Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

mullvad.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 219 posts

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#191

Post by LinuxBender »

viktorcode wrote: post #59

She maybe don't understand technology, but I get the feeling that breaking or weakening p2p is not what she talking about. The scanning means scanning performed on the end devices, not of the communications. The idea is to force communication messengers providers to perform scan on end user's device. That, obviously, will fail, as many (including child predators) will migrate to messengers that don't do that.

That, obviously, will fail, as many (including child predators) will migrate to messengers that don't do that.

The informed ones anyway. They would be happy to get the uninformed ones as it still makes their numbers look better and justifies their position of weakening the internet.

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#192

Post by Aeolun »

ranguna wrote: post #174
Aeolun wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think by the point you encrypt the plaintext twice the idea of end-to-end is broken.

Disclaimer: I do not agree with this EU proposal. Why do you say that e2ee is broken if the plain text is encrypted more than once? Isn't that what happens in group chats? And if not, they could just make all chats group chats. You, your recipient and the government.

That would make it very obvious. I like that idea.

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#193

Post by qikInNdOutReply »

seydor wrote: post #71
dahwolf wrote: post #65

Software is flexible which seems to result in our human rights being equally flexible. Imagine the police regularly raiding your apartment without announcement. The post office opening all your mail. Storage box companies searching your unit. You wouldn't be OK with that. You're innocent until proven guilty and a search requires a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing and an approved warrant. Private communication is pr…

I 'm actually shocked that people are OK with that. People in countries that have had dictatorships recently probably remember that. Snitches everywhere, the police raiding houses again and again for no reason, with no recourse and people were just accepting it.

And the gameing of horrific incentives to snitch.

Chinese traffic laws come to mind, were reporting somebody overtaking on the right got you a small monetary reward. So folks were creeping on the left side, forcing others to overtake on the right, photos were made, the incident reported, rewards were rept.

Similar things can happen fast on the internet. Bait somebody into breaking the law and report it for a reward. Can even automate it. Piracy and porn comes to mind.

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#194

Post by staunton »

Aeolun wrote: post #112
seba_dos1 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some arbitrary point you just decide that the risk is small enough for you to be comfortable with it.

And that comes when you self compile your kernel? Seems like an odd point to stop. Like, the chances of someone sneaking something terrible into an open source kernel seem lower than of any of the hardware coming out of China to be poisoned.

> Like, the chances of someone sneaking something terrible into an open source kernel seem lower than of any of the hardware coming out of China to be poisoned.

what causes you to think that?

For example, how often has there been something terrible inside an OS kernel? How much poisoned Chinese hardware are you aware of?

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#195

Post by scoutt »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #106
Kretinsky wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for my government, in the EU, and participated in the creation of such laws. The vague wording and the complexity is here to give the legislator a lot of freedom in the interpretation of the text. Bear in mind that those “technical” laws aren't written by MPs – they are written by lobbyists and private consultants like McKinsey, in cooperation with high-tier civil servants. Therefore, they usually follow an…

> very few laws to completely shut down dissent except it would mean silencing millions of people, which is frankly more similar to the intro of a sci-fi novel than modern France. See what's happening in Israel, not even the omnipotent Netanyahu could go against the huge popular protests. > Von der Leyen refuses to show the private texts she exchanged with Pfizer' boss, That's the same right everyone has in Europe. N…

I think you have a very interesting point I never thought about. And after thinking it for a while, I believe that in the case of digital communications and their nature, secrecy ensures privacy.

If there is a line of people, with you at one end and me in the other end, and I need to send a message to you in private, and the only way I have to do it is by communicating this message along the line of people... I would have to come with some encoding method so nobody but you and me can understand this message.

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#196

Post by fsflover »

KirillPanov wrote: post #117
fsflover wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you trust your bios? Yes, it's Coreboot with disabled and neutralized Intel ME. > Your usb stack? No, it's isolated in a dedicated, hardware-virtualized VM on Qubes OS. > Your network card firmware? Same as above. And it's FLOSS. > surrounded by cameras and microphones For those, I have hardware kill switches. On the phone, too.

