[HN Gopher] Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU
___________________________________________________________________
Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU
Author : Frisiavones
Score : 1268 points
Date : 2023-02-02 13:46 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mullvad.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (mullvad.net)
| sl0wh0rses wrote:
| Funnily enough it is European companies and not American ones
| that are leading the charge on privacy. ProtonMail / Tutanota etc
| for example on the email front. I've heard of a company called
| Snacka! as well that seems to be using some gaming tech in
| streaming for end-to-end encrypted communication that doesn't
| suffer performance as much as services like jitsi. If more
| companies follow privacy principles like this in the way they
| build their products that's only part of the battle, though -
| it's also important to prevent such things from a legislative
| perspective.
| zx85wes wrote:
| Tutanota was forced to install a backdoor by a German court
| (see https://www.heise.de/news/Gericht-zwingt-Mailprovider-
| Tutano...) I don't think a US court can force a US company to
| do so.
| welterde wrote:
| Didn't Lavabit shutdown because of exactly that [1]? So
| pretty sure the US secret courts can very much force
| companies to do just that and worse (even require them to be
| silent about it, which clearly is not the case in Germany).
|
| [1]
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/20/why-
| di...
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Stupid EU bureaucrats, don't they know you're supposed to put in
| the work and inject zero days in every consumer product so that
| you can create your very own spy network?
|
| You can't just legislate it!
| PaulHoule wrote:
| How is they can make a really problematic privacy law that
| degrades the web in the name of privacy (would love to sue the EU
| on the basis that those cookie banners cause problems for people
| w/ disabilities) and an equally problematic law that helps
| embezzlers re-offend in the name of privacy but can then invade
| everyone's privacy with chat control?
|
| Is there some court that can rein it in? Can the EU be made to
| explode like a computer in an old movie when it is faced with a
| contradiction? Can the rest of the world make the EU relocate to
| the moon or mars so we can have some peace?
| trieste92 wrote:
| > The Commission's new demands would require regular plain-text
| access to users' private messages, from email to texting to
| social media.
|
| So maybe just don't rely on proprietary messaging clients that
| claim to be encrypted?
| scotty79 wrote:
| Remember the times where ACTA was THE issue?
|
| Now we have a pandemic that just won't end, war with associated
| militarization and hit to the economy, inflation and cost of
| living crisis and climate change mass migrations to look forward
| to.
|
| How do people have mental capacity to even think about the
| potential dangers of mass surveillance in democratic countries?
| fleddr wrote:
| Excessive authoritarianism is scary but the thing that people
| should really wake up to is the nuclear combination of
| authoritarianism and digitization.
|
| As an example, capital controls.
|
| I grew up in the 80s, which was largely cash-based. You got paid
| in cash, spent in cash, and gift/transact to others in cash.
| Oversight was severely limited, close to non-existent.
|
| The concept is that you're innocent until proven guilty. It's
| your money, do with it what you want and it's nobody's business
| what you do with it. And should you engage in any illegal
| matters, then it's up to the government to build this case with
| due diligence: have a probable cause, collect evidence, maybe
| arrange a warrant, etc.
|
| The important part is the very high barrier to building such a
| case. It's a huge amount of work just to do this for one case.
| Because of this, authoritarianism is kept in check. You could say
| it doesn't "scale".
|
| Now we fast forward to our digital "cash" society. It's
| questionable if you actually own the money at all, but that's a
| technicality that is beyond the point.
|
| You have no transaction privacy. Not only is it all on record,
| the threshold for a flagged transaction gets lower and lower. Buy
| a car and the bank knows and the IRS knows (in the Netherlands).
| There's a proposal to do laundering analysis on any transaction >
| 100 euro. You can't deposit or withdraw sizable money without
| caps or raising all kinds of flags.
|
| The privacy is eliminated. There is no probable cause or warrant,
| you're treated as guilty by default and evidence is to be
| collected that you're innocent. A full reversal of assumptions,
| rights and freedom.
|
| Which is only the beginning, because my true point is that this
| scales. A government now has the ability to do whatever the hell
| they want with your money. They can analyze millions of us and
| control it with the push of a button.
|
| Wrong photo in iCloud? Money frozen. Political opponent? Assets
| seized. Spent too much of your money on high energy products?
| Programmatic tax applied.
|
| You can make that list as long as you want, but let's take even
| the absolute simplest case of having that wrong photo. Imagine
| the analog scenario where a government regularly bursts through
| the door of your home to look at your photo albums. That would be
| the most absurd thing ever, not to mention ridiculously
| inefficient. Yet this is digitally happening as we speak, and
| nobody knows or cares.
|
| This kind of digital insight and power over your life is a power
| that should not exist. Most people in this world live in
| authoritarian countries. Quite a few democratic one are edging
| towards it. Do the math.
| pelasaco wrote:
| Funny how every department has the same aligned discourse. From
| https://www.coe.int/en/web/impact-convention-human-rights/ri...
|
| Governments can only interfere with these rights when it is
| specifically allowed by law, and done for a good reason - like
| national security or public safety.
|
| People have been screaming for that since years, but because of
| the impression that was for a good cause, we accepted. In the
| beginning was the bad hackers, then the terrorists, then to
| protect the children, then because of nazis, because of people
| that dont want be vaxx.. I will post it again, Glenn Greenwald is
| talking about it in different parts of the world
| https://rumble.com/v25depn-exclusive-extreme-escalation-of-b...,
| so either we defend this rights, regardless of who is the victim,
| or the surveillance will only increase - everywhere in the World.
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| >>In other words, your personal life will be fully exposed to
| government scrutiny. So, why is it that almost no one is talking
| about this?
|
| Personally, I don't give a flying fuck about it. I have nothing
| to hide and if the proposed surveillance measures help in
| preventing crimes, I say - go for it, babe.
| pelasaco wrote:
| Just to play the advocate's advocate here:
|
| When the internet became so safe? They push, we push back. They
| block, we circumvent. That was always about that. We old hackers
| are used to that. Nothing will work out of the box, and it will
| be fine. Just embrace and adapt it.
| pammf wrote:
| Well, isn't this already part of pushing back?
| pelasaco wrote:
| if "we encourage journalists and citizens in all EU countries
| to question their governments and urge them to vote no."
| would help then Julian Assange/Snowden would have a different
| life today. Just get prepared to circumvent e vote better
| next time.
| double2helix wrote:
| It's 1984 for real. I read Edward Snowdens biography a couple
| weeks ago and one thing that floors me is people's lackadaisical
| response to the gross violation of laws our government was
| violating.
|
| I think people are afraid to stand up for there right to privacy,
| because they feel unpatriotic or that it may make them look like
| a criminal with something to hide.
|
| I do belive with proper due process and warranting the government
| should be able to carry out covert surveillance of those
| suspected of MAJOR terrorism only. But who draws that line? And
| how do you trust them?
| Kukumber wrote:
| Only the US should be allowed to spy on the EU, no the EU
| themselves :)
| alphazard wrote:
| For all of the software engineers here, you would have a much
| larger impact by tackling this problem at a technical level, or
| contributing financially to groups that lobby against this sort
| of thing. Going out and protesting, or even helping to circulate
| a petition is going to be less impactful, and an inefficient use
| of your time and skillset.
|
| Your vote is worth 1, maybe your influence is worth a dozen or
| so. You could make millions of votes against you totally moot
| with the right piece of software.
|
| Look for existing projects that deal with secure networking,
| E2EE, self-hosted apps and ask how you can help.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| That piece of software still needs to be legal. If it's illegal
| much fewer people will actually use it, and those who use it
| anyway can arbitrarily be punished for it.
| alphazard wrote:
| Detecting whether someone is using a particular piece of
| software is just part of the threat model, another technical
| problem, with a technical solution.
| ianopolous wrote:
| Totally agree! Shameless self promotion: have a look at Peergos
| - https://github.com/peergos/peergos
|
| Our tech book might be a better starting point for this group:
| https://book.peergos.org
| okokwhatever wrote:
| Love it. Thanks!
| Eduard wrote:
| Better fix the root cause, not the symptoms.
| nforgerit wrote:
| This whole act of ignorance, incompetence and "smart stupidity"
| on politicians side infuriates me so much, I feel seriously
| sympathetic towards going underground devoting the rest of my
| life to trolling the shit out of the EU gov'ts.
| TT-392 wrote:
| Something in me almost wants to see this law pass, just to see
| what happens. I am guessing anyone who knows about internet infra
| / privacy / security, would either stand up and protest it.
| Though, for some reason, part of me thinks people would just find
| a way around it, feel like it is fine like that and not protest
| at all (I sure prefer the first option). Or I guess the third
| option: mass noncompliance. Which I guess has been the answer to
| a lot of EU laws.
| yreg wrote:
| Mass non-compliance is problematic strategy, because then the
| government can persecute arbitrary people for stuff that
| "everyone" does.
|
| GDPR is one such high stake example where no business can
| really feel safe.
| malermeister wrote:
| But GDPR is kind of the opposite in that it _protects_ the
| right to privacy (in this case from surveillance capitalism),
| so conflating them seems counterproductive
| yreg wrote:
| In a way both are about taking away liberties and chosing
| what's best for us. But yes, GDPR is not evil, it's just
| difficult to confidently comply with since it's so broad.
| Obviously very different to the proposal in the original
| post.
| chaostheory wrote:
| This and the 14 eyes agreement further demonstrates that the GPRD
| is really just protectionist legislation for the EU's tech and
| media companies. The EU is extremely hypocritical when it comes
| to the privacy of their citizens.
| pskisf wrote:
| Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.
|
| - Thomas Jefferson
| dijit wrote:
| Roughly translates to: I prefer liberty with danger to peace
| with servitude/slavery.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| The right to be insecure is one of the least appreciated in
| our time [1].
|
| [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/eve_ensler_what_security_means_
| to_...
| xenonite wrote:
| > "Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem."
|
| malo ... quam ... = I prefer ... to ...
|
| Preferring what to what? This is why all other words are in
| accusative singular as simple enumeration:
|
| periculosam = dangerousness
|
| libertatem = freedom
|
| quietam = quietness
|
| servitutem = slavery
|
| Hence I would take his statement as: "I prefer dangerousness
| and freedom to quietness and slavery."
| xorry wrote:
| periculosam and quietam are adjectives (the comma is wrong)
| xenonite wrote:
| Thank you for the correction.
| xwolfi wrote:
| And perfectly translates to: Better dangerous liberty than
| quiet servitude.
|
| Not sure why you needed to make such an awkward rough
| translation when the concepts are clear, the idiom known and
| the sentence so short in the target language, which is the
| language of the author as well, thus sharing bias in its
| latin...
|
| But I think this sentence is itself dangerous in its
| shortness, it almost makes you believe it's a discrete
| dichotomy rather than, as usual, a loooong gradient between
| two extreme, with orthogonal concerns adding to it to make it
| a zigzag. Better very rich in a quiet dictatorship than
| middle class in a chaotic old democracy, for instance. Or
| better poor in a clientelist theocracy than poor in an
| industrial dictatorship.
|
| It doesn't really make sense in the end, since freedom and
| servitude are not related to danger or safety. You can have
| all together, at different time or degree, for different
| people and geographies, regarding different slice of concern
| (freedom is so so vague, for instance).
|
| "Better have what you can tolerate for what you can afford,
| than something unaffordable or untolerable", is probably more
| interesting to understand the compromises real people make
| everyday, but I guess, so obvious we prefer to dream of a
| dichotomy :D
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| The issue is not whether they're intrinsically orthogonal
| or principle components, but that men make them so.
| dijit wrote:
| I don't know the quote, I was just translating the Latin
| for people.
|
| I have to say though, since you come off as quite rude: It
| doesn't "perfectly translate" to any single thing in
| English.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| The slaveholder and rapist Jefferson deserves the Noble Prize
| in Hypocrisy for his ramblings about freedom and liberty.
| Laaas wrote:
| If this goes through I will personally leave EU, and I wouldn't
| be surprised if others do too. What reason is there to remain in
| the EU? It being a regulatory superpower [0]? Metaphorical lol.
|
| [0]:
| https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_the_eu_as_a_digital_regul...
| zerodensity wrote:
| Where would you go?
| Laaas wrote:
| Any country in the top-50 of GDP (PPP) per capita would
| likely work well, but I would personally likely go to Hong
| Kong or one of the Arabic countries.
| nforgerit wrote:
| As a German: It is good tradition to escape to South America.
| guy98238710 wrote:
| Loss of balance. Child protection appears to have infinite
| weight. Conversely, personal privacy, access to information (esp.
| medical), and right to education appear to have zero weight.
| grumple wrote:
| Yep. You can justify any injustice with "won't somebody think
| of the children" or similar fears which inspire pearl-
| clutching. Don't fall for these authoritarian tactics.
| raydiatian wrote:
| At least the EU asks before just doing it. Or have we forgotten
| why Edward Snowden is a Russian now? /s
| LelouBil wrote:
| Could this even be allowed by the constitutuons of EU
| democracies?
|
| EU doesn't pass laws, it passes directives, rulings or
| recommendations.
|
| If it's not compatible with a member's constitution it will not
| pass.
| TallBellows3345 wrote:
| Was surprised to see this coming directly from mullvad. Big names
| are pushing back on this recently. Good.
| prof-dr-ir wrote:
| The making of EU legislation can take years and is surprisingly
| transparent; in particular, the public is asked for input at
| several stages. So I am surprised that the article does not
| provide any link to an actual proposal - without it, how am I
| going to believe its claims?
| tephra wrote:
| https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM%3A20...
|
| And the feedback https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-
| regulation/have-your-sa...
|
| I should note (as someone who has been fighting against this)
| is that commissioner Johansson has avoided meeting with civil
| servant groups in the lead up to this proposal (we have tried
| _multiple_ times to get a meeting).
| prof-dr-ir wrote:
| Well, thank you for your efforts but I do not think I see
| anything alarming at this stage. (Perhaps this means that
| your efforts paid off...)
|
| The proposal itself does not explicitly forbid end-to-end
| encryption; it might one day try to, but the regulatory
| scrutiny board insists that the legislation should "respect
| the prohibition of general monitoring obligations."
|
| In fact, having seen all this I think I can kind of see why
| journalists are not actively "pursuing" this as the article
| keeps asking.
