EU Commission is planning automatic CSAM scanning of private communications • Hacker News Board

Re: EU Commission is planning automatic CSAM scanning of private communications

#221

Post by car_analogy » Thu, May 12, 2022, 1:14 PM UTC

jstummbillig wrote: post #41

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…

> Being dogmatic about privacy regulations without a solution for the abuse

Should all homes come equipped with always-on cameras, streaming to a government office, to catch abuse? Remember, you don't want to be "dogmatic" about privacy, not unless you can offer a *"solution".

*One of course ignores all the measures currently in place to catch crime and abuse, such as the police, social services, mandatory public schools with teachers and staff children can turn to for help, and all the many methods of surveillance, such as phone tracking, communication metadata, license-plate readers, surveillance cameras, etc.. All of this ceases to exist, and law enforcement is in a world of darkness because encryption creates one tiny corner where they cannot peek - unless they plant a targeted bug.

Re: EU Commission is planning automatic CSAM scanning of private communications

#222

Post by lapcat » Thu, May 12, 2022, 1:14 PM UTC

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #144

hulitu wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your government who wants to control you. Or do you still think that data is collected just so that Google can give you more ads ?

> 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…

> 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.

In the United States, legal blackmail is called a "plea bargain". You agree to admit you're guilty of a crime, even if you aren't, in return for the government not pursuing harsher charges against you. This occurs without trial, because of course the whole point of the plea bargain is to avoid going to trial.

Why would an innocent defendant want to avoid trial? Well, good lawyers are extremely expensive, and public defenders are extremely overworked. Also, police will often say whatever they need to say on the stand to get a conviction and justify their arrest. How many cops are ever jailed themselves for perjury?

Re: EU Commission is planning automatic CSAM scanning of private communications

#223

Post by stef25 » Thu, May 12, 2022, 1:16 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #199

stef25 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably not the first person to ask the question of "but what about parents taking pictures of their naked kids in a pool", I'm sure they plan on having some way of dealing with it if anything to lighten their workload. That doesn't mean it will be perfect but no matter how jaded we all are, nobody wants to start falsely accusing innocent people.

> nobody wants to start falsely accusing innocent people I mean this is just blatantly false. History has shown us this is false. Even if you think the current government is fully comprised of kind-hearted, magnanimous, good people, what makes you think that will be the case for the next 10, 50, 100 years? A story - I have a google alert set up for my name. Someone in a different state with the same name was recently…

For starters, you seem to giving anecdotes from the US. Privacy laws in the EU differ from country to country but in some places at least, names & faces of people arrested suspects aren't published. And afaik these gross miscarriages of justice that seem to be ubiquitous in the US are nowhere near as common the EU.

> But taking a step back, and acknowledging that someone innocent will get caught by this, as it's just a matter of time at that point, it's not worth it

Couldn't you extrapolate that to law enforcement in general?

It's not clear to me if you're saying that AI specifically will falsely flag people and / or if you're worried about being identified as someone else with the same name getting arrested for something. Either way both scenarios exist without any AI being involved.

Personally I was falsely flagged because someone driving a car with a number plate that belonged to me was caught over a dozen times driving ridiculous speeds and it took me the better part of a year to convince the justice system it wasn't me. All because they didn't know how to update some database records with the other guy's name and despite the fact that no human ever claimed I was driving that car (the other guy said it was him not me, the car leasing company said it wasn't me, plenty of paperwork was provided). Massive pain in the ass (and nowhere near as serious as CSAM) and it required lawyers and court appearances but I'm not advocating to abolish speed checks.

Re: EU Commission is planning automatic CSAM scanning of private communications

#224

Post by userbinator » Thu, May 12, 2022, 1:17 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #167

b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote: post #142

I feel that in the near future, we'll have a campaign against E2EE with the intensity of the current campaign against guns in the US

If you look into it, these things are lobbied by globalists like WEF. They also happen to run multiple governments around the world, so these things are being developed in parallel for 2030 Great Reset agenda. It has different pace in different places due to cultural differences i.e. some countries wouldn't care about ban of E2EE while other would take it to the streets. But they have a strategy for the latter scenar…

They can keep calling it a conspiracy, but at least from what I've seen, more people are becoming aware of the truth every day. It gives me a bit of hope; only a little bit.

Re: EU Commission is planning automatic CSAM scanning of private communications

#225

Post by shakna » Thu, May 12, 2022, 1:18 PM UTC

stef25 wrote: post #133

dorfsmay wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet you regularly hear of child porn cases in the US because a 17 year old girl sent pictures of her nude body to her 18 year old boyfriend.

