[HN Gopher] German government comes out against Chat Control
___________________________________________________________________
German government comes out against Chat Control
https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/citizen-protest-halts-chat-...
Author : SolonIslandus
Score : 593 points
Date : 2025-10-07 17:31 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (xcancel.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (xcancel.com)
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| OK, really hot take here:
|
| -ChatControl, as it is currently defined, is not going to happen,
| because it's absolutely stupid and would make impossible, amongst
| other things, online banking
|
| -Yet, there is a growing and legitimate demand for lawful
| interception of 'chat' services. I mean, "sure, your bank account
| got emptied, but we can't look into that because it happened via
| Signal" just isn't a good look
|
| -So, something has got to give. Either 'chat' services need to
| become 'providers of telecoms services' and therefore implement
| lawful interception laws, or the malware industry will continue
| to flourish, or something even more stupid will happen
|
| Pick your poison.
| RiverCrochet wrote:
| I would rather online banking be impossible, or only available
| to those that take training and sign waivers, than have all my
| communications surveiled.
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| OK, you be you, But please note that I did not list "online
| banking becoming impossible" as a likely outcome. Merely
| malware continuing to be state-sponsored, or _certain_
| communications to be surveilled. Not all of yours, unless you
| draw an especially vinidicative judge (and yes, I 'm assuming
| a functioning rule of law here -- if that's gone, what's
| left?)
| RiverCrochet wrote:
| > OK, you be you
|
| I don't know what you mean by this.
|
| > But please note that I did not list "online banking
| becoming impossible" as a likely outcome.
|
| No, but it should be a likely and maybe even desired
| outcome, especially if a justification for surveillance is
| the prevention of online banking fraud among other crimes.
|
| > Merely malware continuing to be state-sponsored, or
| certain communications to be surveilled.
|
| Norms and mores change over time, so the only conclusion is
| that "certain communications" will become "all
| communications" at some point in the future. I'd love to be
| proven wrong.
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| > Norms and mores change over time
|
| Yeah, but laws tend to be more constant, and lawful
| interception laws are, 100% guaranteed, a thing, right
| now, in the country where you live.
|
| They apply to telegrams, postal mail, telephone
| conversations, and a whole bunch of other things nobody
| really does anymore. They don't really apply to the
| things people _do_ tend to do these days.
|
| ChatControl is an incompetent attempt to remediate the
| lapses in law enforcement that this has caused. I
| strongly oppose it. But I also strongly oppose the idea
| that the Internet should be off limits for any kind of
| law enforcement, unless it is through dubious mechanisms
| like state-sponsored malware.
|
| Your "slippery slope" argument is much more compelling in
| the _absense_ of extended lawful interception than in the
| situation where Signal messages would somehow be equated
| to postcards or SMS messages...
| iamnothere wrote:
| And yet lawful intercept laws cannot force you to decrypt
| the OTP-encrypted physical letter you sent to your
| friend. (Except in authoritarian shitholes like the UK.)
| Same principles would seem to apply here.
| iamnothere wrote:
| I'll take the malware thanks
| gr__or wrote:
| while this is a link to the malware site x.com, it is shown
| in a protective trustworthy hull, called xcancel.com
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > So, something has got to give.
|
| Something does have to give: the constant demands for
| interception capabilities on end-to-end encrypted protocols.
| Those demands must be thoroughly destroyed every time they rear
| their head again.
| asmor wrote:
| It's interesting that this initiative seems to be mostly
| driven by influential actors in the "online safety" space
| that want their flawed scanning tech embedded into every
| device. Thorn is the most public-facing one, but if you dig
| into advocacy groups you'll find there's a dozen or so more,
| and they competed for being the technical solution to the UK
| online safety act too. But if it involves CSAM it's an even
| more perfect monopoly - only a very select group of people
| can train these models because the training data is literally
| illegal to possess.
|
| If you needed any indication for how these pseudo-charities
| (usually it's a charity front and a commercial "technology
| partner") are not interested in the public good, SafeToNet, a
| company that up until last year was trying to sell a CSAM
| livestream detection system to tech companies to "help become
| compliant" ("SafeToWatch") now sells a locked down Android
| phone to overprotective parents that puts an overlay on
| screen whenever naked skin can be seen (of any kind). It's
| based on a phone that retails for 150 pounds - but costs
| almost 500 with this app preinstalled into your system
| partition. That's exceptionally steep for a company that up
| until last year was all about moral imperatives to build this
| tech.
| qwopmaster wrote:
| Malware, easily
| PickledJesus wrote:
| How do you propose it's implemented though?
|
| The two sides in this debate seem to be talking at cross
| purposes, which is why it goes round and round.
|
| A: "We need to do this, however it's done, it was possible
| before so it must be possible now"
|
| B: "You can't do this because of the implementation details
| (i.e. you can't break encryption without breaking it for
| everyone)"
|
| ad infinitum.
|
| Regardless of my own views on this, it seems to me that A needs
| to make a concrete proposal
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| Lawful intercept laws exist, and they've been sort-of
| functional for ages.
|
| Apps like Signal don't entirely fall within the scope of
| these, which is the cause of the current manic attempts to
| grab more powers.
|
| My point is that these powers grabs should be resisted, and
| that new services should be brought into the fold of existing
| laws.
|
| The prevailing opinion here seems to be that, instead, state
| hacking should be endorsed. Which, well...
| qwopmaster wrote:
| The prevailing opinion here seems to be that we'd really
| like for there to not be an omnipresent panopticon because
| protect the children or terrorists or, apparently, malware.
| If your imagination is particularly lacking on how this
| might be weaponized just remember that antifa is now
| designated as an terrorist organization in US, so you
| better not be a suspected member of it -- as in, you best
| not have sent a buddy a message on signal about how those
| tiki torch carrying nazi larpers aren't exactly great guys,
| or off to a black site you go for supporting terrorism.
|
| If you want to prosecute people send physical goons, which
| are of limited quantity, rather than limitless, cheaper and
| better by the day pervasive surveillance of everybody and
| everything.
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| > an omnipresent panopticon
|
| OK, sorry to keep repeating myself here, but... I
| _strongly oppose_ any kind of "panopticon" like
| ChatControl.
|
| What I would like to see, is, say, Signal complying with
| lawful interception orders in the same way that any EU
| telecoms provider currently does.
|
| So, provide cleartext contents of communications to/from
| a cleary identified party, for a limited time, by
| judicial order, for a clearly specified reason.
|
| > pervasive surveillance of everybody and everything
|
| This is exactly what lawful intercept laws are supposed
| to prevent. And yeah, of course, abuse, but under a
| functioning rule of law there are at least ways to remedy
| that, unlike with mass surveillance and/or malware...
| NobodyNada wrote:
| > I strongly oppose any kind of "panopticon" like
| ChatControl. What I would like to see, is, say, Signal
| [...] provide cleartext contents of communications
| to/from a cleary identified party
|
| Those statements simply aren't compatible.
|
| Right now, Signal is designed by cryptography experts to
| provide the best privacy we know how to build: messages
| are only readable by you or the intended recipient.
| "Lawful intercept" necessarily means some additional
| third party is given the ability to read messages.
|
| It doesn't matter what kind of legal framework you have
| around that, because you can't just build a cryptosystem
| where the key is "a warrant issued under due process."
| There has to be a system, somewhere, that has access to
| plaintext messages and can give law enforcement and
| courts access. The judges, officers, technicians,
| suppliers, and software involved in building and using
| this system are _all_ potential vectors by which this
| access can be compromised or misused -- whether via
| software or hardware attacks, social engineering, or
| abuse of power.
|
| Maybe _your_ country has "functioning rule of law", and
| every single government official and all the vendors they
| hire are pure as snow, but what about all the rest of us
| living in imperfect countries? What about when a less-
| than-totally-law-abiding regime comes into power?
|
| You're proposing that we secure our private conversations
| with TSA luggage locks.