| raxxorraxor wrote:
| The best way to deal with this is non-compliance and there need
| to be technical solutions to deny such attempts.
|
| One major factor that works against users is central
| authentication. Schemes like oauth2 might bring convenience and
| security in many cases, but will endanger net freedom overall.
|
| Google just added age restriction on blogger. Result is that you
| need to provide Google with ID information to access some
| content. If more an more users elect to ID with their Google
| account you can see where it can lead. Naturally the EU wants to
| increase such schemes as well.
|
| It just released a law (DSA) that allegedly to restrict the
| influence of tech giants. That their proposals will drive people
| into ID schemes of said tech companies is either an oversight or
| something worse. I would think it is the latter and giant tech
| companies are very glad about the behavior of the commission.
| Because they too tried get people to use their ID solutions.
|
| Digital tech doesn't really prosper in the EU but certainly
| surveillance leveraging services of others.
|
| The only defense against such laws is to make them
| technologically not feasible. While Google did many good things
| for net security, their compliance on topics that serve its self-
| interest is a danger. Same goes for other large tech companies.
|
| That there is close collaboration between certain political
| elites and tech companies is pretty much a given. It was decried
| as a conspiracy theory until it was proven. Although it should be
| no surprise that there are such connections. Perhaps the
| influence of the EU commission is smaller, but I would not bet on
| it. Access to the market is on the hand they can play. Easily a
| strong enough hand to subject users to surveillance.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > The best way to deal with this is non-compliance and there
| need to be technical solutions to deny such attempts.
|
| I disagree.
|
| While these are good to have, they are not enough.
|
| The reason is always the same: if you are found to be using the
| circumventing tech., you'll likely be in breach of the law,
| which will give the goons a legitimate reason to come and
| harass you.
|
| In a civilized country, that can translate into a fine,
| community service, etc...
|
| In the borderlands, it'll land you in jail or worse.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| Sometimes I think we have romanticized civil disobedience a
| little too much. Not because having authoritarian laws is
| good, but because it seems like some people would rather be
| heroic resistance fighters than engage dry policy work and
| advocacy. It would be better to never live under bad laws at
| all.
| irusensei wrote:
| > people would rather be heroic resistance fighters than
| engage dry policy work and advocacy
|
| Isn't it tiring? I mean you can raise hell and get some
| picture but you know one or 4 years from now they will try
| the same bullshit with a different name until it works.
|
| You are wasting your time and energy on activism while
| there are crooks literally getting paid (by your money) to
| degrade your life. I think that time and energy should be
| best spent building things which are immune to power abuse.
| ur-whale wrote:
| >some people would rather be heroic resistance fighters
| than engage dry policy work and advocacy
|
| This is a nice take, that would be the right one if you
| operated in a fair system.
|
| But if you have ever engaged in the very dirty game of
| trying to change or remove a bad law (bad for whatever
| reason), you soon learn how very dirty the game is.
|
| _Extremely_ few people who play that game are in it for
| the betterment of society as a whole rather than the
| betterment of their own destiny and that of their friends.
|
| And even if they started out that way, it never lasts.
| Human nature.
|
| Want to change policy? Quid pro quo. Read all about it, and
| be ready to do nothing but.
| alphazard wrote:
| It's much easier for people to resist by using "forbidden"
| systems in private, than to affect political change. In the
| context of the EU, other rights afforded to citizens make
| things like this hard to enforce.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| The goons will come and harass you if you are inconvenient or
| a threat to the ruling class, even if you are complying with
| all existing regulations. This happens in every country and
| region.
|
| For the common man non-compliance is the only non-violent way
| to preserve his rights or exercise freedom. You can do it
| successfully if you are smart and agile.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| No it doesn't happen in every country and region. In many
| places there's no such thing as a "ruling class".
| Politicians are just another type of public sector worker
| and certainly not the best paid or wealthiest.
| seanw444 wrote:
| In a perfect world.
| chopin wrote:
| Where would that be?
|
| I live in Europe and I don't think there is a country
| where politicians aren't corrupt.
| t0bia_s wrote:
| As European living in country with highest inflation rate
| I must agree. What annoys me a lot is a trending
| narration about blaming Putin for everything. Ministry of
| interior has leaked manuals where is writen guide for
| public relations about it. Basically it says that media
| need to blame Putin for hungry and problems with food
| supply chain.
|
| https://www.mvcr.cz/soubor/krit-memo-putin-hlad-
| komunikacni-...
|
| If you search for articles, they are writen following
| this guide exactly.
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=putin+a+hlad
| Eduard wrote:
| > Schemes like oauth2 might bring convenience and security in
| many cases, but will endanger net freedom overall.
|
| Your statement makes it look like OAuth2 is inherently
| endangering net freedom.
|
| This isn't true.
|
| If OAuth2 was used ...
|
| - for authentication (versus authorization) only AND
|
| - AND by a select few providers (e.g. Google, Github, Facebook,
| Twitter) solely AND
|
| - AND NO other privacy-protecting authentication methods (e.g.
| classic username-password credentials) are available
|
| ... THEN your statement has reasonable truth.
| kragen wrote:
| > _One major factor that works against users is central
| authentication. Schemes like oauth2_
|
| also dns and the tls ca system, even including let's encrypt
| danuker wrote:
| Or Cloudflare which is a MitMaaS
| intelVISA wrote:
| I love this term and hate that it's true.
| huslage wrote:
| I'm not sure I follow how let's encrypt is included on this
| list. They are very transparent.
| kragen wrote:
| let's encrypt made a huge improvement on the status quo,
| but now that 95% of the web depends on them, they're an
| obvious central point of vulnerability for censors and spy
| agencies
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| ...you're not concerned about _all_ of the other Trusted
| Root CAs that ship in OS /browser updates? Why would the
| NSA/GCHQ/etc need to compromise a high-profile target
| like LetsEncrypt when they could bribe any of the dozens
| of companies names listed in my own local certmgr.msc
| that I don't recognize at all[1].
|
| 1: I'm seeing names like "Actalis", "Baltimore
| CyberTrust", "Cetrum" - some of these sound more like
| pharmaceuticals than tech companies...
| iso1631 wrote:
| I'm more concerned about why I can't see a list of sites
| that CA has authenticated, or put my own restrictions on
| them.
|
| Taking the first one: AC Camerfirma S. A.
|
| I suspect I've never authenticated anything against that
| CA. I'd love to know what sites it has authenticated, and
| maybe I'd be happy with a lot of .es sites
|
| Wouldn't surprise me if I rarely if ever encounter 80% of
| the CAs that I trust. Looking through I'd be happy if
| some of the signed _.ae, or_.cn, but not _.de.
|
| If I did visit an unusual CA, I'd like to make a
| judgement call on that access. Sure, the big ones
| (letsencrypt, globalsign, etc) woul dneed to just trust
| completely, but having a "you are visiting youremail.com,
| last time you visited this was signed by Globalsign with
| a certificate expiry of 5 months time, today it's signed
| by Odd Looking CA, continue?
|
| Sure for 90% of users would click though, and it
| shouldn't be an option for 90% of users, but I'm not 90%
| of users.
|
| Same with importing. If I make my own certificates for my
| own stuff, I want to import my CA and trust if for
| _.mydevdomain.com, but not for mybank.com, because I
| don't trust my own security enough to have anyone,
| including me, have a skeleton key to my entire
| communication chain for key sites.
| kragen wrote:
| a compromised root ca allows an attacker who already has
| dns or ip control (via bgp, arp spoofing, a captive
| portal, etc.) to leverage it into a working mitm attack
| on a tls site, but it can't revoke certs it didn't sign,
| and the attack is over as soon as the attacker loses dns
| or ip control
|
| by contrast, the ca you chose to sign your cert can
| revoke it, or refuse to renew it, taking your website
| permanently offline with zero effort on their part,
| unless you can find another ca to sign a new cert for you
|
| but if you could, let's encrypt wouldn't have had to
| exist in the first place
|
| the dozens of companies you mentioned make that less of a
| threat, not more of one, though they do of course
| increase of mitm attacks as i described in the first
| paragraph of this comment
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > a compromised root ca allows an attacker who already
| has dns or ip control
|
| DNS or host/IP control is not a requirement at all: a
| Trusted CA is already trusted to sign a certificate for
| _any_ hostname (with exceptions): that 's what Trust
| means, and it also means that we trust them not to issue
| certificates for domains/hostnames without doing at-least
| Domain Validation - and we have schemes like Certificate
| Transparency to help bolster that trust, but it still
| doesn't prevent an already-trusted CA from issuing its
| own certificate for, say, google.com or microsoft.com.
| This is why techniques like Certificate Pinning and
| co/counter-signing, and others exist - but they're only
| useful when the client isn't a human-operated web-browser
| ("smart clients", "IoT", etc). EV certificates were
| (amongst other things...) meant to help protect against
| small-time crooks but again, don't help when the CA
| itself is compromised.
| lol768 wrote:
| If the browser enforced that the certificate had been
| issued in line with the domain's CAA record, such an
| attack might be less tractable without DNS control...
| kragen wrote:
| if i type https://gmail.com/ into my browser, it usually
| doesn't matter if you have successfully gotten comodo or
| actalis to issue you a fake certificate for gmail.com,
| because my browser doesn't try to connect to your
| malicious server; it tries to connect to google's actual
| gmail server, and so you don't receive my packets, and
| your fake certificate does you no good
|
| but, as i said, if you can feed me fake dns results so i
| connect to the wrong ip, or if you can arrange so that
| packets to gmail's legitimate ip go to your server
| instead (for example by having me connect to your wifi),
| then you can leverage the fake certificate into a
| successful mitm attack
|
| but your explanation of the part of the basics of tls you
| understand, incomplete though it is, is irrelevant to the
| attack i was actually discussing, where someone doesn't
| like what you're saying (or the communication service
| you're providing) and gets your cert revoked to shut you
| up
| fragmede wrote:
| Why can't I be concerned about all of those things?
| jasmer wrote:
| Apple and Google will do what the EU tells them to do in the
| end.
| danuker wrote:
| That won't stop them trying to lobby their way into banning
| third parties from the web if they could.
|
| Apple, Google, and Facebook are the 5th, 6th, and 7th largest
| lobbyists in the EU.
|
| https://www.lobbyfacts.eu/?sort=lob&order=desc
| splitstud wrote:
| [dead]
| GoToRO wrote:
| " Therefore, we encourage journalists and citizens in all EU
| countries to question their governments and urge them to vote
| no."
|
| How about you go and vote for the -right- government? You can't
| fix a country with technology.
|
| Also, if you are a telecom operator in my country that means that
| you automatically allow the equivalent of FBI/CIA to connect
| directly in the switch with a cable. There is no other way to be
| a telecom operator.
|
| What you really want is to have a judge agree to listen to
| somebody or not.
| keraf wrote:
| It's quite ironic how much critics are aimed at China being a
| surveillance state when the EU train is going full steam ahead in
| that direction... Dark days ahead.
| stu432 wrote:
| Who'd have thought those in charge were a bunch of hypocrites?
| [deleted]
| alan-stark wrote:
| Sometimes I feel that the world is sleepwalking straight into the
| pages of 1984. Proposals to monitor chats, ban encryption,
| legitimize location tracking create perfect infrastructure for
| new dictators. If some day a new Hitler grabs power in a nuclear-
| capable country, he'll be able to track down and destroy
| dissenters before they have a chance to protest.
|
| What are some simple and practical actions any EU citizen can
| take now to stop this from going forward?
| rqtwteye wrote:
| Totally agree. Hitler's gestapo, Stalin's NKVD and East German
| Stasi would have loved the surveillance infrastructure and
| technology we are building up right now.
| capr wrote:
| Cuz UE is so big on privacy don't you know. GDPR for the plebs
| and total surveillance for the state, got it.
| daneel_w wrote:
| Every SMS and phone call on the PSTN of most European countries
| is already part of a long-term archiving process dating back more
| than two decades. This legislation is in part meant to bring
| purely Internet-based communications into the dragnet, and part
| just retroactive legal gyrations to publically formalize the
| already established mass-surveillance of the PSTN.
| guy98238710 wrote:
| The very purpose of privacy is to break laws. Privacy is the
| space where laws do not apply.
|
| I don't remember where I heard it, but I really like this
| definition of privacy. It's a defense against bad laws and there
| are quite a few of those, including child porn and child abuse
| laws that actually lead to prosecution of adolescents (sending
| nudes to each other) and loss of access to medical information
| for kids (anyone tried to search for "12yo penis" images?).
| kragen wrote:
| privacy is the space where coercion does not apply; law
| enforcement is necessarily coercive, but not all coercion is
| legal
|
| not even all police coercion is legal; when the police
| disappeared tens of thousands of people here during the last
| dictatorship, the police were breaking the law, and in some
| cases the disappeared were not
|
| also, privacy can protect people from repercussions from
| activities that are legal at one time but prohibited later,
| perhaps after a change of government, such as celebrating
| passover
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| No, that is wrong. It is the purpose of the laws to protect
| privacy, which is our right to protect ourselves by prevention
| of sharing sensitive information with bad actors. Our privacy
| means that others cannot exploit our weaknesses to get our
| money or to bully us. It means that rogue cop cannot blackmail
| us by exposing details of our private life to public. There are
| many scenarios when too much data landed in the wrong hands.
|
| People may use privacy as an excuse to hide their crimes, but
| criminals are minority and lawful citizens will be exposed to
| criminals and police states if privacy shield no longer exists.
| As for child abuse, when we have to seek for evidence, the
| crime has already happened. Solving it is important, but what
| is more important than that? Prevention.
| guy98238710 wrote:
| It's not just a few bad cops. No matter how well the law is
| written and executed, it is always bad from the point of view
| of some people. There is no universal agreement about what
| should be illegal. People who lose the fight over laws can
| use privacy as a refuge.
| _vertigo wrote:
| Framing privacy in this light is a surefire way to lose it.
| bpfrh wrote:
| No privacy can also be that you vote for measure x but nobody
| knows that but you, e.g. you can have an opinion/hobby without
| anyone knowing about it but you and people you trust.
| guy98238710 wrote:
| Indeed, privacy protects from social pressure in addition to
| protecting you from the government. In any case, it's
| intended for things other people do not approve of.
