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

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

#351

Post by prmoustache »

palata wrote: post #310
op7 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All communications were unencrypted because encrypting them would have incurred unduly burdensome processing. Nowadays computers can encrypt and decrypt on the fly for virtually free.

Sure. Still people considered themselves free and living in democracies. Why wouldn't it be the case today?

People using online communication system were a niche, not the norm andost people didn't have the tool and knowledge to access someone else's digital communication.

It is not the case anymore.

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

#352

Post by palata »

jMyles wrote: post #291
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?

> You're seriously suggesting that any policy that doesn't 100% eliminate a problem is a joke? I think a more charitable reading is that any policy that doesn't 100% _target_ a problem is a joke. This policy doesn't have a plausible way that it will protect children from being victimized, so I think it's reasonable to remove the "think of the children" cloak it's wearing and assess it on the merits of whether encrypt…

> This policy doesn't have a plausible way that it will protect children from being victimized

Of course it does. "It will detect and report messages from predators to children, therefore preventing the child to get to the point where they send revealing pictures or meet the predator in person". Done.

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

#353

Post by maldonad0 »

sph wrote: post #299
txrx0000 wrote: post #287

Dear citizens of the EU: If this gets pushed through, you will gradually lose control of your government much like how the people of the UK already lost control of theirs. What are you going to do when the government's interests inevitably drift out of alignment with yours? Start a political movement? You will have the police knocking on your door for criticizing the establishment. Start a revolution? You have no wea…

> Start a revolution? You have no weapons. LOL. People nowadays don't start revolutions not because of weapons or lack thereof. It's because they're thoroughly entertained and fed; even the entire political circus is a sort of morbid reality show: people tune in to the news to shake their head in disgust at today's latest antics, and will do so tomorrow, because it's all panem et circenses for grown-ups. The Internet…

You are exactly right. But most people will call you crazy and that you are a tyrant against "democracy" or "rights".

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

#354

Post by prmoustache »

palata wrote: post #311
jimbo808 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone using a mobile device for CSAM is in prison by now.

Predators use mainstream social media to enter in contact with children.

Most victims of child abuse know their aggressor because it is part of their social circle: dad, mother, uncle, brother, sport coach or a friend of the parents/sibling.

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

#355

Post by sally_glance »

Saline9515 wrote: post #320
palata wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Criminals are reactive. If you add a CCTV where drug dealing happens, sellers and buyers will go to another place. In the end, nothing changes.

Sounds like a non-sequitur to me. Yes, this is how it works - in every aspect of life we try to regulate as a society (through laws and enforcement). Criminal activities are prohibited, restricted and monitored. Criminals move on, but the law is also adaptive and soon catches on. Following your argument leads to anarchy and currently western society mostly shares the belief that we're better off with democracy.

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

#356

Post by palata »

blaze33 wrote: post #348

I regularly see similar articles with similar comments here, but there's one thing I still don't understand: From the European Convention on Human Rights[1]: ARTICLE 8 Right to respect for private and family life 1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. 2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as i…

> what is the legal argument solid enough to justify interfering with everybody's right to privacy?

"... except such as is in accordance with the law"

And the "interfering" coming from ChatControl is that "some algorithm" locally scans and detects illegal material, and doesn't do anything if there is no illegal material.

> Watching everyone's communications also seems at odds with the principle of proportionality

It's a bit delicate here because one can argue it's not "watching everyone's communications". The scanning is done locally. Nobody would say that your OS is "watching your communications", right? Even though the OS has to "read" your messages in order to print them on your screen.

Note that I am against ChatControl. My problem with it is that the list of illegal material (or the "weights" of the model deciding what is illegal) cannot be audited easily (it won't be published as it is illegal material) and can be abused by whoever has control over it.

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

#357

Post by [deleted] »

logicchains wrote: post #191
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Men with guns stop men with guns. Really? Why does America, the country with the most guns by far, have the most gun deaths by far? It's very tiring arguing these very obvious points over and over.