| Zak wrote:
| For a real-world example of the problem you're
| describing, China's Salt Typhoon attacks compromised
| lawful intercept infrastructure in the USA to engage in
| espionage. A mandatory backdoor in Signal would be at
| risk from similar attacks.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Typhoon
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| > You're proposing that we secure our private
| conversations with TSA luggage locks
|
| No -- that's an incredibly reductive summary, and the
| attitude you display here is, if left unchecked, exactly
| what will allow something equally ridiculous like
| ChatControl to pass eventually.
|
| There has been plenty of previous debate when innovations
| like postal mail, telegraph traffic and phone calls were
| introduced. This debate has resulted in laws,
| jurisprudence, and corresponding operating procedures for
| law enforcement.
|
| You may believe there are no legitimate reasons to
| intercept private communications, but the actual laws of
| the country you live in right now say otherwise, I
| guarantee you. You may not like that, and/or not believe
| in the rule of law anymore anyway, but I can't help you
| with that.
|
| What I can hopefully convince you of, is that there needs
| to be _some_ way to bring modern technology in line with
| _existing_ laws, while avoiding "9/11"-style breakdowns
| of civil rights.
| nofriend wrote:
| We can draw analogy between any two things. An encrypted
| chat is not a letter in the mail or a call on the
| telephone. It is an entirely new thing. Backdooring such
| chats is not "bringing technology in line with existing
| laws" it is, very clearly, passing new laws, and creating
| new invasions of privacy. It must be justified anew. The
| justification for wiretapping was not that there was no
| way to fight crime without it. Otherwise, when the
| criminals became wise to it, and began to hold their
| conversations offline, there would have been a new law,
| requiring that all rooms be fitted with microphones that
| the police could tap into as necessary. No such law was
| passed. Instead, the justification for wiretapping was
| simply that, once police had identified some transmission
| as relating to the committing of a crime, they could
| obtain a warrant, and then tap into the communication.
| The physical capacity without any effort by uninvolved
| individuals was the entire justification. That capacity
| does not exist with encrypted chats. The analogy is
| therefore much closer to the "mandated microphones"
| described above. Everyone is being required to take
| action to reduce their own privacy, regardless of whether
| they are subject to a warrant.
|
| What is most striking about our "mandated microphone"
| analogy is the utter futility of it. Criminals have no
| issue breaking the law, and hence have no issue
| outfitting a room with no microphones in which to carry
| out their dealings. The same is true of any law targeting
| encrypted chats.
| macawfish wrote:
| Without confidential and private spaces, how in the world can
| relational trust be cultivated?
|
| And how in the world can we have safety if relational trust is
| suffocated before it can even take root?
|
| Please use your imagination! Those _aren 't_ the only options
| if we embrace trust as essential rather than looking at any
| need for it as a liability.
| dylan604 wrote:
| why do you think _they_ want relation trust. unless you mean
| trusting that if you go against the man, the man will come
| for you. maybe it would be better for s /trust/fear/
| lukan wrote:
| " "sure, your bank account got emptied, but we can't look into
| that because it happened via Signal" just isn't a good look"
|
| Do you want the police to regularily intercept and check your
| signal chats for fraud and crime so this does not happen, or
| what is the point here?
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| > You want the police to regularily intercept and check your
| signal chats for fraud
|
| No, that's not how lawful intercept laws work.
|
| I want police to be able to obtain a judicial order to
| intercept, for a limited time, in cleartext, the (Signal
| chats, or whatever other encrypted communications) of
| identified parties reasonably suspected to be involved with
| criminal activity.
|
| ChatControl is not that, and it's one of the reasons it's a
| nonstarter.
| lukan wrote:
| "I want police to be able to obtain a judicial order to
| intercept, for a limited time, in cleartext, the (Signal
| chats, or whatever other encrypted communications) of
| identified parties reasonably suspected to be involved with
| criminal activity."
|
| They already have that in most (?) jurisdictions by now.
|
| With a warrant, they can install a virus on the device that
| will then do targeted surveillance.
|
| ChatControl is bad, because it is blanket surveillance of
| everyone without warrant.
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| > With a warrant, they can install a virus on the device
| that will then do targeted surveillance
|
| Yeah, and that sponsors an entire malware industry!
|
| I don't really know how I can make my position any
| clearer, but...
|
| -Malware: bad!
|
| -ChatControl (encryption backdoors): bad!
|
| -Inability to do any kind of law enforcement involving
| "the Internet": double-plus bad!
|
| -Enforcement of existing lawful interception laws in the
| face of new technology: maybe look at that?
| lukan wrote:
| "I don't really know how I can make my position any
| clearer, but..."
|
| You could state in plain words what do you propose as an
| alternative.
|
| I read what you wrote, but have no idea what you propose.
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| > I [...] have no idea what you propose
|
| It's literally the last item in my list?
|
| But to further clarify: I would like existing lawful
| interception laws to be extended to services like Signal.
|
| Not in the sense that any EU country should be able to
| break Signal crypto (as ChatControl proposes, and which I
| think is an utterly ill-advised idea), but that competent
| law enforcement agencies should be able to demand
| unencrypted Signal communications from/to an identified
| EU party, for a limited time and purpose, upon a
| (reviewable) judicial order.
|
| Most, if not all, EU countries currently have similar
| laws applying to telegrams, snail mail, email, telephony
| and whatnot. If you don't like those either, that's fine,
| but that's the status quo, and I would like to see that
| extended to services like Signal, as opposed to
| incompetently dumb measures like ChatControl...
| lukan wrote:
| Ok, so you want to break Encryption by law demand.
| Because this is what this means. Or how exactly would it
| work, technically? Signal does not know the private key
| of the 2 parties. Signal would have to inject a infected
| update into the client .. which is also malware. I rather
| have just those on target devices with a warrant, instead
| of breaking all encryption.
|
| Or would you go extreme and outlaw decentraliced
| encrypted communication alltogether?
| ori_b wrote:
| The law enforcement of which countries, under which sets of
| laws?
|
| Should Thailand be granted access to enforce their lease
| majeste laws, for example?
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se-
| majest%C3%A9_in_Th...
|
| Who gets to decide what gets made available to who?
| pona-a wrote:
| I'll go a step further: if EU sovereigns claim the right
| to "lawfully intercept" their citizens' private
| communications, why shouldn't every state enjoy the same
| privilege? Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Uganda will
| be exemplary custodians of such technology. You have
| nothing to fear, citizen: their democratic constitutions
| and impeccable legal codes will protect you.
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| > law enforcement of which countries, under which sets of
| laws?
|
| We're taking about ChatControl here, so law enforcement
| of EU countries, under their respective laws, into which
| EU law should have been incorporated
|
| > Should Thailand be granted access to enforce their
| lease majeste laws
|
| Same answer as "should Thailand be granted arrest rights
| to enforce <whatever>": they submit a legal assistance
| request to the country where the alleged crime occurred.
|
| In the case of a lawful interception request for
| "lease[sic] majeste" reasons, I'm _pretty_ sure this
| would be immediately rejected.
|
| But, if not, the EU subject of such interception would
| have lots and lots of avenues to get redress.
|
| Again, and I'm getting sort of tired from repeating
| myself: "lawful interception" does not mean
| "indiscriminate surveillance at the whim of whomever" --
| it is a well-defined concept that has been used to
| determine which telegrams and mail pieces to open and
| which telephone calls to record for ages now. Your
| country absolutely does it, as we speak, no matter where
| you live. It's just that modern technology has far
| outpaced the scope of this legislation, and things like
| ChatControl are (incompetent) responses to that.
|
| ChatControl is _not_ a good idea, and has very little
| chance of becoming reality. But to stop dumb proposals
| like this from coming up over and over again, _something
| has got to give_.
| ori_b wrote:
| And when some other countries pass laws demanding access
| to the same mechanism that the EU gets?