| can16358p wrote:
| We certainly need decentralized systems that cannot be controlled
| by EU, US, or any government/entity.
|
| Privacy is a human right. We probably all know that they will
| show reasons like "fighting terrorism", "preventing national
| threats" or "hunting down child pornography" etc, whereas the
| real motivation is to control people's freedom of speech and
| communication even though they will 100% deny it.
|
| Anyone who is really into something illegal will use something
| alternative anyway.
|
| This will only hurt people actually fighting for their rights,
| and this needs to stop.
| idlewords wrote:
| Systems outside the control of any government entity devolve
| into a familiar cavalcade of horrors. You need a better answer
| for the fact that those horrors exist, and that many people who
| draw government paychecks devote their careers to fighting them
| in good faith, with good results.
|
| You'd think that after twenty years the debate would have moved
| past advocating for complete lawlessness, but we get stuck in
| the same puerile tropes. The fact that bad state actors exist
| does not change the fact that horribly abusive material, with
| real victims, will be shared on any platform those abusers
| consider safe, and that the existence of such platforms will
| _encourage_ further abuse.
|
| Anyone who has worked on child sexual exploitation material on
| any platform knows this, and any privacy advocate has to have a
| better answer for it than 'nuh-uh'.
| msm_ wrote:
| > We certainly need decentralized systems that cannot be
| controlled by EU, US, or any government/entity.
|
| I agree in principle, but controlled != regulated. It's
| (technologically) relatively easy to create a private,
| censorship-resistant distributed system, but if it's illegal
| people just won't use it. It's a human problem, not a tech
| problem.
| kragen wrote:
| here in argentina uber was very illegal for several years and
| people used the fuck out of it
|
| in the usa heroin and meth are super illegal and people are
| using the fuck out of them
|
| many 80s pc video games only survive in a playable form
| because of a very illegal system of organized copyright
| infringement that removed copy protection mechanisms; people
| used the fuck out of that too
|
| in the usa gay sex was super illegal until, in many
| locations, 20 years ago. guess what gay people did
|
| "if it's illegal people just won't use it" is clearly not
| correct; i think it's what dave chappelle would describe as
| an extremely white thought
|
| the problem is if the design of the system provides law
| enforcement a bottleneck they can use for leverage against
| righteous lawbreakers
| watwut wrote:
| It is fairly easy to argue that people have more gay sex
| now that gay marriages are legal.
| kragen wrote:
| plausibly, and plausibly making private communication
| illegal would result in less private communication
| successfully taking place, but it certainly wouldn't
| result in private communication dwindling to an
| insignificant activity, which is the most charitable
| interpretation i could come up with for the obviously
| absurd claim i was rebutting, 'if it's illegal people
| just won't use it'
| bccdee wrote:
| This draws a false dichotomy between "people use X" and
| "nobody uses X." There's actually a sliding scale of how
| many people use X. When a thing is illegal, fewer people
| will use it and the people who do use it will be at risk.
| If we thing a thing is important and that people should be
| able to use it, it's bad if that thing is illegal. There's
| a reason why people fought so hard decriminalize gay sex--
| not because laws against gay sex made it _impossible,_ but
| because those laws were nevertheless really bad for gay
| people.
| kragen wrote:
| i don't agree that i subscribe to that dichotomy
|
| i think it is incorrect for precisely the reason you
| state
| dtech wrote:
| All those things are enjoyable and have no legal
| alternative. A chat application would have.
| kragen wrote:
| uber cab is not especially enjoyable, and the legal
| alternatives (for riders) include taxis and remises (not
| to mention buses, trains, bicycles, private cars, private
| motorcycles, and electric scooters; buenos aires is
| pretty dense and public transport is pretty good)
|
| uber was just better
|
| the legal alternative to pirating games was to buy them,
| geez
|
| the legal alternative to gay sex was heterosexual sex,
| which many people actually preferred; possibly you
| haven't heard, but it's a more popular alternative even
| today
|
| you're right about heroin and meth though, so, one out of
| four i guess
| deedree wrote:
| Did you forget about alcohol, nicotine, caffeine? Totally
| legal addictive alternatives.
| kragen wrote:
| arguably caffeine and alcohol are even less adequate as a
| replacement for heroin than a bicycle is as a replacement
| for uber cab
|
| i mean if the objective is just 'euphoria' (as opposed to
| avoiding opiate withdrawal or having a 60-hour-long orgy)
| there are a lot of ways you can get it: hyperventilation,
| falling in love, roller coasters, exercise, praying,
| etc., and i thought about saying this, but i think that
| this really is a pretty weak counterargument to dtech's
| claim that heroin and meth have no legal alternatives;
| they're pretty much right about that
| dtech wrote:
| Only Uber had an alternative, the rest you either didn't
| address or are incorrect
|
| > the legal alternative to gay sex was heterosexual sex
|
| Unless you're subscribing to a unscientific "people
| choose to be gay" philosophy, having sex with a gender
| you're not attracted to is not at all an alternative.
|
| > the legal alternative to pirating games was to buy them
|
| You mentioned _surviving today_ , currently a lot of
| those games cannot be bought legally, which is what I
| meant with no alternative. Back then also a lot of people
| didn't pirate, and a lot of people who did did so because
| they had little money. I would count that situation as
| having no available alternative.
|
| We were discussing a hypothetical chat application which
| currently are offered for free, so money is not an issue
| there.
| [deleted]
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Once a decentralized system becomes sufficiently ubiquitous,
| banning it becomes tantamount to imposing economic sanctions
| on yourself. That's basically what happened with the
| internet. That might have just been a fluke, but it would be
| awesome if we could somehow manage to create more systems
| like that.
| barnabee wrote:
| It is necessary both to try to get rid of bad laws _and_ to
| encourage, facilitate, and protect mass civil disobedience.
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| > It's (technologically) relatively easy to create a private,
| censorship-resistant distributed system, but if it's illegal
| people just won't use it.
|
| Ask a Gen-Xer about Napster and Bittorrent sometime.
| seanw444 wrote:
| Bittorrent still exists. Plenty Gen-Zers use it too.
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| Thank you for illustrating the point!
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| Gen-Xer here: Napster was never made illegal
|
| Napster lost several lawsuits in the US and filed for
| bankruptcy
|
| But Napster the brand was sold to Roxio and continued
| operations
|
| it's still active today
|
| https://www.napster.com/
|
| Anyway, in retrospective, Napster times were fun,
| university networks were clogged by students downloading
| music all day long and, at least in my country, many people
| bought a dial up internet connection just to use it.
|
| But it had serious unexpected consequences, it gave birth
| to new generations of listeners that do not buy music,
| because they never had to, and the musicians are now paid
| virtually nothing for the music they create, while majors
| still make a lot of money, which isn't exactly what we
| hoped for when we hated on Metallica for suing Napster.
|
| People were not using it because it was illegal, people
| were using it because it was cool. It was mostly young
| people.
|
| Chats are a different beast, if they were ever made
| illegal, a lot of people would stop using them, because
| they would disappear from app stores and a prominent
| smartphone manufacturer we all know would probably delete
| the app remotely from the users' devices and report to the
| authorities whoever would dear to sideload it.
|
| I feel sometimes a little bit conflicted about those years
| when I see my musician friends touring over and over
| because selling records and make a living of it it's not a
| thing anymore, and now I buy a lot more music than I did in
| the past (which was already a decent amount), directly from
| artists when I can.
| capr wrote:
| "never made illegal" but "lost everal lawsuits", got it
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| it wasn't illegal in my country so...
|
| anyway, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.
| lost a lot of lawsuits, I believe they are still _not
| illegal_.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Civil court in America is just as powerful as criminal
| and only requires a preponderance of evidence standard be
| met.
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| People were also using it to discover new music. Most
| radio stations in the US are owned by a couple of large
| corporations who play the same bland stuff nationwide.
| Most of my CD collection comes from artists I discovered
| back then.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > Privacy is a human right
|
| I believe you where talking about secrecy.
|
| WhatsApp chats are secret, but not necessarily private.
|
| Authorities can ask Meta to release the meta data and they can
| inspect phones to retrieve the chat logs.
|
| Private communications have never been secret, it was always
| possible for the people with the necessary authorizations to
| access them.
|
| Privacy is consensual, secrecy is not.
|
| But there is no right to secrecy.
|
| As much as I love mullvad and their excellent products, they
| never link the proposal they talk about in that page, which
| hinders the people' ability to form their own opinion.
|
| All the material we can find revolves around the same actors,
| quoting each other, some like the Pirate party, say it was
| leaked
|
| _Leaked Commission paper EU mass surveillance plans_
|
| https://european-pirateparty.eu/chat-control-leaked-commissi...
|
| But it's not true, it's officially published on the EU website,
| it wasn't being kept hidden, it had to be translated to all the
| EU official languages before being published.
|
| https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM%3A20...
|
| I understand being concerned, what I do not understand is being
| catastrophic.
|
| Even if everything they wrote was true, a proposal is not a
| law, so whatever happened in the Swedish parliament, was not
| influenced by the EU proposal.
|
| p.s. the system is similar to CSAM, which I don't like either,
| but sooner or later such systems will be everywhere, like it or
| not.
|
| The discussion must be held in a way or another.
|
| Apple too considered scanning the users' devices to match CSAM
| pictures, they dropped it, for now, but probably only because
| they are developing their own system, independent from the
| government, so they don't have to give them any kind of access.
|
| Here the discussion is being held in public, by people elected
| by European citizens directly with their vote, these people are
| paid exactly to discuss these matters, theya re doing their
| job.
|
| You wrote _" the real motivation is to control people's freedom
| of speech and communication even though they will 100% deny
| it."_ but the _they_ you mention are elected officials, not
| SP.E.C.T.R.E. evil agents
| [deleted]
| notepalf wrote:
| > We certainly need decentralized systems
|
| Matrix and XMPP exists, what should we do to make this more
| popular?
| seanw444 wrote:
| Make it accessible.
| 1337shadow wrote:
| Who is "actually fighting for their rights in the UE" exactly?
| care to share some examples?
| bartislartfast wrote:
| > Anyone who is really into something illegal will use
| something alternative anyway.
|
| I'm not for more surveillance, but this is the exact argument
| that people give against gun control
| neysofu wrote:
| If you pay enough attention, you will notice that the same
| argument is used to push many political agendas (for better
| or worse):
|
| - "You can't ban encrypted messaging. Terrorists will always
| find a way to communicate."
|
| - "You can't outlaw abortions, just safe ones. Women will
| always find a way."
|
| - "You can't uniformly enforce gun control. Dedicated
| criminals will keep buying weapons on the black market."
|
| - "You can't ban cryptocurrencies. Enthusiasts will still
| trade on P2P exchanges."
|
| All of these are half truth, and half lie. Every policy
| introduces a certain amount of user friction, which is proven
| to discourage action. Some people will refrain from
| infringing the policy (e.g. using guns, performing abortions,
| using encrypted messaging apps), some others will comply.
| Percentages obviously vary depending on the specific policy,
| but it's never 0% nor 100% like "both" sides want you to
| believe.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| A quicker way is to note that a given policy would be
| difficult to effectively enforce. People like to say
| unenforceable, which is rarely true given enough resources.
| But if there are two solutions to an issue, and one isn't
| as easy to enforce, that is a valid point. Using gun
| control as an example, restricting sale of ammunition
| instead of firearms might be difficult to enforce, because
| ammunition is easier to manufacture at home. Restricting
| sale of marijuana isn't effective because anyone can grow
| it in a closet, but testing at employment centers adds a
| lot more friction as you say, and you don't neednto monitor
| people's power usage or send around sniffer trucks.
| feanaro wrote:
| The common theme of most of the above points is that the
| freedom of the innocent will be reduced or their suffering
| increased if the change is enacted, while less innocent
| people can continue to ignore the rules. It's oppression of
| the weakest.
|
| In general, society should be very careful with the things
| it bans. Prohibition is a hammer best left for extreme
| situational outliers, not one that should be used for each
| and every thing someone happens to dislike.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| I'm sure all of these examples (encryption, guns,
| abortion, crypto currencies) are considered by _some_
| people to be that extreme situational outlier, and needs
| to be banned yesterday.
|
| Mine is proof-of-waste crypto currencies such as Bitcoin,
| or Ethereum before the PoS merge. Too much CO2 for too
| little gain.
|
| (There's also the Ponzi aspect, but I don't think we need
| new laws to ban Ponzi schemes: if a crypto currency turns
| out to be a Ponzi scheme, just sue them for making a
| Ponzi scheme.)
| seanw444 wrote:
| Unfortunately, societal amnesia means we will never learn
| this lesson. We will continue to ban things too much, and
| be too oppressive, until it becomes too overwhelming and
| a revolution happens. Rinse and repeat.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| So?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| For years the US government has attempted to limit the use
| (and 'export') of strong encryption protocols like PGP using
| the argument that they should be treated as munitions. The
| case against Zimmermann in the early 1990s regarding his
| posting of PGP to a Usenet site, and the eventual decision by
| the US government not to proceed with the case, is
| illustrative. Here's an excerpt from the statement by lawyer
| on the case. It's from over two decades ago, but still worth
| reading (the laws have been relaxed somewhat since then, but
| it's not really clear how far):
|
| http://dubois.com/No-prosecute-announcement.txt
|
| > "Now, some words about the case and the future. Nobody
| should conclude that it is now legal to export cryptographic
| software. It isn't. The law may change, but for now, you'll
| probably be prosecuted if you break it. People wonder why the
| government declined prosecution, especially since the
| government isn't saying. One perfectly good reason might be
| that Mr. Zimmermann did not break the law. (This is not
| always a deterrent to indictment. Sometimes the government
| isn't sure whether someone's conduct is illegal and so
| prosecutes that person to find out.) Another might be that
| the government did not want to risk a judicial finding that
| posting cryptographic software on a site in the U.S., even if
| it's an Internet site, is not an "export". There was also the
| risk that the export-control law would be declared
| unconstitutional. Perhaps the government did not want to get
| into a public argument about some important policy issues:
| should it be illegal to export cryptographic software? Should
| U.S. citizens have access to technology that permits private
| communication? And ultimately, do U.S. citizens have the
| right to communicate in absolute privacy?"
