[HN Gopher] EU funds are flowing into spyware companies and poli...
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EU funds are flowing into spyware companies and politicians
demanding answers
Author : Bender
Score : 197 points
Date : 2025-10-02 12:34 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| Simulacra wrote:
| This isn't good, but it's not uncommon. My concern is if this
| behavior has led the European Union into the digital ID fiasco.
| All of this data monitoring can be used to manipulate politicians
| into supporting.
| mrtksn wrote:
| What is the EU digital ID fiasco?
| Simulacra wrote:
| Apologies, Britain is forcing digital ID for all citizens for
| Internet access. This is also been discussed at the European
| Parliament level, and there's a significant amount of public
| black lash. That's the fiasco, I should've been more
| specific.
| norman784 wrote:
| AFAIK the digital ID will also be required when getting a
| new job.
| hkt wrote:
| In the UK's case, ID has been required to get a new job
| or rent a house for a decade.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| ok so why the need for the digital one if we already have
| one
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Because requiring an ID to register for eg. a facebook
| account is hard... how do you input your physical card
| into a computer? There's potential for abuse when taking
| a photo of it, and as soon as one photo of an ID appears
| online, everyone can use that.
|
| By having people get digital IDs, you can require them to
| use it when registering for social network accounts,
| etc., because it's already in their phones and requires
| just one tap to 'sign' the account with your real
| identity. Want to complain about a local politician on
| r/uk on reddit? You'll need a valid UK account to even
| post there, and it'll be tied to your real name. Want to
| join a discord? You need UK ID and your real identity
| tied to it. Organizing a protest? Well, your real name is
| there, the police will be visiting soon.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Very good question, isn't it. The point of the policy is
| to make headlines. Implementation is a messy detail for
| the future.
| Nab443 wrote:
| Easier to store more information while preventing any non
| authorized to access them, like signing keys and
| biometrics ?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| You're still conflating a few things. The UK government
| wants to require digital ID for employment, with housing
| etc to follow. People on HN _suspect_ the plan is to
| combine that with the Online Safety Act internet
| identification requirements, but no such plans have been
| announced as far as I 'm aware.
| masfuerte wrote:
| When Starmer announced digital ID he also talked about
| the regulation of social media. Sure, nobody has
| confirmed the plan, but the two things are clearly
| connected in the prime minister's thinking.
|
| On the other hand, according to The Times yesterday the
| cabinet isn't happy with digital ID. It's as obvious to
| them as it is to everyone else that digital ID won't make
| a jot of difference to illegal working. And may well lose
| them votes.
| octo888 wrote:
| Yes the idea is to get ahead of things you are opposed to
| instead of waiting for it to be law already, so you can
| try to prevent or shape it
| graemep wrote:
| The UK is also shortly going to require all children to
| have a digital identifier to be used across government
| services. That also clears a path to a digital ID.
|
| The government has also talked about making drivings
| licences digital (i.e. apps)
|
| People suspect a lot more than it being used in
| conjunction with the OSA. it can be extended in all sorts
| of ways. Once available it will be used for more and
| more.
|
| It is not necessary for employment and housing as there
| are already documents that can be checked on the rare
| occasions people rent housing or get a new job. It is
| only worth doing if it is something people will use
| daily. Essentially people will be coerced into carrying a
| Google or Apple smartphone with the ID app on it.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _The UK is also shortly going to require all children
| to have a digital identifier to be used across government
| services._
|
| I hadn't heard about that one. Source?
| graemep wrote:
| Section four of the awful Children's Wellbeing and
| Schools Bill
|
| https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/62773/documents/
| 708...
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Edit: I somehow completely skipped the bad bit, right at
| the beginning.
|
| > 16LB (1) The Secretary of State may by regulations
| specify a description of consistent identifier for the
| purposes of this section.
|
| Such provisions are ripe for abuse - somewhat tempered by
| 16LB(6), but that relies on the designated person's
| discretion (which itself is constrained by 16LB(12), and
| my experience with educational folk suggests they take
| such guidance seriously, even when they _profoundly_
| disagree with it), and having a database in the first
| place is the major issue. Ignore the rest of this
| comment.
|
| ---
|
| That doesn't seem to say that? It says:
|
| > 16LB (2) "Consistent identifier" means any identifier
| (such as, for example, a number or code used for
| identification purposes) that--
|
| > (a) relates to a child, and
|
| > (b) forms part of a set of similar identifiers that is
| of general application.
|
| School ID plus some school-specific identifier would
| suffice, if I'm reading this right.
