Every time they pull a stunt like this, this becomes a little bit more clear. If the EU wants to avoid the spread of euroskeptic populist parties, they should be working to patch the system and be building legitimacy and credibility, rather than be seen working to undermine it.
Now, I think there is a problem here; in many countries the public can barely bring themselves to care about the European Parliament elections, nevermind who their government nominates as commissioner. But ultimately it is as much in the public’s hands as a ministerial appointment.
Of course that would be a very, very risk approach...
This thing is 280px tall! I clicked it for shits and giggles and upon returning it showed a popup XD
https://files.catbox.moe/sv7hb7.png
> Only 2 Steps (thx)
> Click "Download"
> Add Privacy Guard for Chrome™
Don't worry why I'm not using ad block
https://files.catbox.moe/dbbh71.jpg
yeah, hard pass
> Client-side scanning, the technical approach favored by Chat Control advocates, attempts to circumvent this limitation by analyzing messages on users’ devices before encryption or after decryption. While this might sound like a clever workaround, it fundamentally breaks the security model of encryption.
It's not a misunderstanding, it's deliberate circumvention. It doesn't do anyone any good to pretend that they just don't understand.
Why are chats different?
Digital communication is more direct speech, including maybe whispering, than it is writing a letter.
Definitely a hard no!
Why is that a problem? Then you just don't do it at all. Society can survive two people being able to have a private conversation.
Ummmmm....yeah? You don't? It's enough the metadata is collected already.
This is an excerpt of Swedish Regeringsformen[1]:
> Everyone is also protected against body searches, house searches and similar intrusions, as well as against the examination of letters or other confidential mail and against the secret interception or recording of telephone conversations or other confidential messages.
Art. 15
Freedom and confidentiality of correspondence and of every other form of
communication is inviolable.
Limitations may only be imposed by judicial decision stating the reasons and
in accordance with the guarantees provided by the law.
[1] https://www.senato.it/documenti/repository/istituzione/costi...
There are places in the world today where only sneakernet communication has any semblance of privacy, so we need non-specialist tools that can provide privacy and secrecy regardless of local conditions. (I’d love to see more communication tools that don’t assume an always-on connection, or low latency, or other first world conditions.)
It absolutely is violence. If a partner in a relationship was constantly going through your phone, they'd end up in prison in most countries recognising domestic violence.
If terrorism is defined as using violence or threats to intimidate a population for political or ideological ends, then “Chat Control” qualifies in substance. Violence doesn’t have to leave blood. Psychological and coercive violence is recognised in domestic law (see coercive control offences) and by the WHO. It causes measurable harm to bodies and minds.
The aim is intimidation. The whole purpose is to make people too scared to speak freely. That is intimidation of a population, by design.
It is ideological. The ideology is mass control - keeping people compliant by stripping them of private spaces to think, talk, and dissent.
The only reason it’s not “terrorism” on paper is because states write definitions that exempt themselves. But in plain terms, the act is indistinguishable in effect from terrorism: deliberate fear, coercion, and the destruction of free will.
Watch them carefully. They will 100% try again. The enemy is the general public.
A heavily regulated market becomes an oligopoly of a few players with revolving door access to government and often interlocking directorates, patent cross licensing, and other ways of further colluding to keep out competition.
This is why, for example, the big lavishly funded AI ventures are all about “safety” regulation. It would stop anyone from competing. So far that effort has also failed but expect them to keep trying.
We only have to lose once. Erosion is a process.
Every country should fight for constitutional protections for its citizens' rights to (internet) privacy. But that'll never have support from politicians, and laypeople don't have the ability to appreciate this highly technical and nuanced topic.
It's only when opposition is mounted to each individual attempt that we can rally public support. Sadly, we can only muster this energy in the face of losing freedom. And it only has to falter once.
Politicians, and more importantly influential people, also rely on the same tech as we do and they have infinitely more to lose if their communications leak.
“The scanning would apply to all EU citizens, except EU politicians. They might exempt themselves from the law under “professional secrecy” rules” https://nextcloud.com/blog/how-the-eu-chat-control-law-is-a-...
Who is driving it?
Who wants this so much that they have gone to the massive expense and effort?
Whoever it is - they know thet defeat is only temporary, and if they keep bringing it back from the dead, eventually it will succeed.
That "NGO" also happens to sell a tool called Safer(.io) that allows website owners to check hashes against known CSAM material, which I'm sure is unrelated.
They also happened to have shadily employed some former high-ranking Europol officials, which is again just a pure coincidence.
Balkan Insight did wonderful investigative reporting on them a couple of years back: https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...
In the meantime, the number of children killed in Palestine and West Bank has surpassed 20 thousand in 2 years, and famine hit more than half a million children in Sudan. It's not like they were short of ways to show they really care about kids, but alas they don't at all. It's just an excuse to restrict personal liberties.
The people pushing this come from the usual power centers in European politics, the (current) centrists. They feel motivated to protect their positions against encroachments from what they consider extremist positions (be it e.g. economic left or right, or a or b on some other scale.)
By now it's just too late to take it back and start over without including chat control.
Back in 2020 or so the commission first proposed the reform that contains the chat control provisions, then there was like a year or two of well published fighting in the European Parliament (EP) before they reached a position on the entire reform (notably excluding chat control).
Meanwhile the council of minister (effectively the upper house of the EP) didn't get around to forming an opinion before the parliament, so they are doing that now, which means it the same fight over chat control all over again but with different people.
After the council of ministers agrees on a position on the entire reform proposal from the commission we'll get even more rounds of bickering over what the final text should be: the trialogue. Those tend to be very closed, but with how much attention chat control is getting expect lots of leaks and constant news about who's being an ass during that step too.
Note that it is explicitly expected that each of the thee bodies will come up with different positions on many aspects of a regulation proposal, so there is nothing strange with the commission or the council suggesting some the parliament has opposed.
The people pushing it are ~bribed~ lobbied hard by groups who want this so they don't care about wasting their time or resources since they are getting paid for it.
> Is there not some career disincentive/consequence where if you try to push Encryption back doors, you get demolished in your re-election
In a somewhat ironic turn of events we don't know who was pushing it this time as they where protected by anonymity - one rule for them I guess and another for everyone else.
Also most average people don't know anything about encryption or backdoors, not even the meaning of those words. In their minds they have nothing to be concerned or mad about.
meowface•3h ago
p0w3n3d•3h ago