|
| > "There are forces at work that will, if unresisted, take
| from us our liberties. There always will be. But at least in
| the United States, our rights are not so much stolen from us
| as they are simply lost by us. The price of freedom is not
| only vigilance but also participation. Those folks I mention
| in this message have participated and no doubt will continue.
| My thanks, and the thanks of Philip Zimmermann, to each of
| you."
|
| One obvious concern about this move in the EU is that they'll
| try to criminalize the use of cryptography again.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Unless you're a gunsmith, it's not really comparable. Anyone
| with a sufficiently-powerful desk calculator can use illegal
| encryption, but not everyone can procure an illegal firearm.
| oauea wrote:
| Don't call encryption illegal. That's letting them shape
| the narrative.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Isn't the whole _point_ that they 're trying to make
| mathematics illegal? To my knowledge, encryption is
| currently legal.
|
| To those who say "it's _impossible_ to make encryption
| illegal ": there have been sillier laws. George Orwell
| once imagined a society where _2+2=5_ was a law. While
| they _usually_ do, laws don 't have to make sense.
| bartislartfast wrote:
| My favourite example in the world of "silly" laws - Saudi
| Arabia invests massive money in scientific research, and
| still executes people for Sorcery and Witchcraft
| giobox wrote:
| We don't need to look to fiction in the US to see
| examples of encryption controlled by the State with laws,
| it was literally US government policy in the 90s/early
| 2000s. Examples include banning export of encryption keys
| longer than 40 bits etc to make it easier for US secret
| services to crack the foreign purchaser's systems, the
| debate during the Clinton administration on what should
| be permitted encryption-wise was intense at times.
|
| > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars
|
| > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_fr
| om_th...
| zdragnar wrote:
| You should look into the so called ghost guns that show up.
| It hasn't been easier to get one, whether from assembling a
| kit to 3d printing to finding plans to build one from
| scrap.
| zirgs wrote:
| Outside of the USA you can't simply order gun parts or
| ammunition without a licence. You'd have to manufacture
| everything yourself. That's a lot harder than simply 3D
| printing a lower receiver.
|
| Also that gun would be useless for any legal purpose.
| You'd be prosecuted even if you used it to defend
| yourself.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| It's still _hard_. I couldn 't go out and make a gun
| right now. Meanwhile, many children have invented their
| own codes and ciphers by age 10, armed only with paper
| and pencil and the desire to keep a secret. A basic
| understanding of group theory lets you invent RSA, a
| practically-unbreakable asymmetric cryptographic scheme,
| given only the idea that "hey, maybe asymmetric
| encryption is possible" and the knowledge that (F_p \
| {0}, x) is a group.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > A basic understanding of group theory lets you invent
| RSA, a practically-unbreakable asymmetric cryptographic
| scheme, given only the idea that
|
| And I bet the NSA would break your homegrown RSA built
| with your basic understanding of group theory in a few
| minutes. RSA is extremely subtle to implement correctly
| and if you get it wrong you can easily leak everything.
| stiltzkin wrote:
| Nostr has been with good development lately.
| ChewFarceSkunk wrote:
| [dead]
| ComodoHacker wrote:
| >Anyone who is really into something illegal will use something
| alternative anyway.
|
| That's the hard part, IMO.
|
| Imagine that we really got that "decentralized system that
| cannot be controlled" going and everyone is using it. Everyone,
| including those who is into illegal things. And they don't get
| caught.
|
| Now the government starts to push their "this decentralized
| shit is doing more harm than good" agenda. Whatever their
| motivation is, it would be easy to sway public opinion against
| surveillance-free communications, because the harm is real, not
| hypothetical, like it is now.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| Criminals are using encrypted communications right now,
| though. The harm is already real.
|
| Now, I have a cryptography library to polish.
| ComodoHacker wrote:
| They are not widespread now, though. The government is
| keeping their communications under control, more or less.
| Only most educated criminals have good enough opsec. The
| gov can subpoena whatever service they use today and
| disrupt their communications without disrupting everyone
| else's. They don't have so called collateral privacy. The
| 'encrypted' part doesn't really add much harm.
|
| With truly decentralized system things would be different.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _We probably all know that they will show reasons [...],
| whereas the real motivation is to control people 's freedom of
| speech and communication even though they will 100% deny it._
|
| I don't think this is how it works, absent an already existent
| police state.
|
| In democracies, it really is pushed for {good reasons}.
|
| Once built, it's then used by law enforcement, because it
| exists and gets the job done.
|
| Pretending there's a sinister, _organized_ New World Order (aka
| "them") with decades-long plans to restrict freedom is fantasy,
| and doesn't help us target the actual problem.
|
| A lot of bureaucrats and legislators are instead just
| disorganized, technically clueless, and listen to the loudest
| and most organized group. Which tends to be intelligence or law
| enforcement.
|
| TFA rightly calls on citizens to instead be that group, on the
| side of freedom.
| bassrattle wrote:
| This is just such an ignorant take with no regard for real
| history. The PATRIOT act in America was quickly used to
| facilitate mass surveillance, and it reflects a greater
| pattern of government behavior. While there are "useful
| idiots" who embody the technically clueless bureaucrats you
| describe, there is absolutely collectives of nefarious actors
| aiming to control populations.
| mistermann wrote:
| > This is just such an ignorant take with no regard for
| real history.
|
| I take issue with your inclusion of the word "just" in this
| sentence. I don't disagree that it is an "ignorant" (in the
| technical sense, not pejorative) take with ~~no~~ _little_
| regard for real history, but that isn 't all ("just") that
| it is. Almost certainly, this behavior is a consequence of
| heuristic (sub-perceptual) intuition, that is as it is as a
| consequence of the _substantial and constant_ training
| /propaganda humans have been subjected to regarding
| "democracy" and "conspiratorial thinking" over the last
| decade or so, and especially heavily during the Trump and
| then COVID periods.
|
| So when questions like this arise, _it genuinely(!) seems
| to people_ like government officials are trustworthy, _in
| fact_. "Seems in fact" is an oxymoron of course,
| demonstrating how influential cultural norms can be, and in
| turn how bizarre "reality" is (and why, partially).
|
| If hackers on HN used the same logic & epistemology they
| use in forum discussions when they are writing code at
| work, imagine how much of an even bigger disaster things
| would be out there!! :)
|
| While I'm at it, I should probably also take a shot at this
| comment from above:
|
| >> In democracies, it really is pushed for {good reasons}.
|
| And who is it pushed by? Politicians. And who is not asked
| their opinion on the matter? Voters. And what does this
| demonstrate? That "democracy" in practice is not a match
| for how it is described, not even close. And yet, day after
| day millions of instances of these same sorts of illusory
| discussions take place, here and elsewhere. It may never
| end.
|
| _Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream_....
| FredPret wrote:
| >listen to the loudest and most organized group
|
| I donate money to the EFF in the hope that they turn out to
| be this group eventually
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Amen. Every year.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| > Pretending there's a sinister, organized New World Order
| (aka "them") with decades-long plans to restrict freedom is
| fantasy
|
| I wouldn't be so naive. Groups like the Council For National
| Policy and Lance Wallnau pushing The Seven Mountain Mandate
| have been working for DECADES to push the agenda that you're
| seeing in schools and politics today.
|
| Maybe not a "world order", but they'd certainly like to be.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| > Pretending there's a sinister, organized New World Order
| (aka "them") with decades-long plans to restrict freedom is
| fantasy, and doesn't help us target the actual problem.
|
| Thankfully, we don't have to pretend! A cadre of wealthy
| Americans have a documented history of conspiring against the
| people of this country.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-
| report/assets/u...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
| mordae wrote:
| > I don't think this is how it works, absent an already
| existent police state.
|
| > In democracies, it really is pushed for {good reasons}.
|
| If public servants were left to their own devices and could
| mandate any law they like, they would instantly prohibit any
| behavior that is not explicitly allowed. Because that's how
| they themselves must function so that public can hold them
| accountable.
|
| The trouble is that they inherently push this mentality to
| the politicians who must rely on them to get popularity
| contest points and sometimes manage to win these nonsense
| laws that help nobody.
|
| > Pretending there's a sinister, organized New World Order
| (aka "them") with decades-long plans to restrict freedom is
| fantasy, and doesn't help us target the actual problem.
|
| Sure, but there actually is "them". They are clueless,
| individually powerless, out-of-sight, largely disconnected
| social class that actually makes this happen. And they can
| wait decades for the right situation. In Czechia, the public
| servant actually responsible for introducing DNS blocking was
| actually tasked with online hazard oversight. He pushed it
| through in order to block just 6 websites because it was
| somehow easier for him than negotiating banning payments to
| them, probably because of turf wars. The respective two
| ministries are rivals and won't ever cooperate. He lobbied
| for this for like 10+ years and then a bunch of idiots has
| gotten elected and ran with it.
|
| So in a way, you are right. But you are also somewhat wrong.
| From my experience finding the actual people pushing for this
| (it's usually not the politicians) and outing them would work
| way better.
| masterof0 wrote:
| It doesn't need to be a "World New Order" for three letter
| agencies lobbying to increase surveillance, and hence their
| power over the people. You are right, bureaucrats are
| clueless, but they don't need to be sharp, the agencies that
| will benefit from violating people's privacy and right
| already are. The is no possible good coming from those laws,
| the argument of "saving the children" falls flat, because you
| could extended to anything, "ban knives because children
| could cut themselves", etc... Privacy is a right, and those
| agencies(also known as deep state) pushing lawmakers to
| subvert it, are doing in to control people indeed.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| "No possible good" is strong phrasing.
|
| Putting aside the distracting CSAM branding, I can think of
| at least five good ones.
|
| None of which I'd personally value over freedom, but it's
| disingenuous and a failure of understanding your opponent
| to pretend benefits don't exist.
| macrolocal wrote:
| Is anyone else astonished by how dramatically Hacker News has
| shifted its tone on this issue over the last five to ten
| years?
| stiltzkin wrote:
| Eternal September, when big social media sites get big
| enough you will find larpers and bots including Hacker
| News.
| macrolocal wrote:
| Even so, the larpers and bots seem more authoritarian
| now.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Not sure Eternal September is an apt ad hom, when the
| parent you're responding to has been bitching about
| government overreach since the original meaning of the
| phrase.
| macrolocal wrote:
| Gadflies play a critical role in the ecosystem! :)
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Mhmm. And what separates a gadfly from not-gadfly?
| macrolocal wrote:
| Gadflies target Bellerophons obviously.
|
| It your steed can't handle a few gadflies, riding off to
| Mount Olympus is irresponsible.
| ChewFarceSkunk wrote:
| [dead]
| Xelbair wrote:
| no matter the reasons, even if current politicians and
| institutions are 100% trustworthy, no such law should be
| made.
|
| you cannot guarantee that future institutions, and
| governments will be benevolent, and with such laws you give
| them easy access to tools of oppression.
| mach1ne wrote:
| Even though something has a benevolent rationalization, it
| doesn't mean the true motives are benevolent. It doesn't need
| any New World Order conspiracy either. People in ruling
| positions often enjoy power, and they may be clueless as to
| how this desire is affecting their decisionmaking.
| purututu wrote:
| > It doesn't need any New World Order conspiracy either.
|
| NWO is not a conspiracy theory any longer. This exact
| terminology is openly used by many politicians now,
| demanding for a NWO. Depending which bubble you live in,
| you have not seen any or only too little such speeches.
| lyind wrote:
| Anybody writing about a "New World Order" is clearly
| joking.
|
| There is no order in this world, except the laws of
| physics, "Me!" and some love.
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| > NWO is not a conspiracy theory any longer.
|
| It never was. Conspiracy nutheads just took it for them,
| and gave it their own evil twist. They always take
| something and see the evil option in it, and sell it as
| some fact which never was there. A similar thing happened
| recently with the term "Great Reset".
|
| But the simple truth is, we always strive for a better
| world, so aiming for a new world order is something
| totally normal happening. Nobody thinks the world today
| is flawless.
| alex_young wrote:
| The term New World Order has been used for over a century
| by politicians. It's hardly believable that Woodrow
| Wilson was using a secret code word to communicate a plan
| to do evil things in the 21st century when he was
| advocating for the League of Nations.
| ChewFarceSkunk wrote:
| [dead]
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Sure, if your bubble is "project veritas".
| themitigating wrote:
| Evidence?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Example, even though I don't believe many of the
| conspiracy theories regarding them, here's the WEF
| calling for everyone to literally build a "New World
| Order."
|
| https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/12/we-must-work-
| together...
|
| https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/conspiracy-
| theor...
| babypuncher wrote:
| Never attribute to malice that which is adequately
| explained by stupidity
| ChewFarceSkunk wrote:
| [dead]
| starkd wrote:
| Not necessarily an intentional conspiracy, but it can just
| be that of a herd mentality. As a species, we are
| conditioned to follow the herd, to go along to get alone.
| Those that do not follow tend to get trampled, their
| concerns not even listened to.
| brookst wrote:
| I'm always skeptical of phrases like "true motives".
|
| Sometimes people can do the wrong thing for the right
| reasons, or totally amorally. There doesn't have to be a
| secret agenda. Framing things in terms of shadowy cabals
| that hide their secret motivations weakens the argument and
| reduces odds of successful resistance to these programs by
| misunderstanding the opposition.
| Hizonner wrote:
| I believe the idea is not that they _hide_ their motives,
| but that they _hide from_ their motives. May or may not
| be true, but still...
| brookst wrote:
| That's fair, but it's still an unsavory argument style.
| "I know the secret motivations of those in power, which
| even they don't know". It's a weird way to remove agency
| from the powerful in the name of, IDK what.
| rojobuffalo wrote:
| I think _hide_ implies intent to deceive. It 's often
| more like _conscious_ and _sub-conscious_ reasoning. We
| constantly tell a story to ourselves about our motives.
| We 're impulsive and wrong a lot of the time. And nobody
| is the bad guy in their own story.
|
| Maybe it's willful ignorance. Ignorance of the misuse and
| harm of mass surveillance.
