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Messaging and chat control

patrick-breyer.de

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Re: Messaging and chat control

#231

Post by smarx »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #179
tedcrilly wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protonmail uses PGP and not "home-brewn encryption" and encryption is on by default between Protonmail users.

False. Even when it does use PGP, it is meaningless, explanation: I just created a spare protonmail account. It asked me to pick a username and password, and my account is created. Next, I send there a message from my other account. Yes, on the receiving end it does write "End-to-end encrypted and signed message", but encrypted and signed by what exactly? I have never created a PGP keys and loaded the public key to P…

That experiment shows that whatever is stored on ProtonMail's servers plus your password is sufficient to decrypt your emails. This could be explained by the private key being derived from or encrypted with your password. ProtonMail's documentation says it's the latter (https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/how-is-the-pri...):

> Your ProtonMail private key is generated in your browser. Before sending the private key to the server for storage, we encrypt it with your password (or mailbox password if you use two-password mode). This ensures that you and only you can use your private key.

So the only remaining question is whether ProtonMail has access to your password. If they do, they can decrypt your private key and then decrypt your emails. Often, passwords are sent in plaintext to a server for authentication. But ProtonMail uses the Secure Remote Password (SRP) protocol so they never see your password: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Remote_Password_protoco.... (source: https://protonmail.com/blog/encrypted_email_authentication/)

Of course, there are other threats to worry about, such as ProtonMail changing their client-side JavaScript to exfiltrate your password. But the system as they've documented it does not appear to have any way to decrypt your email server-side short of guessing your password.

Re: Messaging and chat control

#232

Post by upofadown »

AtticHacker wrote: post #52

If it becomes mandatory for email providers to screen emails, will services such as Protonmail become illegal in the EU? Since they don't have access to their users' email content because of encryption.

They could conceivably add screening to the javascript client downloaded to the user that does the end to end encryption. Don't know how practical that might be.

I think the more interesting question involves something like Mailvelope. It is a stand alone OpenPGP based encryption system based on the ProtonMail code that provides encryption for webmail. It can be hosted somewhere physically and politically far away from the EU and is an open source project. How will the EU approach the ancient PGP dilemma this time around?

Re: Messaging and chat control

#233

Post by matheusmoreira »

camgunz wrote: post #186
anfelor wrote: post #98

The scary thing about this is that many people have images that look like child porn at home: Family photos of naked grandchildren playing at the sea or in the mud, as well as sexting between consenting teenagers. There is no way automatic classification can distinguish these from real child porn, because they look almost identical and thus many private pictures will be shared with the government. This not only infri…

"Child porn" is a smokescreen. It's what every privacy advocate saw coming: find the worst, most repugnant thing possible and use it to backdoor encryption. It's not a dream, and it's really happening, right now.

Yeah. Children are the perfect political weapon. You can use children to justify anything and destroy the reputation of anyone who opposes you. It's reasonable to assume anyone using children as argument is acting in bad faith.

I seriously doubt governments actually care about children. They probably care a great deal more about maintaining their own power and control over their subjects. We see countries like Russia and China using the tools of surveillance and law enforcement to silence political opposition and dissent.

Re: Messaging and chat control

#234

Post by ceilingcorner »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #194
Dma54rhs wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The age of consent goes low as 14 in Europe but that doesn't change the definition of CP. Probably they won't prosecute when both parties are underage and such so heavily but consent age doesn't change the fact that nudity is 18+.

Nudity is 18+ in extremist countries like the Emirates or the USA. Sorry but in France, 30 years ago before american culture started to dictate where money come from, you would see genitals from all genders and ages in movies. Nobody found it offensive, because we didn't have a catholic puritan morality to impose its sick twisted vision of the human body on us. Meanwhile we sold car by showing cars, not hot girls. Bu…

> catholic puritan morality

Might want to check your terms here.

Re: Messaging and chat control

#235

Post by ForHackernews »

kristjank wrote: post #17
ForHackernews wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably they're referring to requirements for vaccinations to attend large public gatherings. I think it's an absurd hyperbole, myself.

