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The EU could be scanning your chats by October 2025

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111–120 of 259 posts

Re: The EU could be scanning your chats by October 2025

#111
post #5

Honestly, the fact that “scan everyone’s encrypted messages” keeps coming back like a bad sequel says a lot about how governments see privacy, as a speed bump, not a right. Every time this proposal pops up, it’s wrapped in “think of the children” language, but the end result is always the same: less security for everyone, more power for people who already have too much. At some point, you have to wonder if the real g…

Maybe constitutional amendments in the member states/ ECHR amendment might help? Article 8 [1] goes some of the way , but has some clear weaknesses.

We do have a right to secrecy of correspondence in most member nations, it's kind of silly that we don't have a strict equivalent for phones or computers yet, despite the fact that most people hardly send letters anymore.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_8_of_the_European_Conv...

Re: The EU could be scanning your chats by October 2025

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven't passed this yet, because every time people make noise and write their representatives. It's "clickbait" like this that makes any sort of privacy still possible.

Sure, but this is the same thing as saying "America is going to paint all birds orange" just because one person in the Iowa General House Assembly said we should do it. Awareness is good but there is a fine line between awareness of specific politicians that suck and just misrepresenting the facts.

What is misrepresented?

It's not "only Denmark". There are just a handful of countries in the EU opposing Chat Control, not because they care about privacy.

Re: The EU could be scanning your chats by October 2025

#113
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You picked a really bad time to defend a "politicians will eventually do what is best for us" position, given that such a law just came into effect in UK. And I think it's you who don't understand how the EU works. It's the biggest countries that must agree to something. Then they coerce/convince the rest. At best, the smaller countries can put on some kind of resistance until they extract some minor exception. This…

Sometimes I think the HN contingent just willfully buries its head in the sand on issues of the EU, because they prefer to think of the EU as some idealist version of whatever they've lost as leftists in the US. What this person is writing is correct. The reality of EU politics is anything but democratic. The EU is crowned by an unelected commission that does not serve the interests of the governed.

The EU is quite good at cultivating a benign, environment-friendly, happy family image. I think it is a deliberate contrast to the "gung-ho" American world presence.

The background is pretty machiavellistic, though. There is a lot of money and influence to be managed. It is no secret that Ursula von der Leyen got her first mandate basically from Merkel, a reward for being her loyal subordinate for years.

Re: The EU could be scanning your chats by October 2025

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I think the HN contingent just willfully buries its head in the sand on issues of the EU, because they prefer to think of the EU as some idealist version of whatever they've lost as leftists in the US. What this person is writing is correct. The reality of EU politics is anything but democratic. The EU is crowned by an unelected commission that does not serve the interests of the governed.

The EU commission is appointed by elected governments, with one level of indirection. It is thus as democratically legitimized as any ministerial role in any government, or as the US presidency. Please do not spread disinformation.

It is not disinformation. The Commission is unelected by the people. I specifically called out that the Commission does not serve the interests of the governed. That is a correct statement.

What's more the Commission is more than one person, unlike the US presidency.

Re: The EU could be scanning your chats by October 2025

#115
post #60

I just don't get it - criminals will just continue to use "real" encryption. Why are some of these people so obsessed with reading everyone's chats?

It really depends on the "use case." Regulators are primarily concerned about grooming, which involves criminals using apps that teenagers frequent. Also, criminals usually have poor operational security—far from perfect. The seriousness of the offense isn't related to the quality of their opsec. Regulators and law enforcement are generally rational. They may be short-sighted, but they often have reasonable explanati…

As a parent, I can tell you it's insanely easy to manage allowing kids online. Don't.. or 100% supervised. Done

Re: The EU could be scanning your chats by October 2025

#116
post #17

Why does this stupid idea have to be killed so many times? Being watched constantly means living in fear, but seeing it almost become legally mandated practice over and over again is itself a form of living in fear. I'm so tired.

It was more misunderstood than stupid. Ironically when Apple introduced their solution it was actually better than what we have now. It was interesting to watch people lose their minds because they didn't understand how the current or proposed system worked. Current system everything can be decrypted on the cloud and is scanned for CSAM by all ISPs/service providers. Apple wanted the device to scan for CSAM and if it…

The problem with the CSAM detection is that it can be used for adversarial purposes as well. For example if someone decides an image is politically inconvenient and pressures it to be blocked by hash, then Apple may have to comply or remove themselves from an entire market. Building the mechanism to do that is not acceptable in a civilised society.

And of course does this really solve the real problem of child exploitation? No it doesn't. It allows performative folk working for NGOs to feel like they've done something while children are still being abused and it is being covered up or not even investigated as is so common today.

Improving policing and investigatory standards is where this should stop. We already have RIPA.