| brookst wrote:
| Maybe. Are you as open to the idea that those who oppose
| surveillance (that's me) _also_ have secret motives and
| engage in willful ignorance, so you can't trust my anti-
| surveillance arguments? Because, the theory goes, even I
| don't know the dark motives that are making me say those
| things?
|
| Do you see how impossible any dialog becomes in that
| model?
| rojobuffalo wrote:
| If you frame it as ignorance, the next step is to
| enlighten the other side with the factual arguments you
| want to make. "The threat landscape isn't as bad as you
| claim it is." "Mass surveillance has downsides that are
| worse than you would think." If you assert deceptive
| intent, it kind of slides into character attacks.
|
| It's true that people sometimes don't argue in good
| faith, and it's fair to question hidden motives. But I
| think if you have better facts, you should keep arguing
| the facts.
| omgomgomgomg wrote:
| The intent does not even matter long term.
|
| The danger is an oportunist individual or group taking
| advantage of the thing.
|
| Let us play fantasyland and we assume there is one day a
| pill that feeds you for a day, tastes better than any
| food, makes you full and beats obesity.
|
| Do you think the ownership of that would not be fiercly
| fought about and the development should be kept secret?
|
| If it is not secret, anyone could just steal that
| revolutionary idea.
| croes wrote:
| This works both ways.
|
| Other motives are also suspected among the people and
| organisations fighting these laws.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Better said than me. There are different approaches to
| changing someone's mind if they're misunderstanding
| something, versus if they're straight-up lying to you.
|
| The fact that there _exist_ highly public straight-up
| lying politicians doesn 't mean the _mass_ of politicians
| are liars. Most are trying to do a decent thing, with the
| understanding they have.
|
| Casting one's democratic agents as "other" corrodes
| democracy, decreases participation, and generally
| furthers the problem being bemoaned: lack of attention to
| citizen desires.
| brookst wrote:
| Yes, and it's frustrating to see people whose policy
| positions I generally agree with (less surveillance,
| please) resort to this kind of rhetoric. People who
| disagree are not only wrong, and not only intentional
| wrongdoers, but they have secret motives even they
| themselves don't know?
|
| These people have obviously never tried to get four
| people to agree on what movie to see.
| yunohn wrote:
| > but they have secret motives even they themselves don't
| know?
|
| I'm not sure that's what is implied; it's just obvious
| that publicly proving one's "true motives" is quite
| difficult.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Secret motives aren't really the right argument, I agree.
| Citing the seemingly-inevitable negative outcomes may be
| a better approach.
|
| When someone argues for ubiquitous mass surveillance, ask
| them to explain _exactly_ how the Stasi worked, how they
| came to power and what can be done to keep it from ever
| happening again. Point out that these questions have to
| be addressed before arming the state with surveillance
| tools that previous abusive regimes couldn 't have
| dreamed of.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| That's the biggest thing that frustrates me about NWO (as
| a concept) used as a rhetorical device in argument: it's
| not _necessary_.
|
| You have world history littered with examples of mass
| surveillance platforms being used for oppression.
|
| No explanation or justification of why that happens seems
| necessary! It's a stronger and supported argument to just
| say "Whatever the cause, when mass surveillance has been
| implemented historically, it is eventually used to errode
| civil liberties and increase population control."
| admax88qqq wrote:
| Another way of phrasing this is "always argue against the
| best possible interpretation of your opponents argument."
|
| It's a HN rule for good reason. It makes your own
| arguments stronger.
|
| Even if your opponent _is_ a shadowy new world order
| cabal member or supporter, arguing against the best
| possible interpretation which requires of their stance
| helps sway random citizen X who may not know of or
| believe in such a cabal.
| feanaro wrote:
| > There doesn't have to be a secret agenda.
|
| There doesn't have to be, but there totally _can_ be.
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| Nonsense. Government organizations never do things in
| secret. The very idea is patently absurd. I mean, how
| would that even happen in practice, someone does
| something without blasting it on Twitter, as I said,
| absurd.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| Maybe the things that get blasted on twitter are
| _formally_ secret things that government agencies do that
| someone blew the whistle on?
|
| Which means there could be an untold number of things
| which they do which are currently secret.
|
| I heard once that things, sometimes shady things, exist
| outside of the twitterverse.
| martyvis wrote:
| >formally
|
| or formerly?
| candiodari wrote:
| There are boatloads of laws in any democracy that would
| never survive a referendum. This law is one example.
|
| Let's face facts here: 90% of the aim is to make policing
| cheaper and more pervasive. To make it possible for
| algorithms to police people, because then those
| algorithms can replace attention by police officers. Even
| most police officers themselves wouldn't agree to that.
| yunohn wrote:
| I'm truly astonished that there are people who refuse to
| believe that the people in power are constantly
| conspiring. It's like you are completely ignoring all
| evidence, or discounting it as one-offs.
|
| Sure, maybe it's not NWO or the illuminati, but you can't
| possibly dismiss all the behavior we see and impacts we
| experience?
| ChewFarceSkunk wrote:
| It's like being biten by an unknown insect and refusing
| to acknowledge the fact for the lack of a correct
| binomial nomenclature for that insect. _No name = no
| entity_ , that's their motto.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Sure, but it's not a singular shadowy cabal in a star
| chamber. There are different groups who all have an
| negative impact on our lives.
|
| The banal and stupid: Elon Musk and his fellow trust fund
| buddies and VCs doing jello shots and going "Antifa sucks
| amirite?" and acting on their stupidity because they have
| money and power.
|
| Banal and stupid category 2: CEO groupthink. Let's all
| have layoffs before there's an actual recession because
| activist stockholders demand it and we don't have the
| guts to propose something better.
|
| Then there's the John Birch Societies of the world: the
| actual organized shadow political movements. The Koch
| brothers using massive corporate profits to fund the
| right wing think tanks over multiple decades. They don't
| take credit, but the ascent of the right wing crazies is
| entirely down to them and fellow travelers.
|
| Banal and stupid category 3: the people attending the
| WEF/Davos. enough said.
|
| etc. you can probably list your favorites here, and you
| might slice them differently than I have. What there
| isn't is a single central group making decisions for the
| rest of us, nor is there any organized left-wing cabal.
| If you do think there's any kind of organized left-wing
| group of any sort in America, I'd love to know about it,
| because I'd like to join that group and I've never seen
| one in 20 years of looking.
| lazyeye wrote:
| If you study system theory you'll understand that a bunch
| of seemingly self-motivated actors without a central
| leader can achieve a system-wide outcome. A ant colony
| might be a simple example of this.
| yunohn wrote:
| > If you do think there's any kind of organized left-wing
| group of any sort in America
|
| I'm neither American, nor was talking about "left wing"
| American cabals that control the world.
|
| I'm not sure why this has to be a singular group. It's a
| tale as old as time, rich vs poor. One can clearly
| observe multiple not-necessarily-colluding but powerful
| groups globally and locally, who all aim to control and
| subjugate the rest of us.
|
| This makes no sense to be a semantic debate where you
| grind an axe that "there is not just one illuminati" and
| act like that means something impressive.
| fossuser wrote:
| Yeah - also sometimes there are legitimate tradeoffs and
| the answer is non-obvious!
|
| Stuff like Google's CSAM detection really does detect
| abuse. It also can cause problems for a parent if there's
| a false positive.
|
| The reason these things are hard is because it's a
| discussion of what's better _on net_ and it's not the
| case that there is no tradeoff.
|
| https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PeSzc9JTBxhaYRp9b/policy-
| deb...
|
| If OP can't acknowledge that he's just ideologically
| partisan and won't be persuasive to anyone who doesn't
| already agree. Deeply understanding the opposite position
| requires accepting that there are smart reasonable people
| that hold it (for good reasons!), not that they're all
| some "shadowy cabal" lying and hiding bad intent.
| jeremyjh wrote:
| There are definitely a lot of smart, reasonable people
| with sincerely held beliefs who nonetheless _lie_ about
| their motivations and work with like minded people to
| draft and support legislation under false pretenses for
| the greater good. They say they want to stop child
| pornographers and I'm sure they do, but their actual
| motivations are to monitor political dissidents.
| fossuser wrote:
| Sure, but they're not the entire set - and it's the
| people that hold the view earnestly that are more
| interesting to steelman.
|
| The same could be said for people who want encryption
| (and often is by partisans on the other side, "you just
| want to hide bad behavior and only pretend it's about
| general privacy").
|
| I think strong encryption and user control is important
| (I work on urbit full time at Tlon and encourage friends
| to use Signal), but I still recognize there are real
| tradeoffs that result from empowering individuals this
| way, I just think on net it's the right decision even
| with the often terrible downsides.
|
| It's easy to pretend there are no downsides and people
| like to structure policy opinions as if this was the
| case, but it rarely is.
|
| ##
|
| > " Robin Hanson proposed stores where banned products
| could be sold.1 There are a number of excellent arguments
| for such a policy--an inherent right of individual
| liberty, the career incentive of bureaucrats to prohibit
| everything, legislators being just as biased as
| individuals. But even so (I replied), some poor, honest,
| not overwhelmingly educated mother of five children is
| going to go into these stores and buy a "Dr. Snakeoil's
| Sulfuric Acid Drink" for her arthritis and die, leaving
| her orphans to weep on national television.
|
| I was just making a factual observation. Why did some
| people think it was an argument in favor of regulation?
|
| On questions of simple fact (for example, whether Earthly
| life arose by natural selection) there's a legitimate
| expectation that the argument should be a one-sided
| battle; the facts themselves are either one way or
| another, and the so-called "balance of evidence" should
| reflect this. Indeed, under the Bayesian definition of
| evidence, "strong evidence" is just that sort of evidence
| which we only expect to find on one side of an argument.
|
| But there is no reason for complex actions with many
| consequences to exhibit this onesidedness property. Why
| do people seem to want their policy debates to be one-
| sided?
|
| Politics is the mind-killer. Arguments are soldiers. Once
| you know which side you're on, you must support all
| arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that
| appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it's like
| stabbing your soldiers in the back. If you abide within
| that pattern, policy debates will also appear one-sided
| to you--the costs and drawbacks of your favored policy
| are enemy soldiers, to be attacked by any means
| necessary."
| croes wrote:
| Parts of Germany instated laws that allowed to arrest people
| without trial for 30days.
|
| They claimed to only use it to prevent severe crimes like
| terrorism.
|
| Current statistics show, the most people that got arrested
| via that laws are climate activists.
|
| So either the law makers and police are incompetent and
| therefore shouldn't make these laws way or they know what
| they are doing and therefore shouldn't make these laws.
|
| BTW these laws made for "good reasons" don't get the jobs
| done.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| On the other hand in UK we pass laws that make it illegal
| to steal dogs. Which was obviously illegal anyway.
|
| I think American terror watchist has grown to nearly two
| million people. Are there really milkions of terrorists in
| US? How have they not yet blown up everything
| oauea wrote:
| The reason is, and always has been, to enable lazy police
| work. They won't have to do their jobs if facebook will just
| tell them who the criminals are.
| kwanbix wrote:
| So, if everything is encrypted, how do you expect the
| police to catch ped0philes, for example?
| jaywalk wrote:
| "So if everyone has the right to privacy, how are the
| police supposed to do their job?"
|
| Somehow the police managed to catch bad guys before mass
| surveillance existed. Maybe they should look at that?
| dns_snek wrote:
| State of the art encryption has become so widespread and
| well known that anyone with the tiniest interest in
| privacy can download one of the hundreds of open source
| E2EE messaging platforms to use for their criminal
| activities.
|
| This line of thinking has always struck me as extremely
| odd - as soon as current, presumably E2EE, methods of
| communication are tapped into for intelligence and law
| enforcement purposes, criminals can and will switch to
| projects that don't comply with the backdoor laws. It's a
| violation of privacy that only law-abiding citizens will
| be subject to, for everyone else it's optional.
|
| You might catch a wave of them off guard in the
| beginning, but in the long term all you end up doing is
| surveilling innocent people and _maybe_ catching lowest
| hanging fruit - the types of people who are already dumb
| enough to share their criminal activities on Facebook.
| intrasight wrote:
| borrowing from gun reasoning, if encryption is made a
| crime, then only criminals will use encryption.
| themitigating wrote:
| Ever think there aren't as many pedophiles as you think?
| Maybe many have their own children to abuse or
| organizations with trust, like the church, in which
| encryption doesn't mean anything.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Another way of phrasing this might be "people will not have
| to pay as much tax if technological tools are used to
| assess crimes rather than traditional high-touch policing
| (ie high man-hours)".
|
| Generally people want all the [other] criminals catching,
| but do not want all resources of the state used solely for
| policing. Optimisations then are preferred even if there is
| collateral harm.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| In goriest form, I think of this as the drone argument.
|
| Is it better to put boots on the ground, some of whom may
| die and who may cause collateral casualties in executing
| their mission, or a (hypothetically idealized) drone that
| kills only the target?
|
| Still haven't decided if I have, or there even exists, a
| good answer to that.
| oauea wrote:
| The answer is yes. Murdering other humans who have no way
| to see it coming and no way to defend themselves is
| deeply evil. Especially when you factor in the murder of
| innocents (also referred to as collateral damage), and
| the facts that mistakes happen.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| But people are people. They get nervous/scared in
| situations. Maybe the boots on the ground snap and murder
| a bunch of civilians they thought were threatening.
|
| A perfect drone wouldn't do that.
|
| But on the other hand, a perfect drone has no cost of
| use, other than monetary. Which seems far too low a bar
| to set for the seriousness of taking a life.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Definitely think that's _why_ it happens, at the tactical
| level. Why make your job harder than it could be?
| [deleted]
| rdevsrex wrote:
| Ahem, have you forgotten about the NSA spying on US citizens?
| Every government covets that power. It's a fantasy to assume
| they don't.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| As a jailhouse lawyer at a Federal Prison the amount of
| parallel construction in America is shocking. If you know
| the level the average FBI agent works at, look up other
| cases they are involved in and the level of work they did
| on them and 'quality' of their testimony and 'understanding
| of tech' they demonstrate, and then see these cases where
| they made amazing leaps of logic and connections and
| suddenly became technology geniuses it's easy to identify.
