Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The EU Commission accepts high error rates when checking chats

netzpolitik.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 443 posts

Re: The EU Commission accepts high error rates when checking chats

#131

Post by AshamedCaptain »

gloppers wrote: post #46
mayoi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

No need to be so rude. From the law enforcement side, that is the system working as it should - the police investigated and cleared him of any wrongdoing. That Google can close someone's account for any reason and without any recourse is a wider issue, and one separate to this EU regulation.

So literally Google unilaterally decided, based on a "suspicion" that any human being would have immediately found to be bogus, to forward _all_ of his private, personal photos to the authorities, and you think that here "the system is working as it should"? What type of expectation of privacy can you have under this system ?

Re: The EU Commission accepts high error rates when checking chats

#132

Post by Arathorn »

mayoi wrote: post #25
contravariant wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could use your own Matrix server as far as I know. It's annoying you need to go that far just to prevent the EU from snooping on your communication.

You have to keep in mind that to do this you'd have to blacklist every other server from federating, keep all rooms private and disable public room discovery completely. And it still wouldn't really be all that private, because matrix is public oriented protocol and nowhere on the main website do you see the word "privacy" in context of user privacy. You also cannot really delete users, nor force deletion of their me…

> You have to keep in mind that to do this you'd have to blacklist every other server from federating, keep all rooms private and disable public room discovery completely.

Yup, if you want to run a Matrix server which doesn’t share data with any other server you just turn off federation; same as email. It’s trivial to do so.

> And it still wouldn't really be all that private, because matrix is public oriented protocol and nowhere on the main website do you see the word "privacy" in context of user privacy.

Nope. Matrix is for both private and public comms. For instance, right now the matrix.org homepage includes clips from the Synapse 1.65 blog post which celebrates hooking up private read receipts so you can disable read receipts from being seen by other users.

> You also cannot really delete users, nor force deletion of their messages from servers that you're federating with once the user uses the disable endpoint.

Obviously there is no guaranteed way to obligate a server you don’t control to delete your data. Prior to deactivating your account, you can ask servers to delete your messages. After account deletion, you don’t have a way to delete your messages… because you deleted the evidence that you created them when you deactivated your account.

> Also, matrix server specification is garbage, synapse is the only implementation that at least pretends to work reliably because of that, and it's maintained by a for-profit organization.

sigh. The spec is not garbage; Dendrite is perfectly usable (despite being beta), and I hear Conduit is usable too. Synapse is maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation C.I.C, which is a UK non-profit: https://matrix.org/foundation. Contributions come from all over the shop, including for-profits like Element.

Re: The EU Commission accepts high error rates when checking chats

#133

Post by Xylakant »

jeofken wrote: post #80
leodriesch wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It specifically prohibits discrimination and welcomes people from other nations, both of which the average German does not actually like That’s an absolutely wild claim and I’d like to know where you got this impression from.

Have you ever seen a poll of a European country where people wanted more immigration (from the 3rd world)?

The claim is wild because the german constitution does not encourage immigration.

It contains paragraphs that prohibit discrimination. It guarantees asylum for people that are prosecuted in their home country for political views [1]. There's also a paragraph that widens the definition of "German citizen" in the GG to those that were german citizens in 1937 or who lost their german citizenship due to the nazis. After the reunion some groups from russia emigrated to Germany (Russlanddeutsche) [2]. That is wildly different from wanting more immigration.

[1] there's a long laundry list of exceptions to that rule, for example you have to travel straight to germany without passing through a safe country. It's effectively void. See Art 16a https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_16a.html

[2] Article 116 https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_116.html

Re: The EU Commission accepts high error rates when checking chats

#134

Post by Mordisquitos »

hn_throwaway_69 wrote: post #45
ho_schi wrote: post #3

The commission does not seek to break encryption Okay. Encryption is not only important to protect private communication, but would also help perpetrators/criminals No. It is there to protect us from perpetrators, criminals and all the people which think they are on the good side. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Authoritarian regimes on our planet always thought they were the "good guys". Encryption i…

>No. Assume for sake of argument that it were possible to develop an encryption regime which protected bona fide users, but did not protect criminals. That would be a good thing. As a matter of public policy, criminals shouldn't be given the right to communicate for the sake of furthering criminal activity without the possibility of lawful interception. It's here that some technologists lose sight of the real world.…

> Assume for sake of argument that it were possible to develop an encryption regime which protected bona fide users, but did not protect criminals. That would be a good thing. [...] The real issue is that you can't separate the two from each other - weakening encryption for criminals means weakening it for everyone.