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Fail to see that it would even work. If the scam has
| happened how would lawful interception afterwards help? The
| criminal can just use burner accounts and the chat log
| exist on the scammed persons device.
| mattnewton wrote:
| I am having a legitimately hard time wrapping my head around
| not being able to prosecute bank fraud because signal exists.
| Was it impossible before when criminals would talk in person
| instead over a recorded telephone?
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| No? But lawful intercept laws were never about "criminals
| [talking] in person".
|
| There's a different set of laws for that...
| rstat1 wrote:
| And we all know those laws are never abused and are
| absolutely only used to target criminals.
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| No, there is definitely abuse of lawful interception.
|
| But, in a jurisdiction with a functioning rule of law,
| these abuses can be spotted and remedied.
|
| Doing the same for mass surveillance (such as
| ChatControl) or state-sponsored malware is much harder.
|
| I'm advocating _against_ ChatControl and malware, and
| proposing existing lawful interception frameworks as an
| alternative. But, apparently it 's not my day :)
| awesome_dude wrote:
| There is a famous case of US Mafia meeting in rooms, or out
| on streets to discuss their "business activities" face to
| face to prevent authorities from surveilling the phone calls.
|
| The reason we know is because authorities were able to place
| listening devices into the rooms that they were in, or
| surveil them from other buildings.
| mattnewton wrote:
| This is analogous to getting a warrant to someone's phone.
| (Chat control is like putting a microphone into every room
| in case the government wants to listen after the fact.)
|
| I'm still unconvinced that this make's law enforcement's
| job so hard that something has to give.
| DeepSeaTortoise wrote:
| Why would the malware industry benefit from digital message
| privacy?
|
| If you're the victim, just hand over the relevant chats
| yourself. Otherwise, just follow the money. And if the
| attackers are sitting in a country whose banks you can't get to
| cooperate, intercepting chat messages from within that country
| won't do you any good either.
|
| Also, if someone has malicious intent and is part of a criminal
| network, the people within that network would hardly feel
| burdened by all digital messages on all popular apps being
| listened in on by the government. These people will just use
| their own private applications. Making one is like 30min of
| work or starting at $50 on fiverr.
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| > Why would the malware industry benefit from digital message
| privacy?
|
| Because if lawful interception of in-transit messages is not
| possible or permitted, hacking either the client or the
| server becomes the only option.
|
| You may enjoy reading https://therecord.media/encrochat-
| police-arrest-6500-suspect.... Or just downvoting me. Or
| both.
| DeepSeaTortoise wrote:
| Sure, if you want to read the messages, but the whole point
| is that that's rarely necessary and the price isn't worth
| the minimal gain.
|
| Of the serious criminals, the only ones you'll be catching
| are those with low technical knowledge (everyone else will
| just be using their own applications) and the Venn diagram
| of those with little tech knowledge and those whose digital
| privacy practices could deceive law enforcement resembles
| AA cups against a pane of glass.
|
| Regarding Encrochat, it is no surprise that an
| (unintentional?) watering hole gathered up a bunch of tech-
| illiterate, the fallacy is that those people wouldn't have
| been caught if they weren't allowed to flock to a single
| platform for some time.
|
| Would some people have not been caught until much later or
| even not at all? Sure, but if LE would do its job (and not
| ignoring, or even covering up, well known problem areas and
| organizations for years to decades), only those of low
| priority.
|
| Is that little gain worth creating a tool to allow Iran or
| similar countries to check every families' messages if they
| suspect some family member might be gay?
|
| Hard nope.
|
| > Or just downvoting me.
|
| Don't worry, I rarely do that and that's not just because I
| can't...
| marviio wrote:
| "Follow the money". Yes, let's decide that no bank is to have
| anything to do with crypto from next year. And not do
| business with other banks that accepts crypto. That would
| help stop fraud much more effective than Chat Control.
| DeepSeaTortoise wrote:
| For the vast majority of crypto currencies tracing the
| transactions is trivial. And even currencies like XMR are
| hardly as anonymous as people think.
|
| The challenging regulations around technically anonymous
| crypto currencies require you to actively make trackable
| arrangements with your financial service providers. VERY
| few people will ever do this, and therefore if anything
| suspicious were to occur, all you've achieved is putting
| yourself on the suspect list preemptively.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| > -Yet, there is a growing and legitimate demand for lawful
| interception of 'chat' services. I mean, "sure, your bank
| account got emptied, but we can't look into that because it
| happened via Signal" just isn't a good look
|
| Why on earth would mass intercept be necessary or even help in
| that?
|
| If you got scammed by someone, then you can contact the police
| and hand over your message history. Why would the cops be
| interested in someone else's message history for this?
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| > Why on earth would mass intercept be necessary
|
| Lawful interception is not "mass intercept."
|
| It's the ability to surveil traffic from/to a clearly
| identified party, upon a judicial order for specific reason,
| for a limited time.
|
| ChatControl, on the other hand, is mass interception. I'm
| against it. Most people in the EU are against it. But to
| prevent things like ChatControl coming up over and over
| again, _a basic tool to combat Internet crime_ is required.
| stephen_g wrote:
| The problem we have is that was OK when someone had to
| actually listen in or you had to have a tape recorder
| connected up to every line you want to tap, or physically
| open individual letters.
|
| Now we have found "lawful intercept" can easily just become
| mass surveillance, and not just by the people who are meant
| to use it but other parties too. We saw this with CALEA
| which was used by China (and who knows who else) for
| espionage and spying for years before anyone realised.
|
| You make a system for the "good guys" and it always turns
| out adversary, criminal groups etc. will gain access, even
| if the "good guys" don't start acting like bad guys
| themselves.
|
| Technology made mass surveillance easy, so every lawful
| intercept becomes mass surveillance as well as vulnerable
| to scammers, criminals and foreign intelligence.
|
| And we don't have any way of making lawful intercept
| possible without that unfortunately.
| zwnow wrote:
| Im sorry but I know my countries history, there is no good in
| "lawful interception"
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| A hot take: removing protections guaranteed by constitution
| should require modification of the constitution. There is
| already a "temporary" European regulation [1] that is in
| violation of the German constitution [2]. CSAR would be a
| further erosion of the legal foundation. Americans were happy
| when their federal laws that restrict marijuana use were simply
| ignored by executive fiat without proper processes, well, they
| aren't so happy now to see that other laws can be freely
| ignored too.
|
| If people speak up and say "take away our rights" at a
| referendum, let that be their decision, not a political
| backroom deal.
|
| [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2021/1232/oj
|
| [2] Article 10 at https://www.gesetze-im-
| internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| > A hot take: removing protections guaranteed by constitution
|
| Lawful intercept laws exist in most, if not all, EU
| countries.
|
| It's just that super-national overlay services like Signal
| don't entirely fall within the framework of those.
|
| So, there is now a choice: expand interception powers
| indefinitely (a.k.a. ChatControl, which, to make things
| crystal-clear, I'm 100% against), or bring new services into
| the fold of existing legislation.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| No existing legislation requires proactive interception of
| mail, physical or electronic. Bringing new services into
| the fold of existing legislation would mean forbidding any
| proactive scanning by civilians and forbidding such
| scanning by authorities without a warrant or court order.
| ZeroConcerns wrote:
| > proactive interception of mail, physical or electronic
|
| Lawful interception is not proactive: it requires a
| judicial order to collect plaintext communications
| from/to specifically identified individuals (resident in
| the country demanding the interception), for a limited
| time and for a specific purpose.
|
| ChatControl, _which I strongly argue AGAINST_ would sort-
| of be what you describe. But: I. Am. Arguing. AGAINST.
| That.
| Zak wrote:
| A piece of open source software running on Alice's
| computer exchanges keys with a piece of open source
| software running on Bob's computer. Later Alice and Bob
| exchange messages encrypted with those keys through
| Charlie's server.
|
| Eve, a police officer has evidence that Alice and Bob are
| messaging each other about crimes and obtains a warrant
| to require Charlie to intercept their communication.
| Charlie has no ability to do so because it is encrypted
| with keys known only by Alice and Bob.