|
| That said, I'm not sure _why_ you 'd write this into a
| law under my interpretation, since it's already current
| practice to take actions that are "likely to facilitate
| the exercise by any person of a function of that person
| that relates to safeguarding or promoting the welfare of
| children", and to avoid actions that "would be more
| detrimental to the child than not including it", so maybe
| this is one of the things that you need to be a legal
| expert to understand.
| pjc50 wrote:
| In case you missed it, the UK is no longer part of the EU.
| It is doing this under its own steam, or perhaps that of
| lobbyists.
| harvey9 wrote:
| The current UK PM campaigned to remain in the EU and I
| doubt he has ever done anything under his own steam. The
| lobbyists in this case are led by the Tony Blair
| Institute - Mr Blair tried to introduce id cards when he
| was PM.
| hopelite wrote:
| I sometimes wonder what people think who previously would
| have verbally accosted and ridiculed others who warned of
| this very state of things coming about, being made
| identifiable online in a country/society where the
| government has already also rolled out a panopticon of
| surveillance and clandestine perception and thought
| control, where privacy does not exist in public either
| anymore.
|
| It doesn't really matter either way because the tyranny and
| authoritarian control will descend upon people regardless;
| but do they at least have some kind of guilt, maybe shame,
| or even realize they are also guilty, not just in basically
| helping their own enemy, the people in charge of the
| government implementing these things?
|
| Or do they simply in a somewhat typical narcissistic way
| just hand wave it away and generously absolve themselves of
| any guilt and responsibility for the misery they are/will
| be responsible for?
|
| Turns out the "...fools, and even the ambitious..." were
| also the "...traitor moves amongst those within the gate
| freely...". It was a stroke of genius to psychologically
| and emotionally manipulate and wage war on the minds of the
| folks who were fools, i.e., the majority in a "democracy"
| who gleefully voted themselves into a trap under influence
| of the created reward system that had them getting feedback
| that told them they are the good people.
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| > tyranny and authoritarian control
|
| Care to explain how a state providing an official way to
| allow its citizen to prove they are who they say they are
| and avoid identity usurpation on the internet is somehow
| tyrannical and authoritarian?
|
| That seems like a valuable public service to me.
| graemep wrote:
| I have come across people arguing that it is fine because a
| lot of European countries have ID cards and its not a
| problem because "no one is suffering" (to quote one
| person).
| randunel wrote:
| EU's digital ID depends on EU citizens having either a Google
| account, or an Apple account https://github.com/eu-digital-
| identity-wallet/av-doc-technic...
| isodev wrote:
| To be clear, the digital wallet app is just a way to manage
| your government issued eID. Both the wallet app you link to
| and eID are based on the EIDAS spec. The wallet doesn't
| supersede or replace your country's apps unless the country
| opts for that. For example in Belgium, we have a robust
| selection of apps and the non-phone approach using a USB
| card reader.
|
| The use-case for age verification is not a law yet, the EC
| has only produced a blueprint which means that this will
| probably not be adopted by everyone before EIDAS is fully
| implemented.
| ozgrakkurt wrote:
| This has to be one of the funniest things I read. People
| who approved this have to be soft in the head.
|
| Also saw some of my countries government's webpages have
| google analytics scripts. I'm guessing they didn't even get
| a bribe for that, it is really ..
| mariusor wrote:
| I think that presenting this as "fait accompli" is
| incorrect. I don't think actual development even started on
| anything.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Another way to manipulate politicians:
|
| "Gee, dat dere shore is a nice marriage ya gots dere. It'd
| shore be a shame, if da wifey wuz t' find out about ya
| mistress..."
|
| That was pretty much how J. Edgar Hoover was able to grab
| Congress by the short hairs for years.
| trolleski wrote:
| European politicians are great at pretending to do stuff, not
| newsworthy.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| "One of your officials pays farmers to produce surplus food,
| while on the same floor, the next office is paying them to
| destroy the surpluses."
|
| --- the late venerable Prime Minister Jim Hacker
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| This is at least a bit understandable... if something bad
| happens, a (trade, or a 'classic') war, some large
| catastrophe somewhere, you want local farmers with all the
| equipment, knowledge, fields and warehouses ready to take
| over. Yeah, sure, today maybe you have a surplus of potatos,
| more than your people want to eat, and still more expensive
| from imported ones from some other country, but subsidizing
| the farmers means that in such extreme cases, you at least
| have the infrastructure to grow potatos to feed the people at
| home.
| troupo wrote:
| The New Deal used this tactic to (a very simplified
| description) raise prices on farm products and let farmers
| get out of poverty during The Great Depression: https://en.
| wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Farm_and_rural_progra...
