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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

#301

Post by goodpoint »

gloppers wrote: post #75
7373737373 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me access to yours and your childrens' phones, I suspect that you or one of them may be a pedophile. Don't want to? Too bad, here is the law that says that I can get it all anyway. Don't worry, I'm a good programmer, I won't see it myself, I'll let one of my algorithms do it for me (I can't tell you how it works though, since you may use that information to hide something from me)! I pinky promise that neither I…

Yes that sounds fine to me. We have specially trained police in this category of crimes, for good reason. I trust them to investigate fairly and proportionately. If we cast aside the hyperbole and look at the actual details of what is being proposed in this regulation, it's clear they're taking a decent and reasonable approach here.

> I trust them to investigate fairly and proportionately.

Should we trust authorities with unlimited power because... you said so? (no snark intended)

The last 2000 years of history show it's not a good idea. Prove me wrong.

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

#302

Post by Spivak »

qubex wrote: post #257
Spivak wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially because in the US we already do this and the sky hasn’t fallen. Storage providers and hosting services already scan for it and popular chat apps block sending matching images client side. Like everyone saying this is the spiral to dystopia has to contend with the fact that we’re already apparently living in one.

The sky hasn’t fallen?? Have you read https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil... ?

Google found an image of potential cp, literally a naked child, and forwarded it to the authorities to figure out if it was legit.

Other than the person having their Google account suspended which is a separate issue from the surveillance I see zero issue with the events as they happened. In a bygone era where you had to get photos developed I would have expected the 1 hour photo employee to do the same.

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

#303

Post by peaslock »

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…

One piece of evidence is that authorities pushing hard for surveillance do not actually care about removing images they find, even though removal requests are easy to file and are obeyed by hosters.[0]

More evidence is that this sort of crime is being exaggerated in its severity. E.g. this study found the risk of adulthood psychological trauma is minimal when relying on objective evidence of abuse.[1] It is filthy and bad, but the total damage seems hardly enough to justify abolishing privacy.

There is always going to be a tradeoff between safety and freedom.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31353026

[1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0880-3

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

#304

Post by croes »

viknesh wrote: post #277
sparsely wrote: post #7

No comment on the policy etc, but I think the presentation of the numbers is a bit misleading. That 10% is the percent of flagged images which are actually OK. Whether this represents a large fraction of all legal content depends on how much illegal content there is. It would be better if they quoted the false positive rate and false negative rate as a fraction of legal/illegal images respectively. e.g. if 1/100,000,…

This headline seems factually incorrect given what the post actually claims was said. What's described isn't a 10% error rate, but rather 90% precision. It seems like the actual thing which would be called (type I) error rate isn't discussed at all. I can only imagine that the reddit post was written with that title in bad faith/to promote fearmongering. It seems like this nuance escaped the majority of the commenter…

The 90% precision seems to be text only and without the rate of false negatives it is pretty useless. Could be the software only finds text that are pretty obvious grooming then 90% precious is not so good.

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

#305

Post by BurningFrog »

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…

A major rule in life is to listen to what people do, not what they say.

What they'll do is listen to every online conversation anyone has.

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

#306

Post by coffeeblack »

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.

Hahaha, good one.

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

#307

Post by t_mann »

paganel wrote: post #222

As an EU citizen I didn't know exactly what that Chat Control thing was, so I web searched it: > The EU wants to oblige providers to search all private chats, messages, and emails automatically for suspicious content – generally and indiscriminately. The stated aim: To prosecute child pornography. [1] Yeah, that will go down well, a central government checking our private conversations for "suspicious content". Of co…

> the only viable solution I see for my country is an exit from the EU

The UK thought so too, now they're frontrunning the EU on scraping privacy. I honestly don't even understand one could think an EU exit would address those problems in any way - corporate lobbying is inherent to politics, just look at your national government (whichever that currently is). And realistically speaking, the smaller the entity, the less likely they are of placing meaningful restrictions on US tech firms (like the EU did with GDPR).

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

#308

Post by pharmakom »

Dudeman112 wrote: post #283
donkeyd wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

UK government is working hard to replace all the worst aspects of the EU with homegrown alternatives.

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

#309

Post by gloppers »

goodpoint wrote: post #301
gloppers wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that sounds fine to me. We have specially trained police in this category of crimes, for good reason. I trust them to investigate fairly and proportionately. If we cast aside the hyperbole and look at the actual details of what is being proposed in this regulation, it's clear they're taking a decent and reasonable approach here.

> I trust them to investigate fairly and proportionately. Should we trust authorities with unlimited power because... you said so? (no snark intended) The last 2000 years of history show it's not a good idea. Prove me wrong.

It's not unlimited power, this is a specific power for a specific scenario - detection of probable CSAM in a person's messages.

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

#310

Post by cs02rm0 »

delusional wrote: post #114
hnhg wrote: post #41

I have such a strong reaction to news like this, it's hard for me to not think that it's appropriate for every member state to consider leaving the EU now. They've succeeded in shifting me to a very anti-EU stance in one proposed measure - brilliant! It wouldn't surprise me if the leaders of most states are quite keen on such surveillance though.

I kinda get it, but it doesn't make sense to blame it on the EU when you own government would likely impose the exact same (if not harsher) rules. Thats at least what I tell myself. I'm under no illusion that my own government is any better.

I think it does logically - in any countries where you have more direct democracy than the EU flavour, certainly easily achievable in respect of the Commission.

Whether that has any practical difference given the nature of politicians and politics in general, well, at best your mileage may vary.

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