All this does is create the expectation that a surveillance dragnet is acceptable. It is not.

Re: The EU could be scanning your chats by October 2025

#117
post #17

Why does this stupid idea have to be killed so many times? Being watched constantly means living in fear, but seeing it almost become legally mandated practice over and over again is itself a form of living in fear. I'm so tired.

It was more misunderstood than stupid. Ironically when Apple introduced their solution it was actually better than what we have now. It was interesting to watch people lose their minds because they didn't understand how the current or proposed system worked. Current system everything can be decrypted on the cloud and is scanned for CSAM by all ISPs/service providers. Apple wanted the device to scan for CSAM and if it…

So what would stop the list of hashes from being extended with hashes of copyrighted media, evidence of corruption (labelled slander or an invasion of the perpetrator's privacy) or evidence of the preceding abuses of the system themselves?

Once you have an established mechanism for "fighting crime", "don't use it to fight that type of crime" is not a position that has any chance of prevailing in the political landscape - see also all the cases of national security wiretaps being used against petty druggies.

Re: The EU could be scanning your chats by October 2025

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU commission is appointed by elected governments, with one level of indirection. It is thus as democratically legitimized as any ministerial role in any government, or as the US presidency. Please do not spread disinformation.

It is not disinformation. The Commission is unelected by the people. I specifically called out that the Commission does not serve the interests of the governed. That is a correct statement. What's more the Commission is more than one person, unlike the US presidency.

Again, the commission is appointed by elected officials.

Do you call ministers in your country unelected? Would you call the US president unelected?

I agree the Comission doesn't serve the interests of the governed, but that's because the people keep voting against their own interests and vote in right-wing governments, which in turn appoints a right-wing commission, which then does the right-wing thing of selling out its people.

It is not a structural EU fault, it is the electorate that's to blame.

Re: The EU could be scanning your chats by October 2025

#119

I am ambivalent about news like this. On one hand it is a terrible proposal that deserves exposure to generate pushback. On the other hand it is still just a proposal , of which there are many (stupid ones) which never see the light of day. This still needs to pass the European Parliament (which is generally opposed to this, not in the least because it is very unpopular under EU citizens). Even then the chances of it…

If you don't fight proposals because they're "just proposals" you pretty much give up

False. If the Commission accepts it, there is still time and room to fight it. Furthermore, your logic would also apply if some random person on the street proposed this.

My point is that legislation can exist in a variety of stages. In the extreme case where we get stressed and angry at every proposal that any politician comes up with, we waste our energy instead of letting the specific systems introduced and thought up to mitigate issues with such proposals do the job efficiently.

Said otherwise: In some cases it effectively becomes crying wolf and makes people numb to and averse to hearing about it. As said, though: I am ambivalent towards news like this. In some cases we need to 'tell, tell, tell' to get the point through. It's a fine line, I think.

Re: The EU could be scanning your chats by October 2025

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I think the HN contingent just willfully buries its head in the sand on issues of the EU, because they prefer to think of the EU as some idealist version of whatever they've lost as leftists in the US. What this person is writing is correct. The reality of EU politics is anything but democratic. The EU is crowned by an unelected commission that does not serve the interests of the governed.

The EU commission is appointed by elected governments, with one level of indirection. It is thus as democratically legitimized as any ministerial role in any government, or as the US presidency. Please do not spread disinformation.

The commission is appointed in back-room deals by "elected" governments which are in turn often only indirectly appointed by parliaments. From your nickname I do infer you are from Germany, where ministers are not elected and the chancellor is not elected by the voters. Instead the chancellor is elected by the Bundestag, which was elected by the voters, but only after the usual back-room deals of forming a coalition. So there is no actual voter control on who becomes chancellor, as evidenced by several "grand" coalitions that always had Merkel as chancellor. Ministers are then not even elected by parliament, they are simply appointed by the chancellor. So not elected in any sense of the word, not even indirectly.

The only elected body in the EU is the EU parliament which has practically no powers when compared to the commission. It can only vote on what the commission proposes, it cannot make its own proposals. It cannot overrule the commission. And the commission can make rules and regulations of its own, without involving the parliament. The most the parliament can do is hold up the process a little.

The EU is not democratic by any sensible measure. "But there is an election somewhere in the process" doesn't make a democracy. Many dictatorships, communist regimes and even monarchies do have an election somewhere in the process. The emperor has no clothes, and the EU isn't democratic. Any timid initiative to make it so has died ages ago. The last straw was the trumped up non-election of von-der-Leyen. Actually, the parliament should have filled her job with its candidate, as was promised before the election. After election day, that promise which was intended to introduce at least a whiff of democratic accountability, was instantly forgotten. von der Leyen was instated instead of the parliaments candidate by a back-room deal.

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