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Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties

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Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties

#151

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

redshiftingstar wrote: post #81
arrrg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Describing the current government in Austria as center-right is a bit ridiculous (to say nothing of putting words like centrist or left anywhere near descriptions of that government). Austrian politics have been moving further and further to the right and the FPÖ (junior coalition partner) is a xenophobic far-right party with authoritarian streaks. I’m really not comfortable in describing a government where such a pa…

Not surprised by the political shift, I have lived there for few years and felt really discriminated. Few people actually stopped talking to me after they learn where I'm from(Turkey). It's bit out of context but I will heavily advise against moving there for non-European immigrants, don't make the same mistake that I did.

I feel for you. The Turkish community has a real hard time in Austria, much more so than Germany.

I'm ashamed to say that many people from my childhood, today consider themselves liberals but in their rethoric are nothing more than the descendants of Nazis. The first thing I did when being old enough was to GTFO of Austria, and I haven't been back other than on vacation. I have a couple of Turkish friends in Germany who feel quite comfortable and at home there. From those I met in Austria they were by far not as cheerful. There is a lot of talk about "integration" which is basically a way to say: don't speak your language, don't eat your food, and don't visit your mosques because it offends us.

Every attempt of me making friends among Turks in Austria has always been met with suspicion since they aren't used to it. Extremely sad and disgusting.

I guess the problem is that people view Austria as some kind of liberal "Western" country, while geographically it is part of Eastern Europe and ideologically they are closer to those cheering for Victor Orban in Hungary.

If you want to deeply offend (most) Austrians call them Eastern Europeans. They think they're better.

Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties

#152

Post by vageli »

lazyjones wrote: post #67
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #51

Earlier 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…

> 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 legislation is planned for this too.

Also remember that as soon as you connect to the cell phone network, your location is made known. If you ever slip up and use your personal and private sims in a more private place, you are likely to get caught. Coupled with other potential identifier leakage (like device id as you mentioned) the opsec bar is high for this use case.

Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties

#153

Post by vageli »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #85
lazyjones wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Roaming costs are basically non-existant these days in the EU. Data plans can be limited for other countries, even within the EU (and frequently are), i.e. if your prepaid contract allows 5GB monthly data transfer for free, the provider might limit this to 500MB for roaming and beyond that limit, you can pay a hefty fee per MB. In general, prepaid cards aren't famous for having a generous data plan...

You need almost no data to register an account.

You need passport or local id for prepaid purchase, at least in the EU countries to which I've been.

Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties

#155

Post by kdme »

coldtea wrote: post #138
codedokode wrote: post #96

It is surprising. Even here, in Russia, we don't have such laws working yet. And I wonder, what Austrian authorities are going to do with foreign platforms like Telegram, which are unlikely to comply? Russian government has been trying to block Telegram using DPI for a year and didn't succeed. What about Twitter? Reddit? > In addition, web platforms would be required to appoint a liaison in Austria who would be respo…

> This will just put foreign platforms, who will ignore the law, into an advantageous position compared to local platforms. Users might switch to foreign platforms that don't require identification. Doesn't really matter, as those things move the Overton window. Tomorrow, when the US, China, and EU adopt similar laws, there wont be any "foreign services" to use.

What a scary idea. I want to say that its unlikely to happen but with the political climate right not...

Anybody got an ideas, on what we are supposed to do when that happens

Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties

#158

Post by readittwice »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #80
readittwice wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Almost all your points are about immigration. Yes, they have certainly moved to the right on immigration. Even the centre-left social democrates have moved right in this regard. But that still doesn't make the conservatives a right-wing party.

Compared to the past they have also moved left on other topics: e.g. by not touching pensions.

"restricts skilled immigration": Funny, since they have also been criticized for allowing more immigration. Ironically from left-leaning people.

"reduce social support systems": Well, they mostly retargeted social support. All polls showed that a large majority of the people supported these changes. People thought the old system enforced the wrong incentives.

Also let's not forget that they reduced taxes on salaries specifically for working-class families substantially.

"lowers corporate tax rates": IIRC they have only lowered one tax slightly for a single sector (tourism) so far. Hardly anything dramatic.

Still, all these points are not too surprising for conservatives in general. If this is enough for you to call them right-wing, that's certainly fine for me.

Just to add: I've talked to people that directly called the Austrian conservatives an extreme right party ;) I know you didn't go as far, but they were also pretty serious about that. Maybe we can agree that at least "extrem right" is ridiculous. I personally don't get where this overly-dramatic phrasing comes from. Are some people so upset that for once the chancellor is not a social-democrat?

Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties

#159

Post by lazyjones »

Causality1 wrote: post #135

In the US we have a little freak-out every time a private entity like the Blizzard gaming forums or Google+ does this. I cannot imagine the shitstorm if it was attempted on a national level.

We have to blame the clickbaity headline for this, but you too misunderstood that this isn't about de-anonymizing users' profiles for the general public. Nicknames are still allowed, but the forum operator has to verify your ID at registration. Just like Blizzard knows your real name from your subscription details.

Re: Austrian government seeks to eliminate internet anonymity, with severe penalties

#160

Post by agumonkey »

vectorEQ wrote: post #122
kkarakk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peer to peer connections are increasingly looking like a solution to me, google,apple all have research ongoing on how to have private intranets between mobiles in an area.ipfs could be extended for such usecases too. couple that with self hosted(or maybe companies do it for you for a fee) mobile base stations to extend the range of that intranet for coverage that is actually free of government snooping/supervision w…

peer to peer connections flow over infrastructure provided by companies who provide you, the internet. good luck to have that up and running as 'next internet'. ... it's something you do on the current internet :S

HTTP over SARCASM RFC 443
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