|
| If you want a different result, someone has to
| proactively change part of this process. Which part
| should change?
|
| One option is to mandate that any encrypted messaging
| software also give a key to the government or the
| government's designee, but someone using open source
| software can modify it so that it doesn't do that, which
| would be hard or impossible to detect without a forensic
| search of their device.
|
| Another option is to mandate that a service provider like
| Charlie's only deliver messages after verifying that it
| can decrypt them. This, too is hard to enforce because
| users can layer additional encryption on top of the
| existing protocol. Signal's predecessor TextSecure did
| that over SMS.
|
| Both of those options introduce a serious security
| vulnerability if the mechanism for accessing the
| mandatory escrowed keys were ever compromised. Would you
| like to suggest another mechanism?
| iamnothere wrote:
| About the only thing I can think of is to mandate the use
| of (flawed) AI to identify messages that seem nonsensical
| and refuse to pass them, and then to play a game of
| Chinese-style DPI whack-a-mole in an attempt to suppress
| open alternatives.
|
| If you have the ability to run custom software--even if
| it's a bash script--you can develop secure alternatives.
| And even if you somehow restrict open source messaging, I
| can just use good old pen-and-paper OTP to encrypt the
| plaintext before typing it in, or copy/paste some other
| text pre-encrypted in another program. But even then, all
| this will do is kick off a steganographic arms race. AI
| generated text where the first letter of each word is the
| cyphertext may be nearly impossible to identify,
| especially at scale.
|
| If anything like this were to pass, my first task would
| be making a gamified, user-friendly frontend for this
| kind of thing.
| layer8 wrote:
| > modification of the constitution
|
| Don't give them any ideas!
| rstat1 wrote:
| Malware has existed nearly since the dawn of computing. Making
| the world even less secure under the guise of combating w/e
| today's latest bogeyman is is not gonna solve that. And having
| secure private communications is not gonna make it worse.
|
| That anyone thinks this blatantly obvious attack on free speech
| is actually going to be used only for law enforcement is wild
| to me.
| thevillagechief wrote:
| This rollercoaster is wearing me out. I hope this finally settles
| it!
| layer8 wrote:
| I wouldn't expect the general topic to become "finally settled"
| within our lifetime.
| fsflover wrote:
| Unless there's a law ensuring our freedoms.
| layer8 wrote:
| Laws can be changed, can be reinterpreted, there are no
| absolutes. What matters is who is in power, and how powers
| are kept in check. There is no finality to any of that.
| It's a constant process of keeping things up, or failing to
| keep things up.
| shoubidouwah wrote:
| This is actually one of my own fears for efficient
| organization at state level and above: - any new
| technology, any new opportunity either has checks and
| balances or gets exploited by smart optimizers with no
| regards for the commons or human flourishing - checks and
| balances are as you say a constant drain on public
| attention and resources: you need smart people doing the
| checking (finite resource), and receptive eyeballs
| (finite also) - it is thus an optimization problem.
| attack_surface - check_capacity = societal_explots I
| worry that the check_capacity term is constrained, but
| that the attack_surface keeps aexpanding with new
| technologies. At some point, we started playing whack a
| mole, frantically jumping from one check to another, and
| we're holding the fray stochastically. but at some point
| it's going to become extremely adversarial.
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| I agree. There's an old saying: those who want to become
| president (leader of a country) should in no way be
| allowed to do so.
| the8472 wrote:
| Well, where's the megaproject to raise the public's IQ by
| 50 so that basic game-theoretic checkings become child's
| play?
| macintux wrote:
| Ask the U.S. lately just how binding those laws are.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| Edward Snowden approves of this reminder :)
| schoen wrote:
| It's difficult to entrench things. In the UK they have
| often said "one Parliament can't bind another Parliament",
| and in the U.S. it's also sometimes said "one Congress
| can't bind another Congress".
|
| The most obvious mechanism is a constitutional amendment,
| but in the U.S. the only amendment to be _drafted and
| adopted_ in modern times is the 26th amendment (1971), 54
| years ago. (The 27th amendment had a weird status where it
| was belatedly adopted with a 200-year delay.) It 's hard to
| imagine many constitutional amendments actually being
| passed now because it's been challenging to find consensus
| on many things within U.S. politics lately.
|
| I don't know that the EU at a supranational level has any
| mechanism at all to ban future EU directives. Maybe they
| could decide to remove something from the list of areas of
| competence of the EU? But Chat Control is under the "Area
| of Freedom, Security and Justice" and I can't imagine the
| EU deciding that that should be abandoned as an area of
| Union competence.
|
| Edit: The international human rights treaties, at least in
| regulating law enforcement, have tended not to follow the
| idea that some kind of regulation or law enforcement power
| is completely off-limits, but just that they need
| procedural safeguards -- especially for surveillance and
| investigatory powers. In this case, Chat Control opponents
| (including me) would like it to be completely off-limits,
| but the human rights instruments arguments might more
| naturally go into "did they create enough surrounding rules
| and mechanisms about how it's used and how it's regulated?"
| rather than "can we just say governments just can't make
| this rule?".
| m12k wrote:
| I mean, the right to privacy is already enshrined in the
| EU's human rights. The courts would likely strike Chat
| Control down if it were to pass. But I wish there was a way
| to prevent our politicians from even trying this shit.
| lxgr wrote:
| Other things are enshrined in the EU human rights as
| well, many of them ultimately contradicting each other if
| you follow them to their logical conclusion.
|
| It's the task of parliaments, governments, and courts to
| reevaluate and resolve all these contradictions over and
| over again. It's tedious and takes a lot of resources,
| but that's the price for democracy.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > I mean, the right to privacy is already enshrined in
| the EU's human rights.
|
| The constitution of the Democratic People's Republic of
| Korea (i.e. North Korea) famously guarantees freedom of
| expression as a fundamental right for the people. That
| hasn't stopped the government from trampling all over
| freedom of expression, though. The EU is of course
| nowhere near North Korea in terms of what is considered
| acceptable, but don't ever trust that the words in the
| constitution will be enough to keep the government from
| doing something.
| lxgr wrote:
| Given that freedom can mean different things even to the
| same society at different times and in different
| circumstances, such a law would essentially have to be
| sentient.
| 2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote:
| Chat control very likely violates at least german law, if
| not EU law too already. As experts as well as the ministry
| of justice of the previous government in germany have
| pointed out time and time again.
|
| Yet still that was never enough for a clear and definitive
| "no".
|
| It is very likely that the people in favor of this would
| still try to push it through, or let that happen. They know
| that the legal battle afterwards to determine its
| unlawfulness would take years.
|
| And during that time it could already be put it place. And
| once the legal battle is over (and likely won) severe
| damage is done and they could still adapt the law or just
| offer companies to continue doing this "voluntarily". And
| personally I wouldn't count on Apple, Google, or Facebook
| to roll this back quickly in that case once they've put it
| into place.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Freedom will not ever be finally settled in this life. Laws
| can be changed, constitutions amended, and of course the law
| is only as good as willingness to enforce it. The price of
| freedom is eternal vigilance, as nice as it would be if that
| wasn't so.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| At issue here is... what exactly "freedom" is
|
| Speech is restricted the world over for things (fraud,
| threats, libel/slander, secrets, and more), and we're
| almost universally in favour of that.
|
| It's a balancing act, and the point where we set the
| balance is difficult, and constantly changing (should we
| allow speech that encourages the persecution of other
| people, sometimes called "hate speech" or should people be
| allowed to advocate for the murder/rape/extermination of
| other human beings because of the way they look)
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| I'm not sure that's relevant to Chat Control. What's at
| stake here is not a definition of 'acceptable
| communication' in public, but the possibility of all
| _private_ communication being scanned.
|
| That's not to say that private communication can't
| already be illegal; mere 'conspiracy' is a crime in many
| places. Yet the level of surveillance that would be
| enabled by legislation like Chat Control is greater than
| any other in history. Even notorious agencies like the
| Stasi had to pick and choose their targets based on prior
| suspicion, simply because of the logistics involved in
| traditional surveillance.
