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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

#291

Post by croes »

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.

This works both ways.

Other motives are also suspected among the people and organisations fighting these laws.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#292

Post by ethbr0 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #150
ethbr0 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intelligence and law enforcement aren't typically empowered voters in democratic legislative bodies.

And yet, they tend to be very successful on getting any proposal they want from those bodies. You can wonder why.

I don't have to wonder, I know.

Because they present a social good (less crime, adherence to law, order) that's one of the bases of civilization to those bodies, and those bodies give them more latitude than competing interests because of the primacy of that good.

Which is how I'd want the system to work, because any system fully optimized for freedom without national security exceptions wouldn't survive as a major world power.

They don't always get what they want. They do tend to get what they want. Occasionally things are scaled back later, as excesses are discovered.

Working as designed and intended.

Or to put it another way, what substitute system would you rather put in place, and how would it handle malicious internal groups and external world powers?

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#293

Post by ClumsyPilot »

croes wrote: post #288
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…

Parts of Germany instated laws that allowed to arrest people without trial for 30days. They claimed to only use it to prevent severe crimes like terrorism. Current statistics show, the most people that got arrested via that laws are climate activists. So either the law makers and police are incompetent and therefore shouldn't make these laws way or they know what they are doing and therefore shouldn't make these laws…

On the other hand in UK we pass laws that make it illegal to steal dogs. Which was obviously illegal anyway.

I think American terror watchist has grown to nearly two million people. Are there really milkions of terrorists in US? How have they not yet blown up everything

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#294

Post by ROTMetro »

lazyeye wrote: post #262
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pretending there's a sinister, organized New World Order (aka "them") with decades-long plans to restrict freedom is fantasy, and doesn't help us target the actual problem. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, and I don't really believe too much in the existence of such a group, but I can argue this is really bad logic. A. Do you think such a group would be public with their ambitions? Such a group would doubtless deny t…

I dont think it will be a "secret cabal". It will simply be a bunch of powerful people arguing that their personal interests are the national/global interest. And believing this whether its true or not. And institutions falling in line with this. You see this kind of attitude at a lower level on HN, for example, all the time. And this flaw in human nature only grows the more powerful you become.

When I was in IT, the rule was 'no essential businesses processes in Excel unless defined and approved' to ensure 1. The formulas were actually correct and 2. We could provide continuity should the person leave 3. These items were included in corporate backups not just user level ones, etc. Hardly anyone followed that process. People are going to use the easiest/best/quickest tools available to get their job done. Add in promotions based on making 'big' cases and you have quite the incentive to abuse these tools without some huge conspiracy. Simple human nature.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#295

Post by capr »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #276
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's (technologically) relatively easy to create a private, censorship-resistant distributed system, but if it's illegal people just won't use it. Ask a Gen-Xer about Napster and Bittorrent sometime.

Gen-Xer here: Napster was never made illegal Napster lost several lawsuits in the US and filed for bankruptcy But Napster the brand was sold to Roxio and continued operations it's still active today https://www.napster.com/ Anyway, in retrospective, Napster times were fun, university networks were clogged by students downloading music all day long and, at least in my country, many people bought a dial up internet con…

"never made illegal" but "lost everal lawsuits", got it

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#296

Post by malermeister »

yreg wrote: post #111
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.

But GDPR is kind of the opposite in that it protects the right to privacy (in this case from surveillance capitalism), so conflating them seems counterproductive

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#298

Post by Tangurena2 »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #276
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's (technologically) relatively easy to create a private, censorship-resistant distributed system, but if it's illegal people just won't use it. Ask a Gen-Xer about Napster and Bittorrent sometime.

Gen-Xer here: Napster was never made illegal Napster lost several lawsuits in the US and filed for bankruptcy But Napster the brand was sold to Roxio and continued operations it's still active today https://www.napster.com/ Anyway, in retrospective, Napster times were fun, university networks were clogged by students downloading music all day long and, at least in my country, many people bought a dial up internet con…

People were also using it to discover new music. Most radio stations in the US are owned by a couple of large corporations who play the same bland stuff nationwide. Most of my CD collection comes from artists I discovered back then.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#299

Post by dang »

Related:

EU chat control law will ban open source operating systems - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34608330 - Feb 2023 (190 comments)

Chat Control: The EU’s CSEM scanner proposal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34183772 - Dec 2022 (3 comments)

EU chat control bill: fundamental rights terrorism - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31416599 - May 2022 (5 comments)

Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31329368 - May 2022 (323 comments)

The latest EU plan to outlaw encryption and introduce communication surveillance - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29308617 - Nov 2021 (251 comments)

EU interior ministers welcome mandatory chat control for all smartphones - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29200506 - Nov 2021 (59 comments)

EU Chatcontrol 2.0 [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29066894 - Nov 2021 (197 comments)

Messaging and chat control - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28115343 - Aug 2021 (317 comments)

EU Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communications - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27759814 - July 2021 (11 comments)

European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communication - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27753727 - July 2021 (415 comments)

Indiscriminate messaging and chatcontrol: Last chance to protest - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27736435 - July 2021 (104 comments)

IT companies warn in open letter: EU wants to ban encryption - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26825653 - April 2021 (217 comments)

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#300

Post by niclo »

zirgs wrote: post #148
anfogoat wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 be…

>No modern government will pass a law that grants its citizens more privacy. GDPR was passed not that long ago.

It's just the same good old EU BAD -> everything coming from there BAD. There's even a comment under this post on how GDPR "degrades the web in the name of privacy", I guess trackers are just way better then cookie banners after all.

Then you read Utah and California have comparable proposals yet I've seen a single mention of them in the whole comment section.

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