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EU now one step away from reviving private message scanning rules

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Re: EU now one step away from reviving private message scanning rules

#131

Post by ianm218 »

nekusar wrote: post #130
anonym29 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why stop there? This system can easily be used to target welfare recipients, immigrants, LGBT+ people, black/brown/indigenous people, pretty much any disfavored group of choice! You're just one election away from "that was during the previous term of office" https://media.mullvad.net/web/chatcontrol2_en.jpg

[flagged]

Your comment doesn’t make it clear why supporting this party would interfere with making a point on mass surveillance. If there is a link could you describe it?

Re: EU now one step away from reviving private message scanning rules

#133

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

slg wrote: post #128
matthewdgreen wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a number of people who have gone down this route, including Senators. For example, here's Senator Wyden's proposal to add $5 billion in mandatory funding to investigate and target sexual abusers [1]. The problem with these efforts is that they're expensive: fighting child exploitation requires enormous amounts of funding. Guess what doesn't require billions of dollars? Mandatory scanning paid for by tech compa…

Then fund the initiative by taxing those same tech companies. "This problem is hard or expensive to address" does not assuage the desire to fix the problem. There are countless reasons to be against these chat controls, but it's easy for a layperson to understand how they would address their specific concerns. The only way to effectively counter that is providing an alternative that does a better job.

> Then fund the initiative by taxing those same tech companies.

The politicians needed to change tax laws are owned by the tech companies. This is why its a hard problem. The tech companies set the rules now. Getting politicians elected that aren't owned by tech companies is also hard because tech companies effectively control all the information.

Re: EU now one step away from reviving private message scanning rules

#134

Post by InvertedRhodium »

slg wrote: post #120
budududuroiu wrote: post #91

The Internet Watch Foundation, an organisation funded by almost all of big tech, is already at work pushing for client side scanning next [1], for the children, of course. [1] https://www.iwf.org.uk/policy-work/preventing-the-upload-of-...

I feel like if people wanted to counter this push, the more effective route would be addressing the "for the children" motivations seriously rather than fully dismissing them. You could cut the legs out of this effort by capturing the part of the population that does have an honest desire to protect children by offering an alternative that actually protects children. Instead, that concern is treated as 100% disingenu…

I don't think I agree - "think of the children" is not primarily a rational argument, it's more an emotional and political lever that is used to frame anyone in opposition as being opposed to more child safety, which is very obviously a bad thing.

It creates a moral asymmetry where one group is "defending children" and another group is "defending an abstract concept", but group A wins out primarily due to millions of years of human evolution. It has very little (IMO) to do with the actual underlying concepts being debated.

Re: EU now one step away from reviving private message scanning rules

#135

Post by drdaeman »

bee_rider wrote: post #126
xienze wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for the children, of course. Kind of surprised they don't just pitch it as a way to root out Russian propaganda and right-wing extremism. Public opinion would shift overnight. They'd practically demand it!

Actually, what are the partisan leanings of the parties actually actively pushing this, since you’ve brought it up? Despite being fairly left-leaning I wouldn’t automatically blame the right for this particular type of invasive nonsense… is this a centrist spawned nuisance, or something?

Aren’t stupidity, shortsightedness, and corruption universal human “values”, well-spread all across the political spectrum?

Re: EU now one step away from reviving private message scanning rules

#136

Post by paisawalla »

budududuroiu wrote: post #91

The Internet Watch Foundation, an organisation funded by almost all of big tech, is already at work pushing for client side scanning next [1], for the children, of course. [1] https://www.iwf.org.uk/policy-work/preventing-the-upload-of-...

> an organisation funded by almost all of big tech

Agreed, and this sucks, but what should be done about this? Some NGO called "We Stop Bad Guys" approaches your company with its hand out. You have two choices:

1. kick down some money, get great headlines

2. don't, and then have it known that you don't support stopping Bad Guys -- then maybe write ten thousand never-to-be-read words about how your position is actually quite principled

I hate it, but the first is obviously rational?

Re: EU now one step away from reviving private message scanning rules

#137

Post by hagbard_c »

They won't scan my messages since I run my own XMPP server and clients using only free software - prosody for the server, Conversations/dino/gajim/converse.js for the clients. OMEMO (the encryption scheme used by 'modern' XMPP systems) uses the same double-ratchet encryption as Signal without the dependency on a central Signal server.

Prosody can run on just about anything and is mostly maintenance-free, give it a try I'd say. You'll want to get a domain for it but that's easy and cheap.

Re: EU now one step away from reviving private message scanning rules

#139

Post by hagbard_c »

tangenter wrote: post #127

Waiting to see what the Europeans do. They talked the talk. Let’s see what is the next move.

Some of 'm have been doing things for decades now, moving to self-hosted services free from the government censors. The harder they squeeze, the more people will move to that server-under-the-stairs or hitch a ride on one hosted by a family member or friend.

Re: EU now one step away from reviving private message scanning rules

#140

Post by slg »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #133
slg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then fund the initiative by taxing those same tech companies. "This problem is hard or expensive to address" does not assuage the desire to fix the problem. There are countless reasons to be against these chat controls, but it's easy for a layperson to understand how they would address their specific concerns. The only way to effectively counter that is providing an alternative that does a better job.

> Then fund the initiative by taxing those same tech companies. The politicians needed to change tax laws are owned by the tech companies. This is why its a hard problem. The tech companies set the rules now. Getting politicians elected that aren't owned by tech companies is also hard because tech companies effectively control all the information.

If this is your belief, the only reasonable conclusion is that time spent on fighting these chat control initiatives is wasted because it's all downstream of the power of the tech oligarchy. That's the battle you should be fighting rather than trying to play whack-a-mole on individual proposals like this.
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