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Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

mullvad.net

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Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#111

Post by yreg »

TT-392 wrote: post #77

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 gue…

Mass non-compliance is problematic strategy, because then the government can persecute arbitrary people for stuff that “everyone” does.

GDPR is one such high stake example where no business can really feel safe.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#112

Post by themitigating »

purututu wrote: post #97
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.

> 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.

Evidence?

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#113

Post by walterbell »

Earlier Mullvad op-ed mentions age-verification, https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/2/1/eu-chat-control-law-wil...

  Article 6 of the law requires all "software application stores" to:

  - Assess whether each service provided by each software application enables human-to-human communication
  - Verify whether each user is over or under the age of 17
  - Prevent users under 17 from installing such communication software
California passed the AADC law in 2022, taking effect in 2024, requiring, https://www.techdirt.com/2022/09/16/californias-age-appropri...

  - “impact assessments” before launching new features that kids are likely to access
  - businesses, not parents, to figure out what’s in the best interest of children
  - [treating] children as if they all .. face the same risks .. lumps together 17 year-olds and 2 year-olds
  - threatens to make face scans a routine and everyday occurrence
  - before you can go to a new site, you will have to do either face scanning or upload age authenticating documents
Utah draft legislation, https://www.ksl.com/article/50569189/utah-lawmakers-want-age...

  - would require every adult in Utah to submit age verification in order to use social media
  - minor accounts would need to be associated with a verified adult account
  - social media companies.. collect personal information from their parents

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#114

Post by themitigating »

kwanbix wrote: post #82
oauea wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So, if everything is encrypted, how do you expect the police to catch ped0philes, for example?

Ever think there aren't as many pedophiles as you think? Maybe many have their own children to abuse or organizations with trust, like the church, in which encryption doesn't mean anything.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#115

Post by idlewords »

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…

Systems outside the control of any government entity devolve into a familiar cavalcade of horrors. You need a better answer for the fact that those horrors exist, and that many people who draw government paychecks devote their careers to fighting them in good faith, with good results.

You'd think that after twenty years the debate would have moved past advocating for complete lawlessness, but we get stuck in the same puerile tropes. The fact that bad state actors exist does not change the fact that horribly abusive material, with real victims, will be shared on any platform those abusers consider safe, and that the existence of such platforms will encourage further abuse.

Anyone who has worked on child sexual exploitation material on any platform knows this, and any privacy advocate has to have a better answer for it than 'nuh-uh'.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#116

Post by FredPret »

ethbr0 wrote: post #41
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 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…

>listen to the loudest and most organized group

I donate money to the EFF in the hope that they turn out to be this group eventually

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#117

Post by ImHereToVote »

feanaro wrote: post #91
brookst wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nonsense. Government organizations never do things in secret. The very idea is patently absurd. I mean, how would that even happen in practice, someone does something without blasting it on Twitter, as I said, absurd.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#118

Post by anfogoat »

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.

> EU commissioners propose laws, they don't vote for them.

The distinction isn't meaningless but it's certainly a generous one when left to stand on its own.

The commissioners hold little allegiance to the spirit of democracy and these proposals are either career boosters or pet projects for them. They're not just going to pass it on to the parliament and leave it at that. They're going to do their best to finagle behind the scenes, horse trade, intimidate and pull from their endless infatuation with coddling the children the most fantastical justifications that, by pure chance I guess, smear any opponents.

> As a brit, let me tell you that leaving the EU will not solve this problem. Your local politicians will just do that anyway.

But it will help. No modern government will pass a law that grants its citizens more privacy. It's better to have a many smaller ones, each with different rates of deterioration (re privacy) than a super government where every little nudge towards the eventual zero-privacy Internet affects us all at once.

Sadly, residing in a region formerly part of the Russian Empire, together with last year's events, kind of kills the glee I felt in the past whenever I fantasized about the EU disintegrating, which is to say voting to leave the EU would only makes sense if online privacy was the only thing you cared about.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#119

Post by galangalalgol »

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…

A quicker way is to note that a given policy would be difficult to effectively enforce. People like to say unenforceable, which is rarely true given enough resources. But if there are two solutions to an issue, and one isn't as easy to enforce, that is a valid point. Using gun control as an example, restricting sale of ammunition instead of firearms might be difficult to enforce, because ammunition is easier to manufacture at home. Restricting sale of marijuana isn't effective because anyone can grow it in a closet, but testing at employment centers adds a lot more friction as you say, and you don't neednto monitor people's power usage or send around sniffer trucks.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#120

Post by brookst »

Hizonner wrote: post #80
brookst wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

That’s fair, but it’s still an unsavory argument style. “I know the secret motivations of those in power, which even they don’t know”. It’s a weird way to remove agency from the powerful in the name of, IDK what.
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