https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/19/24181214/eu-chat-control-law-propose-scanning-encrypted-messages-csam
Privacy advocates aren’t buying it.
Sorry citizen, every time you enter the bar we've got to take a swab from your genitals to check that since you were last here you haven't fucked any kids.
Fucking ridiculous. If you want to prevent CSAM spreading across Europe do this instead:
Investigation and surgical removal of the whole rotten ring of kid fuckers will curve CSAM creation and distribution in the EU.
Then preventative measures to stop creators/ consumers of CSAM because prevention is more effective than trying to cure it.
Child sexual abuse is one of, if not the most evil act someone can commit and they should face very steep punishment for it. And anyone proposing any policy offering help to reform them is committing political suicide.
But ignoring the fact that people have the capacity to commit an evil act of that magnitude, demonising them, and then offering no support network to prevent them is not going to solve the problem. It doesn't work for any crime and certainly not this.
Unfortunately stopping CSAM isn’t the point. The point is eroding privacy and pretending it’s protecting kids.
Yes, but those policies don’t provide political cover to eliminate everyone’s encryption and privacy, so…
new funding for a confidential service to provide prevention therapy to potential offenders before they commit that horrid act against a child.
THIS.
I would recommend watching "Louis Theroux - Among the sex offenders" to get a better understanding of the lack of treatment available for people who don't want to offend but feel compelled. Some of them are crying out for treatment!
Yup. Let's not forget that pedophilia is a mental disorder. I'd assume that many people with pedophilia don't become offenders, but I think that the number of offenders could be much lower still if these people got proper help and treatment before they ever commit a crime.
Sure, if these people actually commit crimes or if they're about to, we have to make sure they're physically unable to get anywhere near children. But I feel like in most circles if someone were to come out and admit they have this mental disorder, they'll be frowned upon, probably lose all their "friends" and not get any help. On the internet, it's far worse than this.
I really believe that this has nothing to do with kids. "For the kids" has made me suspicious of intentions for a long time. It makes it difficult to argue against it because it implies that you're a pedo or are doing something illegal otherwise. You implement general monitoring "for the kids", and then you add some anti piracy stuff to it, then you add some hate group detection, some anti government group detection, etc. Now you have everything you need to get ahead of any danger to the government. If the people can't organize, you can do whatever you want.
Fucking ridiculous. If you want to prevent CSAM spreading across Europe do this instead:
The real offenders (except for some stupid rookies) move to the dark web and won't touch the official apps while politicians use this power to scan for political and environmental activists, opponents and critics.
I said the same to a coworker this week. If i were to be part or manage an illegal ring like csam, id make my own protocol/app that just uses encryption. Youre already doing illegal shit, go one further so you dont get caught
Probably won't even need anonymizers for this! Chances are concealing usage of your own server would not be that hard on the clearnet either.
No it will be. Having your own XMPP/IRC server doesn't prevent the NSA from spying on your metadata, and that's exactly what will happen. It's just that TOR and I2P will likely see an increase in traffic
Indeed. Protecting the metadata is already a completely different task from protecting the contents. But how would this law in particular change this aspect? It concerns message contents, surveillance of metadata stays the same (aka full). I was saying this about getting back access to encrypted messaging even with a low threat model.
Freedom of goods, freedom of services, freedom of capital, freedom of movement, and freedom of reading all of your private messages (excluding EU officials, naturally).
This is that super forward-thinking EU tech protection we are always hearing about that the whole world should be so jealous of.
This is a proposal by people funded by companies that would provide the services for this (https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the-eus-fight-over-scanning-for-child-sex-content ).
A lot of actual politicians oppose this https://tbbacherle.eu/2024/06/18/open-letter/
May I also suggest surveiling every knife in every kitchen, since people historically had killed other people with knife
Two German states are about to attempt introducing a law at the federal level banning all knives with blades longer then 6cm (~~1.5~2.3 in) from beeing carried in publicin public.
Source in german: https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/rheinland-pfalz/messer-verbot-gesetz-bundesrat-rlp-100.html
This law, if it were to pass, is 100% guaranteed to be shot down by the European courts for invasion of privacy.
Unfortunately the court wasn't that strict in it's most recent decision regarding data retention (different lead judge combined with the endless tries from the politics)
Feels like a strange move, from an American who is used to seeing the EU do things that should put our government to shame.