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Now we use the opposite tactic! Brilliant times ahead.
| harvey9 wrote:
| The EU also used to have wine surpluses like this. I
| suppose you could make a witty argument that wine will be
| needed in a crisis.
| encom wrote:
| >EU subsidies are ending up in the pockets of spyware companies.
|
| The entire EU apparatus needs a DOGE-like treatment so bad.
|
| Edit: I said _like_. US DOGE was... a mixed bag.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The EU needs a theatrical billionaire to go around pulling
| plugs without knowing who dies so they can save a relative
| pittance?
| pjc50 wrote:
| There's a lot wrong with the EU but at least that particular
| scenario is, fortunately, impossible. Still somewhat possible
| at the national level where the real power lies, such as
| Orban.
| graemep wrote:
| I agree no-one needs and Elon.
|
| On the other hand, i think comments like this illustrate how
| frustrated people are. It is also exactly the opportunity
| people like Musk (or worse) will grab to gain more power.
| lesuorac wrote:
| Only so frustrated though.
|
| Not frustrated enough to actually bother to check if Trump
| exploded the deficit during his first term and think hey is
| he going to do this again? Or hey, Musk says he's going to
| save 2 trillion but never clarified how; maybe he's not a
| reliable source.
|
| Frustration without thinking just leads to more
| frustration.
| caconym_ wrote:
| Even this is a charitable description of what they did. It
| seems like it was more of a data exfiltration play, forcing
| their way into agencies' IT departments with armed thugs and
| scraping data to be joined and shared with ICE, etc. Possibly
| the Russians if that one whistleblower is to be believed.
|
| I don't think the EU needs anything of the sort!
| actionfromafar wrote:
| It must be easier to infiltrate when security clearances
| aren't a requirement.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| > a mixed bag.
|
| What were the good parts, in your opinion?
| encom wrote:
| As a classical liberal, the budget cutting parts.
| port11 wrote:
| The actual _verifiable_ savings so far we 're 1.4 billion
| dollars.
|
| And that's not accounting for the damage these savings will
| do to the overall economy since, e.g., firing people
| increases unemployment claims and lowers sales tax.
|
| To paraphrase the old doge: wow, much savings, such trickle
| down.
| andrewl wrote:
| DOGE was, and is, a _titanic_ disaster. If sane people ever get
| control back it will take easily 10 years to fix the damage. I
| considered Biden basically a post-war president. The next non-
| MAGA president will inherit a much worse situation.
| alephnerd wrote:
| This saga has been going on for a couple years now [0]. A number
| of CEE and Southern European countries like Spain, Greece,
| Hungary, Poland, Czechia, Romania, and others heavily leverage
| this kind of tooling [1] and continue to have extremely strong
| interior ministries and weak democratic controls.
|
| It's also helped create a boom in the cybersecurity industry, and
| helped build the hiring pipeline most American and Israeli
| cybersecurity firms are using in the CEE today.
|
| [0] - https://www.politico.eu/article/parliament-defense-
| subcommit...
|
| [1] - https://vsquare.org/pegasus-spyware-poland-hungary-
| slovakia-...
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| > It's also helped create a boom in the cybersecurity industry,
| and helped build the hiring pipeline most American and Israeli
| cybersecurity firms are using in the CEE today.
|
| Huge part of my decades long IT career is linked with Polish IT
| industry and I have no idea what are you talking about. Poland
| is most likely spending heavy millions on Israeli and American
| spyware mostly used to consolidate power internally.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Poland isn't the only country in the CEE.
|
| Try visiting Czechia sometime. That's where exploit dev is
| largely consolidated thanks to the OS dev teams MS and RedHat
| offshored there decades ago plus Avast which developed a OS
| dev and detections engineering pipeline, and the Israeli FDI
| boom that started a decade ago to take advantage of that.
|
| Poland's scene is mostly Incident Response and SOC, but the
| Polish talent pool has started climbing up the ladder.
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| > Try visiting Czechia sometime
|
| Linked with US and Israel even tighter, now because of
| let's call it "a family connection".
|
| > OS dev teams MS and RedHat offshored
|
| Their pinnacle achievement is antivirus for Windows and MS
| Teams.
| alephnerd wrote:
| I don't know what your point it.
|
| Denying the role a number of CEE countries play in
| detection engineering and exploit development isn't
| helping if you actually care about reducing this kind of
| erosion.
|
| And I have always used CEE to denote all of Central and
| Eastern Europe, not just Poland.
| lossolo wrote:
| Poland specifically bought Pegasus from Israelis. There is
| a parliamentary commission investigating this, everything
| is public so you can google it. Poland does not develop its
| own exploits or have domestic spyware firms that target
| journalists. Unless you have proof to the contrary, what
| you wrote is not true.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Re-read what I wrote.
| wim wrote:
| It's good they look into this, but if we're talking about
| spyware, I'd like to see more MEPs urging the Council to oppose
| ChatControl.
