Certainly comes with massive privacy leakage
Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
71–80 of 292 posts
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#72Could anyone shed some light on which problem this is supposed to solve exactly and what triggered it in the first place in Austria right now? Have there been any issues caused by anonymous posts recently? Maybe I'm just living under a rock, but my feeling was that the main issues we're currently facing stem from political distortion caused by populism misusing platform mechanisms to spread misinformation. I don't se…
This was triggered by a defamation lawsuit where a former female MP was being harrassed via facebook, made the harassement public via twitter, and subsequently sued by the owner of the facebook account. She lost the lawsuit and was ordered to pay damages. The court found that the owner of the facebook account is not necessarily the harasser, so making the harassement public is libel.
Of course this case was only a welcome trigger to implement some law to cause FUD. Austrian government is completely illiterate in all things regarding internet, but in this case (and the case of the copyright directive), I would go as far and presume malicious intent (not just stupidity).
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#73There was a point made where an opposing lawmaker said that foreign companies like Facebook would not bother to comply. Ha! They will all love to have your real name and address confirmed, they will be more than happy to oblige. It would make many things easier, and allow them to monetize you much better. So strange, this seems to be the exact opposite of the trend in the USA where the public desire is moving towards…
I think Australia's movement is coming from China. It will go for large scale censorship.
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#74Could anyone shed some light on which problem this is supposed to solve exactly and what triggered it in the first place in Austria right now? Have there been any issues caused by anonymous posts recently? Maybe I'm just living under a rock, but my feeling was that the main issues we're currently facing stem from political distortion caused by populism misusing platform mechanisms to spread misinformation. I don't se…
This comes from a government in which the junior coalition partner is the far-right FPÖ, an openly pro-Putin and authoritarian party. This law is part of their campaign to browbeat the press and public sphere into submission and it is following attempts to rein the austrian public broadcaster (orf) in. The proposed law is useless for any legitimate purpose, as anonymity was never a problem with hate speech or other t…
I wonder why people think that Putin controls all right wing parties on this planet (including Trump).
No one talks about Gazprom Schroeder (center-left SPD) who destroyed the welfare state in Germany and then joined Gazprom.
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can buy sim cards on amazon from other EU countries.
So tell me how this will work. Will you swap SIM cards just to post anonymously sometimes and let the telecom providers (among others) find out what your other SIM cards are through your device ID? Or will you get a SIM card from another country to use exclusively and pay roaming costs / live with a worse data plan in Austria? People apparently forget that telecoms providers cooperate with authorities, new legislatio…
I cannot say for sure but as I remember EU countries eliminated roaming charges, even for prepaid.
OTOH there are not so many EU countries that sell prepaid without ID.
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can buy sim cards on amazon from other EU countries.
So tell me how this will work. Will you swap SIM cards just to post anonymously sometimes and let the telecom providers (among others) find out what your other SIM cards are through your device ID? Or will you get a SIM card from another country to use exclusively and pay roaming costs / live with a worse data plan in Austria? People apparently forget that telecoms providers cooperate with authorities, new legislatio…
Roaming costs are basically non-existant these days in the EU.
For me it is cheaper to use internet through roaming than buying local plan.
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#77There's already the Handy Signatur (https://www.handy-signatur.at/hs2/) - a way to digitally sign official documents using your smartphone ('handy'). The only way to obtain this is to have your ID and phone number registered with the authorities. It's convenient, but it's also a system that removes any possibility of anonymity.
I imagine this kind of digital signature will be mandatory when signing up for the internet services described in the article...
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're thinking about fake names, you'll get problems trying to register your SIM cards at the telecoms provider, they do ID checks now.
There was a practice in Germany where people traded registered pre-paid SIM cards openly on a website created for that purpose - which was perfectly legal[1]. However they stopped when a court shot down the surveillance law that made people concerned in the first place[2]. If Austrians are even half as privacy-conscious as Germans, expect much of the same happening. 1: https://datenschmutz.net/anonym-kommunizieren-si…
> If Austrians are even half as privacy-conscious as Germans, expect much of the same happening.
Possibly among groups of people who regularly break the law. I can't see a normal person willingly accepting this sort of risk (e.g. being persecuted for child pornography someone else downloaded) for no good reason.
Also, the authorities will find you anyway if you've ever used a SIM card with your real name in the same phone or even if you only bought the phone from a place where device IDs are registered (like Apple, presumably).
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#79Could anyone shed some light on which problem this is supposed to solve exactly and what triggered it in the first place in Austria right now? Have there been any issues caused by anonymous posts recently? Maybe I'm just living under a rock, but my feeling was that the main issues we're currently facing stem from political distortion caused by populism misusing platform mechanisms to spread misinformation. I don't se…
This was triggered by a defamation lawsuit where a former female MP was being harrassed via facebook, made the harassement public via twitter, and subsequently sued by the owner of the facebook account. She lost the lawsuit and was ordered to pay damages. The court found that the owner of the facebook account is not necessarily the harasser, so making the harassement public is libel. Of course this case was only a we…
That seems like an absolutely nonsensical outcome from the court. Does anyone have the court transcript? (yes I'm aware of the risks of reading machine translated legal German, but it would be interesting to know)
(I see that Facebook's ineffective harassment policy is at the root of this again)
Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
OeVP in the current incarnation is not in the center any more. Definitely right wing.
No, that's just your opinion. The OVP is center-right, the FPO is right wing/populistic.
The OeVP current platform is to curb rights of immigrants, to reduce social support systems, lowers corporate tax rates, introduces laws to restrict social housing to non immigrants, reduces child support payments for children in other EU countries, continues the policy on border controls in Schengen, restricts skilled immigration, sets a maximum limit of 1.5 euro per hour income for asylum seekers when doing social service. What did this party do that’s center?
The policies that OeVP introduces and advocates are more restrictive and conservative than the FPOe did under Haider.