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ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

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Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#151

Post by nikkwong »

Imagine a future where it becomes easier to commit terrorism because of some technological advancements—like smaller, less traceable bombs, or chemical weapons that are easily accessible and lead to higher casualties—like in the 1,000s or more. Imagine in that scenario, that the likelihood of you or someone you know becoming the victim of a terrorist attack is now non-trivial in your society. In a future where this becomes the norm, it would be interesting to see if individuals are more willing to adopt a level of increased surveillance as it seems like the only reasonable protection against terror.

Right now this debate is oriented mostly around the fact that surveillance today is not a good deal—consumers give up their privacy and get nothing in return. But is there a tipping point? Technology draws us closer, day by day, and the threat matrix will become more sophisticated as time moves forward.

Most individuals on HN are privacy absolutists but one should recognize that tradeoffs exist. That tradeoff is just not compelling today, but that doesn't mean that will always be the case. If you go to China, where everything and everyone is surveilled, I think you'd be surprised to find that many Chinese don't mind. They feel incredibly safe and don't have to worry about being victims of crimes, having their packages stolen, walking around late at night alone, etc. Walking around in China with absolute peace of mind around my own personal safety is a very eye-opening experience as someone coming from the US. I've always advocated for stringent privacy protections; but when giving that up buys you absolute safety in your immediate environment, that's not an experience you forget.

I'm certainly not saying I'm a proponent of living in a surveillance state—I'm simply noting that tradeoffs exist and a sort of re-balancing is constantly occurring, which is just interesting to be aware of.

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#152

Post by drdaeman »

rapind wrote: post #75
_t9ow wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The accepted solution is to have a constitution that says otherwise And the willingness and ability to enforce it. The current iteration of ChatControl is pushed by Denmark, which is at present the President of the Council of the European Union. The Danish Constitution itself enshrines the right to privacy of communication [0], but this is not stopping Denmark from wanting to ratify ChatControl anyway. [0]: https:/…

> but this is not stopping Denmark from wanting to ratify ChatControl anyway. What the TLDR of the motivation behind this? Is it just politicians playing to their base (think of the children) or corporate lobbying. or religion, etc? Seems to me that the negatives of passing something like this are super obvious and dystopian.

Generalized, this looks to me like a question about why humans sometimes get hell-bent about some idea and become blind to the side effects and ignorant when it comes to risk management.

Sometimes it could be malice or personal gains. Sometimes, I think, it could be just a strong bias towards some idea that causes a mental blindness. Such blindness can happen to anyone, at any level of power (or lack thereof), politicians are not unique in this - the only difference is the scope of impact due to the power they have. And we aren't particularly filtering them against such behavior - on the contrary, I feel that many people want politicians to have an agenda and even cheer when they put their agenda above the actual reality, any consequences be damned.

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#153

Post by smcin »

frumplestlatz wrote: post #116
DangitBobby wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large portion of the population either does not believe or does not mind the violations of our constitution to achieve their desired outcomes. As an American, it came as a surprise to me that we do not, in fact, have broadly shared values about our system of governance. This year has been a devastating blow to my confidence in our democracy and the ability of people to govern themselves generally.

The thing I find most interesting about your reply is how it demonstrates that we live in wildly subjective realities.

Specifically, how? GP's claims can be factually substantiated. Pick whichever you claim can't.

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#154

Post by zx10rse »

contravariant wrote: post #5
haolez wrote: post #3

I think the challenge for society here is not to simply reject attempts like this, but how to prevent them from being pushed over and over until a specific context allows it to be approved.

The accepted solution is to have a constitution that says otherwise. Which is a bit complicated here, as the EU has no real constitution and this 'law' (really a regulation) is a blatant violation of the constitutions of countries that did choose to establish secrecy of correspondence.

You are most definitely not right. The EU charter of fundamental rights is an agreement that holds legal binding. The institutions who are supposed to uphold the charter are CJEU, European Commission, FRA, NHRIs.

The people who wrote this proposal said it themselves - "Whilst different in nature and generally speaking less intrusive, the newly created power to issue removal orders in respect of known child sexual abuse material certainly also affects fundamental rights, most notably those of the users concerned relating to freedom of expression and information."

This proposal is illegal. The fact that CJEU at least haven't issued a statement that this is illegal tells you everything you need to know about the EU and its democracy.

