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Oppose the Earn IT Act

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Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#551

Post by suizi »

treis wrote: post #126
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as horrible as this is do you think that banning encryption will put an end to the abuse itself? I'm actually convinced that all this does is reduce the sharing of such material, e.g. what people are outraged with is usually not only the act in itself but the fact that some sickos get off on this material. but I wouldn't think for a moment that because of some law less kids will be abused. I'm actually fine with some…

>as horrible as this is do you think that banning encryption will put an end to the abuse itself? No, but there's a huge excluded middle between the level of abuse with easy E2E encryption and no abuse. >prevent the greater evil which is that of normalization of mass-surveillance within society (any more than it is already) which will ultimately destroy more lives. Facebook has been around for 15 years now without E2…

To my knowledge, a vast majority of crimes are committed in the home and without uploading evidence of it online. It would never be dealt with by outlawing any sort of encryption.

Would it not be better to figure out ways we could tackle that? Counsellors taking a close look at children? Teachers trained to identify abused children? CPS making a closer examination of suspicious households?

I know you're coming from but online crime really is a tip of an iceberg. An iceberg that is easy to spot but one which masks the true scope of the insidiousness going on below and makes it all too easy to say mission accomplished.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#552

Post by suizi »

treis wrote: post #126
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as horrible as this is do you think that banning encryption will put an end to the abuse itself? I'm actually convinced that all this does is reduce the sharing of such material, e.g. what people are outraged with is usually not only the act in itself but the fact that some sickos get off on this material. but I wouldn't think for a moment that because of some law less kids will be abused. I'm actually fine with some…

>as horrible as this is do you think that banning encryption will put an end to the abuse itself? No, but there's a huge excluded middle between the level of abuse with easy E2E encryption and no abuse. >prevent the greater evil which is that of normalization of mass-surveillance within society (any more than it is already) which will ultimately destroy more lives. Facebook has been around for 15 years now without E2…

For people like Hernandez, and I don't know how many there are, as it is never mentioned anywhere. You could think of restricting Tor anonymity with children you have no shared contacts with. I would be very, very wary of going a step further than that as it's very easy to justify "just another step.

To prevent someone from growing dependent on or vulnerable to an external abuser, we could invest in mental healthcare and counselling for conditions like depression which is all too common in teenagers nowadays.

Facebook should not be in the business of writing malware. Malware which could well be used against activists.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#553

Post by suizi »

RHSeeger wrote: post #508
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, but there's a huge excluded middle between the level of abuse with easy E2E encryption and no abuse. call me old fashioned but every time I look at porn (which is very rare these days) I am disgusted by the meta-data that is added to these videos. It shows that people love to click on videos that read "stepdad and stepdaughter ..." and similar taglines. America has a problem with the whole "call me daddy" fetis…

> America has a problem with the whole "call me daddy" fetish. I never understood what this is about. It's deeply pedophelic imho I would challenge that. I would argue that it is a that there are a lot of people (regardless of country) that get a rise out of things that are taboo. One of those things is the step-parent/child thing (because parent/child is too far for many people).

Parent / child might be alright if it is purely role-play and not real.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#554

Post by suizi »

tumetab1 wrote: post #483
treis wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I guess I’m biased since this is essentially my whole livelihood, but this is crazy, right? There's clearly a valid argument from the other side. For example: >Facebook announced in March plans to encrypt Messenger, which last year was responsible for nearly 12 million of the 18.4 million worldwide reports of child sexual abuse material, according to people familiar with the reports. https://www.nytimes.com/interact…

Why would it stop abuse reports? FB Messager report function sends a decrypted copy to Facebook AFAIK.

If someone is extorting hundreds of girls like Hernandez did, one is bound to send a report in.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#555

Post by suizi »

wtn wrote: post #12
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, nsa mass surveillance and legalized torture were never repelled by any side. In fact, the patriot act has been prolongued 5 times, no matter the administration, and is still in effect. As a european, I don't see any party that actually have american people's interest in mind. Fighting for either seems so futile from here. Of course, we have similar problems as well so I'm not going to pretend I have a solution.

Some of the programs originally from the USA PATRIOT Act expired in March 2020.

The House and Senate are fighting to get it reauthorised.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#556

Post by suizi »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #9
blintz wrote: post #3

I cannot believe that the one thing we have bipartisan consensus on is destroying strong encryption. I guess I’m biased since this is essentially my whole livelihood, but this is crazy, right?

We have bipartisan consensus[1] that tech companies have acted badly and that Section 230 should be repealed or significantly amended. I think EARN IT will probably kill Section 230, not strong encryption, so I think EARN IT is pretty great. Tech companies probably should be coming to the realization by now that it's only a matter of time (probably 4-8 years) before we close the 230 loophole: So if they're given a ch…

Repealing 230 would give them an even greater incentive to suppress conservative views as someone could argue they're looking the other at people being radicalised by hate speech. You could say 230 is what protects platforms like Gab who knowingly host conservative speech.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#557

Post by suizi »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #31
mikestew wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can run, and with that platform your opponent will conveniently turn it around into "my opponent supports child molestors and terrorists". Because if you think you'll simply walk up to the podium talking about something most folks could not give a working definition for, boy, are you going to be in for a shock when your opponent "dumbs it down" for the audience. Which is how we end up with stuff like the EARN IT…

> that one would reasonably think would be shot down immediately, but isn't. EARN IT looks like a compromise compared to this: https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2020/06/there%E2%80%99s-n... which is I assume why it was pushed only a few days ago.

Lesser of two evils is a common tactic to push authoritarian bills in some countries. They don't expect LAED to pass and it has practically no supporters.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#558

Post by suizi »

sailfast wrote: post #10

I reached out to my representatives on this when the Act was first proposed. I'm confused about the changes that have happened since that time and the post does not say anything about what has changed. What does "Advancing" mean in this case? If I have already contacted all of my legislators about strong encryption and opposition to this bill, what is the latest change that requires re-engaging?

The latest version now involves State law so if one State out of 50 decides encryption is bad for children they can go after any company in the U.S.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/new-earn-it-bill-still...

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#559

Post by suizi »

Klonoar wrote: post #64
programmarchy wrote: post #13

Thankful for Mozilla and EFF, but have any tech elites spoken out against this or put money into defeating it? Thiel, Musk, Altman, Graham... hello? Should we assume SV is complicit?

Not even touching on those individuals, it's been bothering me that it feels like mostly silence from Google, Apple, Facebook (who this would presumably really hit at), etc. I'd really love to be missing something. It feels like this is just fading into the background... and while I can acknowledge the idea that you might just try to fight this as unconstitutional after it passes, that feels inherently risky given th…

Their lobby group has shared their concerns over the bill but they haven't done much beyond that.
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