Are they trying to get the US to join the EU? Lol
Every other year the EU tries to pass another mass surveillance law - and the EU court of human rights rules it illegal.
This one was not passed yet.
The vote was pulled in the last minute, because they didn't expect to get the required qualified majority. This was among other things due to the German governmant announcing to vote against it.
Germany is about to have an election next year though and the conservative and faschist parties are expected to win, I doubt they would be holding this position. France is also having an election soon with the faschists expected to win big. And their current government is responsible for this law not beeing even worse.
TLDR: It didn't pass yet, but this will not be the last attempt at passing it.
Suppose the bill goes through. Is there any reliable alternative for privately communicating? Asking for myself.
Wow, did you just really confess as an child porn distributor/consumer? Who else would need such an communication alternative?
I don't think it would be enforceable for everyone hosting servers for themselves. I personally use XMPP, Matrix and recently Simplex.
Distributed/Federated apps probably? Session, Briar...
Overlay networks like Tor, I2P and Hyphanet (ex-Freenet)?
Open source what, specifically? And would they not be required to do the same things (which would be harder to enforce, but still)?
Positive news: at least Germany will reject it, let's hope more members follow their lead
According to [German Federal Minister of the Interior] Nancy Faeser, it is appropriate to "hold online platforms accountable so that depictions of abuse are discovered, deleted and the perpetrators prosecuted". However, if the current proposal remains, the representative of the Federal Republic of Germany would have to vote no, said the SPD politician. "Because we must take targeted action and maintain the balance of the rule of law. Encrypted private communications of millions of people must not be monitored without cause.
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Chat-control-Germany-will-vote-against-current-proposal-9770051.html
And the reasoning? As always Terrorists, pedophile, criminals, etc. Guess what: If those guys have not learned yet to make a big detour around official chat apps, they deserve getting caught. My bet is, those people already have their own secured means of communication. Maybe they have their own encrypted app, or they have a forum somewhere in the Darknet, whatever. But the chance that this new law will catch anything worthwhile is practically nil.
Short question: how would they enforce that? What if I use some obscure messenger that nobody has ever heard of? What if I simply use telnet or netcat to send messages to other people?
Telnet? Banned. You now need the EUs approval to use networking software. The only apps that any EU users can use that uses the network interface are those whitelisted by the EU.
That's the only way that this is enforceable. And still pretty easy to defeat, or are they gonna Linux too? Since Linux comes with the source code, anyone could recompile it removing the restriction.
It's just absurd.
I think these things aren't designed to stop everyone, just most people, non-technical people - not people like us who know how to work around limitations etc.
It still sucks though, and it's a stupid idea.
Criminal would just use the communication method that is encrypted, because it will be known as such. Just like nowadays everyone knows that if you want to pirate you use torrent. And if you don't wanna be tracked you use VPNs and tor.
This will hurt the dumbest of criminals and all the non-criminals.
Does this cover all messages sent between me and my teammates about the secret projects we're working on, or are we only fucking over the people, and not the companies?
If you're working on a secret project, you make your own communication tools and protocols. Or if you're lazy you just set up a mail server behind a VPN.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The law, first introduced in 2022, would implement an “upload moderation” system that scans all your digital messages, including shared images, videos, and links.
Several organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy & Technology, and Mozilla, have also signed a joint statement urging the EU to reject proposals that scan user content.
In a statement to The Verge, Breyer also points out that the Belgian Presidency ends later this month, and the country’s current Minister of the Interior has been at the forefront of the chat control bill.
Last year, a poll conducted by the European Digital Rights (EDRi) group suggested that 66 percent of young people in the EU disagree with policies allowing internet providers to scan their messages.
“Many lawmakers understand that fundamental rights prohibit mass surveillance, but they don’t want to be seen opposing a scheme that’s framed as combatting CSAM,” Breyer says.
“My message is that children and abuse victims deserve measures that are truly effective and will hold up in court, not just empty promises, tech solutionism and hidden agendas.”
The original article contains 642 words, the summary contains 177 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Can we just send 200 billion fake messages every millisecond to overload them constantly? Forcing them to pull out.
The scanning is done on your device. You could theoretically only overload the CSAM reporting feature if such a thing will exist.
Looks at gdpr Looks at new law Looks at gdpr Looks at security questionnaires from EU companies Looks at new law
Well past time to take up farming.