|
| But of course you need paid access to Lexus Nexus to look
| any of that up because while 'case law' is the law of the
| land and cases records are 'public' you have no way to, you
| know, access it or the information from all those 'public'
| cases they are involved in without paying big $$$. So the
| average person has no way to get exposed to how things
| really operate and instead go off some Constitutional and
| televisions crime drama 'ideals' that we all want reality
| to look like. It was really interesting spending hours
| going through those cases in the law library when I had
| 'free' (just trade a day of your life) access to it.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > Pretending there's a sinister, organized New World Order
| (aka "them") with decades-long plans to restrict freedom is
| fantasy, and doesn't help us target the actual problem.
|
| I'm not a conspiracy theorist, and I don't really believe too
| much in the existence of such a group, but I can argue this
| is really bad logic.
|
| A. Do you think such a group would be public with their
| ambitions? Such a group would doubtless deny their own
| existence. Arguing that they _do_ , or _do not_ exist, can
| only be based on observation and opinion, because it is not
| falsifiable.
|
| B. Secret societies do exist, and there are some that still
| exist to this day that had major political power previously.
| The Freemasons, for example, were pretty influential in the
| French revolution on both sides, and counted leaders like
| Napoleon, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Winston
| Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Paul Revere, and so on
| among their members. We know that nine freemasons, at a
| minimum, signed the US Constitution. (Then, fun fact, they
| put "Novus ordo seclorum" on the great seal of the US.)
|
| C. And even if there weren't powerful secret societies
| historically (which is doubtful), we currently live in a very
| globalized world with much easier ability to meet and
| privately message, so there's always a first. Saying that it
| never happened, therefore it can't happen, is always
| misguided.
|
| D. The World Economic Forum literally called for everyone to
| build a New World Order in 2018. With that exact terminology.
| It's still on their website. I would argue that makes them
| partially culpable for the conspiracies.
| https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/12/we-must-work-
| together...
| lazyeye wrote:
| I dont think it will be a "secret cabal". It will simply be
| a bunch of powerful people arguing that their personal
| interests are the national/global interest. And believing
| this whether its true or not. And institutions falling in
| line with this.
|
| You see this kind of attitude at a lower level on HN, for
| example, all the time. And this flaw in human nature only
| grows the more powerful you become.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| When I was in IT, the rule was 'no essential businesses
| processes in Excel unless defined and approved' to ensure
| 1. The formulas were actually correct and 2. We could
| provide continuity should the person leave 3. These items
| were included in corporate backups not just user level
| ones, etc. Hardly anyone followed that process. People
| are going to use the easiest/best/quickest tools
| available to get their job done. Add in promotions based
| on making 'big' cases and you have quite the incentive to
| abuse these tools without some huge conspiracy. Simple
| human nature.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| 15% of my day job (for going on a decade now) is helping
| people untangle Excel hairballs. It's opened my eyes to
| how creatively badly people can solve problems, given no
| alternatives.
| im3w1l wrote:
| How do you explain the countless tyrants in ancient and
| modern history? Hell, even in contemporary times. The truth
| is that there are absolutely very dangerous people around.
| And also a lot of good people too. We can't know for certain
| who is who, so the best approach is to be as polite as if
| they were good people but as cautious as if they were evil.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| There are only ever two high level options:
|
| 1) Put someone in charge, so that they can overrule the
| evil of the masses
|
| 2) Put the masses in charge, so that they can overrule the
| evil of individuals
|
| Naturally the Romans, governmentally smart buggers that
| they were, adopted both.
|
| In modern times, I think the best we can get is putting the
| masses in charge, with specific prohibitions on dumb things
| we know they'll try to do (e.g. trade freedom for security
| when they're scared).
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| > Pretending there's a sinister, organized New World Order
| (aka "them"
|
| How did you got this out of GP? I think you both
| saying/meaning the same.
|
| > and listen to the loudest and most organized group. Which
| tends to be intelligence or law enforcement.
|
| Yep, and their actual desire is to control people's freedom
| (even admitting that some or all of them themselves belief
| that this is only for good cause, the reasons that also GP
| listed.. ).
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Intelligence and law enforcement aren't typically empowered
| voters in democratic legislative bodies.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| And yet, they tend to be very successful on getting any
| proposal they want from those bodies.
|
| You can wonder why.
| candiodari wrote:
| Same reason every parliament in the world, including
| congress, has their own separate police force protecting
| them rather than relying on the real one?
| anticensor wrote:
| Those two police forces do have competing interests at
| times, hence the domestic police does not enter the
| parliamentary premises unless it is specifically called
| by a parliamentary decision.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I don't have to wonder, I know.
|
| Because they present a social good (less crime, adherence
| to law, order) that's one of the bases of civilization to
| those bodies, and those bodies give them more latitude
| than competing interests because of the primacy of that
| good.
|
| Which is how I'd _want_ the system to work, because any
| system fully optimized for freedom without national
| security exceptions wouldn 't survive as a major world
| power.
|
| They don't always get what they want. They do tend to get
| what they want. Occasionally things are scaled back
| later, as excesses are discovered.
|
| Working as designed and intended.
|
| Or to put it another way, what substitute system would
| you rather put in place, and how would it handle
| malicious internal groups and external world powers?
| pessimizer wrote:
| > In democracies, it really is pushed for {good reasons}.
|
| It's marketed to upper-middle class elites as reasonable, and
| of course it's upper-middle class elites that are paid to put
| together this marketing. But it's really orders from an owner
| class that has entirely different interests from the other
| 99.9% of the population.
|
| If an individual member of of the upper-middle class has a
| problem with {the imposition of the week}, they are harshly
| corrected, shunned, then eventually ejected from the upper-
| middle class. Your credentials will be taken away, your
| friends will avoid you to keep from being suspected
| themselves (and will rationalize this behavior to overcome
| cognitive dissonance, becoming energetic state chauvinists),
| your credit will be destroyed.
|
| > Pretending there's a sinister, organized New World Order
| (aka "them") with decades-long plans to restrict freedom is
| fantasy, and doesn't help us target the actual problem.
|
| This is just a slander. There are people who own large parts
| of the economy, and people live for decades, and people pass
| their ownership to their children. They are also friends with
| their peers. The fantasyland is when we imply that they never
| speak to each other, never make plans, and have no agendas.
| It's a failure of thinking at scale.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > The fantasyland is when we imply that they never speak to
| each other, never make plans, and have no agendas. It's a
| failure of thinking at scale.
|
| This fantasyland is denifately common falacy many here
| believe
|
| However it remains to be shown that their plans are what
| you say they are
| omgomgomgomg wrote:
| I think you are wrong here and right.
|
| There is no conspiracy, it has all already happened.
|
| Maybe not on a global scope, but have you heard of the
| "stasi"?
|
| Any political party can conspire to enforce something
| against the voter base that is not represented, pretty
| much any time.
|
| The saying "knowledge is power" and 1984 and such havent
| been there for no reason.
|
| People have written conspiracy theories about rfid chips,
| they have been ridiculous and what could these have given
| away other than location data and body temperature?
| Meanwhile, everyone has a mobile phone and a pc and smart
| devices which are phoning home sending the data to be
| sold to the highest bidder.
|
| There have been terrible people in power on this planet
| and their paths should be full of obstacles.
|
| Ask the people who suffered under pinochet, stasi and
| countless african dictators.
|
| Better to not hand anyone the full infrastructure for
| absolute power and control if it can be prevented.
|
| Nuclear codes and production secrets are not visible on
| youtube, and I think medical data, bank accounts,
| browsing history and docs on pcs should not be subject to
| preemptive surveillance.
|
| If there are issues with child pornography, we have
| police forces for that, by all means, go for them.
|
| If there is a terrorist problem, we have armies to sort
| them out, by all means, go for it.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > However it remains to be shown that their plans are
| what you say they are
|
| I didn't mention any plans other than {the imposition of
| the week}, so I think introspection is due to discover
| why you think I did.
| soperj wrote:
| > it's then used by law enforcement
|
| Never seen any abuse by law enforcement before :|
| [deleted]
| leetcodesucks wrote:
| [dead]
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| There is no need to pretend. People with power want more
| power. As a thought exercise consider how you would arrange
| the world were you in a position to do so and try to
| determine placement of structures that could undermine your
| benevolent rule. Freedom of speech is such a structure. It is
| not really a paranoia if there are people out there working
| on just that. Now, just because there are also fellow
| travelers who truly believe 'for the children' cry, that is
| quite another and separate conversation.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| >People with [goals] want more power
|
| Sometimes those goals align with other people's interests.
| Sometimes not. Unless there's a way to portion out power
| across a population on a case by case basis there's going
| to be conflict of interest.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Indeed. Presumably that's why it made the very first
| amendment. If only they'd thought to explicitly state that
| included privacy. :(
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| There is a "them" though: Tech giants. And they are
| pushing/lobbying hard with their huge financial reserves,
| which they extracted from clueless uninformed masses. A
| company like Google would love for all privacy protections to
| disappear tomorrow, because of the riches they can amass
| then. It is simply capitalism and greed at work.
| pelasaco wrote:
| > A lot of bureaucrats and legislators are instead just
| disorganized, technically clueless, and listen to the loudest
| and most organized group. Which tends to be intelligence or
| law enforcement.
|
| I agree with you. We are too dumb, to selfish, to humans to
| be able to run a a New World Order, with decades-long plans
| in silence. For sure one stupid member would do a tiktok
| video while using their funny clothes
| pelasaco wrote:
| > Anyone who is really into something illegal will use
| something alternative anyway.
|
| Thats the same argument for less gun control.
| thefz wrote:
| > Privacy is a human right. We probably all know that they will
| show reasons like "fighting terrorism", "preventing national
| threats" or "hunting down child pornography"
|
| The four horsemen of the Infocalypse
|
| > The phrase is a play on Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
| There does not appear to be a universally agreed definition of
| who the Horsemen are, but they are usually listed as
| terrorists, drug dealers, pedophiles/child molesters, and
| organized crime.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
| atmosx wrote:
| > We certainly need decentralized systems that cannot be
| controlled by EU, US, or any government/entity.
|
| No. If such a system could work in any meaningful way, it would
| be already in place.
|
| Trying to fight legal frameworks with technology, failed in the
| past with some notable but hardly repeatable exceptions. In the
| 90s a few geeks tech awareness could match the resources of a
| small state, non tech-savvy state. Nowadays it is impossible
| because the discrepancy in resources is huge.
|
| There are countries that force you to download their own
| "secure" SSL certificate, so they can sniff all traffic. China
| is the worst and most prominent example.
|
| This battle need to be fought on the street, with votes, by
| raising awareness, etc. If we want to be "free" we need to
| take-over the political battle, not the tech battle because if
| we win on that front, most likely won't matter. I don't want to
| risk jail for using an open source encryption tool.
| humanizersequel wrote:
| >No. If such a system could work in any meaningful way, it
| would be already in place.
|
| I'm reminded of the EMH joke about the economist walking by a
| 100 dollar bill on the street, assuming that it must be fake
| because if it were real, someone already would have picked it
| up.
| atmosx wrote:
| What is EMH? Sounds like a crypto convention to me.
| boring_twenties wrote:
| Efficient Markets Hypothesis
| stagas wrote:
| I've always wondered behind the rationale on privacy being a
| human right. What if it wasn't? What if instead we were
| enforcing transparency? Force everything to be public, starting
| from the government down to the local coffee shop. All
| transactions, all communications, everything. Make privacy a
| crime for everybody, including the government and the military.
| Just as a thought exercise, it would be a remarkably different
| world. I think the problem privacy is solving enables a
| different set of problems to emerge that would have otherwise
| been impossible. And one could argue that these new problems
| are those that enable the necessity for privacy to be
| established as a human right in the first place.
| boring_twenties wrote:
| Without privacy, human beings cannot be their true, complete
| selves. Why do some people only sing in the shower?
| reedjosh wrote:
| I've had similar thoughts, but I always land on the asymetry
| between governments and its populace being the key issue.
|
| If transparency is the norm, governments need to go first.
|
| Since that will never happen, the only solution remains
| privacy for all, or no government at all.
| masterof0 wrote:
| Sure, let's make everyone to walk around naked. Let's also
| make sure, that everyone knows what is going on in your life,
| where you and your loved ones live, what they buy, how much
| money they make, what they say, ....... Your argument is
| ridiculous.
| kragen wrote:
| people need privacy not because their acts are unworthy
|
| people need privacy because _others ' intentions and
| judgment_ are unworthy
|
| if you've ever known anyone who was gay, who got divorced,
| who secretly had a deprecated ethnic background, who left
| their faith, who didn't want their ex-boyfriend to know where
| they lived, who revealed government corruption, who struggled
| for political change, or who could be raped or robbed by a
| stranger, you've known someone who needed privacy
|
| even though they had nothing to be ashamed of
|
| you might argue that if nobody had privacy, nobody would be
| able to get away with rape, or with lynching people they
| discovered had a drop of black blood, or with lynching
| apostates, or with gay-bashing, so these things wouldn't
| happen in a world without privacy
|
| that would be a stupid argument because people did those
| things openly all the time, and they usually got away with
| it, and some of them still do; humans have a social pecking
| order, and it is defined by aggression with impunity
|
| also people murder their ex-partners all the time even when
| they won't get away with it
| stagas wrote:
| Dealing with aggression using privacy doesn't seem to be
| solving the problem though, nor it is a solution? You
| shouldn't live your life hiding. We need privacy because of
| X, underlies the assumption that X is something different
| and unwanted, perpetuating that idea it's trying to
| protect. If everything was public then it would more easily
| become part of reality, part of normal. Hiding in privacy
| just keeps the problem going.
| kragen wrote:
| _We need privacy because of X, underlies the assumption
| that X is something different and unwanted, perpetuating
| that idea it 's trying to protect_
|
| this is poorly expressed, but i think you're trying to
| say that privacy can only be justified to hide 'unwanted'
| things, and so, for example, arguing that people need
| privacy to hide being gay implicitly accepts that it is
| bad to be gay; is that what you meant?