|
| We don't fully know what effects this kind of unceasing,
| universal monitoring would have on society, and what
| little historical precedent exists doesn't bode well.
| Restrictions on _public speech_ however are pretty well
| understood; we 've had censorship in various forms pretty
| much everywhere in the world at one point or another. We
| can look to history for lessons about what happens, and
| can properly discuss (even if not agree!) about when
| censorship is good or bad for society.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| My comment is 100% relevant to the comment I was replying
| to. (Sometimes I do wish people who down vote were forced
| to comment why they were making such erroneous decisions)
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I don't think that this is really relevant to my point.
| My point is not that the proposed EU laws are good or bad
| (frankly, I don't know anything about them and I'm not in
| the EU so it's not my business), but that this topic _can
| 't_ be definitely settled for all time. No matter what
| resolution is reached in the EU today, in 5 years' time
| someone will be fighting to change it. That's just how it
| goes.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| How is the reasoning for the constant change not relevant
| tavavex wrote:
| I expect it to become settled, just not in the way we want
| it.
|
| Sure, there is the rollercoaster, ups and downs, small wins
| and losses going on all the time. But look at the general
| trends - these freedoms that we enjoyed are by and large
| being chipped away, it's all trending down, worldwide. It's
| two steps back, one step forward. Maybe CC doesn't get put in
| place this particular time, but they will ram it through
| eventually, at some point the right angle will be found to
| make the right people vote for it. Then the battleground will
| move onto something even more egregious, and so on. I'm not
| seeing why there would be a sudden reversal of this trend in
| the coming decades.
| BlackjackCF wrote:
| From a non-EU perspective, it seems like the EU tries to push
| something akin to this every couple of years. So I guess it's
| settled for at least a few years...?
| captainkrtek wrote:
| It goes in waves, the forces behind it will continue and keep
| pushing until they can get it through, its a setback though.
| qoez wrote:
| Just imagine some other people will carry the burden and
| mentally distance yourself from it to relax from it wearing you
| out. You can take up the burden again later once you've
| recovered and others are worn out
| swinglock wrote:
| It's working. It will not be settled.
| bradley13 wrote:
| Finally settled? Forget it. The autocrats will try, try again.
|
| In fact, if ChatControl does fail, they have already planned to
| include this in ProtectEU - a larger package coming soon...
| jMyles wrote:
| A simple way to end the discussion:
|
| No matter what the state says, or what legislatures pass what
| laws, we're going to continue to live out our right to general
| purpose computing, including sending only what we choose to send
| over the wire, and encrypting content as we see fit.
|
| Now let's talk about something else.
| tokyolights2 wrote:
| I like the sentiment but it sounds very similar to Soverign
| Citizen nonsense. You can't just plug your ears and say that a
| law doesn't apply to you because you didn't consent to it.
| jMyles wrote:
| The reasoning isn't about consent or social contracts, but
| about the evolutionary trajectory of humankind.
|
| By way of example: in the United States, the 1st amendment to
| the constitution guarantees freedom of "the press" - it is
| referenced not by the right to print what one wants, but
| specifically in reference to the technology of the time, the
| printing press.
|
| It's obvious that our evolutionary trajectory is one in which
| widely distributed general purpose computing is normal.
|
| Making laws that contradict this is just childish, and at
| some point the adults in the room need to be willing to
| ignore them.
| zarzavat wrote:
| Yes you can, it's called civil disobedience. Sovcits are
| stupid because they break the law but _don 't know it_.
|
| Civil disobedience involves breaking the law with full
| knowledge that it's illegal, to protest injustice.
| sfdlkj3jk342a wrote:
| That works until the government and media successfully push the
| narrative to the public that anyone using encryption is
| supporting child molesters and terrorists.
| MYEUHD wrote:
| The government itself uses encryption.
|
| In fact the proposed chat control law has an exception for
| government agencies
| tavavex wrote:
| That doesn't counter the argument. The people arguing
| against encryption would just liken it to the government
| being able to use military equipment that you, as an
| individual, can't have. "Free communication is a dangerous
| tool, only the government can be entrusted with the power
| it provides" and so on.
| zarzavat wrote:
| This may work on boomers but for younger people 90% of the
| use of a phone is for messaging and obviously you don't want
| anyone listening in to your private conversations especially
| for sexting.
|
| People are not going to stop sending each other their boobs
| or penii, and while that remains the case, encrypted
| messaging will thrive.
| bgwalter wrote:
| "anlasslose Chatkontrolle" => Chat Control _without cause_.
|
| Ok, maybe these are not weasel words in this case. The CDU
| probably wants to present itself as a friend of the people using
| a popular issue that they don't really care about. My suspicion
| is that this is exactly why the ChatControl issue is brought up
| yearly. It distracts people from wars, the economy etc., there is
| a big discussion and finally the government graciously comes down
| on the side of the people. Each and every year.
| Zak wrote:
| > _It distracts people from wars, the economy etc_
|
| Were this true, some politicians would do it for that reason.
| It would need to get a lot of attention to be an effective
| distraction, and it does not. The mainstream press barely
| covers the issue. Many people who would be directly harmed by
| it don't even know what's being considered.
| spookie wrote:
| Yeah, this isn't being covered at all. At least, up to its
| significance. Most people are computer illiterate too, so it
| is unlikely they would understand or care either.
|
| It's no wonder we see the countries that oppose this as well.
| Makes one think. Sweden's case is peculiar given their
| military opposed it. I wonder what's going on there.
| eqvinox wrote:
| I mean, there is already "Quellen-TKU"1 for the "with cause"
| situation... however bonkers that one might be on a modern
| secure Apple or Android device...
|
| 1 Quelle = source, TKU = Telekommunikationsuberwachung =
| telecommunication surveillance. aka installing trojans on your
| devices.
| shevy-java wrote:
| This is strange, because not long ago it was Germany (!!) that
| pushed heavily for mass-sniffing of people. I don't trust this.
| People should watch very, very carefully what Germany is actually
| doing next. I would not be surprised if the mass-sniffing comes
| in a few months when nobody is looking.
| kragen wrote:
| Zensursula von der Leyen is from the CDU, specifically.
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| Germany will not abandon chat control just like the data
| perseveration they're so keen on. Europe is preparing for war
| so they need ways to make opposition more difficult. They're
| just waiting for the opportune moment where the opposition to
| these acts won't be as organized or is distracted with
| something else.
| mx7zysuj4xew wrote:
| What war, against who? I don't know what kind of narrative
| you are tying to push here but know that any attempt would
| immediately meet strong opposition (I've seen the graves of
| Verdun and I for one would do anything to actively undermine
| and sabotage any kind of active war effort)
| layer8 wrote:
| There is considerable opposition in Germany against these
| things. It's true that some political circles keep pushing for
| it, but there is also a strong constitutional and civil basis
| against it. It's exceedingly unlikely to happen that "nobody is
| looking". The biggest risk is the far right coming into power.
| TylerLives wrote:
| Are they pushing for it?
| layer8 wrote:
| No, they position themselves against it, because they have
| a narrative similar to the (former) "deep state" narrative
| in the US, but you can be assured that they will reverse
| course as soon as they can afford it.
| zaphar wrote:
| I'm not familiar with the far right in Germany. Why
| should we be assured that they will reverse course as
| soon as they can afford it?
| peterlk wrote:
| Because, similar to the US, they have authoritarian
| tendencies - strong nationalism and anti-immigration. How
| are you going to round up the bad people if you don't
| have surveillance everywhere?
| zaphar wrote:
| I am unclear on how strong nationalism is an
| authoritarian signal. Can you go into more detail there?
| shakna wrote:
| Because it makes it easier to create scapegoats, and
| excuses for why restrictions must be created.
|
| Blame the Jews, the immigrants, the trans, and then
| people will grudgingly accept the Gestapo, ICE,
| prosecution without proof or courts.
|
| Which then allows you to target the opposition without
| proof.
