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

Europe's New War on Privacy

unherd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 83 posts

Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#51

Post by rixed »

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…

You don't have to scan my private messages to know that i will oppose any war propaganda.

If private classified negotiations between state actors would be done away with, and past such "private" communications published, most wars would be impossible.

They did publish all secret diplomacy after the tsarist regime collapsed and that stopped WWI and probably prevented other wars (see for instance https://www.jstor.org/stable/2189254)

So we need the exact opposite of chat control.

Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#52

Post by alex1138 »

rsync wrote: post #48
canyp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GDPR is not a trojan horse. Rather, it did too little, too late. There are no negatives to it that I am aware of.

GDPR et. al favor, and entrench, larger business firms and (relatively) handicap smaller firms. I’m not in full opposition but people should understand that there is a downside.

But the thing is I thought GDPR incorporated a scaling thing

The pressure to comply I thought was less with smaller corps

Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#54

Post by derelicta »

canyp wrote: post #11

Who are these fucks working to further mass surveillance when the people have already said 'no', twice?

Bourgeois representatives who know they can't keep their wage-slaves in check if they organise online. They will absolutely extend it beyond the current scope

Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#56

Post by [deleted] »

undeveloper wrote: post #25
wg0 wrote: post #2

These carrier bureaucrates of EU will split the EU apart with their needless over legislation where member state's fascist far left and far right elements would want to be done with the union.

fascism, a notably far left movement. why the nazis first went for communists, trade unionists, and social democrats.

[deleted]

Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#57

Post by TeMPOraL »

stavros wrote: post #31
8fingerlouie wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It's always a tradeoff. Nothing is ever going to have zero benefit

Realizing that is the first step to having any kind of productive discourse, much less a chance of influencing the outcome. It's also the step I see most commenters in discussions on this and related topics here, are unable to take.

But then, the follow-up step is:

> the problem is that these laws use the marginal benefit as an excuse to institute something that actually has massive downsides

Are they marginal though, and are the downsides that big? Or does it only seem that way from our armchairs, as we debate computer philosophy and look at the world as a diagram of interacting systems, instead of, you know, the real world?

I'm not saying these particular regulatory ideas are good - I just have a problem with this assumption (not even implicit, it's often outright spelled out here), that it's some evil elites that try to strip us off our privacy and freedom, and keep trying to push the same laws hoping to catch our vigilant protectors off-guard.

Truth is, there's plenty of people who push for these things because they actually think of the children and honestly think these are good trade-offs, and they may be even more right than we are. They definitely sit closer to the real world and real people, real problems and real policing, than we do. They may be fatally misguided, too, but we won't achieve anything unless we try and see their perspective and honestly address the issues they're concerned with.

Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#58

Post by d4rkn0d3z »

Does the EU assume criminals are brainless?

First, suppose two child pornographers get together and agree on a set of word substitutions that remove the key words and phrases deemed suspect. Now the authorites are scanning chats about flowers being planted, or birds being watched, etc. that are actually about targeting victims. Then the only detected uses of suspect words and phrases are accidental. If the authorites learn the new lingo the perpetrators will evolve it.

The only child pornographers that will be caught are the very stupid ones but they would have been caught by other less invasive means.

Meanwhile, the mass surveilance will destroy the free market. Imagine having to negotiate contracts when every business is a global corporation that knows what colour underwear you are wearing from scanning all of your chats. That means every business has a permanent information asymmetry in its favour, in every economic transaction you will ever make. Try to negotiate the purchase of a car, home, and so forth.

It would seem the end of freedom is nigh, listen for the sound of cheering and applause.

Isn't it obvious that mass surveilance only works on those who can be kept ignorant of it? If people know about surveilance then their behaviour is altered. How do entire nations and groups of nations fall for nonsensical plans like chat control.

The idea of chat control is to combat child vicimization by setting authorities on impossibly costly, technically insane strategies that can be thwarted by a high functioning chimpanzee.

What am I missing?

Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#59

Post by stavros »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #57
stavros wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It's always a tradeoff. Nothing is ever going to have zero benefit Realizing that is the first step to having any kind of productive discourse, much less a chance of influencing the outcome. It's also the step I see most commenters in discussions on this and related topics here, are unable to take. But then, the follow-up step is: > the problem is that these laws use the marginal benefit as an excuse to institute s…

Eh, I don't know, I feel like "is complete population surveillance a net good?" has been answered a million times, I'm not sure we need to go into it from first principles.

Re: Europe's New War on Privacy

#60

Post by lenkite »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #57
stavros wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It's always a tradeoff. Nothing is ever going to have zero benefit Realizing that is the first step to having any kind of productive discourse, much less a chance of influencing the outcome. It's also the step I see most commenters in discussions on this and related topics here, are unable to take. But then, the follow-up step is: > the problem is that these laws use the marginal benefit as an excuse to institute s…

The removal of out-dated privacy offers great benefits. Why not begin to invest and develop technology to scan people's brains and leverage the supreme protection advantages for the nation state by its complete elimination ?

Mandate that every resident of the EU wear a certified, union-approved, scanning head-band that monitors the resident's brain for violent, racist, subversive or even "offensive" thoughts using state-of-the-art AI and supporting algorithms.

Authorities are notified immediately and are granted auto-approved warrants. Judges get notifications on auto-sentences that include mandatory re-education to heal such delinquents. Obviously, the system will include the vital and necessary exemptions - politicians and friends of the party, top campaign-donors, favored minorities and cartels, etc.

Every Resident will be made Safe and Happy! This will lead to the establishment of an utopian state - the ultimate paradise on Earth! "Privacy", today, is a nasty detriment that is holding back the Progress of Civilization.

Post reply on HN