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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

#91

Post by feanaro »

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.

> There doesn’t have to be a secret agenda.

There doesn't have to be, but there totally can be.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#92

Post by gpvos »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #20

As a pro-EU citizen I feel more and more inclined to agree on some of the Brexit rhetoric. Commissioners have shown multiple times that they are too permeable to lobbying, too willing to water down tough environmental regulation, and too keen on 'security' surveillance. So far the EU parliament members have balanced the act with some sanity. But the power and lack of transparency of the EC both with regards to lobbyi…

On the other hand, I am happy with EU environmental regulation because it's often stronger than that in my own country (Netherlands). It's a balance.

More transparency is indeed needed though.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#93

Post by ethbr0 »

oauea wrote: post #55
ethbr0 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We probably all know that they will show reasons [...], whereas the real motivation is to control people's freedom of speech and communication even though they will 100% deny it. I don't think this is how it works, absent an already existent police state. In democracies, it really is pushed for {good reasons}. Once built, it's then used by law enforcement, because it exists and gets the job done. Pretending there's…

The reason is, and always has been, to enable lazy police work. They won't have to do their jobs if facebook will just tell them who the criminals are.

Definitely think that's why it happens, at the tactical level. Why make your job harder than it could be?

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#94

Post by wizzwizz4 »

zdragnar wrote: post #61
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're a gunsmith, it's not really comparable. Anyone with a sufficiently-powerful desk calculator can use illegal encryption, but not everyone can procure an illegal firearm.

You should look into the so called ghost guns that show up. It hasn't been easier to get one, whether from assembling a kit to 3d printing to finding plans to build one from scrap.

It's still hard. I couldn't go out and make a gun right now. Meanwhile, many children have invented their own codes and ciphers by age 10, armed only with paper and pencil and the desire to keep a secret. A basic understanding of group theory lets you invent RSA, a practically-unbreakable asymmetric cryptographic scheme, given only the idea that "hey, maybe asymmetric encryption is possible" and the knowledge that (F_p \ {0}, ×) is a group.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#95

Post by stagas »

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…

I've always wondered behind the rationale on privacy being a human right. What if it wasn't? What if instead we were enforcing transparency? Force everything to be public, starting from the government down to the local coffee shop. All transactions, all communications, everything. Make privacy a crime for everybody, including the government and the military. Just as a thought exercise, it would be a remarkably different world. I think the problem privacy is solving enables a different set of problems to emerge that would have otherwise been impossible. And one could argue that these new problems are those that enable the necessity for privacy to be established as a human right in the first place.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#96

Post by PurpleRamen »

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.

No, not really. A World with controlled controllers is better than a world without any control. See the awful space which is the crypto community ATM. EU and US so far are fair and tame (to their own citizen). They are not always good, but not bad. And that's fair enough for any decent citizen.

Though, part of this deal is that we take control on when they go too far, and do stupid things. Which seems to be the case in this case, because of which we push against it, because that's how we hope to get a healthy world.

> Privacy is a human right.

So is security. It's all about balancing interests and abilities.

> whereas the real motivation is to control people's freedom of speech and communication even though they will 100% deny it.

That smells like QAnon-level of conspiracy BS.

> Anyone who is really into something illegal will use something alternative anyway.

No, they are not. The majority of criminals are not some organized super villains. They are usually also depending on the same tools and networks as everyone else. And they are also just flawed humans, making errors.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#97

Post by purututu »

mach1ne wrote: post #53
ethbr0 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We probably all know that they will show reasons [...], whereas the real motivation is to control people's freedom of speech and communication even though they will 100% deny it. I don't think this is how it works, absent an already existent police state. In democracies, it really is pushed for {good reasons}. Once built, it's then used by law enforcement, because it exists and gets the job done. Pretending there's…

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.

> It doesn’t need any New World Order conspiracy either.

NWO is not a conspiracy theory any longer. This exact terminology is openly used by many politicians now, demanding for a NWO. Depending which bubble you live in, you have not seen any or only too little such speeches.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#98

Post by feanaro »

neysofu wrote: post #60
bartislartfast wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone who is really into something illegal will use something alternative anyway. I'm not for more surveillance, but this is the exact argument that people give against gun control

If you pay enough attention, you will notice that the same argument is used to push many political agendas (for better or worse): - "You can't ban encrypted messaging. Terrorists will always find a way to communicate." - "You can't outlaw abortions, just safe ones. Women will always find a way." - "You can't uniformly enforce gun control. Dedicated criminals will keep buying weapons on the black market." - "You can't…

The common theme of most of the above points is that the freedom of the innocent will be reduced or their suffering increased if the change is enacted, while less innocent people can continue to ignore the rules. It's oppression of the weakest.

In general, society should be very careful with the things it bans. Prohibition is a hammer best left for extreme situational outliers, not one that should be used for each and every thing someone happens to dislike.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#99

Post by carlosjobim »

ecmascript wrote: post #12
maxehmookau wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I do not think so, Swedens population has a history of rejecting mass surveillance ideas and lot's of privacy advocating stuff has come from Sweden like Mullvad and The Pirate Bay. Anyway, it is way easier for a citizen to affect your local politician rather than some other random countries politicians that don't care about you.

Sweden has one of the most comprehensive mass surveillance systems in the world. In short, the military is allowed to do mass surveillance on all communications within the borders of the country. Sweden is somewhere near the bottom of the list among countries worldwide when it comes to respecting online privacy of citizens.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#100

Post by prof-dr-ir »

tephra wrote: post #40
prof-dr-ir wrote: post #37

The making of EU legislation can take years and is surprisingly transparent; in particular, the public is asked for input at several stages. So I am surprised that the article does not provide any link to an actual proposal - without it, how am I going to believe its claims?

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM%3A20... And the feedback https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-sa... I should note (as someone who has been fighting against this) is that commissioner Johansson has avoided meeting with civil servant groups in the lead up to this proposal (we have tried _multiple_ times to get a meeting).

Well, thank you for your efforts but I do not think I see anything alarming at this stage. (Perhaps this means that your efforts paid off...)

The proposal itself does not explicitly forbid end-to-end encryption; it might one day try to, but the regulatory scrutiny board insists that the legislation should "respect the prohibition of general monitoring obligations."

In fact, having seen all this I think I can kind of see why journalists are not actively "pursuing" this as the article keeps asking.

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