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#155

Post by nextos »

tomkarho wrote: post #84
haolez wrote: post #3

I think the challenge for society here is not to simply reject attempts like this, but how to prevent them from being pushed over and over until a specific context allows it to be approved.

The only way I see to prevent the constant pushing is that every single time some council or committee presents something like this every single of one of their private communication gets leaked for everyone to peruse at their leisure from whatsapp to bank statements. They want to erode people's privacy? Let them walk their talk first and see how that goes.

> how to prevent them from being pushed over and over until a specific context allows it to be approved.

We need more diverse mobile OSes that can be used as daily drivers. Right now, it's almost a mono-culture with the Apple-Google duopoly. Without this duopoly, centralization and totalitarian temptations would be less likely.

There's GrapheneOS, which is excellent and can be used without Google, but it relies on Google hardware and might be susceptible to viability issues if/when Google closes down AOSP. Nevertheless, they are working on their own device that will come with GrapheneOS pre-installed, which is exciting.

There's also SailfishOS, which has a regular GNU/Linux userland and almost usable at this stage with native applications. As a stopgap, it can also run Android applications with an emulation layer, and plenty of banking ones work just fine.

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#156

Post by KPGv2 »

nikkwong wrote: post #151

Imagine a future where it becomes easier to commit terrorism because of some technological advancements—like smaller, less traceable bombs, or chemical weapons that are easily accessible and lead to higher casualties—like in the 1,000s or more. Imagine in that scenario, that the likelihood of you or someone you know becoming the victim of a terrorist attack is now non-trivial in your society. In a future where this b…

> it would be interesting to see if individuals are more willing to adopt a level of increased surveillance as it seems as the only reasonable protection against terror.

One presumes it would make terrorism easier if you could hack in and find out where your target is at any given time. What they're doing. What their plans are for this evening.

Also I think one could probably point to the current US president as proof for why this is an insane idea. Imagine if he really did have access to everything we say.

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#158

Post by thinkingtoilet »

quotemstr wrote: post #30
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. In this case, there needs to be some sort of 'privacy bill of rights'. Something fundamental where any law like this cannot be passed.

Laws don't stop men with guns. Men with guns stop men with guns. Laws not enforced and rights not protected don't matter. As the old saying goes, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

>Men with guns stop men with guns.

Really? Why does America, the country with the most guns by far, have the most gun deaths by far? It's very tiring arguing these very obvious points over and over.

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#159

Post by tomsmeding »

I don't think ChatControl is a good idea. I also think that if you want to convince people of that, using the same misleading language tactics as the other side is not the way to go.

> These scanning systems get it wrong most of the time. [...] Irish law enforcement confirms this: only 20.3% of 4,192 automated reports actually contained illegal material.

Wrong most of the time that they report something. Technically correct, although a somewhat tricky formulation.

Literally next paragraph:

> Even with hypothetical 99% accuracy (which current systems don’t achieve), scanning billions of daily messages would generate millions of false accusations.

This is a different accuracy percentage: here the author means 99% of all messages, not only the reported ones, which the previous 20.3% referred to. Furthermore, these two paragraphs together sound very fishy: if current systems are not accurate enough to generate "millions of false accusations", presumably (?) they generate at least that. But with the 20.3% true positives fraction, that would mean hundreds of thousands true accusations per day.

Which part am I misunderstanding?

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#160

Post by Xelbair »

johnwayne666 wrote: post #133
simianparrot wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only real option is to get your country to leave the EU. An unelected cabal of people making sweeping decisions for countless member states isn't democratic, so yeet it while you can.

> An unelected cabal of people European Commission: Commissioners are nominated by elected national governments and must be approved by the directly elected European Parliament. Council of the EU: Ministers are accountable to their national parliaments, which are elected by citizens. European Council: Composed of heads of state/government who were elected in their own countries. European Parliament: Members are direc…

>European Commission: Commissioners are nominated by elected national governments and must be approved by the directly elected European Parliament.

With so many levels of indirection, that citizen votes are irrelevant and they don't need to care about it - only about support of major political group at the top. And surprisingly enough Parliment is relatively stable.

>Council of the EU: Ministers are accountable to their national parliaments, which are elected by citizens.

same as above.

i don't advocate for leaving the EU, but this needs to change. Those positions, which are the ones pushing for such legislation usually, need to be held accountable by citizens. At least EC.

No more rotations, or other such bullshit.

Right now EU is sitting in middle ground between federation and trade union, reaping(from citizens point of view) downsides of both systems.

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