| croes wrote:
| Because it's a fake nationalism where they decide who and
| what is considered part of the nation and who and what
| not.
| glenstein wrote:
| Well the Axis powers from World War II are the most
| obvious demonstrations of nationalism begetting
| authoritarianism. Germany, Italy, and Japan were
| nationalist in the extreme. And Italy from that time is
| such a clear example that it's basically the canonical
| example used to teach how fascism emerges.
|
| Contemporary examples include the Philippines, Hungary,
| Poland's Law and Justice Party, and arguably Russia,
| Turkey and India. Modi is a Hindu nationalist. The United
| States unfortunately is shaping up to count as an example
| as well.
|
| Extreme forms of nationalism tend to have a narrative of
| grievance, a desire to restore a once a great national
| identity, and a tendency to divide the world into loyal
| citizens, and enemies without and within, against whom
| authoritarians powers must be mobilized.
|
| So there's a conceptual basis, in terms of setting the
| stage for rationalizing authoritarianism, as well as
| abundant historical examples demonstrating the marriage
| of nationalism and authoritarianism in action. There's
| nothing wrong with not knowing, but I would say there's
| an extremely strong and familiar historical canon to
| those who study the topic.
| mattlutze wrote:
| Here is an interesting review of how the two are
| historically strongly correlated[1].
|
| Their conclusion is that "[...] ethnic and elitist forms
| of nationalism, which combine to forge exclusive
| nationalism, help to perpetuate autocratic regimes by
| continually legitimating minority exclusions [...]"
|
| Right-wing nationalism as we're currently experiencing it
| is exclusive. It broadly advocates for restoring revised
| historical cultural narratives of a particular ethnic
| group, for immigration restriction and immigrant removal,
| for further minority culture erasure, and so on.
|
| 1: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:859c6af4-d4fd-461e-b
| 605-42...
| layer8 wrote:
| In simple terms, because the far right is about
| authoritarianism and control, not about civil liberties.
| zaphar wrote:
| Interesting. So they have a history of attempting to
| legislate authoritarian rules that restrict civil
| liberties for citizens?
| natebc wrote:
| In Germany? Yes. Yes, they do.
| croes wrote:
| The tried to prohibit inclusive language
| layer8 wrote:
| Yes, for example:
|
| https://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/textarchiv/2021/kw02-d
| e-p...
|
| https://www.bundestag.de/webarchiv/textarchiv/2018/kw08-d
| e-v...
|
| https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/19/304/1930412.pdf
|
| https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/19/111/1911127.pdf
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| The first one is bad indeed, but what's so
| "authoritarian" about the rest?
|
| _>https://www.bundestag.de/webarchiv/textarchiv/2018/kw0
| 8-de-v..._
|
| Other European countries like Switzerland, also banned
| full face veils(burqas) in public. Try entering a bank,
| city hall, school, etc with a balaclava, ski mask or
| motorcycle helmet see how that goes.
|
| _>https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/19/304/1930412.pdf_
|
| Allowing the surveillance of minors if they show signs of
| radicalization? This to me makes sense under existing
| child protection laws. If kids are being raised in
| environments that are harmful to themselves and society,
| should we just sit by and let them get permanently
| wrecked till they reach adulthood, over a technicality?
| The earlier you can catch the issues the better for
| everyone and the higher the chance you can rescue the
| child. Existing child protection laws in Germany already
| allow the state a lot of power to take children away from
| parents if they're seen as unfit.
|
| _>https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/19/111/1911127.pdf_
|
| Taking citizenship away from those who voluntarily join
| terrorist organizations like ISIS? 100% agree with this,
| how could you not?
|
| These are common sense viewpoints a lot of Europeans
| agree with, not authoritarian ones.
| tvier wrote:
| Controlling how people dress sounds pretty authoritarian
| to me. The fact that it's currently not acceptable to
| enter a bank with a covered face would indicate a law
| banning it in all public locations is not needed.
|
| Taking rights away from people labelled as terrorists is
| a pretty standard way for governments to control
| viewpoints. It gives them the power to add any group they
| don't like to a list, and deport/imprison them with
| minimal judicial process.
|
| I don't know enough about surveillance of minors to
| comment on that one.
| irusensei wrote:
| Ring wing conservatives avidly throw our freedoms under
| the bus when convenient. Their electoral base is also
| very susceptible to thinkofyoungsebastian narratives.
|
| Extreme collectivism affects both extreme, that is the
| concept that people are nothing but sacrificial lambs for
| the religion, the country, or the revolution.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > No, they position themselves against it, because they
| have a narrative similar to the (former) "deep state"
| narrative in the US, but you can be assured that they
| will reverse course as soon as they can afford it.
|
| We seem to have a general problem with people not
| understanding that democracies have regular elections and
| the other party is going to get back in at some point. So
| then whenever one party is in power, instead of thinking
| ahead by five minutes and realizing that adding new
| constraints on the government and adding rather than
| eroding checks and balances will help you the next time
| the other team gets in, everybody thinks of them as an
| impediment to doing whatever they want immediately.
|
| And then like clockwork they get butthurt when they
| checks they eroded or failed to put into place aren't
| there after the next election, as if they had nothing to
| do with it.
| hackandthink wrote:
| There is a lot of censorship in Germany. People do not care.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Germany
|
| https://www.lto.de/recht/hintergruende/h/russia-today-
| verbot...
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| Censorship != forced breaking of E2EE. People can care
| differently about different things.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Nitpick:
|
| 1. Censorship in German constitutional law is only defined
| as the state pre-screening before publication. That's a
| very narrow area and rarely applies. Most people from an US
| legal tradition will consider censorship to include other
| things such as mandating removal of certain content after
| the fact, but that's different legal branches with
| different mechanisms (i.e. libel).
|
| 2. What Schulz is talking about in the second link
| definitely _is_ state censorship (blocking a TV station),
| but it 's not implemented by Germany but on the EU level.
| (Germany is still involved - complicated matter).
|
| Finally we should appreciate that the US government's
| opinion on censorship seems to have pivoted quite a lot, so
| I would expect free speech maximalism to not remain a very
| popular position on the government level (even though many
| people may still support it, either naively or with robust
| arguments).
| constantcrying wrote:
| This might sound insane to every American, but German law
| _especially protects_ politicians from insults, slander and
| libel. (See https://www.gesetze-im-
| internet.de/stgb/__188.html for the actual law)
|
| Yes, you read that right. German law is especially
| protective of politicians, which is why politicians are
| very active suing random supporters of their opponents,
| because that is an effective way to police speech, open
| specifically to politicians.
|
| I do think a lot of people care, but censorship in Germany
| does a lot to protect the people who could change the law.
| That law obviously needs to be abolished, politicians are
| uniquely _unworthy_ of protection when it comes to speech.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| If you look at the concrete laws, they are less
| spectacular.
|
| For example, the concept of privacy protecting against
| media coverage is actually weaker for politicians (when
| in official duty) than for ordinary citizens (Allgemeines
| Personlichkeitsrecht).
|
| And libel only applies to statements of facts. I.e. you
| can't (easily) be prosecuted for opinions, just for
| making harmful false claims.
| dgfitz wrote:
| "This person is corrupt!"
|
| Is that an opinion or a harmful false claim?
