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Chat Control Must Be Stopped

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Re: Chat Control Must Be Stopped

#221

Post by tpm »

thw_9a83c wrote: post #94

As both an EU citizen and a computer programmer, I applaud this article, and I generally agree with its sentiment. But let's be realistic. Chat control is going to happen sooner or later. This is a Hacker News forum. The audience here is very knowledgeable about computer science and fully aware of how technologically impractical the idea of fighting CSAM in this way is. But the general public is somewhere else entire…

I don't really understand this attitude because clearly if this passes, it will create a (black) market of new communication tools to bypass this and so on and will end up locking down every connected device so we can't run anything that is not government approved. It does not matter there will be ways around this - what matters is they will be illegal. So no, this can't be allowed to happen.

Re: Chat Control Must Be Stopped

#222

Post by spwa4 »

I hate how people say things like "unquestionably well-intended law enforcement". This is being done for is to protect-the-children, as per usual.

So did anyone ask the question ... is law enforcement actually helping children, when they act? This of course often results in the state raising such children, so the real question is how well that works, compared to not acting at all. Turns out there's a huge study on this, and of course the answer is a big fat no. And that was before another 10+ years of funding cuts.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120609063509/https://www.usato...

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/shared/ods/documents?PublicationDoc...

So no, this is not about law enforcement helping children, because they don't provide a solution for the damage they do when acting. The result is law enforcement, on average, makes things worse for children, not better. These institutions are also getting systematically defunded across the EU, it's not getting better.

It is not reasonably believable this is about protecting children. You want to protect children? FIRST, you restore the budget of the institutions caring for children after law enforcement "helps".

Re: Chat Control Must Be Stopped

#223

Post by spwa4 »

ortusdux wrote: post #26
api wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big tech would be for this -- it would create a huge moat in terms of costly and complicated compliance overhead that would keep small challengers and startups out. Complicated or costly regulation is a regressive tax -- it affects smaller companies a lot more than larger ones and tends to prevent new entrants to a market.

I hadn't thought of the regulatory capture implications. As if this could not get worse.

Add to this that law enforcement is human, and famously opposed to checking their members. Resulting in things like this:

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/investigation-seattle-cop-use...

https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article29105...

If the lowest level of law enforcement can figure out how to use the system for this, imagine what a government ministry can do.

Re: Chat Control Must Be Stopped

#224

Post by Tixx7 »

Humorist2290 wrote: post #10

> Chat Control would make it mandatory for all service providers (text messaging, email, social media, cloud storage, hosting services, etc.) to scan all communications and all files (including end-to-end encrypted ones), in order to supposedly detect whatever the government deems "abusive material." I wonder why there has been such silence on this, with the exception of a handful of well written blog posts. The scop…

Its obviously not broadly announced, they're silently trying to push it through. But its also fatigue, Chat Control or the same thing under a different name is a thing the EU has been trying to push for a couple years. Every time the internet complains, somtimes on a larger scale, sometimes just the privacy niche and until now it luckily has always failed because not enough member states agreed on it. They will try until it goes through.

Re: Chat Control Must Be Stopped

#225

Post by Y_Y »

tremon wrote: post #166
nullc wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the price of Liberty is eternal vigilance

And periodically washing the streets with the blood of tyrants. People always seem to forget that part.

Of course nowadays it's much cleaner and less sticky to use synthetic tyrant blood

Re: Chat Control Must Be Stopped

#226

Post by latexr »

thw_9a83c wrote: post #178
latexr wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chat control is going to happen sooner or later. Even if that is true—which you don’t know, because you cannot predict the future—later is definitely better than sooner. Later is worth fighting for. Your defeatist attitude is exactly what these bad actors want, you’re playing right into their hands. Thankfully not everyone thinks like you, or Chat Control would have passed first time and no positive change would ha…

I beg your pardon. :) I already explained that I did my part and the result was hopeless. Perhaps you should do your part, too. Don't bother arguing on Hacker News, because it has no material effect on the EU population outside the narrow IT crowd. Besides, I'm not a defeatist at all, because I know GnuPG! However, the non-IT EU civilians who also coincidentally agreed with this, are unfortunately lost.

