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Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

patrick-breyer.de

191–200 of 338 posts

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My "device" is a laptop. You say "like Apple", but I believe Apple's CSAM is unique - nothing else tries to scan your messages between keyboard and encryption.

I think the term « device » is a bit misleading. I should have used client side instead. It doesn’t need to scan your messages between keyboard and encryption, the application handles your messages in plaintext and it can scan them without needing any decryption. The encryption is done just before sending the messages.

Well, I did say "properly encrypted". An encryption scheme that, by design, shares information from my plaintext with a third party, isn't "proper" in my book. That's phony encryption.

[Edit] I evidently don't understand your remark. If some "encryption app" processes the plaintext before it is encrypted, isn't it processing plaintext between the keyboard and the encryption?

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#192

Have to jump through a few links to get to the 'protest' part. > Protest now by contacting the responsible EU Commissioners! Experience shows that a phone call is more effective than e-mails or letters. Officially, the planned obligation for messaging and chat control is called “legislation to effectively tackle child sexual abuse online”. > If an office tries to redirect you to the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs (…

For those who won't read the article: it provides a few ways to protest [0] (contact Commissioners, request media to cover this issue, get active on social media) and offers a list of arguments [1] (such policies don't work against CSAM but make it worse, while better/more targeted methods are being ignored).

If anyone has experience calling to protest, could they share it here? Otherwise, the simplest course of action might be to copy-paste the arguments given in [1] into an email addressed to the parties mentioned in the parent comment.

[0]: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/messaging-and-chat-co...

[1]: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/messaging-and-chat-co...

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#193
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like they listen more to engineers, except when doing that can touch their power. Not that surprising: powerful corrupt politicians are of the same kind, no matter their nationality. Any good cartoonist out there that would make the EU version of this masterpiece? https://i.imgur.com/D93heEo.jpg

I think if they listened to the engineers they wouldn't have mandated USB-C and GDPR

Good news they didn't in those cases then, hopefully they will this time.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Needlessly cynical. Human organizations of all kinds have problems, including governments. If you don't believe that government can ever function in a manner intended by the people it nominally represents, then everything is hopeless, since we (the vast majority of people) were also screwed over without representative government. I don't agree that one needs to conclude this. You can believe in government at the same…

> since we (the vast majority of people) were also screwed over without representative government. Without government we at least had choice. I think you're needlessly cynical. Humans can organize themselves quite well when they have maximum choice as individuals. The robber barons of the early nineteenth century were bolstered by governments--not hindered. Governments have always been corrupt.

Without government we had a choice, and we chose to create governments.

Government was not dropped on our heads by the robber barons, it has been invented and re-invented throughout human history by regular people who need to solve problems.

> Humans can organize themselves quite well when they have maximum choice as individuals.

Yes, and then you’ll need a word to describe the collective actions of the organized humans. One such word is “government.”

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#195
post #94
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes Minister covers it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks Tell them you're going to have their messages scanned on behalf of the government and nobody wants it. Tell them you're going to introduce measures for online safety and to crack down on child abuse, and everybody wants it. Unless you're pre-informed on the issues, whoever presents it to you can just pick the side that gets you to the answer the…

> crack down on child abuse Actually today you don't use cracking down on child abuse as a reason, you use the danger of the far-right. All the leading left-wing publications, New York Times, The Guardian, Washington Post, CNN, Vox have been running articles about how dangerous encrypted chat apps are: > Why right-wing extremists’ favorite new platform is so dangerous. Telegram’s lax content moderation and encrypted…

Nah - cracking down on child abuse remains the best way to get anything done. That is how Florida officials sold HB 1557 and it continues to be a mainstay, especially, in the UK.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless you're pre-informed on the issues, whoever presents it to you can just pick the side that gets you to the answer they want. This summarizes a good 75% of modern political discourse.

Ironically, this is why a lot of people argue everyone shouldn't vote. Basically, if you add some minor barriers to voting you'll get only those who know and care about what's going on to vote. Otherwise, you'll have lemmings. Where people with a bit of propaganda will drive everyone else off the cliff.

(It's not «everyone shouldn't vote», it's «not everyone should vote».) «Minor barriers» are not the only way to achieve that - you can use sophisticated voting systems -, and the definition of such «barriers» is not trivial on many levels (of effectiveness, of fariness etc).

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#197
post #5

Ah the classic "But think of the children" appeal... Anybody know how this will impact proton?

I don't appreciate the way privacy advocates attack the "think of the children" cliche. It comes off as a flippant rejection of the importance of protecting the vulnerable. The issue isn't the justification, it's that the ends don't justify the means. Sometimes you can't take an action even if you perceive it'll have a good result (spying on people [immoral means] to protect children [moral end]).

But it's a completely fake argument in these scenarios. It's always invoked when you want to do something different to infringe on personal liberties. If anything it's the people abusing vulnerable groups for their agenda are at fault for the argument becoming laughable, however I think most people in this discussion are able to differentiate fake "think of the children" from actually protecting vulnerable groups.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#198
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Am I just lacking imagination? Yes. The EU is becoming a totalitarian regional government of elites. Originally it wasn't even supposed to have a military presence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_forces_of_the_European... It was supposed to prevent the need of passports. https://www.covidpasscertificate.com/europe-digital-green-pa... All the good things are going out the door and all the bad things are walki…

In the interest in saving peoples time when responding to this: don’t. It’s trolling at worst and nerd sniping at best. The author of this comment knows this full well. His comment history is full of this kind of “drop bomb” and run crap. “covid passports” being required is not exactly the fault of the EU, if anything it’s because of the freedoms the EU still has. Anti-covid rhetoric needs to die, anti-EU bad faith p…

> is full of this kind of “drop bomb” and run crap.

Hello. I usually keep responding to people. I'm not from the EU, so if you disagree with me I'll respond. It's not unlikely I'm wrong.

I am a crazy anti-government guy though, so you've got me there.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless you're pre-informed on the issues, whoever presents it to you can just pick the side that gets you to the answer they want. This summarizes a good 75% of modern political discourse.

Ironically, this is why a lot of people argue everyone shouldn't vote. Basically, if you add some minor barriers to voting you'll get only those who know and care about what's going on to vote. Otherwise, you'll have lemmings. Where people with a bit of propaganda will drive everyone else off the cliff.

[deleted]

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Am I just lacking imagination? Yes. The EU is becoming a totalitarian regional government of elites. Originally it wasn't even supposed to have a military presence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_forces_of_the_European... It was supposed to prevent the need of passports. https://www.covidpasscertificate.com/europe-digital-green-pa... All the good things are going out the door and all the bad things are walki…

Nono, you are getting all your facts wrong. > Originally it wasn't even supposed to have a military presence. Because each country has its own military presence and they all already cooperate anyway together in the NATO so they already had a connected military presence as part of NATO. The reason they consider making that plan explicit is due to a massive lost of trust in the US and realization that the US will put i…

> due to a massive lost of trust in the US and realization that the US will put its interest before their interest.

Sure. And that's reasonable. The US will do that.

I just think it goes against the original promises, and national sovereignty is being widdled away by larger governing bodies like the EU.

> But it's very far away from being totalitarian.

Okay, the legislation being suggested to monitor communications isn't totalitarian?

There are regulations on toasters!

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