|
| If that passes that's not just EU funds being misused but the EU
| directly mandating spyware on a continental scale!
| Sharlin wrote:
| Which would, of course, primarily benefit... spyware companies.
| alephnerd wrote:
| What the MEPs in SEDE mean by spyware in this case is exploit
| and root kits being deployed by member states Interior/Home
| Affairs ministries and targeted at MEPs - not "mass
| surveillance" (which SEDE is largely indifferent about).
|
| Spyware in EP parlance means rootkits and zero-day exploits.
|
| This is largely a result of Predator which was co-developed
| in Czechia and Israel.
| port11 wrote:
| Chat Control is being heavily lobbied for by a... spyware
| company. Cof, sorry, cof, a for-the-good-of-the-children
| company.
| analog8374 wrote:
| Since the beginning of time wealthy people spy on poor people.
| They hunger for the power, burning in their heart eternally.
| There is no stopping it.
| lucasRW wrote:
| This is not related to wealth. And I am not sure than the EU
| leaders are that "wealthy".
|
| This has all to do with the authoritarian tendencies of
| Europeist movements/ideology.
| analog8374 wrote:
| The EU leaders serve the wealthy. Obviously.
| lucasRW wrote:
| But up to now they didn't ?
| mc32 wrote:
| I don't doubt this is the case in modern times but I doubt they
| have spied on the poor since the beginning of time since there
| was little reason to spy on powerless illiterates. They spied
| on known enemies or rivals sure but not on the masses since
| there was little reason to do so. It was also costly to do so.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Maybe not "spying" per se, but oppressors have always kept
| enough tabs on the oppressed to keep them oppressed for as
| long as possible, often without the oppressed knowing exactly
| how. Maybe "spying" after all.
| mc32 wrote:
| I think it helped that things were more tribal back then.
| Enemies could sack and pillage if opportunity presented
| itself. That presented peasants/commoners/etc. a
| disincentive to defect. It's not like an outsider would be
| friendly to a defector in most cases. This provided a bond
| to the local warlord/chieftain/etc. Essentially it was a
| fear-factor to not defect because things would be worse.
| Plus, these people had few possessions. They basically only
| had their labor and the clothes on their backs. They had
| very little power. A population that had tenuous leadership
| would soon be easy pickings for a neighboring rival to
| swoop in and potentially make things worse.
| port11 wrote:
| I agree with a sibling poster that it's not necessarily about
| wealth. I think it's about power.
|
| Those who attain power are corrupted enough to seek to hold on
| to it; and spying on those you govern is one of the ways to
| hold on to that power. "What are they up to? Scheming? Against
| me?"
|
| It's ironic because if politicians do a good job, and don't
| have much to hide, we'll trust them more and re-elect them.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> I agree with a sibling poster that it's not necessarily
| about wealth. I think it's about power._
|
| You can't have wealth without power, because then I can come
| over and take your wealth from you. Power through violence
| (monopolized by the state), is what guarantees your rights to
| your wealth.
|
| The wider the wealth inequality increases, the wider the gap
| between the haves and the have-nots becomes, the more
| threatened the wealthy feel and so the more draconical
| surveillance and speech law enforcement crackdowns becomes on
| the masses. See modern day UK, EU, etc.
|
| In my EU country the government increased the budget and
| drill training frequency for riot police this year even if
| they've been no major events to necessitate that. They know
| what's coming, since more and more people are poorer from
| government actions, and they're preparing already to crack
| down on what's to come. I assume Pegasus and other such
| spyware to spy on us to prevent descent, is part of that
| budget too.
| nickpp wrote:
| > You can't have wealth without power, because then I can
| come over and take your wealth from you.
|
| So power beats wealth. Easy to see these days with today's
| wealthiest people on the planet cowering and paying
| tributes to Trump.
|
| Also, power is convertible into wealth, as countless
| politicians have proven, while wealth is not necessarily
| convertible into power (like Bloomberg's failed
| presidential bid has shown).
|
| In conclusion - it's about power, specifically political
| power, and the individuals yielding it: the politicians.
| array_key_first wrote:
| Wealth and power are indistinguishable in modern capitalist
| nations.
|
| Power is just the ability to make more choices, and make
| bigger choices. Power is, really, the exercise of decision.
|
| The more money you have, the more choices you can make. You
| can choose to buy a yacht. I can't, the decision is made for
| me - _no_.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Lets get rid of Microsoft abos/subscriptions directly financing
| spyware! Away with all the shitty Outlook and MS Teams! Yes!
| Finally! Oh wait ... That's not what the article is about ...
| yupyupyups wrote:
| Exactly.
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