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| Depends, when talking about Jens Spahn it's a Statement
| of fact.
| IngoBlechschmid wrote:
| A good friend of mine was recently sentenced to prison
| for publicly using this kind of phrase during a protest
| for climate justice. When Germany's equivalent of the
| Supreme Court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht, learned of
| this case, the court immediately ordered their release
| and declared the original verdict void: According to the
| Bundesverfassungsgericht, (in the specific situation at
| hand) this phrase is more a value judgment and less a
| factual claim.
|
| Together with a fellow activist, who also served as
| informal legal counsel, they gave a talk on this case at
| the 38th Chaos Communication Congress:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5RmTOGucZo
| constantcrying wrote:
| >If you look at the concrete laws, they are less
| spectacular.
|
| And if you look at how these laws are used by politicians
| they look quite spectacular.
|
| >And libel only applies to statements of facts. I.e. you
| can't (easily) be prosecuted for opinions, just for
| making harmful false claims.
|
| The Wikipedia article and how the law was applied article
| disagrees.
|
| Do not forget that this applies to insults. E.g. calling
| a politician "dumb" is enough to get sued. These laws
| create a way for politicians specifically to prosecute
| people criticizing them. This isn't a hypothetical, it is
| how the law is actually used.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| Yes and insults can be factual or not.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Yes, you read that right. German law is especially
| protective of politicians,
|
| As Lee Kuan Yew pointed out, the idea that you should be
| able to slander anyone in power is a nice underdog
| philosophy (particularly popular in the US, where the
| underdog is always right) but what it gets you is a post-
| truth environment in which reputation means nothing.
|
| And as a German what a lot of people don't get, we're
| very much an honour based society, not an English or
| French liberal society. People in power aren't suspicious
| just because they have power, the crank is not correct
| just because he's the little guy. I think Lee Kuan Yew
| was largely correct if one looks at Anglosphere media and
| politics, where truth and reputation have entirely been
| replaced by conspiracy and tantrums. Far from the wisdom
| of the crowds being some truth finding mechanism you just
| enable the most charismatic nutjob.
| sunaookami wrote:
| Never trust the CDU. They were the ones pushing for the illegal
| data retention (Vorratsdatenspeicherung) and von der Leyen from
| the CDU is big on censorship and mass surveillance. They are
| just against it now because the country has bigger problems and
| the CDU has the worst approval ratings in history.
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| > Never trust the CDU. > Never trust the SPD.
|
| I'm borderline not joking that there should be warning labels
| like those on cigarettes on the ballot when voting.
| vladms wrote:
| At voting is a bit late probably. You don't just trust
| leaders, you watch, you criticize, you communicate and
| sometimes you act. Political or otherwise as a matter of
| fact
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > I would not be surprised if the mass-sniffing comes in a few
| months when nobody is looking.
|
| That's the problem with these proposed laws.
|
| We (privacy advocates) have to constantly fight and win over
| and over again. The nations that want this mass spying only
| have to win once.
|
| We need a way to permanently stop these proposals once defeated
| the first time so that they cannot just continue to try over
| and over again until it passes.
| echelon wrote:
| > We (privacy advocates) have to constantly fight and win
| over and over again.
|
| We do have a way to reinforce our position, though!
|
| We can design and consume technology that makes this hard.
|
| We can stop working for companies that build centralized
| platforms for messaging.
|
| We can teach our neighbors how important rights to privacy
| and speech are in language that they understand.
|
| There can be enough friction that this becomes harder for
| politicians. Remember the Reddit Sopa and Pipa protests? -
| that was pretty epic! I don't think Reddit will help us in
| its current state, but we can absolutely mount those defenses
| on Wikipedia, Mastodon, Bluesky, and others.
|
| And we should continue to move off of platforms that don't
| align with our freedoms. And build our platforms in a way
| that encourages "normies" to join.
| tdrz wrote:
| Yes to all of the above! I just want to whine a bit that
| every time I try to educate anybody about this, I am
| promised a tin foil hat in return (even from Software
| Engineers!).
| scrps wrote:
| The tinfoil hat treatment is due to the fact that these
| days everything that fits the mould of a conspiracy
| theory is dismissed simply for fitting the mould of a
| conspiracy theory. In the same time as this cultural
| headspace was being cultivated in the US:
|
| A billionaire pedophile ran a covert sex ring with a
| suspected who's who of a client list who was almost
| barely prosecuted for "reasons(tm)"
|
| Social media companies caught red-handed psychologically
| manipulating users for various ends
|
| Damn near everyone helping to destroy actual free speech
| and privacy willingly because they've been talked into it
| (ironic)
|
| Governments that engage in mass surveillance so egregious
| if you had tried it 40 years ago there would have been an
| uprising. Aided by the tech community I might add.
|
| Industries that abuse data and algorithms to manipulate
| pricing or commit outright fraud.
|
| A pharma corp addicting countless americans to opioids
| with almost no real consequence, killing hundreds of
| thousands and ruining millions of families.
|
| Several industries have poisoned the planet and its
| inhabitants in various long term ways for profit.
|
| And yet if you suggest something is a conspiracy it is
| dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic. Speaking of
| conspiracies that doesn't sound like an accident... The
| trick to conspiracy theories is critical thinking and not
| uncritical dismissal.
|
| If I have any words of consolation: when the "conspiracy
| theory" turns out to be more practice than theory you get
| to say I told you so.
|
| Edit: typo
| pessimizer wrote:
| This is just lifestylist nonsense to make yourself feel
| better than everyone else. If you design technology to make
| this hard, they will hit you with a stick, and find
| everyone who uses your technology and hit them with a
| stick. If you still do it, they will hit you all with the
| sticks until you are dead, and also hit your family and
| friends with sticks. If you don't work for them, they'll
| find a bro who will. Teaching your neighbors just makes
| them another potential victim, and they will report you or
| curse you as they die with you. Moving off platforms when
| there are no alternatives just means you won't be able to
| bank, or file your taxes. And if you fail to file your
| taxes, they will hit you with a stick.
|
| The cage is real, it's not a state of mind. It's not
| something that can be recycled out of. You'll know when
| you're really doing something when you can give people a
| time and a place to show up; when that showing up isn't to
| stand in the street and socialize with each other, burn
| down a Starbucks, or spit in the face of a cop who makes
| less than you do; and when most of you end up dead or in
| prison.
|
| I always reply like this, but some people think everybody
| else in the world is so weak and naive, when they
| themselves aren't doing anything important and have not
| taken a fraction of the risks or suffered a fraction of the
| loss of the people they're asking to _speak up._ Speaking
| against power is an impotent magic spell. You can recognize
| journalists who speak against real power by their deaths.
|
| Everybody is just aping the US black civil rights struggle,
| where watching the violence done in their name to nicely
| dressed, well-behaved people filled enough people with
| disgust that politicians wouldn't get a boost from
| continuing to support it. That was how a small minority
| population faced with irrational restrictions in a media-
| saturated society was able to barely overcome explicitly
| unfair laws (and go no further, we're still the underclass,
| we're still dying.)
|
| The history of _effective, revolutionary_ , positive
| protest by what are often _majorities_ involved people
| getting out into the streets as a show of _strength_ , not
| a show of _weakness._ It always involves converting and
| including portions of the army and the police forces. It
| involves building strong shadow governments. Not this
| pantomime where everybody pretends to be black, and the
| people who are the blackest, weakest, most undeserving of
| their treatment win because mommy parliament or daddy
| supreme court are moved enough to declare them the winner.
| kmoser wrote:
| Permanently stopping those proposals wouldn't necessarily
| eliminate illegal, back-door mass government surveillance,
| nor would it eliminate private sector mass surveillance
| (think social media) which then gets accessed by the
| government (whether legally or not).
|
| Fighting corruption only works when enough people fight it at
| enough levels, and continue to fight it. There is no getting
| around the fact that the price of freedom is eternal
| vigilance.
| peatmoss wrote:
| I can't remember where I read it, but I read that Signal's
| popularity was high (highest?) in Germany. Assuming I'm not
| misremembering or that the situation hasn't changed, it seems
| that Germans care enough about the issue to stake out a
| position.
| kwanbix wrote:
| They probably missed a fax
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| the internet is already dying and social media largely sucks. the
| whole ass thing is going to be 100% ai driven ads, scams,
| astroturfing, propaganda, trolls and other fuckery sooner rather
| than later. just let chat control kill it, fuck it. accelerate to
| a cyberpunk future of local mesh networks.
| lxgr wrote:
| What makes you think local mesh networks would remain legal?
| JohnLocke4 wrote:
| It won't but luckily no government is powerful enough to
| govern math and therefore cryptography. Mathematics is more
| of a liberator than the second amendment in this respect.
