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EU to legislate about Chat Control behind closed doors

patrick-breyer.de

351–360 of 463 posts

Re: EU to legislate about Chat Control behind closed doors

#351
post #2

First, why does the EU leadership refuse to learn from falling behind the US economically and technologically, most starkly with AI recently, and their failures in regulating the Internet, most annoyingly the cookie law? And why aren't you, the EU citizen, more annoyed by it? I see a lot of pro-EU content on this site when they're terrible on both tech and entrepreneurship. Second, what's up with Denmmark pushing for…

> refuse to learn from falling behind the US economically

The EU economy has been slowing down since 2007, the peak production of conventional oil. The US is still producing oil, which is why the US economy is better.

People love to think that they are richer or more successful because they are smarter. The fact is that the economy goes up when there is an abundance of energy, period.

So there is nothing to learn from falling behind the US economically, other than "the EU needs to adapt to the reality of its economy measurably slowing down". And following the US and their lack of regulations and tendency towards a fascist economy (with BigTech working together with the ruling class) is not the right direction, IMO.

> I see a lot of pro-EU content on this site when they're terrible on both tech and entrepreneurship.

Tech and entrepreneurs usually want to become rich by producing more. The best places to do that are where the is money, which is where the economy grows, which is where there is an abundance of cheap fossil fuels.

Entrepreneurs usually say "remove the regulations and our economy will grow again", but what they mean, really, is "remove the regulations and I will get rich, because I am on the side of those who would benefit from it".

Re: EU to legislate about Chat Control behind closed doors

#352
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the EU is not perfect and surely needs improvement in many areas, it is still better than not having it. This is why you see a lot of pro-EU content: many people here (myself included) are of the opinion that the EU needs to be improved, not dismantled.

>While the EU is not perfect and surely needs improvement in many areas, it is still better than not having it. Would you still believe this if Chat Control got though? What good did the EU bring that's good enough to make up for the badness of everyone in Europe having all their private digital communications constantly scanned?

Not the OP but yeah this would give me a huge punch in the face and seriously undermine my trust in and support of the EU forever.

Is it enough to turn me anti-EU? I don't know yet. But I certainly would be on the fence instead of a proponent as I am now.

The current age verification laws are already pushing me in that direction and also the weakening of GDPR and DMA/DSA under American pressure.

Re: EU to legislate about Chat Control behind closed doors

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European here. I like the cookie law. It's made it clear to people how much we're being tracked and I can choose to opt out. The implementation could of course be better but the real issue is the scummy web devs choosing to make it as annoying as possible instead of taking the more sensible decision to not have 150 trackers on every page. >> I see a lot of pro-EU content on this site when they're terrible on both tec…

> European here. I like the cookie law. It's made it clear to people how much we're being tracked and I can choose to opt out. Opting out of cookies does not mean no tracking. Tracking companies moved away from cookies a decade ago and now fingerprint the browser through JS in very subtle ways.

And the banners are not about cookies specifically, they are about tracking. It's illegal to track people without consent.

Re: EU to legislate about Chat Control behind closed doors

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European here. I like the cookie law. It's made it clear to people how much we're being tracked and I can choose to opt out. The implementation could of course be better but the real issue is the scummy web devs choosing to make it as annoying as possible instead of taking the more sensible decision to not have 150 trackers on every page. >> I see a lot of pro-EU content on this site when they're terrible on both tec…

> European here. I like the cookie law. It's made it clear to people how much we're being tracked and I can choose to opt out. Opting out of cookies does not mean no tracking. Tracking companies moved away from cookies a decade ago and now fingerprint the browser through JS in very subtle ways.

And the banners are not about cookies specifically, they are about tracking. It's illegal to track people without a lawful reason (and one of the valid reasons is user consent).

Re: EU to legislate about Chat Control behind closed doors

#355
post #339
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is funny is that it has been pushed by the social democrats. See also what Labour have been doing in UK. Whatever we call centre-left today we would have placed much further to right a couple decades ago. At this point even the US Democrats are more progressive than our EU "liberal" parties.

I think it's a more useful analysis to add a second dimension than to try to project everything onto 'left' and 'right' (in the style of the . Axis 1 - civil & political rights: In favour of broad social & political rights (down) -> In favour of few social and political rights a.k.a. authoritarianism (up) Axis 2 - economy: In favour of social responsibility / society ensuring people's needs are met (in the sense of '…

That helps slightly, and this version is often favored by libertarians, but I prefer the “8 values” or 8 dimension test that also looks at diplomatic, technological, and religious dimensions. I think I’ve also seen a 9 dimension version.