Nazi Germany, Communist China and Soviet Russia have by far the largest number of deaths by _men with guns_, over a hundred million people killed by their own governments. The guns of US citizens have so far prevented this kind of government-led mass citizen genocide from happening. The number of people killed by gun violence in the US is a rounding error compared to the number of people killed by Mao, Hitler and Sta…

[deleted]

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

#358

Post by demosito666 »

alkonaut wrote: post #305
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.

But politicians are - in general - neither evil, nor do they have any real incentive to ”control citizens’ thoughts”. It doesn’t make sense. They can be gullible. Non-Technical. Owned by lobbyists. Under pressure to deliver on the apparent problem of the day (csam, terror, whatever). But I don’t think there is a general crusade against privacy. That’s why I think it’s so infuriating: I’m sure it’s not even deliberate…

> But politicians are - in general - neither evil, nor do they have any real incentive to ”control citizens’ thoughts”.

As someone coming from authoritarian state, this is such an alien line of reasoning to me. By definition, those in power want more power. The more control over the people you have, the more power you get. Ergo, you always want more control.

It's easy to overlook this if you've spent your entire life in a democratic country, as democracies have power dynamics that obscure this goal, making it less of a priority for politicians. For instance, attempting to seize too much power can backfire, giving political opponents leverage against you. However, the closer a system drifts toward autocracy and the fewer constraints on power there are, the more achievable this goal becomes and the more likely politicians are to pursue it.

Oh, and also politics selects for psychopaths who are known for their desire for control.

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

#359

Post by mystraline »

palata wrote: post #307
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So ChatControl means that e.g. Signal would be obligated to automatically scan pictures and messages sent for CSAM. This is beyond encryption. And if they were to actually do that, it would mean it's non sensical for people spreading this material to use it as they would immediately be caught, so they would just use other tools. But people are talking about both - the ridiculousness of the premise that this would hel…

So what? If predators cannot talk to children over SnapChat, that's a win, wouldn't you say? The only valid argument I see against ChatControl is that fundamentally, you cannot know what it is reporting. It's not like if there would be an open source list of illegal material together with the hashes, right? If you cannot audit what is being reporting (with whatever means necessary to make sure it is doing what it sho…

> The only valid argument I see against ChatControl is that fundamentally, you cannot know what it is reporting. It's not like if there would be an open source list of illegal material together with the hashes, right?

By definition, they must state what is actually illegal, lest I be hidden laws with hidden punishments.

And those lists of 'illegal' need to be publicly disclosed, so we are aware.

At least in the USA a naked picture of someone who is 17y364d old is 'child porn', but that extra day makes it 'barely legal'. But yet, most USA jurisdictions say that 16y can have sex. Just that pictures are EVIL even if you take them yourself.

Again however, I tend to more agree with Stallman that CSAM or child porn picture possession should either be legal or have a mens area attached, and not strict possession. Its proof of a crime, and shouldn't in of itself be a crime.

But because a picture is a crime, we get these horrific laws.

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

#360

Post by AAAAaccountAAAA »

palata wrote: post #294

Most arguments I see against ChatControl sound like bullshit to me. How do we expect to convince anyone to go against ChatControl with those? I feel unease when it comes to ChatControl; I don't want my devices to run proprietary, opaque algorithms on all my data. And it feels like it fundamentally has to be opaque: nobody can't publish an open source list of illegal material together with their hash (precisely becaus…

> Don't get me wrong: I am against ChatControl. Because of one argument I believe to be valid: we fundamentally cannot know what the algorithm doing the scanning is doing, so those who control it could abuse it. Of all the discussions I have seen against ChatControl, I haven't seen another valid argument. But this one is enough.

It is not enough to know what the algorithm is doing. It also needs to be possible (for the average user as well) to stop it from doing reprehensible things. If a client-side scanning algorithm is actually searching for e. g. political content, it is possible to detect it via reverse engineering, but merely knowing it won't solve the problem, but instead lead into self-censorship.

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