> I already explained that I did my part and the result was hopeless. Perhaps you should do your part, too.

What I see in your post is that you tried to explain to a few people in your life what Chat Control is, it was an utter failure, and now you’re spreading defeatism to strangers on the internet.

In contrast, everyone in my life I explained it to understood that it is an urgent problem and that it must be stopped. Consider that your explanation might’ve been the problem, and that truly doing your part involves learning from the mistake and improving the messaging, or at least encourage others who can do it better, or at the very least not discourage them, which has the same effect as supporting the bad outcome. We need people ready for action, not defeatists bringing everyone down. You’re hurting yourself and the cause by doing so.

> Besides, I'm not a defeatist at all, because I know GnuPG!

That is incredibly naive. What does that even matter, in a world where everyone around you is surveilled.

Re: Chat Control Must Be Stopped

#227

Post by blitzar »

api wrote: post #18
Humorist2290 wrote: post #10

> Chat Control would make it mandatory for all service providers (text messaging, email, social media, cloud storage, hosting services, etc.) to scan all communications and all files (including end-to-end encrypted ones), in order to supposedly detect whatever the government deems "abusive material." I wonder why there has been such silence on this, with the exception of a handful of well written blog posts. The scop…

Big tech would be for this -- it would create a huge moat in terms of costly and complicated compliance overhead that would keep small challengers and startups out. Complicated or costly regulation is a regressive tax -- it affects smaller companies a lot more than larger ones and tends to prevent new entrants to a market.

Big tech would be for this - because they already do it

Re: Chat Control Must Be Stopped

#229

Post by thw_9a83c »

latexr wrote: post #226
thw_9a83c wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I beg your pardon. :) I already explained that I did my part and the result was hopeless. Perhaps you should do your part, too. Don't bother arguing on Hacker News, because it has no material effect on the EU population outside the narrow IT crowd. Besides, I'm not a defeatist at all, because I know GnuPG! However, the non-IT EU civilians who also coincidentally agreed with this, are unfortunately lost.

> I already explained that I did my part and the result was hopeless. Perhaps you should do your part, too. What I see in your post is that you tried to explain to a few people in your life what Chat Control is, it was an utter failure, and now you’re spreading defeatism to strangers on the internet. In contrast, everyone in my life I explained it to understood that it is an urgent problem and that it must be stopped…

> ...and now you’re spreading defeatism to strangers on the internet.

It's more like I took a bit cynical view about the current situation. However, this view is based not only on my own experience, but also on what I read in the linked article.

  - 14 EU countries in favour of Chat Control
  - 5 EU countries not in favour 
  - 8 EU Undecided / Unclear
So this technologically absurd solution to a given problem is clearly gaining traction. Perhaps it's a good thing that my cynical perspective is so triggering to random strangers on the internet.

> That is incredibly naive. What does that even matter, in a world where everyone around you is surveilled.

I think this comment was unnecessary. My notion of GnuPG was humorous satire.

Re: Chat Control Must Be Stopped

#230

Post by godelski »

asdfasvea wrote: post #198
jonaharagon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally. This is exactly the problem with things like Chat Control in the EU and KOSA in the US. They will just introduce the same bill over and over and over again until they get the desired result. What we need is for legislatures to pass "NO Chat Control" and "NO KOSA" bills that specifically block this behavior, but unsurprisingly governments don't seem to be too keen about limiting their own rights, only those o…

You've not been paying attention. Laws can be undone easily with laws. Pass your 'no KOSA' law. And then when they want KOSA, they just pass KOSA with a sentence that says this KOSA law supersedes prior 'No KOSA' laws. You need to limit their power to do that and the only way is constitutionally.

No security is perfect, you can only create walls and speedbumps. It makes it harder. You're right, limit the power, but that doesn't mean you can't do both. The latter is much harder
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