A multifactor values-based approach better maps niche positions and explains why there are often irreconcilable disagreements among large blocs that are otherwise compatible. For instance, there will always be recurring tensions between progressives and leftcoms despite their neighboring positions on the 4-quadrant political compass. And right-wing secular monarchists don’t really get along with theocrats either.

Re: EU to legislate about Chat Control behind closed doors

#356
post #289

I have to admit that I don't understand how they can push for this so often! Wasn't this rejected not so long ago?

This "keep asking until they say yes" strategy is by design and has been a common tactic used by the EU power centers in the past. See the way the Treaty of Lisbon was rejected in referendums, and then people were just made to vote again. Or the way the British pro-EU faction proclaimed in 2016 that Leave/Remain was a once in a generation vote to settle the issue for all time, then immediately started agitating for a…

All the quotes are clearly talking about closer integration which no one is hiding is a stated goal of the European Union. It's right there in the original treaties `an ever closer union`. If you don't like it leave, but the rest have all committed to that a long time ago.

The chat control thing has nothing to do with all of the above, it's just a bit of legislation. The whole "we will vote on it again and again until we can finally push it through on the 12th of August at 03:00 o'clock with a total of 20 votes" is a typical strategy seen in many democracies pushed by vested interests on unpopular legislation.

It's not the "EU" that wants this to pass, there are specific people and groups pushing for this surveillance state apparatchiks, all sort of compliance industry vultures, and all the censorship technology industry that is dying to enter the chat market.

I really doubt von der Leyen or anyone in a position of actual power actually cares about this, I am certain they really think this is small time inconsequential bullshit. They have much larger problems to deal with, like the looming jet and diesel shortage, the upcoming crop shortfall we are going to see come harvest season, getting Mercosur through, planning for when Trump inevitably invades Cuba or puts Greenland back on the menu.

Re: EU to legislate about Chat Control behind closed doors

#358
post #344

The common fallacy people have regarding chat control (and should be clarified) is that it's not like internet is made of a few select providers, anyone can open an encrypted tcp connection from an ip to another, and the global traffic is too massive to be scrutinized, also the most widely available apps already comply to the single police request to access conversations from suspects. This means that this will creat…

> it's not like internet is made of a few select providers In practice it is. Almost all messaging happens on a few apps. > also the most widely available apps already comply to the single police request to access conversations from suspects That is not true: Signal is widely available and doesn't do that. WhatsApp probably doesn't do it either. Don't get me wrong: I am against ChatControl as well. I believe that sec…

The whole point of end to end encryption is that providers cannot comply with police request to access conversations. A properly secured system would make it impossible without compromise of your device. Now i don't know what signal does, but I am almost certain WhatsApp can just lie about your contacts keys and man in the middle the connection.

Re: EU to legislate about Chat Control behind closed doors

#359
post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's not like internet is made of a few select providers In practice it is. Almost all messaging happens on a few apps. > also the most widely available apps already comply to the single police request to access conversations from suspects That is not true: Signal is widely available and doesn't do that. WhatsApp probably doesn't do it either. Don't get me wrong: I am against ChatControl as well. I believe that sec…

They do understand it but what they want is not just criminals' data but all of us.

They want to pick the easy fruit. The dumb criminals that would do that sort of thing over whatsapp.

Re: EU to legislate about Chat Control behind closed doors

#360
post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> European here. I like the cookie law. It's made it clear to people how much we're being tracked and I can choose to opt out. Opting out of cookies does not mean no tracking. Tracking companies moved away from cookies a decade ago and now fingerprint the browser through JS in very subtle ways.

And the banners are not about cookies specifically, they are about tracking. It's illegal to track people without a lawful reason (and one of the valid reasons is user consent).

What are you supposed to learn from the banner anyway? It's just an additional annoyance.

You should just assume that anything that your browser exposed may be used to track you. The real problem is that most browsers and browser configurations are far too permissive for the sake of avoiding breakage. The real technical solution to online tracking is standardization of browser attributes so that users look identical, and only allowing for very limited and coarse measurement of client-side user interaction.

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