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Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

patrick-breyer.de

91–100 of 338 posts

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#91
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik the legislation will force communication service providers (WhatsApp, MSN Messenger, ...) to scan any chat message for illegal material before it is encrypted and sent. The scanning happens against a known database of data fingerprints.

So what happens with self-hosted or decentralized services? Like matrix.

Depends entirely on how the law itself will be phrased. Maybe there is an exception to services below a certain size. But I don't expect the politicians behind this initiative to have matrix on the radar or even understand decentralized chat protocols.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#92

These tyrants have to be stopped. A tyrannical government is far more dangerous to people, including children than your regular criminal. Ironically, by giving the state too much power and therefore increasing the symptoms of corruption, we allow the same sort of crimes to be practiced by corrupt state officials with little means for people enact accountability. China, the country with the most mass-surveillance in t…

from the first paragraph of the article:

> This will require them to monitor and scan the communications of citizens en masse – even if they are still securely encrypted end-to-end so far.

Seems the Belgian push to ban E2EE / Signal isn't an isolated case and part of a wider campaign: https://www.bitsoffreedom.nl/2022/05/10/belgium-wants-to-ban...

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#93
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without government we at least had choice. I don't consider "give me your stuff or I beat you" a choice.

Only difference is now the government says "give me your stuff or I beat you" rather than your neighbor

If I had bezos money, I would buy a large swath of arable land, build a large wall around it, and offer 100k so called libertarians to walk in with some supplies. But they couldn't form government. Absolutely no form of mandatory taxation of any kind. And once they went in, they would be committed for five years.

Oh, since we can't have them benefiting from positive outcomes of collective action, we'll pipe in polluted air and river waste to help simulate a truly free market environmental policy.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#94
post #49
post #6

I don't understand who wants this. does any of their actual constituency want it? Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? Stuff like abortion, etc where I don't really understand the other side. I've at least met real people who are pro life. I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways.

Yes Minister covers it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks Tell them you're going to have their messages scanned on behalf of the government and nobody wants it. Tell them you're going to introduce measures for online safety and to crack down on child abuse, and everybody wants it. Unless you're pre-informed on the issues, whoever presents it to you can just pick the side that gets you to the answer the…

> crack down on child abuse

Actually today you don't use cracking down on child abuse as a reason, you use the danger of the far-right. All the leading left-wing publications, New York Times, The Guardian, Washington Post, CNN, Vox have been running articles about how dangerous encrypted chat apps are:

> Why right-wing extremists’ favorite new platform is so dangerous. Telegram’s lax content moderation and encrypted chats make it a convenient tool for extremists.

https://www.vox.com/recode/22238755/telegram-messaging-socia...

> In collaboration with anti-fascist research group the White Rose Society, the Guardian has tracked McLean’s activity through the rabbit warren of largely unregulated Telegram groups and found that he describes a vastly different version of his intentions.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/26/where...

> Far-right groups move online conversations from social media to chat apps — and out of view of law enforcement

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/14/telegram-war...

> White supremacists openly organize racist violence on Telegram, report finds

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/26/tech/white-supremacists-t...

> Are Private Messaging Apps the Next Misinformation Hot Spot? Telegram and Signal, the encrypted services that keep conversations confidential, are increasingly popular. Our tech columnists discuss whether this could get ugly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/technology/personaltech/t...

> A report this week found that the messaging app had emerged as a central hub for several conspiracy movements espousing antisemitic tropes and memes, including QAnon, as well as others on the extreme right promoting violence.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/15/parler-...

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> since we (the vast majority of people) were also screwed over without representative government. Without government we at least had choice. I think you're needlessly cynical. Humans can organize themselves quite well when they have maximum choice as individuals. The robber barons of the early nineteenth century were bolstered by governments--not hindered. Governments have always been corrupt.

> Without government we at least had choice. I don't consider "give me your stuff or I beat you" a choice.

Get a firearm and train with it. Your government prevents you from defending yourself effectively.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#96
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understand this apparent motive of "elected officials getting power hungry". How would this legislation make the people in the EU Commission more powerful? Am I just lacking imagination?

> Am I just lacking imagination? Yes. The EU is becoming a totalitarian regional government of elites. Originally it wasn't even supposed to have a military presence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_forces_of_the_European... It was supposed to prevent the need of passports. https://www.covidpasscertificate.com/europe-digital-green-pa... All the good things are going out the door and all the bad things are walki…

Thanks for the answer, but I'm wondering more about the mechanism of how the individuals in the EU Commission would benefit from any kind of misuse of this legislation. I get how surveillance can benefit people (edit: I mean benefit those who surveil), but the people who propose this are not who can exercise this power, am I wrong? I just struggle to understand how would this many people conspire to get more power, especially if the people who have the opportunity to misuse this need to be involved too.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#97
post #6

I don't understand who wants this. does any of their actual constituency want it? Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? Stuff like abortion, etc where I don't really understand the other side. I've at least met real people who are pro life. I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways.

Abortion is especially strange since a supermajority of Americans, across the political spectrum, of both genders, generally agree that some abortions should be permitted [1]. 70% want to keep the status quo. [2] It's even arguably a violation of the religious freedom of Jewish folks to ban abortion [3]. It's not forbidden by the Bible either - the Bible makes it clear that life begins 'at first breath' (Genesis 2:7)…

You are making the mistake of assuming that those deciding care about facts or public opinion, or can be shamed if shown to behave hypocritically or inconsistently. They simply don't care and will proceed to do as they please, inventing reasoning and interpretation to support whatever outcome they want, regardless of what % of the population disagrees. Tyranny of the minority has arrived.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#98
post #2

If EU really wants to curb risk to children: -significantly raise the penalty for sexual child abuse -provide clinics and medications for people with this mental disease However, that’s not really the goal here is it…

> raise the penalties

That never works. Raising the risks of being caught does work, but it costs money.

> people with this mental disease

Not all such people are ill; there are different reasons people get involved in child-porn. Some of them are just shitty people; some are traumatised; some are simply ignorant.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#99

These tyrants have to be stopped. A tyrannical government is far more dangerous to people, including children than your regular criminal. Ironically, by giving the state too much power and therefore increasing the symptoms of corruption, we allow the same sort of crimes to be practiced by corrupt state officials with little means for people enact accountability. China, the country with the most mass-surveillance in t…

Quoted post unavailable.

No, the worst part is people running to the comments section on a real, legitimate issue and airing their general conspiracy theories and misunderstandings about the world as if they’re factual. It dilutes the point when you fill the room with noise like this, so you’re really having the opposite effect than you think and playing directly into the goals of the people who fed you that horseshit.
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