Is it really, though? Both child abuse and the pandemic are serious issues with real world victims, and both are riddled with privacy, anonymity and personal integrity issues. If we don't act against them, people will die/get hurt, and if we act against it in a Macchiavelian manner, democracy and quality of our life suffers enormously. My observation is that in the name of: a) Covid b) Counterterrorism c) Child abuse…

Yes it's absolutely hyperbole to compare the racist policy of apartheid to reasonable restrictions on people who voluntarily choose to avoid vaccines for mostly-nonsense reasons.

Do you also oppose driver's license restrictions? Or existing pre-covid vaccine requirements? I struggle to see how these new restrictions are so onerous.

Re: Messaging and chat control

#236

Post by t0bia_s »

toxik wrote: post #41
herbst wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still no and far from a direct democracy.

Direct democracy is not a panacea. In fact, it can be quite the opposite. Fair and effective governance is a very difficult thing to achieve, tending either to be subvertible, or totalitarian.

Democracy cannot work without free acces to information. However, most people wont care about it. Especially nowadays when public opinions are shaped by social networks with censorship and sensations. We can implement all kind of ideologies on masses very fast. So direct democracy could be more dangerous than you can imagine.

Re: Messaging and chat control

#237

Post by ForHackernews »

aww_dang wrote: post #77
kristjank wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really, though? Both child abuse and the pandemic are serious issues with real world victims, and both are riddled with privacy, anonymity and personal integrity issues. If we don't act against them, people will die/get hurt, and if we act against it in a Macchiavelian manner, democracy and quality of our life suffers enormously. My observation is that in the name of: a) Covid b) Counterterrorism c) Child abuse…

The abuses rationalized by the War on Terror, such as mass surveillance and profiling haven't been walked back. Yet many somehow believe vaccine passports won't be similarly result in mission creep and abuse. More recently it has been suggested to expand the designation of terrorist to include those who have concerns about this process. When has government willingly returned liberties taken under emergency pretenses?…

> When has government willingly returned liberties taken under emergency pretenses?

How about the dozens of times already since the start of this pandemic? Every time case rates drop even slightly, they've rushed to re-open businesses, eliminate mask rules and limitations on gatherings.

Re: Messaging and chat control

#238

Post by 7373737373 »

mark_and_sweep wrote: post #184

I'm surprised to read about this now. I feel like this issue has received no media coverage. Quick search for "Chatkontrolle" on the websites of some of the biggest German newspapers confirms this suspicion: - spon.de: 2 articles - sueddeutsche.de: 1 article - welt.de: 0 articles - faz.net: 1 article

You'd think they would be even capable of journalism that notified people before shit like this turns into legislation

Instead I see storywriting

Re: Messaging and chat control

#239

Post by cvwright »

anfelor wrote: post #98

The scary thing about this is that many people have images that look like child porn at home: Family photos of naked grandchildren playing at the sea or in the mud, as well as sexting between consenting teenagers. There is no way automatic classification can distinguish these from real child porn, because they look almost identical and thus many private pictures will be shared with the government. This not only infri…

In Apple's defense here, there seems to be a reason they're using the longer acronym CSAM. It means not just pictures of people without clothes on, but actual images/video of children being abused. Stuff that would likely provoke you or me or other normal people into acts of extreme violence against the perpetrators if we ever got the chance.

The real danger with Apple's system is that there's zero accountability in the list of "bad" hashes. So there's no way to know whether it's really all CSAM, or if it also includes rare Pepes, Bernie memes, or pictures of politicians doing embarrassing things.

Re: Messaging and chat control

#240

Post by thealienthing »

kleiba wrote: post #142
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between me _opt-in_ to give private data in exchange for points, and that being unilaterally imposed. It's also kind of harder to abuse information on my shopping list, whereas there's plenty of ways to abuse having total and complete access to all communication between private parties.

Think of it this way: what is more important to you, the convenience of exchanging text messages with your friends, or keeping these conversations private?

Are you saying that these things must be mutually exclusive? It is entirely possible to have completely private and convenient conversations between two parties.
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