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EU Chat Control: Germany's position has been reverted to undecided

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Re: EU Chat Control: Germany's position has been reverted to undecided

#161
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Endeavour like these make people vote for extremists Maybe it's time to start considering the current individuals in power as extremists? Just because their speech is more 'peaceful' doesn't mean their actions aren't extremist in nature.

> current individuals in power as extremists Those who support and push anti-constitutional laws, maybe. All individuals in power, no.

There's something called implicit context (this submission and the entire ongoing discussion), which clearly refers to the first group of people you mentioned. Why would I be talking about people who aren't involved in pushing this?

Re: EU Chat Control: Germany's position has been reverted to undecided

#162

One interesting line in the proposal: > Detection will not apply to accounts used by the State for national security purposes, maintaining law and order or military purposes; If it's all very safe and accurate, why is this exception necessary? Doesn't this say either that it's not secure, or that there is a likely hood that there will be false positives that will be reviewed? If they have it all figured out, this exc…

[flagged]

As a Russian whose parents actually remember the USSR, I'm genuinely horrified by the Brezhnev vibes the EU's giving off.

Re: EU Chat Control: Germany's position has been reverted to undecided

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the Commission really needs to go, MEPs need to be able to propose laws. That's really all there is to it to fix the entire situation.

Every country in the world has a "Commission". It's no different to the UK Civil Service or the various US Federal Governments. If it didn't exist then the EU would be unable to implement any of it's policies. Can you explain how MEP's directly proposing laws would affect this? I really don't get it. In parliamentary systems it's normal that virtually all legislation originates in the executive. In the British parlia…

The EU doesn't implement any of its policies by itself, ergo it should not require an executive branch of its own. There is no EU army, no EU police. We already have an instance of that in each member state which is required to implement EU laws on its territory, the Council of Ministers coordinates on that afaik.

The general process is a bit like this, simplified:

- the Council of heads of state appoints the Commission

- the Commission proposes laws

- the Parliament approves laws

- the Council of ministers implements them

- the Court blocks any unconstitutional laws

The problem has been for the longest time that the Commission appointments are not elected, somewhat mired in cronyism, and they keep proposing nonsense laws while the elected parliament can just stand there and vote no while not being able to suggest any legislation we actually need.

Re: EU Chat Control: Germany's position has been reverted to undecided

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not undemocratic. The behavior of the parliament reflects the reality that only a tiny minority of the population care at all about this issue. One might be tempted to blame a lack of media attention, but I don't think that's it. For example in the US, the Snowden revelations attracted tons and tons of media attention, yet it never became a major topic in elections, as far as I'm aware. No politician's career wa…

Parliamentary democracy just fundamentally has a weakness when it comes to single-issue voting. After picking a party to vote on based on housing, economic policy, crime, ..., how much voting power so to say is left for.. which guy the party says they'll send to the european commission? And what that guy's stance on chat-control is? If they're even publicizing that...

Not to mention that once voted in they are not bound by their campaign promises.

Re: EU Chat Control: Germany's position has been reverted to undecided

#165
post #159

This chat control topic is undemocratic, allegedly illegal in many jurisdictions (such as Germany), yet, keeps coming up ever and ever again, and the politicians face no consequences whatsoever. Endeavour like these make people vote for extremists, distrust the EU and democracies, or just give up on politics for good. These EU politicians endangering freedom, justice and democracy must be held accountable, with the m…

I think the result of a referendum that would pose a question "Do you want law enforcement to be allowed access to your private messages when investigating child molesters or would you like to listen to folks who put furry teen girls in front of their websites?" would have results that you certanly wouldn't like. And they'd be democratic. So perhaps before calling something undemocratic, first make sure that the majo…

Phrasing the question is half the battle.

"Do you want to be spied on by your government?"

Yes is yes, no is no, anything more comes from evil.

Re: EU Chat Control: Germany's position has been reverted to undecided

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not undemocratic. The behavior of the parliament reflects the reality that only a tiny minority of the population care at all about this issue. One might be tempted to blame a lack of media attention, but I don't think that's it. For example in the US, the Snowden revelations attracted tons and tons of media attention, yet it never became a major topic in elections, as far as I'm aware. No politician's career wa…

Parliamentary democracy just fundamentally has a weakness when it comes to single-issue voting. After picking a party to vote on based on housing, economic policy, crime, ..., how much voting power so to say is left for.. which guy the party says they'll send to the european commission? And what that guy's stance on chat-control is? If they're even publicizing that...

> how much voting power so to say is left for.. which guy the party says they'll send to the european commission?

Short of a direct (referendum based) democracy how do you resolve that?

Re: EU Chat Control: Germany's position has been reverted to undecided

#167
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the result of a referendum that would pose a question "Do you want law enforcement to be allowed access to your private messages when investigating child molesters or would you like to listen to folks who put furry teen girls in front of their websites?" would have results that you certanly wouldn't like. And they'd be democratic. So perhaps before calling something undemocratic, first make sure that the majo…

Phrasing the question is half the battle. "Do you want to be spied on by your government?" Yes is yes, no is no, anything more comes from evil.

Yes, that's exactly my point - it's important to understand the issue and the messaging about it.

Government "spies" on you for many many things and I think HN "all government is evil" panic isn't really reflected in outlook of EU citizens and won't be looked upon positively by public at large. So again, be careful what you're calling "undemocratic" because that's not the same as "different from my opinion".

Re: EU Chat Control: Germany's position has been reverted to undecided

#168
post #87

A few comments about the state of security and privacy in the UK so let me reply with a top level comment instead: People forget that the UK has ChatControl. It was made into law as part of the Online Safety Act 2023. It has not been enforced so far because it's not "technically feasible to do so" and because companies threatened to leave the UK with their services. You can be 100% certain it will suddenly become fea…

Worth noting that with RIPA (2000, activated in 2007) UK has enforced key disclosure. It is illegal to fail to disclose a password for any data for any reason (including random data). I would say the UK has worse privacy than any other country on earth. I'm really hoping for plausible deniability to become more common to help protect against the government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_King…

> It is illegal to fail to disclose a password for any data for any reason [...].

So it's also illegal to not know the password?

I've forgotten my own debit card PIN or phone unlock code on a couple occasions.

> (including random data)

Encrypted data is indistinguishable from random data. The only hint is the presence of metadata (GPG armor, bootloader password prompt, etc).

This law is catch-all BS designed to persecute people for no other reason.

Re: EU Chat Control: Germany's position has been reverted to undecided

#169

Can someone please explain to me how that law will prevent anything or anybody from encrypted messaging, if I can just whip up a website and use javascript plus websockets/webrtc to implement encrypted chat? Like, yes, you can prevent the FANANG from implementing it, but criminals will just use the secure one...

> [...] I can just whip up a website and use javascript plus websockets/webrtc to implement encrypted chat?

HTTPS relies on centralised authority. It's right there in the name: Certificate Authority.

Tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a phone call when you are unable to speak?

Re: EU Chat Control: Germany's position has been reverted to undecided

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU skepticism is at a 15 year low, and general approval hasnt been higher since 2007. Europeans in general like or is indifferent towards the EU.

> EU skepticism is at a 15 year low, and general approval hasnt been higher since 2007. My observations are different.

Sure, and to add more anecdata, my observations are different from yours.

It's easy / tempting to extrapolate from our limited bubble / point of view, but it doesn't tell you anything about a population at large.

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