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The EU Commission accepts high error rates when checking chats

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

#281

Post by vidarh »

dane-pgp wrote: post #244
vidarh wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VPN + using services in a country that doesn't care is enough. This will be a sales point for VPN providers.

How long until the bureaucrats start saying "These unregulated foreign VPNs are a danger to our private data / economy / national security / children"? I mean, if a jurisdiction is making people's phones spy on them, then it's not much of a stretch to also make those phones not connect to unapproved VPNs, or even to prevent them installing unapproved apps (despite the recent win of the EU supporting sideloading on mo…

Unless they try to aggressively regulate the sale, import and manufacture (at this point, many hobbyist level homebrew retrocomputers are powerful enough to run a VPN) of general purpose computer devices or aggressively firewall all of the EU and punish anyone using to obscure encrypted data flows through approved protocols, this will of course only stop the people who actually don't have anything to hide. It'll be trivial to work around for anyone actually up to no good

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

#282

Post by zx85wes »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #204
vaylian wrote: post #145

It doesn't matter how low the error rate is. The fact that the European Commission wants to have a third (robotic) participant listening in on every digital communication is absolutely ridiculous. Saying that this is about child protection is a blatant lie. This serves only as a stepping stone to introduce other screening criteria later. And with opaque ML models it will be very tedious to determine what the model is…

> "Saying that this is about child protection is a blatant lie." Why do you think this? What evidence would convince you that they are sincerely trying to protect children? Helen Lovejoy wasn't lying, she was sincerely (but irrationally) concerned for the children. HNers believe this conspiracy theory about their own governments (that they are deliberately secretly plotting to be despotic, and using the cover of tryi…

You are disingenuous. 'Gliding path' is standard practice in the EU.

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

#283

Post by Dudeman112 »

donkeyd wrote: post #279
rpastuszak wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> F. that, the only viable solution I see for my country is an exit from the EU Genuine, not loaded question: and then what? What do you expect to happen?

Probably what Brexiteers expected to happen, that everything they don't like disappears and nothing gets worse.

Am currently living in England, can confirm things they don't like didn't disappear and things have, in fact, been getting worse

But hey, happy fishes and being able to flaunt that stylish passport on the massive customs queue

Maybe I should get myself a job in the continent and move there...

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

#284

Post by pronik »

freeflight wrote: post #265
tcptomato wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like Germany, with all due respect to the Germans who still care about their privacy What are you talking about? The german speaking world cares (maybe a bit too much) about privacy. This is why google street view sucks in Germany. NOYB - European Center for Digital Rights is headquartered in Vienna.

> This is why google street view sucks in Germany. Street view in Germany sucks because very rarely there will be a pixelated building front?

No, because GSV is at least a decade old in Germany, since the whole "pixelate my building" has understandably been too much of a hassle for Google to push any picture updates.

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

#285

Post by yccs27 »

freeflight wrote: post #265
tcptomato wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like Germany, with all due respect to the Germans who still care about their privacy What are you talking about? The german speaking world cares (maybe a bit too much) about privacy. This is why google street view sucks in Germany. NOYB - European Center for Digital Rights is headquartered in Vienna.

> This is why google street view sucks in Germany. Street view in Germany sucks because very rarely there will be a pixelated building front?

Street view in Germany sucks because Google didn't want to deal with so many pixelation requests, so they drastically reduced the coverage.

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

#286

Post by [deleted] »

imtringued wrote: post #224
norswap wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure they're ideologically against it, or where they against it because they were in the opposition and it was convenient for them to be?

The Greens in Germany are basically a more serious/realistic Pirate party when the topic is related to the internet. Honestly I vote Greens because of that alone. The fact that the rest of their program is sane is a cherry on top.

[deleted]

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

#288

Post by GekkePrutser »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #272
unknownaccount wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has many anti-privacy laws like the Impressum system which forces website owners to essentially dox themselves on a public webpage. I’m not sure where the misconception that Germany had strong privacy laws came from.

I've long believed this, but surprisingly, very few Germans I've spoken to feel this way about it, admittedly my sample is Berlin-centric, so perhaps that isn't a very good litmus test for general German sentiment considering the demographics of Berlin consist of a lot of non-Germans who likely aren't that clued-up, and that perhaps skews sentiment as a whole.

Big cities are always a lot more progressive.

But a christian-conservative like Merkel wouldn't have come to power if it wasn't for the more rural masses. They must have enough votes to influence policy in such a big way. And those are the ones that are the most susceptible to 'for the children!!!' type privacy invasion. At least in my experience here in the Netherlands, this is usually the angle those measures are pushed from.

I've also been surprised at how bad Germany is for privacy. For example when I tried to sign up at Hetzner they demanded that I sent a photocopy of my ID. When I did so after arguing, I blacked out my social security number which is very susceptible to ID fraud and even the local police provide instructions to block it out on scans.

However they refused that. So I refused them. I didn't try other German providers but went to France instead (Scaleway) and had a much better experience without ID crap.

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

#289

Post by HighlandSpring »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #204
vaylian wrote: post #145

It doesn't matter how low the error rate is. The fact that the European Commission wants to have a third (robotic) participant listening in on every digital communication is absolutely ridiculous. Saying that this is about child protection is a blatant lie. This serves only as a stepping stone to introduce other screening criteria later. And with opaque ML models it will be very tedious to determine what the model is…

> "Saying that this is about child protection is a blatant lie." Why do you think this? What evidence would convince you that they are sincerely trying to protect children? Helen Lovejoy wasn't lying, she was sincerely (but irrationally) concerned for the children. HNers believe this conspiracy theory about their own governments (that they are deliberately secretly plotting to be despotic, and using the cover of tryi…

> HNers believe this conspiracy theory about their own governments (that they are deliberately secretly plotting to be despotic, and using the cover of trying to protect children) with no actual evidence, just a lot of winks and eyebrow wiggling. Complete abdication of rational thinking.

Ha, I don't think most HNers would be quick to say think their governments are capable of conspiracy. I think most would say it's just more your regular run of the mill taxpayer-funded incompetency.

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

#290

Post by donkeyd »

imtringued wrote: post #233
ChrisKnott wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Saying that this is about child protection is a blatant lie." Why do you think this? What evidence would convince you that they are sincerely trying to protect children? Helen Lovejoy wasn't lying, she was sincerely (but irrationally) concerned for the children. HNers believe this conspiracy theory about their own governments (that they are deliberately secretly plotting to be despotic, and using the cover of tryi…

This technology is ineffective at saving children and highly effective at ruining more lives than it could theoretically save even with perfect conditions.

Yes, both true, but in no way contrary to the statement you're replying to.

Politicians in general are highly ignorant on technology and have no clue about the impact of ideas like this. They get advice from advisory boards populated by political science students that had internships at IT companies and are now 'advisor on AI in government'. Sometimes they get external advice from expensive consultants that tell them what they want to hear, especially if they think they might be able to sell more projects afterwards.

So, a politician who objectively wants to protect children in a modern world will come up with dumb ideas like this and get confirmation that it's not a dumb idea. It's Hanlon's Razor at work.

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