|
| Physical hardware can be controlled, yes. Decentralization
| and obfuscation similar to TOR is probably needed here.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Cryptography is privacy. Privacy can taken away by law.
|
| It is the same as free speech. You can say what you want,
| but you can go to jail for saying the wrong thing in many
| countries.
| lxgr wrote:
| Ah yes, fortunately governments have never in history
| successfully declared certain large integers illegal and
| prosecuted people for sharing them.
|
| Shooting someone is also "just physics", yet many
| governments have been known to frown upon it (depending on
| the context).
| dylan604 wrote:
| You'll be okay as long as you print them on a t-shirt
| lxgr wrote:
| Yep, good thing nobody has ever been jailed for wearing a
| t-shirt with the wrong slogan.
| dylan604 wrote:
| you missed the reference. as a history lesson, the deCSS
| code was written on a t-shirt and was deemed acceptable.
| having the deCSS compiled as an executable was deemed not
| acceptable.
| lxgr wrote:
| I got the reference. Seems like it worked out quite
| nicely for the government/court though, given that deCSS
| isn't much use printed on a t-shirt, compared to in a
| binary on a computer?
| dylan604 wrote:
| you can't share the compiled binary, but you can share a
| shirt. if you have the shirt, you can compile on your
| own. the t-shirt became the sharing network
| lxgr wrote:
| That's the thing about speech: It's very hard for
| governments to physically prevent it, but attaching
| consequences to making use of that capability usually
| works just as well.
| lucianbr wrote:
| Even a blank sheet of paper I think was enough to get
| someone in jail.
| JohnLocke4 wrote:
| It is true:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_paper_protest
|
| More than anything, this is a good lesson in information
| theory. A blank sheet of paper isn't devoid of
| information just because it doesn't contain ink - rather,
| it is the context of the current situation that defines
| the information being conveyed. This is true in all forms
| of communication.
|
| This reminds me of a story I read once about when Victor
| Hugo had just published _Les Miserables_. Just after
| publication, he went to his vacation home due to the
| controversy he was sure was going to follow the
| publication of the book. Wanting to know how the
| reception was going, he mailed his publisher a letter
| simply containing a question mark. The publisher
| responded with only an exclamation mark, and Hugo
| immediately understood - he had written an eternal
| classic.
|
| (BTW, I read this in the book _The User Illusion_ - a
| fantastic read)
| dylan604 wrote:
| If running a mesh network is illegal, does it matter that
| the traffic is just math? Without a network, there's no
| data transmission of that math. The government controls the
| airwaves. It doesn't matter if you're broadcasting Top40 or
| encrypted messages, if they say no to your transmitting,
| you're going nowhere.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| > if they say no to your transmitting, you're going
| nowhere.
|
| > if they say no to your forgetting to scan the case of
| water on the bottom of your cart, you're going nowhere.
|
| > if they say no to your hacked cable box, you're going
| nowhere.
|
| > if they say no to your speeding, you're going nowhere.
|
| > if they say no to your weed, you're going nowhere.
|
| > if they say no to your growing a mushroom and mailing
| it to your friend, you're going nowhere.
|
| There's a whole spectrum of how illegal something is to
| consider. People break the law every day for a range of
| reasons from accident, to ignorance, to convenience, to
| want, to need, etc.
| tavavex wrote:
| In the hypothetical world that you've set out, where
| surveillance is so extreme and overreaching as to help
| finish off the _entirety of the internet_ for good, there
| 's no way it would stop at the internet. The goal isn't
| controlling this set of standards and protocols that
| defines just the internet, the goal is controlling
| communication and the internet is the #1 way of
| communicating between people at the moment.
|
| If people all started talking through letter mail, you'd
| get Letter Control, they wouldn't just forget about it
| because it's not the internet. If the people somehow
| become smart and coordinated enough to move to some
| cryptographically-secure method of communication, your
| government will probably outlaw the equipment and actions
| associated with using it in the first place instead of
| trying to decrypt all communications.
|
| The goal is control of information, and the way of doing
| that is to force everyone to use unsecured communication
| with no feasible alternatives. I wouldn't expect kid
| glove treatment with that, unlike speeding or minor
| shoplifting.
| dylan604 wrote:
| running an actively transmitting network is an easy thing
| for _them_ to come and shut down. you doing any of the
| other things can easily be done without _them_ knowing
| about it. you can be flippant about it all you want, but
| you don 't look intelligent by doing so
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| ?Por que no los dos?
| jjangkke wrote:
| you mean like Bluesky?
| dubbel wrote:
| Had to double check the original account because I was worried
| about falling for an AI-generated video (account is legit). Weird
| times.
|
| Article in German: https://netzpolitik.org/2025/eu-
| ueberwachungsplaene-unionsfr...
| John23832 wrote:
| Well that kills it.
| ho_schi wrote:
| The CDU/CSU is doing something good. That didn't happened for a
| long time? I appreciate it.
|
| Ausgerechnet Spahn. Manchmal glaubt man seinen Augen und Ohren
| nicht. Wir mussen Wachsam bleiben. Mit dem Argument das es bose
| Menschen gibt, wurde schon viel boses getan. Massenuberwachung
| zerstort jede Gesellschaft. Deutschland hat mehrfach darunter
| gelitten. Und die Versuche Massenuberwachung einzufuhren
| wiederholen sich.
| petre wrote:
| Maybe they've learned something from history and they're not
| doing the AfD a service before they grab onto more power?
|
| Or maybe this course of action is just more convenient at this
| time?
|
| Probably the latter.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Maybe they 've learned something from history and they're
| not doing the AfD a service before they grab onto more
| power?_
|
| The lesson from history is to keep the autocrats from
| grabbing power. Trying to contrain them with laws _ex ante_
| hasn 't worked since like Cicero. I'm not sure Berlin
| opposing Chat Control fits into their domestic anti-
| authoritarian arc.
| xethos wrote:
| > Trying to contrain them with laws ex ante hasn't worked
| since like Cicero
|
| This isn't so much about making Chat Control illegal
| (thereby containing or limiting future authoritarians) as
| it is not setting up the infrastructure for them to wield
| as soon as they win an election.
|
| I'd argue the current stance of being opposed to Chat
| Control is more like "Don't collect religious affiliation
| on the census" - meaning we can both agree with your
| comment I partially quoted, while also recognizing that
| Berlin's public oppostion can be meaningful.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _not setting up the infrastructure for them to wield as
| soon as they win an election_
|
| Fair enough, you're right. If they're incompetent
| authoritarians (or just non-authoritarian right-wingers),
| this could mitigate the damage.
| DataDaoDe wrote:
| ja, aber Wachsamkeit ist Pflicht. Wer Freiheit fur Sicherheit
| aufgibt, verliert am Ende beides - das haben wir mehrfach
| erlebt.
| varispeed wrote:
| The reaction is very weak, though. Chat Control is an act of
| terrorism and it should have triggered criminal investigation
| why this has gone this far.
|
| Before you downvote:
|
| 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.
|
| You can argue legality if you like, but the substance matches
| the textbook definition.
|
| These people should be arrested.
| miohtama wrote:
| Also, even AfD agrees with them on this.
| codethief wrote:
| Netzpolitik.org says it's not decided yet:
| https://netzpolitik.org/2025/eu-ueberwachungsplaene-unionsfr...
|
| Jens Spahn, the speaker in the video OP shared, is _not_ a member
| of the government but a leading member of the parliament and of
| one of the ruling parties. A tiny but important difference.
| mattlutze wrote:
| I am so happy to see this.
|
| The German social perspective on privacy has been strongly for
| the individual over the state for a long time. Chat Control goes
| too far, and Germany should be a loud voice in the heavy
| moderation of state surveillance powers.
| voldacar wrote:
| The EU tries something like this every few years. If you don't
| want this to happen, you have to win every time, while they only
| have to win once.
|
| It's an unsustainable situation.
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