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Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

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Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#71

Post by tomxor »

can16358p wrote: post #10

We certainly need decentralized systems that cannot be controlled by EU, US, or any government/entity. Privacy is a human right. We probably all know that they will show reasons like "fighting terrorism", "preventing national threats" or "hunting down child pornography" etc, whereas the real motivation is to control people's freedom of speech and communication even though they will 100% deny it. Anyone who is really…

> We certainly need decentralized systems that cannot be controlled by EU, US, or any government/entity.

I used to think this way, and still do to a degree... but it's not enough. The idea of zero trust as an absolute is flawed, because if the adversary is your own government they will just keep shifting targets. Lets play this out:

1. Gov start monitoring all proprietary messaging platforms and services. So lets assume that in response, decentralised FOSS based e2e encrypted private messaging services flourish, and everyone actually adopts them... All proprietary messaging platforms/services die off. Great, what next?

2. Now gov mandate that all hardware must have have backdoors to circumvent those measures. So lets assume in response, consumer hardware transforms into IBM PC style open standard and people start assembling their own smart phones and tablets out of interchangeable components so that they can avoid those pesky backdoor chips... and miraculously everyone does this and proprietary handset manufacturers all die off. Now what?

3. Gov mandate all fabs must etch an additional microcontroller onto every CPU/microcontroller with > n gates, with full memory and network access. Do we all start running local fabs in our basement?

Hopefully you get my point, the reality is that there is friction in both directions and neither end has absolute power, but we must push back against policies like this to prevent erosion of our values, do not "give them an inch" so to speak. We cannot trust all of society, but we also cannot afford to not trust civilisation in it's entirety, it's just not possible, we cannot build our own computers out of sticks and mud.

If you want an example of what a technological arms race with your own government looks like, it's happening in China right now. They aren't even fighting for privacy, they are fighting to just communicate and access information freely.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#72

Post by kragen »

huslage wrote: post #66
kragen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One major factor that works against users is central authentication. Schemes like oauth2 also dns and the tls ca system, even including let's encrypt

I'm not sure I follow how let's encrypt is included on this list. They are very transparent.

let's encrypt made a huge improvement on the status quo, but now that 95% of the web depends on them, they're an obvious central point of vulnerability for censors and spy agencies

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#73

Post by [deleted] »

can16358p wrote: post #10

We certainly need decentralized systems that cannot be controlled by EU, US, or any government/entity. Privacy is a human right. We probably all know that they will show reasons like "fighting terrorism", "preventing national threats" or "hunting down child pornography" etc, whereas the real motivation is to control people's freedom of speech and communication even though they will 100% deny it. Anyone who is really…

[deleted]

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#74

Post by guy98238710 »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #58
guy98238710 wrote: post #42

The very purpose of privacy is to break laws. Privacy is the space where laws do not apply. I don't remember where I heard it, but I really like this definition of privacy. It's a defense against bad laws and there are quite a few of those, including child porn and child abuse laws that actually lead to prosecution of adolescents (sending nudes to each other) and loss of access to medical information for kids (anyone…

No, that is wrong. It is the purpose of the laws to protect privacy, which is our right to protect ourselves by prevention of sharing sensitive information with bad actors. Our privacy means that others cannot exploit our weaknesses to get our money or to bully us. It means that rogue cop cannot blackmail us by exposing details of our private life to public. There are many scenarios when too much data landed in the w…

It's not just a few bad cops. No matter how well the law is written and executed, it is always bad from the point of view of some people. There is no universal agreement about what should be illegal. People who lose the fight over laws can use privacy as a refuge.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#75

Post by gghhzzgghhzz »

maxehmookau wrote: post #8
ecmascript wrote: post #3

This is really, really scary and what scares me even more is these proposals just seems to keep coming and in time some of them will probably make their way into law. Used to be for EU but if any regulation like this goes through, I will immedietly vote for any politician willing to exit the EU. Honestly, I am kind of for leaving the EU anyway since I don't like the large centralized power it has become. There is lit…

EU commissioners propose laws, they don't vote for them. The EU parliament will probably reject this. As a brit, let me tell you that leaving the EU will not solve this problem. Your local politicians will just do that anyway.

It won't solve your problems, correct.

But it will make responsibility clear. Out of the EU, no domestic government can claim plausible deniability on a directive like this, claiming not to support it yet there being nothing they can do about it - while secretly wanting to implement something like that anyway, but without the political fallout.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#76

Post by alphazard »

For all of the software engineers here, you would have a much larger impact by tackling this problem at a technical level, or contributing financially to groups that lobby against this sort of thing. Going out and protesting, or even helping to circulate a petition is going to be less impactful, and an inefficient use of your time and skillset.

Your vote is worth 1, maybe your influence is worth a dozen or so. You could make millions of votes against you totally moot with the right piece of software.

Look for existing projects that deal with secure networking, E2EE, self-hosted apps and ask how you can help.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#77

Post by TT-392 »

Something in me almost wants to see this law pass, just to see what happens. I am guessing anyone who knows about internet infra / privacy / security, would either stand up and protest it. Though, for some reason, part of me thinks people would just find a way around it, feel like it is fine like that and not protest at all (I sure prefer the first option). Or I guess the third option: mass noncompliance. Which I guess has been the answer to a lot of EU laws.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#78

Post by pelasaco »

pammf wrote: post #38
pelasaco wrote: post #27

Just to play the advocate's advocate here: When the internet became so safe? They push, we push back. They block, we circumvent. That was always about that. We old hackers are used to that. Nothing will work out of the box, and it will be fine. Just embrace and adapt it.

Well, isn't this already part of pushing back?

if "we encourage journalists and citizens in all EU countries to question their governments and urge them to vote no." would help then Julian Assange/Snowden would have a different life today. Just get prepared to circumvent e vote better next time.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#79

Post by kragen »

dtech wrote: post #70
kragen wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

here in argentina uber was very illegal for several years and people used the fuck out of it in the usa heroin and meth are super illegal and people are using the fuck out of them many 80s pc video games only survive in a playable form because of a very illegal system of organized copyright infringement that removed copy protection mechanisms; people used the fuck out of that too in the usa gay sex was super illegal…

All those things are enjoyable and have no legal alternative. A chat application would have.

uber cab is not especially enjoyable, and the legal alternatives (for riders) include taxis and remises (not to mention buses, trains, bicycles, private cars, private motorcycles, and electric scooters; buenos aires is pretty dense and public transport is pretty good)

uber was just better

the legal alternative to pirating games was to buy them, geez

the legal alternative to gay sex was heterosexual sex, which many people actually preferred; possibly you haven't heard, but it's a more popular alternative even today

you're right about heroin and meth though, so, one out of four i guess

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#80

Post by Hizonner »

brookst wrote: post #62
mach1ne wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though something has a benevolent rationalization, it doesn’t mean the true motives are benevolent. It doesn’t need any New World Order conspiracy either. People in ruling positions often enjoy power, and they may be clueless as to how this desire is affecting their decisionmaking.

I’m always skeptical of phrases like “true motives”. Sometimes people can do the wrong thing for the right reasons, or totally amorally. There doesn’t have to be a secret agenda. Framing things in terms of shadowy cabals that hide their secret motivations weakens the argument and reduces odds of successful resistance to these programs by misunderstanding the opposition.

I believe the idea is not that they hide their motives, but that they hide from their motives. May or may not be true, but still...
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