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EU chat control law will ban open source operating systems

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Re: EU chat control law will ban open source operating systems

#161

Post by mantas »

mariusor wrote: post #116
mantas wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU is neither free nor open. I'm saying this as a citizen of EU member. It's getting more and more pro-big-business and pro-big-government day by day. While citizen self-governance is crushed over and over. Good example is Poland vs EU conflict for political control of judges. Meanwhile nobody bats an eye for existing political control of judges in my country. Here higher level judges have to be approved by parliamen…

Personally I don't see how your example shows EU crushing "citizen self-governance" which sounds like a liberarian charged expression for "democracy". Could you elaborate please?

My example was more about EU bureaucrats looking for something else than rule-of-law and democracy and whatnot :)

As for exactly self-governance, IMO earmarked funding is the worst example. There're lots and lots of dumb investments that were made only to take „EU money“ (because somehow it's too hard for people to contact that it's our taxes). And other areas were neglected because there was no „EU money“ to take.

Watchtowers may be one of most in-your-face examples :)

Re: EU chat control law will ban open source operating systems

#162

Post by QuasiHuman »

cyborgx7 wrote: post #19
narrowtux wrote: post #4

I'm so tired of it all. Countless times it has been tried to enact laws like this. And it's not just this surveillance law that depresses me, reading up on the cyber resilience act just feels to me like it will suck even more fun out of software development, at least in a professional context.

We just have to get used to this being an eternal political fight. There will always be politicians with a desire for control and/or a lack of technical understanding that will try to take control of people's communication in this way. I guess the best way to counteract this is well funded institutions whose purpose it is to fight that fight for us. I'm using this realization as an occasion to make a donation to the…

I just donated for the first time to the EFF after reading your comment.

Re: EU chat control law will ban open source operating systems

#163

Post by fidgewidge »

willyt wrote: post #112
bigDinosaur wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably the biggest issue with having an executive which isn't formed by the actual members of parliament, particularly if that executive has powers that the parliament either cannot challenge by design or can't really challenge in practice. The EU commission really isn't democratic at all, and this is by design because of both the origins of the EU as a technocratic-economic project but also the EU parliame…

It's arguably still democratic in that each country, through its EU commissioner, gets one vote and the power to veto unless they've given up that veto for a specific issue which is done at a summit of all the national leaders of EU countries by signing a further treaty. If a country doesn't like what is happening they tell their elected national government to do something about it then the commissioner acts on the i…

"each country, through its EU commissioner, gets one vote and the power to veto"

In theory yes. In practice not really. The EU has a long term goal of getting rid of veto and there's hardly anything left of it now. Also, even when votes take place they are often secret and there's no way to know how countries voted. Also the countries are supposed to nominate whoever they want as commissioners, but Juncker talked about how in reality there's a secret veto and the head of the Commission ensures they only get the Commissioners they want. We can infer that they get commissioners who are on board with their agenda and more loyal to the EU than their host nation.

To ensure that loyalty they have a lot of other tricks up their sleeve, like enormous "pensions" that are contingent on continuing to demonstrate loyalty to the EU after leaving the job i.e. they're not really pensions, they're bribes. They also pay much better than host nations can, and have a special tax deal such that they pay virtually no tax at all so their comp at the EU is sky-high compared to what they could get working for their own government.

So national control over the EU is really extremely weak in practice.

"The things the EU commission can legislate are restricted by treaty, I've no idea what these restrictions are"

Again in theory anything not delegated to the EU is controlled by the nations. In practice, again, that's not really true. The EU Commission is a master of reinterpreting the treaties to mean whatever they want, backed by the ECJ. For example corporate taxation is not delegated to the Commission. They fixed this by re-interpreting their powers to stop state subsidies as a general control over all corporate tax rates, by arguing that a tax rate lower than e.g. France was the same thing as a subsidy. Normal people know that a tax is not the same thing as a subsidy, but the ECJ disagreed and thus the Commission took control over corporate taxation across the EU without any treaty change.

That story has been replicated numerous times. Regardless of what the treaty authors thought the treaties said, the court is packed with judges who are ideologically committed to the EU as a project, and who will happily engage in judicial activism to extend its powers.

Re: EU chat control law will ban open source operating systems

#164

Post by wkat4242 »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #139
lsiq wrote: post #119

"They" are in a dilemma, they either go total global control or they lose control. And it's clear they are going with the former. This is just one more law that makes no practical sense even if the intentions were noble. The WHO treaty, CBDCs, and digital IDs are all in the pipeline doing much the same. With the real-time, global, instant communication network that is the internet, "their" ONLY hope to retain control…

China is far ahead on that curve, and so far nobody is burning data centers or closes bank accounts.

No but culturally they are much more obedient there. China has never known a free society.

And even there civil disobedience is growing, the CCP had to rapidly reverse its COVID policy to retain control.

Re: EU chat control law will ban open source operating systems

#165

Post by dns_snek »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #72
flangola7 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than open source stuff I don't see what would be hard to comply with it. Most people use Windows, Gmail and Android or iPhone. At least half of those already do most of what this law would ask.

It seems hard to comply with because any software repository and app store falls under this law and the EU cannot control who uploads a chat app on one of these. At least people from non-EU countries will continue to develop and upload chat apps with full end-to-end encryption and without age verification. So essentially this proposed legislation seems to make all software repositories and app stores illegal, which m…

> At least people from non-EU countries will continue to develop and upload chat apps with full end-to-end encryption and without age verification.

