41–50 of 259 posts
it seems it is the general Zeitgeist in Europe. Also in Switzerland and generally erosions of Privacy laws all across the continent. The governments are scared of insurgencies from the right, from the left, from immigrants, from foreign nations. Paranoia and fear are quite prominent.
The way you described it, Europe sounds almost like Imperium from 40k.
"the EU wants to scan your messages" implies its every member state and not one freak from Denmark putting this forward where it will die. The EU has always been 90 days from passing mass surveliance for the last decade. Until member states start actually backing this these articles are nothing but click bait.
Not true. The truth is that Chat Control has returned several times already and the majority of the EU states were actually always for, but a blocking minority has been reached each time - barely so.
Worryingly, one of the blocking minority countries used to be Germany, where privacy-minded smaller parties (Greens, FDP) are no longer in government. The new government hasn't declared its position yet. If it switches to yes, then the remnants of our privacy are kaput just like that, and the only hope will be in the ECHR, or possibly (sigh) in Trump's tech bros angrily vetoing it from abroad.
So, no one freak from Denmark, but a concerted, repeated effort.
There is an even worse set of measures in the phase of preparation, ProtectEU, which would mandate backdoors in everything under the pain of prison for vendors, introduce mandatory data retention and ban non-logging VPNs.
Fuck, I don't want to live in a China with a blue flag instead of red. This is absolutely dystopian.
Don't downplay the danger. Don't spread disinformation. This isn't a random shot from a random weirdo in Denmark. This is a seriously driven EU-wide attempt to destroy meaningful encryption with a lot of proponents and backers. And the current EC chair, Ursula von der Leyen, has a history of promoting such measures, that is why Germans call her Zensursula.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They haven't passed this yet, because every time people make noise and write their representatives. It's "clickbait" like this that makes any sort of privacy still possible.
Sure, but this is the same thing as saying "America is going to paint all birds orange" just because one person in the Iowa General House Assembly said we should do it. Awareness is good but there is a fine line between awareness of specific politicians that suck and just misrepresenting the facts.
I just don't get it - criminals will just continue to use "real" encryption. Why are some of these people so obsessed with reading everyone's chats?
> This will catch the x% of lone wolf terrorists who are too mentally unwell to use encryption and too unwell to hide their intentions.
> Without this, the relative increase in terrorism will cause strongmen to get elected who will just enact even more severe surveillance, among many other bad things.
> So it's not a choice between surveillance and no surveillance. It's a choice between relative levels of badness.
> This will also catch real criminals by listening to their close family members who have worse OPSEC than the criminals.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, you can say that, but the unelected will decide for us. Oh when it was just for "easier international trade". What a good one.
They are not unelected. They might be appointed but the parliament is elected and can block this. Go vote in EU elections. A parliament that is not full of conservatives can block this.
Digital Services Act:
I just don't get it - criminals will just continue to use "real" encryption. Why are some of these people so obsessed with reading everyone's chats?
When real encryption is illegal, it will be easier to roll them up. > Why are some of these people so obsessed with reading everyone's chats? Having worked with some of the people in law enforcement heavily pushing this, it generally does come from child safety concerns and the overwhelming amount of CSAM sent via encrypted means. Personally, I don't believe that it will ever be restricted to serious crimes and the p…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but this is the same thing as saying "America is going to paint all birds orange" just because one person in the Iowa General House Assembly said we should do it. Awareness is good but there is a fine line between awareness of specific politicians that suck and just misrepresenting the facts.
OK, I’ll bite. What reason would there be to paint every bird orange?
I just don't get it - criminals will just continue to use "real" encryption. Why are some of these people so obsessed with reading everyone's chats?
By banning real encryption, the police can arrest anyone using chat apps they can't control. Them not being able to spy on you automatically makes you guilty. Also something something children something terrorism something something safety, whatever makes the uninformed public feel like this is something that'll benefit them.
I think it was Encrochat devices that booted into a fairly vanilla looking OS, and there was another platform where it was hidden in something like a calculator app.
Why does this stupid idea have to be killed so many times? Being watched constantly means living in fear, but seeing it almost become legally mandated practice over and over again is itself a form of living in fear. I'm so tired.
Open source will find a way around it; there's no reason to be afraid. Unless one day their spyware is installed at the hardware level but that would be the equivalent of raiding our homes, so that's not very likely.