201–210 of 431 posts
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As if full disk encryption doesn't exist.
Encrypted data will be illegal for plebs. Failure to hand over passwords will be punished as if you are guilty of the worst thing imaginable.
Sure, it could be a gradual decent into such a reality, but it will take a long time.
The HN attitude on anything touching privacy with a ten foot pole is awkward at best. It's clearly a hard problem and increasingly so. Being dogmatic about privacy regulations without a solution for the abuse caused by those who are open to abusing others seems a little too internet-hippie to be taken seriously in 2022, and that's a little concerning when it's the echo chambers of those best qualified and responsible…
> The HN attitude on anything touching privacy with a ten foot pole is awkward. Because the power it gives is basically limitless. Once these things are implemented there will be no going back. It only kind of works when the government acts in good faith, and even then not really. France passed laws against violent demonstrations, they ended up arresting people 200-300km away from Paris because they were suspected to…
This insanely childish and irresponsible way of looking at and reasoning about our world gives of strong NRA vibes. As soon as you say NO MATTER WHAT you are in deep shit. When we become so dogmatic, that we can't even think, let alone talk about a problem anymore (and a problem it is, but, of course, there's then also the subset of people that will even call that into question) it's an issue.
I am not against privacy. I get glimpses of the good the bad and the ugly that are attached to it. None of these things are boundless. Reasoning about the space is hard. Pretending a concept as fragile and young as privacy is beyond reproach is just weird.
this keeps getting proposed every few months and it keeps getting rejected
This has been going on for 15 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugangserschwerungsgesetz
> This has been going on for 15 years
I paste here the comment I wrote a few hours ago in the thread “European Commission prefers breaking privacy to protecting kids”: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31344817
Indeed, in the words of the previous President of the European Commission:
“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.” https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean-Claude_Juncker#1999
The current President of the European Commission has been a long time advocate for Internet control:
“However, in the digital community, her posturing for the EU’s top job has caused concern. In 2000 [sic, actually 2009], when Von Der Leyen was Families minister, she advocated for the mandatory blocking of child pornography online via a list of offending websites managed by police authorities. Germany’s Pirate Party claimed that the law would lead to censorship of the internet.”
“The outcry that resulted was dubbed the ‘Zensursula’ scandal, blending the German word for censorship (“Zensur”) and her name (“Ursula”). The move was eventually repealed after it being challenged broadly, including a petition that had garnered tens of thousands of signatures.” https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/digital-brief-...
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Don't worry, as this is not about child sex abuse anyway. The legislators know, from experience, that it's hard to argue against measures to protect children from predators, and so they are free to launch controversial and unacceptable measures. Once in place, it will be extended to other purposes. The same as always.
> The same as always. Do you have a guess about who is behind that lasting global push against private communications?
Every single government ever?
The worst thing is that, while the EU proposes dubious stuff like this, the police doesn't actually try to remove such content from the internet or are at least really ineffective at doing so. There was a documentary[1] from the german public tv station NDR in which reporters / journalists managed to delete the majority of content from one such CSAM forum, by sending deletion requests to the hosters. The police just.…
It's all about power and funding. If the problem was eradicated, then they would lose their purpose and funding.
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> Your government who wants to control you How exactly? In Italy we had 67 different governments since 1946. What can they do with CSAM data? Government can't blackmail citizen, they can't use CSAM scans for other purposes, they can't even authorize a scan, because that's the justice system prerogative. Do you really believe that in Europe governments are in control of everything like it happens in Russia or in North…
"Do you really believe that in Europe governments are in control of everything like it happens in Russia or in North Korea?" No, but I really believe European leaders are jealous of the authoritarian powers they lack, and are working to resolve that.
You can believe anything you want.
That wouldn't make you right.
national parliaments have to pass these legislation, EU is formed by 26 countries, all with very different ideas, traditions, political stances and objectives.
So, Orban?
Yeah he would love to be the sole leader of his country.
In my country?
those that tried have been destroyed by their same allies, out of fear of having to live in someone else's shadow.
If everyone wants to be the one and only leader, nobody will ever be.
Opposing forces always balance themselves.
Funny that all USA businesses lament that there is too much democracy in EU (like too much democracy is bad!), but now HN says that there is an imminent risk of totalitarianism...
Seems like it would be sufficient to implement it only on children's accounts
A giant security theater already exists in the form of rating systems, age verification prompts, legal agreements of popular services stating they prohibit underage users completely, etc. For decades every single kid has ignored it or learned to find another way if common one was blocked. It's the “responsible adults” who need such large scale stimulation to keep believing in some “naturally unspoiled children” who only need to be “protected”, and therefore can happily live without education and guidance (on topics that are not quite clear to most grown ups either, to be honest).
So we need to always use a VPN - got it.
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It always amazes me how anyone can be technologically literate and still think world governments should be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to things like this. I agree OP, most people in government are probably not inherently evil or malicious but why should anyone trust that these initiatives won’t be poorly implemented and cause massive collateral damage to innocent lives?
> It always amazes me how anyone can be technologically literate and still think world governments should be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to things like this Yes I do think that. I'm very familiar with how the EU institutions work and I don't like it, so I'm no fan boy and certainly not trying to defend these kind of proposals. I realize I'm preaching to a very cynical crowd here but I just don't see…
555 wrongful fraud convictions because of Second Sight, between 1996 and 2014, with a 2015 claim of no wrong doing and no system problems [0], in the UK.
Rubina Nami, jailed for a year. Seema Misra jailed for longer, whilst innocent and pregnant.
Noel Thomas jailed for twelve weeks at the age of 60 - the judge refusing to consider a flaw in the computer system to be possible, because of a report that concluded:
> If the Horizon system was flawed, I would expect to see issues raised by all 14,000 branches in the UK and not only a handful.
They locked up people over a garbage AI system over something much less sensitive than protecting children. Recently.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal
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The starting comment gave you an example to start off with. The Netherlands, Toeslagenaffaire. You can't go telling "yeah we really care about innocent people" when you let an algorithm wreak havoc producing false positives and then take ages to fix it while the families are still dealing with the aftermath. That's the opposite, caring for true positives despite the potential false positives produced. I'd also ask yo…
> Toeslagenaffaire it was about fraud. And it happened in the Netherlands, which aren't exactly the cleanest of the countries (just check their ties with drug cartels money [1]), so it's Netherlanders that should be worried, not EU citizens. It happens all the time, I don't know anymore how many wrongful tax bills I have received over the past 30 years, you just show the documents that prove you're in the right (if y…
It's not about them being evil. It's about them feeling justified to use the algorithm in the way it was used, which then lead to pretty dire consequences for many families, followed by a lack of action and a general lazy attitude towards the entire situation. Along with a general lack of foresight when they implemented it.
This is a very clear example of what happens when you optimize for true positives at the cost of false positives. You can argue the costs and benefits, but you can't argue "people don't want to harm innocents" when they select to do so in a scenario where it very clear does harm innocents.
"Caring about not harming innocents" gets dropped the moment it feels inconvenient. That's something people need to be aware of instead of living in their idealist dream world.