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Europe's New War on Privacy

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Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#31

Post by stavros »

8fingerlouie wrote: post #30
Aerroon wrote: post #6

I can't read the full article, but I would like to remind everyone that this is not the first time the EU has done something like this. In 2006 the EU passed the Data Retention Directive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive > According to the Data Retention Directive, EU member states had to store information on all citizens' telecommunications data (phone and internet connections) for a minimum of…

It's still a law in Denmark, despite being rendered illegal in the EU, and likewise in national courts. It was last used to convict a murderer of the murder of Emilie Meng ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Emilie_Meng ). At the time, he had kidnapped a 13 year old girl (IIRC), that he had sexually assaulted for 24+ hours, and various dashcam recordings were used to piece together what had happened. He was als…

It's always a tradeoff. Nothing is ever going to have zero benefit, the problem is that these laws use the marginal benefit as an excuse to institute something that actually has massive downsides.

Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#32

Post by impossiblefork »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #17

I feel like this just fundamentally misunderstands Europe stand on privacy. Privacy is for citizens and companies to each other not something the government is subject to.

Obviously Europe is huge, and in Sweden we've obviously regarded some privacy as unnecessary with respect to the government, however, that has been about financial things, which, being financial, affect everybody.

We've always believed in things like postal secrecy.

Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#33

Post by maxdo »

As a liberal person, I have an unpopular opinion, but I’m a national who’s country is at war.

These are adequate reactions and preparations before war.

The West should be done with its rosy glasses. There’s still almost religious rejection of the possibility of war in their territory.

We are on the brink of a fierce war with Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and a few traitors you are not aware of. They have more resources (oil, gas), production capabilities, as well as intelligence, and what’s more important, counter-intelligence.

This move improves counter-intelligence. Essentially, it’s an attempt to prevent the looming war. It’s not an evil act; it’s a cowardly measure compared to the direct acts of aggression of NATO.

If you think this time America will save the entire West like in movies, you are wrong. With recent drone capabilities without going nuclear, no place is safe.

Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#34

Post by Hizonner »

8fingerlouie wrote: post #30
Aerroon wrote: post #6

I can't read the full article, but I would like to remind everyone that this is not the first time the EU has done something like this. In 2006 the EU passed the Data Retention Directive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive > According to the Data Retention Directive, EU member states had to store information on all citizens' telecommunications data (phone and internet connections) for a minimum of…

It's still a law in Denmark, despite being rendered illegal in the EU, and likewise in national courts. It was last used to convict a murderer of the murder of Emilie Meng ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Emilie_Meng ). At the time, he had kidnapped a 13 year old girl (IIRC), that he had sexually assaulted for 24+ hours, and various dashcam recordings were used to piece together what had happened. He was als…

Um, the data retention directive didn't apply to dashcams, only network metadata... and that Wikipedia article isn't curing my confusion.

Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#36

Post by Hizonner »

maxdo wrote: post #33

As a liberal person, I have an unpopular opinion, but I’m a national who’s country is at war. These are adequate reactions and preparations before war. The West should be done with its rosy glasses. There’s still almost religious rejection of the possibility of war in their territory. We are on the brink of a fierce war with Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and a few traitors you are not aware of. They have more res…

Yeah no. That's not what any of this is about. This is exactly what they claim it is: more power for domestic law enforcement.

Your apocalyptic vision is very, very far from certain, but also...

> This move improves counter-intelligence

Evading any kind of mass surveillance is basic tradecraft for spies. You're not going to get a lot of counterintelligence out of it. Especially because it's all structured to filter the information through mostly-non-spooky operators of communication services before your counterintelligence people get to see it.

What it does improve is good old fashioned non-counter intelligence for the other side. A lot of intelligence targets don't have the kind of OPSEC that spies have. And with adversaries at that level, you can't assume you control who has access to your back doors.

Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#37

Post by babush »

maxdo wrote: post #33

As a liberal person, I have an unpopular opinion, but I’m a national who’s country is at war. These are adequate reactions and preparations before war. The West should be done with its rosy glasses. There’s still almost religious rejection of the possibility of war in their territory. We are on the brink of a fierce war with Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and a few traitors you are not aware of. They have more res…

Scanning my messages with my mom is going to give that much extra edge in a war with Russia.

> If you think this time America will save the entire West like in movies

Ugh

Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#38

Post by malwrar »

maxdo wrote: post #33

As a liberal person, I have an unpopular opinion, but I’m a national who’s country is at war. These are adequate reactions and preparations before war. The West should be done with its rosy glasses. There’s still almost religious rejection of the possibility of war in their territory. We are on the brink of a fierce war with Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and a few traitors you are not aware of. They have more res…

> These are adequate reactions and preparations before war.

> Essentially, it’s an attempt to prevent the looming war.

I don’t see how mass surveillance is going to be effective against Russian/Chinese/etc agents, let alone prevent war. Why do you assume that spies and saboteurs are going to use the surveilled systems? I think this is more about controlling citizens than it is about monitoring foreigners.

Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#39

Post by alephnerd »

maxdo wrote: post #33

As a liberal person, I have an unpopular opinion, but I’m a national who’s country is at war. These are adequate reactions and preparations before war. The West should be done with its rosy glasses. There’s still almost religious rejection of the possibility of war in their territory. We are on the brink of a fierce war with Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and a few traitors you are not aware of. They have more res…

Most HNers won't listen to you, but frankly they truly do not matter. There's a reason legislation like the Espionage Act, the G10 Act, and Official Secrets/NSA Act 2023 exist, and why personal heroes of mine like Abe Lincoln enabled their administrations to prosecute sedition during states of war and near states of war severely.

Much of Europe has been seeing near weekly grey scale warfare [0] that in most other cases can be treated as an act of war.

I had friends in Ukraine who acted the same until their family had to leave Donetsk due to shelling during the 14-16 period, and others who voted for Zelensky's olive tree which the Putin admin unceremoniously rejected in 2022 (at least Zelensky decided to stay in Kyiv and own up to his admin's mistaken policies in their beginning). Being well paid techies, they all paid bribes and left for Vietnam, the US, Germany, Czechia, and other countries while those who couldn't afford to leave were paying for those techies votes.

So will other HNers (and Redditors) who act high and mighty until the shoe is on the other foot - they would all leave the moment war started with nary a sense of loyalty nor the wherewithal to support policies that can act as a deterrent. The kind of people on HN will keep their heads in the sand until they are personally affected, because people who base their life on ideals and ideology don't understand how messy the world actually is.

Hell, most of them probably never heard of the 2010-12 purge China's MSS did against CIA informants - a number of whom were summarily executed in public in a government office courtyard [1]. Counterespionage is dirty work.

[0] - https://www.iiss.org/research-paper/2025/08/the-scale-of-rus...

[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spie...

Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#40

Post by alex1138 »

jeltz wrote: post #26
alex1138 wrote: post #13

So is GDPR the "good" part of it and we should just reject Chat Control? Or is GDPR also some sort of trojan horse that sounds great, but has downsides

The EU is a big organization woth a lot of prople with different agendas. It was easier for the privacy advocates to regulate companies thsn for them to stop government surveillance. So far the Parliament has mamsged to block new surveillance.

Yeah, I know. I'd just heard rumblings GDPR has flaws but considering how predatory corporations are I'm very willing to give it the old college try
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