|
| this is the premise i explicitly rejected in my comment;
| to use that example, this is an instance of what i said
|
| gay people need privacy not because being gay is bad
|
| gay people need privacy because _others ' intentions and
| judgment_ toward gay people are bad
|
| you seem to be arguing that it would be good to improve
| others' intentions and judgment toward gay people, and
| this is correct, but there are limits to how much mere
| exposure can effect such a change
|
| i am not willing to sacrifice gay people's lives for that
|
| it should be extremely obvious that your reasoning is
| invalid in some of my examples
|
| your teenaged neighbor doesn't want everyone to see her
| in the shower and to know when she's alone and
| unprotected because she's vulnerable to being raped
|
| there is no assumption that the shape of her breasts or
| her walking home alone last thursday are 'something
| different and unwanted' or in any way bad; quite the
| contrary, her ability to walk home alone is precisely the
| good that it is important to protect in this situation
|
| the problem is, as ought to be obvious, certain other
| people's intentions toward her; she needs privacy to
| protect herself
| rrsmtz wrote:
| The point of human rights is to protect the underprivileged -
| the privileged of any given society don't need to have these
| protections because they are at the top of the social
| hierarchy and get to call the shots. They would simply use
| their influence to get an exception for themselves. That's
| why the US constitution is great, because it's such a pain in
| the ass to change (unfortunately the privileged invent
| "interpretations" to change it retroactively).
|
| Your thought experiment exists in a utopia where the above
| isn't the case, which isn't really applicable to any human
| society that's ever existed. The top of the food chain will
| Until humans stop forming hierarchies, we need rights.
| stagas wrote:
| Privacy though is perpetuating that priviledged class
| because they can do their shady business in secret. If
| everything was transparent, that would be harder to
| achieve.
|
| Also the "every human society that's ever existed" isn't
| true, because for sure when humans were nomads, you
| basically knew what's happening with everybody in your
| tribe, transparency was at 100%, privacy at 0. It's also
| the case today in many places such as small villages where
| everybody knows what everybody else is doing and it seems
| to be ok.
| rrsmtz wrote:
| It'd be great to expose shady business, but somebody has
| to enforce the forced transparency and that's a LOT of
| power. Whoever has that power can pretty easily keep
| privacy for themselves and their friends, use it to
| blackmail others, and enforce it more harshly on their
| enemies.
|
| My point is that no matter what society you look at, the
| privileged get the nice things (like privacy)
| automatically whereas the underprivileged have to get it
| encoded into law, and even then it's not guaranteed. It's
| a rigged game, and the right to privacy levels the
| playing field.
|
| When humans were nomads, we didn't have human rights so
| the point is kind of moot, but we still had secrets (even
| if gossip made it harder to keep them secret) and we
| still had a strong social hierarchy with privileged
| elders.
| tomxor wrote:
| > We certainly need decentralized systems that cannot be
| controlled by EU, US, or any government/entity.
|
| I used to think this way, and still do to a degree... but it's
| not enough. The idea of zero trust as an absolute is flawed,
| because if the adversary is your own government they will just
| keep shifting targets. Lets play this out:
|
| 1. Gov start monitoring all proprietary messaging platforms and
| services. So lets assume that in response, decentralised FOSS
| based e2e encrypted private messaging services flourish, and
| _everyone actually adopts them_... All proprietary messaging
| platforms /services die off. Great, what next?
|
| 2. Now gov mandate that all hardware must have have backdoors
| to circumvent those measures. So lets assume in response,
| consumer hardware transforms into IBM PC style open standard
| and people start assembling their own smart phones and tablets
| out of interchangeable components so that they can avoid those
| pesky backdoor chips... and miraculously _everyone_ does this
| and proprietary handset manufacturers all die off. Now what?
|
| 3. Gov mandate all fabs must etch an additional microcontroller
| onto every CPU/microcontroller with > n gates, with full memory
| and network access. Do we all start running local fabs in our
| basement?
|
| Hopefully you get my point, the reality is that there is
| friction in both directions and neither end has absolute power,
| but we must push back against policies like this to prevent
| erosion of our values, do not "give them an inch" so to speak.
| We cannot trust all of society, but we also cannot afford to
| _not_ trust civilisation in it 's entirety, it's just not
| possible, we cannot build our own computers out of sticks and
| mud.
|
| If you want an example of what a technological arms race with
| your own government looks like, it's happening in China right
| now. They aren't even fighting for privacy, they are fighting
| to just communicate and access information freely.
| seanw444 wrote:
| Agreed. Just like every fight for freedoms, it is a constant
| battle, and one that will never end.
| masterof0 wrote:
| The alternative would be China-style surveillance state,
| and be cool with it? Nice
| staunton wrote:
| > everyone actually adopts them
|
| I think that scenario is unrealistic because if a majority of
| people are at a point where they would go to such lengths for
| privacy, democratic governments wouldn't be monitoring
| everything in the first place. I believe most high-democracy-
| index countries are democratic enough for this to apply.
| Actual reason for these policies is that most people do not
| care about privacy.
| tomxor wrote:
| I know. It's a thought experiment to show that even in
| unrealistically optimistic conditions, technology is still
| not sufficient to solve the problem. I intentionally
| ignored the societal component of adoption for this reason,
| showing that it makes no difference.
| YoshiRulz wrote:
| IMO, your hypothetical falls apart at the second point:
|
| > Now gov mandate that all hardware must have have backdoors
| to circumvent those measures.
|
| A government could _legislate_ that it may not rain anywhere
| in the country on Tuesdays, but _executing_ that isn 't
| practicable. Likewise, backdooring one family of CPUs may be
| possible, but you can't simply tell chip fabs to backdoor
| each and every design. They'd grind to a halt in order to
| comply.
|
| And I want to say that there exists provably un-backdoor-able
| "zero-knowledge" computing, something like Ethereum's smart
| contract ISA, but I may be misremembering.
|
| In the end, our governments are democratic, we elect
| politicians to represent our will. They shouldn't be pushing
| for things like backdoors at all when no citizens are in
| favour. So yes,
|
| > [...] we must push back against policies like this to
| prevent erosion of our values, do not "give them an inch" so
| to speak.
|
| I agree that China is currently, to continue your metaphor,
| winning the fight against privacy--but only because using the
| government-friendly superapps is necessary for everyday life,
| and not because they've blocked the likes of Tor.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip
| tomxor wrote:
| > you can't simply tell chip fabs to backdoor each and
| every design. They'd grind to a halt in order to comply.
|
| Yes, it's supposed to be an unrealistically optimistic
| thought experiment, both in favour of the efficacy of
| technical solutions (ignoring the societal component) and
| government power (ignoring economic side-effects). It shows
| that technology alone cannot outmanoeuvre unchecked power,
| and so power must be kept in check.
|
| In reality, there are multiple forces beyond legislation
| that naturally add friction, which you allude to... However
| governments can get very far before hitting those
| thresholds, especially if there is no pushback from the
| people. There is also the problem of compounding policies
| eroding democratic freedoms, that can allow for easier
| enactment of ever more extreme policies, even in spite of
| economic consequence. For instance this is the case with
| the GFW in China where workers no longer have access to the
| full wealth of information available on the wider internet
| to perform their jobs as effectively.
|
| The ultimate point I'm trying to make here (and I think we
| are in agreement), is that as technologists we cannot
| simply bury our heads in our code, we must acknowledge that
| developing more resilient technology is only a single
| component, it is not sufficient. Supporting the fight
| against freedom eroding policies is necessary.
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| > We certainly need decentralized systems that cannot be
| controlled by EU, US, or any government/entity.
|
| No, not really. A World with controlled controllers is better
| than a world without any control. See the awful space which is
| the crypto community ATM. EU and US so far are fair and tame
| (to their own citizen). They are not always good, but not bad.
| And that's fair enough for any decent citizen.
|
| Though, part of this deal is that we take control on when they
| go too far, and do stupid things. Which seems to be the case in
| this case, because of which we push against it, because that's
| how we hope to get a healthy world.
|
| > Privacy is a human right.
|
| So is security. It's all about balancing interests and
| abilities.
|
| > whereas the real motivation is to control people's freedom of
| speech and communication even though they will 100% deny it.
|
| That smells like QAnon-level of conspiracy BS.
|
| > Anyone who is really into something illegal will use
| something alternative anyway.
|
| No, they are not. The majority of criminals are not some
| organized super villains. They are usually also depending on
| the same tools and networks as everyone else. And they are also
| just flawed humans, making errors.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| > > whereas the real motivation is to control people's
| freedom of speech and communication even though they will
| 100% deny it.
|
| > That smells like QAnon-level of conspiracy BS.
|
| Are you familiar with a country called China?
| detaro wrote:
| "All leaders want their countries to be like China" is
| conspiracy BS, yes.
| pokepim wrote:
| [dead]
| AlbertCory wrote:
| There are a lot of people objecting to the "real motivation"
| argument (it's just bureaucratic incompetence, they don't know
| what they're doing, etc. etc.)
|
| Usually those are good arguments. Not this time.
|
| This proposal is Pure Evil. Hardly anyone is willing to come
| out and say they admire the Chinese social credit system. But
| when their every action leans towards replicating it, it's more
| than fair to drag them out into the sunlight.
| random_upvoter wrote:
| The European leaders talk big about being the protectors of
| democracy and yet all the time things get pushed through that
| literally nobody wants.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Just as non-European leaders.
| zerodensity wrote:
| I dunno I like this proposal. So at least one person wants it.
| 1337shadow wrote:
| Why not but then what's your plan against the explosion of crime?
| throwrqX wrote:
| Every time this comes up people talk about protecting privacy and
| anonymity and what not and while luckily for us most of the time
| the laws die out they still do pass on occasion. The fundamental
| issue to me is that society still wants to protect against
| pedophiles or drug dealers or whatever other group more than
| protect privacy. As an example, how many people here could go on
| television onto some talk program or news show with their real
| name and face and tell a child abuse victim that while their
| concerns may be valid they are wrong and they should shut up? I
| doubt very many. I ran into a similar scenario once defending
| privacy when a lady who said she was abused as a child came into
| the conversation and told her story to the crowd. As you can
| imagine the crowd was very supportive of her and my concerns were
| more or less dismissed afterwards. There is nothing technical I
| could say that could persuade them as much as the poor lady's
| life story could.
| nhchris wrote:
| Say "Most sexual abuse is domestic. Shall we mandate cameras in
| every room of every house? Or remote engine-lock to stop
| terrorist car attacks? There are cameras everywhere, forensics
| is more advanced than ever, 'going dark' is the opposite of
| reality. But there is always some small remaining scrap of
| freedom left to sacrifice for supposed 'safety', until we are
| reduced to cattle. Doing so is spitting on the graves of
| everyone who ever died for freedom, of everyone who chose to
| fight instead of 'peacefully' submit to foreign conquest or
| domestic dictatorship.
|
| But suppose you do prefer 'safety' to all else, to privacy and
| liberty. Suppose you want to sacrifice everything for it. Will
| you even get it? We can today build prisons and surveillance
| far more effective than at any point in history, and once we've
| turned society into a safe cage, how sure are you the wrong
| people won't get the keys? Historically, how many governments
| would you have trusted with such total surveillance of their
| citizens? Tsarist Russia? Soviet Russia? _Present day_ Russia?
| Communist China? Present day China? Nazi Germany? The Stasi?
| The Khmer Rouge? The Ottoman Empire? Iran? The British Raj? But
| you 're _sure_ nothing like that will happen here? _This time_
| , benevolent government will last, and we can safely surrender
| all means of opposition?"
| alar44 wrote:
| It's a great argument but way over the head of the average
| citizen. Most people are unable to think about things this
| way. The government and police are the good guys etc.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| "Would the law you propose have stopped you being abused?"
|
| No. Police are not psychics. They do not stop theoretical
| crime. They can only respond after crime has happened.
| [deleted]
| mab122 wrote:
| Side argument - why do you need protection from drug dealers?
| Just don't buy drugs from them if you don't want any.
|
| Main argument: you bring up very important aspect - emotional
| one. We are very emotional and in the heat of the moment you
| probably won't be able to make good technical and reasonable
| case to persuade people, but that doesn't mean they are right.
|
| Also I am not against _solutions_ to the problem. I am against
| solutions that when implemented have really low cost of
| switching them into tools of abuse.
|
| Example: There is law that allows banning of websites (just DNS
| resolution) that promote gambling, illegal porn etc. It was
| recently used to "take down" a website that leaked emails of
| politicians of current government (it could be bad if we speak
| of some national security / military stuff, in that case they
| share info about corruption and nepotism)
| _vertigo wrote:
| > how many people here could go on television onto some talk
| program or news show with their real name and face and tell a
| child abuse victim that while their concerns may be valid they
| are wrong and they should shut up?
|
| Well, putting aside the "shut up" part, I'd be happy to state
| publicly that under no (reasonable, peacetime) circumstances
| should the government be allowed to read my texts, emails, and
| documents.
|
| Obviously there's a bunch of qualifiers to assign to that (if
| I'm under suspicion of something, OK, sure, maybe the
| government can get a warrant) that I'm not qualified to speak
| intelligently about, but that's the gist. Saying that the
| government should not be able to read your email or list to
| your phone calls is not an unpopular opinion, at least in the
| States, and it's also not one that requires you to be of an
| overly technical persuasion to have.
|
| People support victims of child abuse and they also distrust
| the government and don't want it to have awesome powers of
| espionage it can wield against the entire populace at scale all
| of the time. Those positions might conflict with each other if
| you frame the conversation that way, but if you do frame it
| that way, I don't think it's a given that the child abuse
| argument is always going to win the debate.
| mahathu wrote:
| > As an example, how many people here could go on television
| onto some talk program or news show with their real name and
| face and tell a child abuse victim that while their concerns
| may be valid they are wrong and they should shut up? I doubt
| very many.
|
| I think I'm misunderstanding you here, are you implying
| presently real politicians would have to do that to advocate
| for privacy laws?
| pfortuny wrote:
| That is why passion is not a good way to write laws.
|
| Something being useful (lack of privacy) does not make it
| either good or necessary.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| That's why you let people vote how they want and then give them
| the Truman Show.
| benevol wrote:
| By that logic, we'd need to make knives illegal, because people
| get stabbed to death every day somewhere.
| canadaduane wrote:
| It isn't logic, and I think that's the point--it's an appeal
| to emotion, and if you pit logic vs emotion, emotion will
| almost always win in the broader culture. (A few oddball
| cultures like ycombinator and lesswrong etc. aside, perhaps).