You're making it sound more trivial than it would be in practice. Google and Apple would promptly block access to those apps to EU citizens. Android users could still sideload apps but it would likely kill adoption without a massive cultural shift towards valuing privacy.

Re: EU chat control law will ban open source operating systems

#166

Post by miohtama »

ggm wrote: post #102
miohtama wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can find them here https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/

Says nothing relevant to me about software repository legal implications, and free software in general. Says lots of other things about why it's a bad draft law.

I was trying to be helpful to give you starting point for the reading, as the page will give you a lot of links to deal with. Hopefully this helps you start reading about the topic and discover the actual legislation, links to it and form your own opinion if the draft law is bad or not.

Re: EU chat control law will ban open source operating systems

#167

Post by fidgewidge »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #95
pavlov wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid all of this comment is essentially nonsense. For starters, the EU system (including the Commission, all the various agencies across the Union, all courts, etc.) employs around 60,000 people. The government of Sweden alone employs more people for a population of only 10M. The EU is in fact fairly lean given its scope and the number of languages. National governments are responsible for implementing almost e…

Also, they can not grow by 400%. There are rules in place that limit the budget and the maximum change per budget chapter that can be executed at once. These rules are made and by member countries. BTW, EU budget was available in XML format for a while. Easy to parse. The first years they did not publish it, a FOI request would get you an electronic copy rather quickly. IIRC, there was little interest in the machine-…

The EU budget in theory is funded by money allocated by member states and can't go beyond that level. This is fixed law by treaty, Article 310:

    "The revenue and expenditure shown in the budget shall be in balance."
But nothing about EU treaties means anything in practice. This article holds back the EU's power and they can't be having that, so what actually happens is ...

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_...

    "First half of 2023: Commission to issue up to €80 billion to finance economic recovery and support for Ukraine"
The money isn't even being spent on EU member states! Raising money via debt this way is illegal but the EU is not a system of laws, it's a system that does whatever it can get away with politically. That's why it's dangerous: it is a dictatorship that's rapidly growing in power, and it's on track to completely destroy European democracy.

An analysis of the treaty problem is here:

https://reconnect-europe.eu/blog/new-generation-eu-a-constit...

It's written by a self proclaimed EU fan who says:

"When the COVID-19 crisis hit the Union, the Treaties did not change, but the political circumstances surrounding them did. Building on a Franco-German plan, the Commission came forward with a proposal for Next Generation EU (NGEU), to be financed through borrowing € 750 billion on the financial markets and primarily used as grants to Member States. In other words, the EU issues debt on a massive scale to finance itself. It does exactly what we thought it was prevented by the Treaties from doing.

I do not question the need of solidarity, but rather the legal techniques applied to deliver this solidarity.

Soon after the adoption of the Commission proposal, the Council website was updated and the reference to the prohibition of debt financing was removed. Apparently, constitutional change was about to take place, however, without a formal constitutional change."

Here, "legal techniques" is a euphemism for ignoring the law. Give it 20 years and Brexit will seem like a genius move, assuming EU loyalists haven't managed to undo it by then.

Re: EU chat control law will ban open source operating systems

#168

Post by mantas »

timeon wrote: post #30
mantas wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both pro-privacy and anti-privacy have one common theme - more power to the state. And that's the point of EU bureaucrats. To gather as much power in their fight against both outside forces (e.g. US-based multinationals) and inside forces (member states).

You really think those various actors are part of one plot? Also this is proposed not passed law. But you already have conclusion about whole org.

When this (as well as other similar laws) are pushed other and other again... I remember that saying by Juncker... We'll try again, and again, and again till it passes one time :)

I'm not blaming every single bureaucrat. But direction of the organisation is pretty clear. Just like I don't blame every Facebook worker, but direction of that company is pretty clear too.

Re: EU chat control law will ban open source operating systems

#169

Post by duckmysick »

Aerroon wrote: post #154
whazor wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? I would rather say it is maybe too democratic. For an EU law to pass, both the EU parliament and EU council need to approve. So that means people vote for parties, that in turn are the EU parliament. Plus the EU council, which consists of the heads all the EU countries. That is a double layer of democracy. The only real difference is that EU gets very little media attention.

The EU has a language problem though. If there's a problem affecting Lithuania there's very little that voting can do to solve it. Lithuanians don't have an impact on the politicians voted in from other countries, because the politics don't overlap due to language. Lithuanian voters would have to convince German politicians, that campaign in the German language to German people, about Lithuania's issue. How likely do…

How does it work in the United States? Let's say there's a problem affecting South Carolina. How would South Carolina voters convince Californian politicians about South Carolina problems? If convinced, what actions would Californian politicians take?

Re: EU chat control law will ban open source operating systems

#170

Post by vmilner »

sendfoods wrote: post #9

I am the first person to appreciate the pro-online-privacy legislation from the EU in the last couple of years. Yet...How can the same organization be behind this? Is it a result of the sheer size of the org, with malevolent people reeking their ugly heads? A more cynical "privacy legislation as a smoke screen with totalitarian measures in the backend"?

“We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back.”

- Jean-Claude Juncker 1999

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