Yes, in the US. Meanwhile France last year just dropped the age of consent to 15 and if you check Wikipedia you'll most EU countries have it set around the same age. It's doubtful you could even find a single case someone being prosecuted because their actual underage boy / girlfriend sent them an explicit picture.

> Meanwhile France last year just dropped the age of consent to 15 and if you check Wikipedia you'll most EU countries have it set around the same age.

France's age of consent has been 15, since 1945 (1982, if you weren't straight). What they did last year was add a Romeo & Juliet clause that allows for below that age if you're within five years of your partner and not committing something that would otherwise be considered assault. So a 15 yro and a 12yro won't end up in a rape case for being partners.

They tightened overly loose definitions, basically. Not dropped - raised. (A lot to do with this [0] particular case that demonstrated just how damn loose the laws were.)

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/fr...

Re: EU Commission is planning automatic CSAM scanning of private communications

#226

Post by gambiting » Thu, May 12, 2022, 1:19 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #124

zosima wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thing is, with current 'privacy-protecting scanner' designs, the scanner is running on every end users device, and it would be fairly simple for an expert to dump out the list of things being looked for. That in turn makes such a system far less useful to intelligence services and authoritarian regimes. You don't want to tell your target that you're looking for them and which keywords not to use! I wonder if this…

>>and it would be fairly simple for an expert to dump out the list of things being looked for.

If you embed a neural net trained to detect "some" kind of images, I would love to know how one could "dump" the list of things the net is looking for. Basically it's not how it works - the neural net is more or less a black box, you can't tell what kind of things it's looking for by just looking at its contents. You give it an image, it says it is a match or not, based on some internal algorithm - but looking at that algorithm tells you nothing about what kind of images would produce positive matches.

Re: EU Commission is planning automatic CSAM scanning of private communications

#227

Post by peoplefromibiza » Thu, May 12, 2022, 1:20 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #218

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> In Italy we had 67 different governments since 1946. Colloquially when Americans say “government” they are referring to the entire state, including not just elected officials but professional civil servants, police, courts, intelligence agencies, etc. You have definitely not had 67 different governments since 1946 in the sense that I think was meant.

> You have definitely not had 67 different governments

I've studied English, not American.

So government to me means means "the group of people who officially control a country", like in this BBC headline "Netanyahu out as new Israeli government approved".

We definitely had 67 governments.

Or 67 cabinets, if you prefer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Ita...

Re: EU Commission is planning automatic CSAM scanning of private communications

#228

Post by linesinthesand » Thu, May 12, 2022, 1:20 PM UTC

Traditional detective work will always be the best way to uncover real crimes of this nature. Any mention of this in support of mass surveillance is just a ruse.

Re: EU Commission is planning automatic CSAM scanning of private communications

#229

Post by eru » Thu, May 12, 2022, 1:20 PM UTC

ThePowerOfFuet wrote: post #214

crmd wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoting Adam Curtis from The Power of Nighmares: > In the past, politicians promised to create a better world. They had different ways of achieving this, but their power and authority came from the optimistic visions they offered their people. Those dreams failed and today people have lost faith in ideologies. Increasingly, politicians are seen simply as managers of public life, but now they have discovered a new rol…

Absolutely brilliant series, and highly recommended. Available on the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares-AdamCurtis

I have watched 'All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace' by the same guy. If that stuff is anything to go by, Adam Curtis long on insinuation and clever cuts, and short on actual insight.

Beware of Gell-Mann Amnesia.

Btw, I suspect politicians always used the protection-from-nightmares just as much as promising utopia.

Re: EU Commission is planning automatic CSAM scanning of private communications

#230

Post by Amezarak » Thu, May 12, 2022, 1:20 PM UTC

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #144

hulitu wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your government who wants to control you. Or do you still think that data is collected just so that Google can give you more ads ?

> 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…

In English and particularly American English, “the government” is understood to encompass the justice system as well as Congress/parliament. People are taking about justice system abuses, not just some MP abusing his power. Law enforcement and courts control the country just as much as the parliament.

This isn’t some feature of American government either: in the US local law enforcement is often completely divorced from the state and federal political process and is run independently at a local level, with sheriffs and district attorneys even being elected positions in many jurisdictions. There is no national police - the closest thing is the FBI (though there are a few other national law enforcement agencies), but it can go after only crimes involving multi-states or interstate commerce, and at a high level it is run essentially like state law enforcement organizations in other countries, largely independent of the political process, although at the very top it is politically appointed, usually with a career official placed in charge.