Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#311

Post by ethbr0 » Thu, Feb 02, 2023, 6:19 PM UTC

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #65

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…

There is no need to pretend. People with power want more power. As a thought exercise consider how you would arrange the world were you in a position to do so and try to determine placement of structures that could undermine your benevolent rule. Freedom of speech is such a structure. It is not really a paranoia if there are people out there working on just that. Now, just because there are also fellow travelers who…

Indeed. Presumably that's why it made the very first amendment. If only they'd thought to explicitly state that included privacy. :(

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#312

Post by zerodensity » Thu, Feb 02, 2023, 6:21 PM UTC

Laaas wrote: post #219

If this goes through I will personally leave EU, and I wouldn't be surprised if others do too. What reason is there to remain in the EU? It being a regulatory superpower [0]? Metaphorical lol. [0]: https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_the_eu_as_a_digital_regul...

Where would you go?

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#313

Post by ethbr0 » Thu, Feb 02, 2023, 6:22 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #154

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.

Another way of phrasing this might be "people will not have to pay as much tax if technological tools are used to assess crimes rather than traditional high-touch policing (ie high man-hours)". Generally people want all the [other] criminals catching, but do not want all resources of the state used solely for policing. Optimisations then are preferred even if there is collateral harm.

In goriest form, I think of this as the drone argument.

Is it better to put boots on the ground, some of whom may die and who may cause collateral casualties in executing their mission, or a (hypothetically idealized) drone that kills only the target?

Still haven't decided if I have, or there even exists, a good answer to that.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#314

Post by ethbr0 » Thu, Feb 02, 2023, 6:25 PM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #224

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…

How do you explain the countless tyrants in ancient and modern history? Hell, even in contemporary times. The truth is that there are absolutely very dangerous people around. And also a lot of good people too. We can't know for certain who is who, so the best approach is to be as polite as if they were good people but as cautious as if they were evil.

There are only ever two high level options:

1) Put someone in charge, so that they can overrule the evil of the masses

2) Put the masses in charge, so that they can overrule the evil of individuals

Naturally the Romans, governmentally smart buggers that they were, adopted both.

In modern times, I think the best we can get is putting the masses in charge, with specific prohibitions on dumb things we know they'll try to do (e.g. trade freedom for security when they're scared).

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#315

Post by peoplefromibiza » Thu, Feb 02, 2023, 6:26 PM UTC

capr wrote: post #295

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

it wasn't illegal in my country so...

anyway, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc. lost a lot of lawsuits, I believe they are still not illegal.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#316

Post by mjburgess » Thu, Feb 02, 2023, 6:27 PM UTC

O__________O wrote: post #179

Strangest thing to me about the topic is that it’s obvious vast percentage of citizens within democracies wish they lived in an authoritarian country, yet choose to live in a democracy and use the liberties they’re provided to actively destabilize and destroy it. To me this is the largest issue, not a given topic that results from it. Yes, I am aware current authoritarian countries wage propaganda campaigns, but in m…

Nationalism is such an ubiquitous and powerful ideology, we don't realise that pretty much everyone today is an extreme nationalist.

Before "nations" people didnt regard borders, states, etc. as they do today. "citizenship" of a "nation" is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Most today think it's a good-and-fitting thing to defend "one's country". And this impulse is vastly more powerful than defending "democracy".

Who would die to stop a coup? Few. Who would die to stop an "invasion", apparently, many.

What motivates Ukrainians after all?

Quite an extreme ideology, one that puts so many men on the battlefield. But nations were invented, there is nothing "natural" to fight for here; nor anything even clearly moral.

"Democracy", therefore, is clearly a vastly vastly weaker ideology. Nationalism is the most powerful ideology to ever exist.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#317

Post by loup-vaillant » Thu, Feb 02, 2023, 6:27 PM UTC

feanaro wrote: post #98

neysofu wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

I'm sure all of these examples (encryption, guns, abortion, crypto currencies) are considered by some people to be that extreme situational outlier, and needs to be banned yesterday.

Mine is proof-of-waste crypto currencies such as Bitcoin, or Ethereum before the PoS merge. Too much CO2 for too little gain.

(There's also the Ponzi aspect, but I don't think we need new laws to ban Ponzi schemes: if a crypto currency turns out to be a Ponzi scheme, just sue them for making a Ponzi scheme.)

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#318

Post by omgomgomgomg » Thu, Feb 02, 2023, 6:28 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #290

pessimizer wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In democracies, it really is pushed for {good reasons}. It's marketed to upper-middle class elites as reasonable, and of course it's upper-middle class elites that are paid to put together this marketing. But it's really orders from an owner class that has entirely different interests from the other 99.9% of the population. If an individual member of of the upper-middle class has a problem with {the imposition of t…

> The fantasyland is when we imply that they never speak to each other, never make plans, and have no agendas. It's a failure of thinking at scale. This fantasyland is denifately common falacy many here believe However it remains to be shown that their plans are what you say they are

I think you are wrong here and right.

There is no conspiracy, it has all already happened.

Maybe not on a global scope, but have you heard of the "stasi"?

Any political party can conspire to enforce something against the voter base that is not represented, pretty much any time.

The saying "knowledge is power" and 1984 and such havent been there for no reason.

People have written conspiracy theories about rfid chips, they have been ridiculous and what could these have given away other than location data and body temperature? Meanwhile, everyone has a mobile phone and a pc and smart devices which are phoning home sending the data to be sold to the highest bidder.

There have been terrible people in power on this planet and their paths should be full of obstacles.

Ask the people who suffered under pinochet, stasi and countless african dictators.

Better to not hand anyone the full infrastructure for absolute power and control if it can be prevented.

Nuclear codes and production secrets are not visible on youtube, and I think medical data, bank accounts, browsing history and docs on pcs should not be subject to preemptive surveillance.

If there are issues with child pornography, we have police forces for that, by all means, go for them.

If there is a terrorist problem, we have armies to sort them out, by all means, go for it.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#319

Post by macrolocal » Thu, Feb 02, 2023, 6:29 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #301

macrolocal wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even so, the larpers and bots seem more authoritarian now.

Not sure Eternal September is an apt ad hom, when the parent you're responding to has been bitching about government overreach since the original meaning of the phrase.

Gadflies play a critical role in the ecosystem! :)

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#320

Post by rwmj » Thu, Feb 02, 2023, 6:29 PM UTC

dingusdew wrote: post #202

O__________O wrote: post #179

Strangest thing to me about the topic is that it’s obvious vast percentage of citizens within democracies wish they lived in an authoritarian country, yet choose to live in a democracy and use the liberties they’re provided to actively destabilize and destroy it. To me this is the largest issue, not a given topic that results from it. Yes, I am aware current authoritarian countries wage propaganda campaigns, but in m…

Unpopular opinion: If you don't like democracy and use your democratic rights to actively work to dismantle it, you probably shouldn't actually be allowed to participate in democracy since you are operating in bad faith.

A few constitutions explicitly defend democracy, so you cannot modify the constitution to remove the democratic system. Germany is the most famous example (because, you know, Hitler).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrenched_clause#Germany