Even if such a hypothetical encryption scheme was not intrinsically weaker, it still requires two very strong assumptions:

    1. Not a single individual with legal access to the interception system will ever abuse it for their own purposes, or in exchange for a significant bribe or under the threat of blackmail from a powerful and wealthy malignant actor.

    2. A future government (democratically elected or not) will never decide that currently legal behaviour is now a crime which warrants interception—say possession of drugs for personal use, "deviant" sex, unpatriotic discourse, etc.

Re: The EU Commission accepts high error rates when checking chats

#135

Post by denton-scratch »

sofixa wrote: post #43
Aeolun wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was hard to arrest criminals before digital communication as well, I’m sure we’ll deal.

But each improvement in communications tech (landlines, mobile phones, internet) have enabled new, faster, easier, better communication methods. Medieval criminals would have to physically meet to coordinate a coach robbery; nowadays a terrorist attack can be coordinated fully remotely and anonymously. There is no point in denying the facts - that encryption and the ease of use of the Internet enable criminals to coo…

> nowadays a terrorist attack can be coordinated fully remotely and anonymously.

Actually, Osama Bin Laden relied on trusted couriers; not phones, networks or encryption.

Re: The EU Commission accepts high error rates when checking chats

#137

Post by davidro80 »

mercy_dude wrote: post #107
jeofken wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever seen a poll of a European country where people wanted more immigration (from the 3rd world)?

I am as sympathetic to the Germans who dont want racial diversity and as anti globalist as it gets. But here is the counter argument. Europe (if you don’t take the Slavs and the albenians into account) has a negative birth rate. There is no way to sustain current standard of living without immigration. The politicians in Bundestag who control the EU knows that. And if there is one thing that they are afraid of is to…

No post body was provided.

Re: The EU Commission accepts high error rates when checking chats

#138

Post by mayoi »

KevinOhHeaven wrote: post #94
leodriesch wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It specifically prohibits discrimination and welcomes people from other nations, both of which the average German does not actually like That’s an absolutely wild claim and I’d like to know where you got this impression from.

You're perhaps in a sociopolitical bubble if you find that claim wild. Even if you don't personally know anyone with this perspective, I would hope that it's logical, rational, and expected that a significant proportion of an indigenous population targeted for "diversification" would be opposed to the idea. (As a counter-anecdote, I don't personally know a single person in my social circle, in Australia, who is suppo…

No post body was provided.

Re: The EU Commission accepts high error rates when checking chats

#139

Post by sph »

mayoi wrote: post #42
seper8 wrote: post #4

Disgusting. Wonder if people working on these commissions ever consider the thought that they are "the baddies". In any case, the gestapo would have _loved_ this service.

I know a few, and these people genuinely and completely unironically without a doubt in their mind consider that they're doing the right thing for the greater good of humanity.

Sounds like the average politician.

I posit that people that rise to power and at the top of bureaucratic institutions are those diligent and stupid characters Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord was warning us about:

"I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent — their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy — they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent — he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief."

Re: The EU Commission accepts high error rates when checking chats

#140

Post by FpUser »

mercy_dude wrote: post #107
jeofken wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever seen a poll of a European country where people wanted more immigration (from the 3rd world)?

I am as sympathetic to the Germans who dont want racial diversity and as anti globalist as it gets. But here is the counter argument. Europe (if you don’t take the Slavs and the albenians into account) has a negative birth rate. There is no way to sustain current standard of living without immigration. The politicians in Bundestag who control the EU knows that. And if there is one thing that they are afraid of is to…

>"but because of a local population that has mostly no interest in family formation"

I am in Canada so do not know what the trends are in Europe but I can clearly see that having kids here is quickly becoming a financial burden many people can not afford. Part of it because people want higher living standard while the other is our fucking politicians creating such conditions.

Post reply on HN