt 11mo ago
  What subsequent developments? It sounds like you are alluding to the DMA. The DMA is an attempt to reclassify what “market” means in the modern age where we have a global tech oligopoly. This is because a simple “test” for monopolism doesn’t work in this world of multinational megacorps. Again, your complaint is a double standard. You are doing similar in the USA - albeit without an actual structured act - as per the recent rulings on the Google Play store. The EU has simply codified the rules for their vision of the future where people aren’t beholden to a handful of tech overlords, whereas the USA is making similar incremental “changes” through case-law. I’m not saying either way is correct, but it seems like they are both headed in the same direction.