> disabled and neutralized Intel ME Pinky swear.

https://puri.sm/posts/deep-dive-into-intel-me-disablement/

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#197

Post by peoplefromibiza »

Aeolun wrote: post #124
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By creating these massive overcomplicated bills, they make sure only a handful of individuals are capable of reading them and the rest of us Of course it is by design, not necessarily for evil purposes though. First of all, the fact that laws are written in a "natural language" doesn't imply they can be fully understood by everyone, they are more like a math formula, it's only less obvious that laws need to be craf…

I think you are assuming too much competence. If lawmakers are anything like other employees, then 80% of them are there just for the paycheck. They’re not going to expend any extra effort to fully understand a complicated law that they’re not particularly invested in. Chances are very few of them actually consider where this could lead, not because they’re malicious, but because they just cannot be bothered. They’re…

> then 80% of them are there just for the paycheck.

90/10 rule: 10% of the workers do 90% of the work.

> I think you are assuming too much competence

I'm not assuming any particular competence, competence on the subject is not required to be a lawmaker, if expertise is needed consultants gets hired (I have briefly been a consultant for EU on tech matters).

I am simply saying that in places like the EU commission the only thing that matters is to reach a good enough compromise such as it would pass the test of the vote.

That's the only thing that is required from a law proposal.

And to not break pre-existent laws or other regulations (the Constitution, international treaties, customs, etc.)

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#198

Post by peoplefromibiza »

scoutt wrote: post #195
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> very few laws to completely shut down dissent except it would mean silencing millions of people, which is frankly more similar to the intro of a sci-fi novel than modern France. See what's happening in Israel, not even the omnipotent Netanyahu could go against the huge popular protests. > Von der Leyen refuses to show the private texts she exchanged with Pfizer' boss, That's the same right everyone has in Europe. N…

I think you have a very interesting point I never thought about. And after thinking it for a while, I believe that in the case of digital communications and their nature, secrecy ensures privacy. If there is a line of people, with you at one end and me in the other end, and I need to send a message to you in private, and the only way I have to do it is by communicating this message along the line of people... I would…

> I would have to come with some encoding method so nobody but you and me can understand this message.

That obviously strengthen the chances of the messages staying private, but we had privacy long before encryption.

Phone calls could not be listened to and letters could not be opened, without proper authorization.

Obviously someone did, but that someone was breaking the law.

You have the right to privacy in your own house, of course someone could look inside from a window, but if that's an habit, that someone is breaking the law.

etc. etc.

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#199

Post by raxxorraxor »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #66
gizmo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you trust your bios? Your usb stack? Your network card firmware? I get the desire to control the entire chain, but nowadays you’re surrounded by cameras and microphones 24/7, every smart device is a surveillance sleeper agent waiting for the magic word. Certificate chains are the least of your worries.

Anything your monitor displays or sound system outputs is subject to ubiquitous surveillance. And, when there's a gap in the surveillance that's also is subject to interpretation. Privacy already is (mostly) lost and the battle now simply is to reliably establish authenticity that can't be impersonated or doubted. That's where encryption remains helpful.

I disagree. It is still quite trivial to reasonably exchange information without anyone being able to eavesdrop on it.

Authenticity isn't important if the message content can be verified. It can even pose a danger. People like to attack the messenger, especially if he has a point.

Don't know about your devices, but mine do not put me under surveillance. Smartphones are critical, but even those are controllable. If you are in public you won't know, but otherwise you can be reasonably safe.

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#200

Post by raxxorraxor »

geysersam wrote: post #165
anonym29 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The upside of this is that it just created a business opportunity for Faraday paint :)

Being the one guy in the neighborhood using faraday paint does not sound suspicious at all. ;)

Not at all unusual, especially for modern buildings. Thermic film on windows are a huge problem for relevant frequencies, wifi or broadband.
Post reply on HN