ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps • Hacker News Board

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#251

Post by palata » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 7:31 PM UTC

jimbo808 wrote: post #237

xp84 wrote: post #179

From the article, the current flavor of "threat" this is being positioned to fight is CSAM. Does anyone believe that predators commit those heinous offenses because of the availability of encrypted channels to distribute those products of their crimes? I sure don't. The materials exist because of predators' access to children, which these surveillance measures won't solve. Best case scenario (and this is wildly optim…

The thing that is crazy to me is that they choose to go after Signal of all things. Certainly there would be higher priority targets than a messaging app that has no social networking features to speak of, if child predators were really the target here.

This is nonsense. Anyone who has the smallest clue would use Signal for anything sensitive. Of course people would use Signal to talk about illegal stuff.

I am against ChatControl. But I am amazed by all the bullshit arguments that people find to criticise ChatControl.

If you have more control, obviously it's easier to track criminals. That's not the question at all. The question is: what is the cost to society? A few decades ago, all communications were unencrypted and people were fine. Why would it be different now? That's the question you need to answer.

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#252

Post by guerrilla » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 7:32 PM UTC

InvisGhost wrote: post #203

xp84 wrote: post #179

From the article, the current flavor of "threat" this is being positioned to fight is CSAM. Does anyone believe that predators commit those heinous offenses because of the availability of encrypted channels to distribute those products of their crimes? I sure don't. The materials exist because of predators' access to children, which these surveillance measures won't solve. Best case scenario (and this is wildly optim…

They better ban password protected zip files too!

They will when they can.

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#253

Post by guerrilla » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 7:33 PM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #244

lukan wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best case scenario would be, lots of children will be saved from abuse because the magic software somehow discovers that. I kind of doubt it though.

No, you don’t get it. Hosting or possessing CSAM has criminal penalties even if no children were involved. For example AI generated imagery. In fact, even if zero children are ever trafficked or abused going forward, and pedophiles only use old photos of children from 30 years ago, merely having these images is still an issue. Conversely, the vast majority of sexual abuse of minors doesn’t involve images and goes unr…

How do they know it's unreported if it's unreported? They mean unreported to police but reported in scientific self-report surveys?

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#254

Post by palata » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 7:33 PM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #244

lukan wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best case scenario would be, lots of children will be saved from abuse because the magic software somehow discovers that. I kind of doubt it though.

No, you don’t get it. Hosting or possessing CSAM has criminal penalties even if no children were involved. For example AI generated imagery. In fact, even if zero children are ever trafficked or abused going forward, and pedophiles only use old photos of children from 30 years ago, merely having these images is still an issue. Conversely, the vast majority of sexual abuse of minors doesn’t involve images and goes unr…

> if they wanted to reduce child abuse, scanning everyone’s communications for CSAM would not be the most straightforward way to go about it.

* First, this is not what politicians do. What they want is to look like they are fighting it.

* Second, what is your more straightforward way to fight CSAM? Asking for a backdoor is pretty straightforward, I find. I would rather say that fighting CSAM is more difficult than that.

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#255

Post by pona-a » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 7:34 PM UTC

happyopossum wrote: post #119

vessenes wrote: post #33

This was precisely some of the motivation behind pushing RCS onto Apple. The RCS spec has a termination point between providers -- a great spot to read some data for telecom providers and government agencies. Despite this, RCS is called "End to End" all the time. It's not. Use Signal or iMessage, depending on your security choices in iCloud.

RCS is not called “end to end” by anyone - even Apple and Google explicitly state it’s not currently E2E encrypted. Apple has pledged to add e2ee to RCS on iPhones but they’re never claimed it’s that way today. They go out of their way to warn you it’s not the same level of security as iMessage.

Google Messages shows "This chat is now end-to-end encrypted" between compatible devices today.

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#256

Post by palata » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 7:34 PM UTC

amarant wrote: post #234

thfuran wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The authorities really think every predator will just give up and stop abusing just because of that? What a joke. Yes, the framing is disingenuous, but so is yours. You're seriously suggesting that any policy that doesn't 100% eliminate a problem is a joke?

If the cost of the proposal is "let's throw democracy under the bus" as it is in this case, it better be damn close to 100% effective to be worth it! I have a hard time imagining this will be more than 10% effective. This proposal is a joke

A few decades ago, all communications were unencrypted. Would you say that democracies did not exist then?

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#257

Post by kevincox » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 7:35 PM UTC

bapak wrote: post #128

justapassenger wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source on that?

From TFA > the proposed legislation includes exemptions for government accounts used for “national security purposes, maintaining law and order or military purposes”. Convenient.

I can buy the military exemption, and maybe some very top level government workers that are effectively military (example: POTUS). But the EU parliament has no reason to be excluded. It is definitely a terrible law if it is so bad that they won't pass it unless they are excluded.

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#258

Post by 1718627440 » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 7:36 PM UTC

sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #246

1718627440 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comma rules change over time.

But the text of the Constitution only changes through amendments. That said, the effective meaning of the Constitution is "whatever a majority of the Supreme Court agrees it is." And to a degree, given the power to impeach Supreme Court justices, "whatever a majority of the Supreme Court agrees it is, and with Congress sufficiently on board to not impeach sufficient justices to force a shift in the balance of the Cou…

I'm responding to:

>>> Remove the first and last comma and the sentence works splendidly

>> Until then, the commas are officially part of the text.

> Comma rules change over time.

Maybe the equivalence of the sentence at drafting, today is without commas?

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#259

Post by kevincox » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 7:36 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #214

astroflection wrote: post #16

Governments should be transparent and the people should be opaque. Any government that attempts to make things otherwise looses legitimacy.

Governments need privacy. They literally investigate child mollestation cases. They hunt spies. They handle all sorts of messy things like divorce between couples with abuse. I'm not commenting on the government coming in at unveiling encrypted communications, but certainly a better approach than "governments should be transparent and the people should be opaque" would be "governments should be translucent and the pe…

There is a clear difference between specific activities that need privacy (especially if it is temporary privacy or cases where it is protecting the privacy of the citizens not the government itself) and privacy by default for most or all government work.

Re: ChatControl: EU wants to scan all private messages, even in encrypted apps

#260

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 7:38 PM UTC

palata wrote: post #248

blindriver wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with csam and arguing that point is on purpose, to distract people and the politicians can say “xp84 supports child pornography!” It has everything to do with censorship and complete control over people’s ability to communicate. Politicians hate free speech and they want to control their citizens completely including their thoughts. This is true evil.

[flagged]

[deleted]