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Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

patrick-breyer.de

141–150 of 338 posts

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#141
post #49
post #6

I don't understand who wants this. does any of their actual constituency want it? Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? Stuff like abortion, etc where I don't really understand the other side. I've at least met real people who are pro life. I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways.

Yes Minister covers it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks Tell them you're going to have their messages scanned on behalf of the government and nobody wants it. Tell them you're going to introduce measures for online safety and to crack down on child abuse, and everybody wants it. Unless you're pre-informed on the issues, whoever presents it to you can just pick the side that gets you to the answer the…

I have come to believe Yes Minister needs to be required viewing for everyone. Just yesterday, my son shared with me this excellent BBC look back at the show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=GRocvuyAMeI

If you're a Yes Minister fan, it's a must see IMO.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#142
post #65

How is this law supposed to work with text encryption? Write text, encrypt, copy to clipboard, paste into chat app? Will such encryption applications be prohibited? That seems unenforcable, these apps are everywhere, I've even written one with symmetric encryption myself.

Governments frequently ban encryption for private citizens to "prevent them from sharing child porn".

It’s completely uneffective.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#143
post #60

Ok, i'm not defending this, but as i might have a bit more insight on how the EU actually work, i will share my limited knowledge. The commission is the European executive power. It is a mostly unelected body. The parliament is the one you vote for if you do vote during the european elections The council is composed by representative of the head of state from the 27 countries. Once a law is drafted by the European co…

> i don't think they can have the idea themselve btw

Actually the European Commission is exactly where EU legislation comes from. It probably doesn't come from the commissioners themselves; they're mostly ex-politicians who are too unpopular and incompetent to get elected in their home countries. But those commissioners control the EU civil service; it's those bureaucrats that produce these ideas.

As you say, the ordinary procedure is that the proposal is then passed to the toothless Parliament; and I think it then goes to the Council of Ministers to be passed. The Parliament can pass it back to the Commission for reconsideration, and that can happen several times. I don't know how often that happens; I'd guess not often.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no interest in discussing The Bible further with you given that you blatantly misrepresented a passage and then shifted the goal posts when questioned about it.

So that's a no, then. Noted.

You've won the debate by proving yourself to be dishonest, congrats.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#145
post #94
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes Minister covers it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks Tell them you're going to have their messages scanned on behalf of the government and nobody wants it. Tell them you're going to introduce measures for online safety and to crack down on child abuse, and everybody wants it. Unless you're pre-informed on the issues, whoever presents it to you can just pick the side that gets you to the answer the…

> crack down on child abuse Actually today you don't use cracking down on child abuse as a reason, you use the danger of the far-right. All the leading left-wing publications, New York Times, The Guardian, Washington Post, CNN, Vox have been running articles about how dangerous encrypted chat apps are: > Why right-wing extremists’ favorite new platform is so dangerous. Telegram’s lax content moderation and encrypted…

Why Telegram is mentioned (which according to HN has no security)? Is Signal mentioned?

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting how EU regulators build good will through stunts like mandating USB-C or forcing open the App Store and GDPR protections and then turn around and do stuff like this.

I think the people who support things like mandating USB-C, forcing open the App Store, and GDPR are misguided at best. These are significant transfers of power from the (mostly) organic and consensual realm of individuals and businesses to the coercive realm of state force. You can always buy an android phone (with USB-C) and use GrapheneOS, F-droid, Tutanota, Brave Search, Odysee, Mastodon, Matrix, etc. to get most…

Actually you can use it to take down personal information, sort of like DMCA is used for copyrighted content.

Pretty much any website threatened with GDPR will remove your photos/phone number/email/whatever, they're not worth the fine. You could then still report them tbh (it has to be reported to whatever enforcement agency in the country it's hosted in, though, which only exist in the EU and are a pain to deal with).

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#147

I went three indirections down and I still can't find any actual quotes or even summaries of concrete proposals, so I'm surprised how many people can confidently judge that these unexplained proposals are a dumpster fire solely on the basis that they aim to precent child sexual abuse material... The most specific thing I found was a linked document that laid out three possible legislation options, all in very loose l…

> solely on the basis that they aim to precent child sexual abuse material...

Solely on the basis of having to undermine end-to-end encryption in order to even begin working. Always use the most charitable interpretation of other people's arguments.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#148

These tyrants have to be stopped. A tyrannical government is far more dangerous to people, including children than your regular criminal. Ironically, by giving the state too much power and therefore increasing the symptoms of corruption, we allow the same sort of crimes to be practiced by corrupt state officials with little means for people enact accountability. China, the country with the most mass-surveillance in t…

from the first paragraph of the article: > This will require them to monitor and scan the communications of citizens en masse – even if they are still securely encrypted end-to-end so far. Seems the Belgian push to ban E2EE / Signal isn't an isolated case and part of a wider campaign: https://www.bitsoffreedom.nl/2022/05/10/belgium-wants-to-ban...

I wish this article had more punch. I'm Belgian myself. Name and shame the parties that are pushing this initiative.

Usually these parties have a European level, some political "brotherhood" that also exist in the Netherlands.

As is, it just is meaningless fist waving in the direction of Belgium. It's a shame because I think we have so many like minded people in both the Netherlands and Belgium, that making this a national issue, "look at those Belgians" loses us (those who care for freedom of speech) on both sides.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#149

In theory (and in practice today), I’m strongly against this. However, I see a future where you will have to choose between mass surveillance or something close to extinction. I might be wrong, but as technology progress, it seems almost inevitable that a single individual can do more and more damage. An amount of damage it took half an army to achieve a couple of hundred years ago, one individual can do today with t…

So you are saying this evil group can create and spread a super virus; but can't figure out how to secure their devices against these government mass surveillance techniques?

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

No, the worst part is people running to the comments section on a real, legitimate issue and airing their general conspiracy theories and misunderstandings about the world as if they’re factual. It dilutes the point when you fill the room with noise like this, so you’re really having the opposite effect than you think and playing directly into the goals of the people who fed you that horseshit.

It does not really matter if Telegram gets blocked for pedophiles, right wing "extremists" or whatever reason. Censorship is censorship.
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