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German government comes out against Chat Control

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Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#161

Post by IlikeKitties »

dgfitz wrote: post #155
uniqueuid wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the concrete laws, they are less spectacular. For example, the concept of privacy protecting against media coverage is actually weaker for politicians (when in official duty) than for ordinary citizens (Allgemeines Persönlichkeitsrecht). And libel only applies to statements of facts. I.e. you can't (easily) be prosecuted for opinions, just for making harmful false claims.

“This person is corrupt!” Is that an opinion or a harmful false claim?

Depends, when talking about Jens Spahn it's a Statement of fact.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#162

Post by iamnothere »

ZeroConcerns wrote: post #139
RiverCrochet wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OK, you be you I don't know what you mean by this. > But please note that I did not list "online banking becoming impossible" as a likely outcome. No, but it should be a likely and maybe even desired outcome, especially if a justification for surveillance is the prevention of online banking fraud among other crimes. > Merely malware continuing to be state-sponsored, or certain communications to be surveilled. Norms…

> Norms and mores change over time Yeah, but laws tend to be more constant, and lawful interception laws are, 100% guaranteed, a thing, right now, in the country where you live. They apply to telegrams, postal mail, telephone conversations, and a whole bunch of other things nobody really does anymore. They don't really apply to the things people do tend to do these days. ChatControl is an incompetent attempt to remed…

And yet lawful intercept laws cannot force you to decrypt the OTP-encrypted physical letter you sent to your friend. (Except in authoritarian shitholes like the UK.) Same principles would seem to apply here.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#163

Post by DataDaoDe »

ho_schi wrote: post #145

The CDU/CSU is doing something good. That didn't happened for a long time? I appreciate it. Ausgerechnet Spahn. Manchmal glaubt man seinen Augen und Ohren nicht. Wir müssen Wachsam bleiben. Mit dem Argument das es böse Menschen gibt, wurde schon viel böses getan. Massenüberwachung zerstört jede Gesellschaft. Deutschland hat mehrfach darunter gelitten. Und die Versuche Massenüberwachung einzuführen wiederholen sich.

ja, aber Wachsamkeit ist Pflicht. Wer Freiheit für Sicherheit aufgibt, verliert am Ende beides - das haben wir mehrfach erlebt.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#165

Post by scrps »

tdrz wrote: post #118
echelon wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We (privacy advocates) have to constantly fight and win over and over again. We do have a way to reinforce our position, though! We can design and consume technology that makes this hard. We can stop working for companies that build centralized platforms for messaging. We can teach our neighbors how important rights to privacy and speech are in language that they understand. There can be enough friction that this b…

Yes to all of the above! I just want to whine a bit that every time I try to educate anybody about this, I am promised a tin foil hat in return (even from Software Engineers!).

The tinfoil hat treatment is due to the fact that these days everything that fits the mould of a conspiracy theory is dismissed simply for fitting the mould of a conspiracy theory. In the same time as this cultural headspace was being cultivated in the US:

A billionaire pedophile ran a covert sex ring with a suspected who's who of a client list who was almost barely prosecuted for "reasons™"

Social media companies caught red-handed psychologically manipulating users for various ends

Damn near everyone helping to destroy actual free speech and privacy willingly because they've been talked into it (ironic)

Governments that engage in mass surveillance so egregious if you had tried it 40 years ago there would have been an uprising. Aided by the tech community I might add.

Industries that abuse data and algorithms to manipulate pricing or commit outright fraud.

A pharma corp addicting countless americans to opioids with almost no real consequence, killing hundreds of thousands and ruining millions of families.

Several industries have poisoned the planet and its inhabitants in various long term ways for profit.

And yet if you suggest something is a conspiracy it is dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic. Speaking of conspiracies that doesn't sound like an accident... The trick to conspiracy theories is critical thinking and not uncritical dismissal.

If I have any words of consolation: when the "conspiracy theory" turns out to be more practice than theory you get to say I told you so.

Edit: typo

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#166

Post by JumpCrisscross »

petre wrote: post #154
ho_schi wrote: post #145

The CDU/CSU is doing something good. That didn't happened for a long time? I appreciate it. Ausgerechnet Spahn. Manchmal glaubt man seinen Augen und Ohren nicht. Wir müssen Wachsam bleiben. Mit dem Argument das es böse Menschen gibt, wurde schon viel böses getan. Massenüberwachung zerstört jede Gesellschaft. Deutschland hat mehrfach darunter gelitten. Und die Versuche Massenüberwachung einzuführen wiederholen sich.

Maybe they've learned something from history and they're not doing the AfD a service before they grab onto more power? Or maybe this course of action is just more convenient at this time? Probably the latter.

> Maybe they've learned something from history and they're not doing the AfD a service before they grab onto more power?

The lesson from history is to keep the autocrats from grabbing power. Trying to contrain them with laws ex ante hasn't worked since like Cicero. I'm not sure Berlin opposing Chat Control fits into their domestic anti-authoritarian arc.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#168

Post by bigstrat2003 »

m12k wrote: post #57
fsflover wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless there's a law ensuring our freedoms.

I mean, the right to privacy is already enshrined in the EU's human rights. The courts would likely strike Chat Control down if it were to pass. But I wish there was a way to prevent our politicians from even trying this shit.

> I mean, the right to privacy is already enshrined in the EU's human rights.

The constitution of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (i.e. North Korea) famously guarantees freedom of expression as a fundamental right for the people. That hasn't stopped the government from trampling all over freedom of expression, though. The EU is of course nowhere near North Korea in terms of what is considered acceptable, but don't ever trust that the words in the constitution will be enough to keep the government from doing something.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#169

Post by bigstrat2003 »

awesome_dude wrote: post #58
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom will not ever be finally settled in this life. Laws can be changed, constitutions amended, and of course the law is only as good as willingness to enforce it. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, as nice as it would be if that wasn't so.

At issue here is... what exactly "freedom" is Speech is restricted the world over for things (fraud, threats, libel/slander, secrets, and more), and we're almost universally in favour of that. It's a balancing act, and the point where we set the balance is difficult, and constantly changing (should we allow speech that encourages the persecution of other people, sometimes called "hate speech" or should people be allo…

I don't think that this is really relevant to my point. My point is not that the proposed EU laws are good or bad (frankly, I don't know anything about them and I'm not in the EU so it's not my business), but that this topic can't be definitely settled for all time. No matter what resolution is reached in the EU today, in 5 years' time someone will be fighting to change it. That's just how it goes.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#170

Post by kmoser »

thewebguyd wrote: post #83
shevy-java wrote: post #45

This is strange, because not long ago it was Germany (!!) that pushed heavily for mass-sniffing of people. I don't trust this. People should watch very, very carefully what Germany is actually doing next. I would not be surprised if the mass-sniffing comes in a few months when nobody is looking.

> I would not be surprised if the mass-sniffing comes in a few months when nobody is looking. That's the problem with these proposed laws. We (privacy advocates) have to constantly fight and win over and over again. The nations that want this mass spying only have to win once. We need a way to permanently stop these proposals once defeated the first time so that they cannot just continue to try over and over again un…

Permanently stopping those proposals wouldn't necessarily eliminate illegal, back-door mass government surveillance, nor would it eliminate private sector mass surveillance (think social media) which then gets accessed by the government (whether legally or not).

Fighting corruption only works when enough people fight it at enough levels, and continue to fight it. There is no getting around the fact that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

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