| canadaduane wrote:
| This is an awesome point, and one I think geeks need to hear
| often: We act based on our emotions even if they are well-
| hidden beneath logical explanations.
|
| Perhaps the "answer" to the lady who was abused as a child is
| to tell another emotional story--for example, Ann Frank:
|
| > Have you heard the story of Anne Frank? She was a Jewish girl
| who lived in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation of the
| Netherlands in World War II. She and her sister lived in hiding
| for two years until they were eventually discovered and
| arrested by the Gestapo. They later died of typhus in a
| concentration camp.
|
| > How did surveillance play a role? No one knows who betrayed
| her. She lived through constant fear of being caught. Knowing
| they were being watched added to the already difficult
| conditions of living in hiding--the stress of the situation
| affected their relationships and mental health.
|
| > If you or those you care about ever find yourself on the
| "less desirable" list in society, it's vital that you have some
| control over things you say to others in confidence. The Nazi's
| oppression of the Jewish people limited their freedom and
| contributed to Anne's tragic end.
| [deleted]
| ghusto wrote:
| Conflating privacy stripping laws with paedophilia protection
| is something I'd happily deconstruct, whether in front of a
| camera or otherwise. It's not difficult to show with logic how
| one doesn't help the other, and I could even go as far as
| showing how the laws make things worse.
|
| Don't bring feelings to a logic fight.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| Convincing people not to support privacy eroding laws isn't a
| logic fight as you are imagining it. Advocacy is much more
| complicated than that.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| > The fundamental issue to me is that society still wants to
| protect against pedophiles or drug dealers or whatever other
| group more than protect privacy.
|
| Speaking from a U.S. perspective here.
|
| A pedophile with a cameraphone is terrible. But law enforcement
| without the 4th amendment is worse.
|
| A racist with a social media account is terrible. But a
| president without the 1st amendment is worse.
|
| There are people who do terrible things in this world.
| Unfortunately people who do terrible things can run for
| government and be appointed to positions of power.
|
| There are darker things down the path of eroding our
| protections from our government than whatever evil they're
| asking us to yield for.
| skrebbel wrote:
| I had to look this up, so here's my attempt at translation
| for non-Americans:
|
| > A pedophile with a cameraphone is terrible. But law
| enforcement that can search and seize property at will is
| worse.
|
| > A racist with a social media account is terrible. But a
| president that can deny people their freedom of expression &
| assembly is worse.
|
| I agree.
|
| (ps. offtopic meta remark, the American enthusiasm for
| remembering laws _by number_ never ceases to amaze me)
| Rekksu wrote:
| that's only specifically the first 10 amendments, which are
| generally referred to as the bill of rights as they were
| added to the constitution when it was ratified and cover
| most basic freedoms so they're taught in school
|
| other rights-granting amendments are the post civil war
| ones which are slightly less well known but also covered in
| school
| supercheetah wrote:
| > There are darker things down the path of eroding our
| protections from our government than whatever evil they're
| asking us to yield for.
|
| I agree with you, but this illustrates part of the problem of
| our messaging. These policies are still just tools which
| don't have an inherent moral value. The evil comes from their
| abuse on a mass scale, and the huge temptation to abuse them,
| with the emphasis on how easily the powerful can be
| corrupted.
|
| This is prone to being called out for being a slippery slope
| fallacy, but we need to just back it up with historical
| precedent, like how similar policies were abused in the US as
| revealed by Snowden.
| jeremyjh wrote:
| What does the first amendment have to do with social media
| companies?
| elpool2 wrote:
| There are people who would like the government to outlaw
| racism/hate speech on social media. The first amendment
| prevents that. I think r3trohack3r's point is that eroding
| those 1st amendment rights to outlaw hate speech would be
| worse than the actual hate speech.
| posterboy wrote:
| I believe the general concensus is that it doesn't
| because private media companies aren't public spaces, so
| the company rules. How far the company enjoys freespeech,
| whether it extenda to their users and who gets to define
| hate speech I don't know, but lible is criminalized
| already and further analogies aren't impossible.
|
| I mean, I could call a hackernews a punk ass neoliberal
| cunt and wait what happens next.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| This stops being true when U.S. government officials
| (including publicly elected officials and folks in 3
| letter agencies) get involved with those moderation
| policies.
|
| I think it's still an open question whether it's
| acceptable for government officials to be involved in any
| way with the moderation policies of a company outside of
| the 1st amendment including:
|
| * asking for changes to moderation policies
|
| * asking for enforcement of existing policies
|
| * passing lists of users to be watched for policy
| violations
|
| * etc.
|
| Which has happened, is happening, and will continue to
| happen until the courts figure out whether or not the
| U.S. government is allowed to launder away 1st amendment
| protections through collaboration with private companies.
| Clubber wrote:
| This is true, but the first amendment should also prevent
| the government from pressuring said companies to censor
| speech as well. This would be the government using it's
| power and coercion to violate people's 1st amendment
| rights via a third party. Think "hiring someone to murder
| someone is still murder for the person hiring," or a
| police soliciting a trespass.
|
| The recent "Twitter files" showed that the government
| is/was working directly with Twitter and probably all the
| media companies to censor speech. The government, on
| multiple occasions, provided specific tweets and people
| to censor and Twitter complied. I believe they had weekly
| meetings to do just that.
| 8note wrote:
| I'd just point out that the TSA is known for exploitatively
| using it's naked scans of people.
|
| Ensuring that the government has access to everyone's nudes
| includes children's nudes.
|
| Pedophile police officers is worse than pedophile non-police,
| since the pedophile police would have the law on their side
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Ah. I'm going to need a source to back this one up.
|
| I steadfastly refused to use the mm wave scanners for years
| until DHS went through the proper comment period. I have no
| love for those things.
|
| Initially, the device produced revealing images. Now the
| images are more or less anonymous white figures with private
| areas even more obscured.
|
| If you have data to the contrary, Im interested.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Don't worry about that audience. Us profesional-managerial
| upper-middle class types are surrounded by people whose beliefs
| are subordinate to their personal ambition; it's a
| qualification for entering the class, because it takes an
| enormous amount of hard work, social connections, and study to
| reach and maintain that position. So you end up surrounded by
| people who live a politics of personal interests i.e. real
| concern about issues that affect them and the people they love
| (deemed _universal_ ), and ephemeral concern that sometimes
| borders on actual ignorance of things that don't affect them
| and theirs. This ephemeral concern and ignorance is entirely
| based in fashion.
|
| Upper-middle class PMCs generally aren't worried about being
| monitored or censored by authorities (except within the games
| of party power politics and wedge issues.) If anything, when
| they hear about it, they look to see if there are job openings.
| They are concerned about child abuse, because even wealthy
| children get abused. _Universal._
|
| They constitute (if I'm being generous) 20% of the population
| and are useless to try to convince. It's their duty to explain
| to you that the society that has rewarded them generously for
| their hard work actually has everyone's best interests at
| heart, no matter how ludicrous it seems.
| glass3 wrote:
| A bit off-topic:
|
| Which structure would be needed to make mass surveillance
| acceptable? Would it be possible to make it secure and
| transparent to the point that a mass surveillance system can be
| accepted as safe?
| pfoof wrote:
| Don't you worry, one or two exploits by a black hat and
| "Johansson tapes" will be torrented around
| O__________O wrote:
| Strangest thing to me about the topic is that it's obvious vast
| percentage of citizens within democracies wish they lived in an
| authoritarian country, yet choose to live in a democracy and use
| the liberties they're provided to actively destabilize and
| destroy it. To me this is the largest issue, not a given topic
| that results from it.
|
| Yes, I am aware current authoritarian countries wage propaganda
| campaigns, but in my experience such campaigns would be
| meaningless without an existing tendency to seek out
| authoritarian rule.
|
| While likely flawed opinion, I do feel like one possible
| explanation is nationalism in general, since while many
| democratic countries will argue they believe in the rule of law,
| ultimately any non-citizen is treated as if they are within an
| authoritarian country and for sure not as citizens by default.
| Only once there are countries that treats all people equally and
| as citizens, will such an issue be addressed in my opinion.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| I think we need to slow down and look at this with level heads.
|
| 1. What is a reliable measure of this "vast percentage"?
|
| 2. Are you perhaps lumping any departure from your preferred
| political model as "authoritarian"?
|
| 3. Are you perhaps overattributing the level of "democracy" to
| your preferred political regime?
|
| 4. Have you considered the motivations behind the distaste with
| ostensibly "democratic" regimes?
|
| Simply declaring "nationalism!" is not an intellectually
| substantive remark and probably caricaturish because a) what do
| you mean by "nationalism", and b) you haven't identified the
| confluence of motives to see what might be happening and why.
|
| My 2 cents: liberalism as a political ideology traceable to
| Locke and Hobbes is unraveling because of its inherent tensions
| and errors (like the tension between knowledge and the mistaken
| liberal notion of "freedom" understood as "do what thou wilt"
| versus "do what thou ought"; its radical individualism; its
| totalitarian "neutrality" which is a manipulative, underhanded
| means of entrenching liberal presuppositions; its
| egalitarianism). It is to be expected that someone whose
| sentiments have been shaped in a social climate that valorizes
| an ideology will view any departure as hostile and
| "authoritarian", not on objective grounds, but merely according
| to habituated affect. You had the same thing in post-Soviet
| Russia and post-War Germany.
| O__________O wrote:
| From the first sentence of the related post -- "The European
| Commission is currently in the process of enacting a law
| called Chat control. If the law goes into effect, it will
| mean that all EU citizens' communications will be monitored
| and listened to."
|
| Level headed person would see that the next step is logically
| that all communications regardless if they're in private, in
| person, etc should be monitored. If that's not an
| authoritarian state, I am happy to be listen to why.
|
| As for a vast percentage, I mean that topic like this would
| not even see the light of day if there wasn't source of
| significant support; hint, there is.
|
| I have neither have preference over given political party,
| nor would I be affiliated with a given group; that is, I am
| fine independently observing, understanding, evaluating, and
| if needed, acting on any situation as needed.
|
| Not sure understand you point 3, please feel free to clarify.
|
| As for point 4, I covered a possible reasoning why current
| democracies might be viewed as unjust; if you missed that,
| might be worth reading my OP comment again.
|
| And yes, nationalism is toxic. It treats other humans as
| subhumans by default, that is non-citizens are not treated
| equal, and for sure not as citizens by default. If there was
| a country that treated all humans as citizens, equally,
| fairly, etc - I would be happy to reevaluate my beliefs
| related to nationalism.
|
| And for your two cents, I prefer plain-English and first
| principle reasoning, not reference to historical ideologies,
| list of ism's, etc. Said another way, I don't understand what
| you hoped I would understand, but happy to listen.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Nationalism is such an ubiquitous and powerful ideology, we
| don't realise that pretty much everyone today is an extreme
| nationalist.
|
| Before "nations" people didnt regard borders, states, etc. as
| they do today. "citizenship" of a "nation" is a relatively
| recent phenomenon.
|
| Most today think it's a good-and-fitting thing to defend "one's
| country". And this impulse is vastly more powerful than
| defending "democracy".
|
| Who would die to stop a coup? Few. Who would die to stop an
| "invasion", apparently, many.
|
| What motivates Ukrainians after all?
|
| Quite an extreme ideology, one that puts so many men on the
| battlefield. But nations were invented, there is nothing
| "natural" to fight for here; nor anything even clearly moral.
|
| "Democracy", therefore, is clearly a vastly vastly weaker
| ideology. Nationalism is the most powerful ideology to ever
| exist.
| [deleted]
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| > Before "nations" people didnt regard borders, states, etc.
| as they do today. "citizenship" of a "nation" is a relatively
| recent phenomenon.
|
| "Nationalism" had more to do with the relationship between
| the state and the nation, not the existence of nations. The
| word "nation" is very old.
|
| Nation comes from the Latin "natio" meaning "birth, origin;
| breed, stock, kind, species; race of people, tribe"[0]. Thus,
| the essential basis for nationality is familial, a matter of
| common descent (as all human beings form an extended family,
| where you draw the line on this blurry map will depend on
| other factors like culture and language and ultimately the
| good held in common; note how Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians
| speak basically the same language, it is the religious and
| therefore cultural differences that separate them).
| Naturally, people migrate all the time between nations. That
| is normal to the degree that migration does not harm the
| common good of the host society. But immigration is
| effectively a matter of adoption. We can adopt children. We
| can also adopt nations.
|
| [0] https://www.etymonline.com/word/nation#etymonline_v_2309
| thelamest wrote:
| To expand just a bit more, the map is very blurry. Nation
| states tap into some real and old sentiments, but are not
| just a translation of those to a modern political language.
| They are their own new political projects, with a shape
| that is a result of historical happenstance and personal
| ambitions of specific people. It is surprisingly malleable
| - depending on what common enemies appear, what leaders and
| writers become popular, etc.
| danenania wrote:
| I don't think Ukraine is a good example of your point, as
| apart from being a war between two nations, it is clearly
| also a war between democratic and authoritarian belief
| systems. That ideological divide is a large part of what
| sparked it in the first place--the whole thing began with
| mass pro-democracy demonstrations that ousted an
| authoritarian leader.
|
| My perception is that Ukrainians know what it's like to live
| under an authoritarian system and they would rather risk
| death and the total destruction of the country than go back
| to it. Nationalism is clearly a factor as well, but it is
| deeply intertwined with pro-democratic and anti-authoritarian
| ideals. I don't think you'd see anything close to this level
| of resistance if victory would mean an authoritarian Ukraine
| rather than a democratic Ukraine.
| mjburgess wrote:
| > I don't think you'd see anything close to this level of
| resistance if victory would mean an authoritarian Ukraine
| rather than a democratic Ukraine.
|
| Ah, well: I do.
|
| I think this has extraordinarily little to do with any
| "political system", of which Ukraine and Russia were both
| quite similar.
|
| One Nation invaded another, and in such moments people's
| nationalism is trigged. One defends' "one's own nation"
| _regardless_.
|
| This is a vastly more powerful reaction than any
| intellectual-sentimental philosophy. This "Nation" is
| "Ours" and not "Yours".
|
| Indeed, the heart of the matter is that Russia isnt
| nationalist. They're still operating in a pre-National era
| of loose ethnicities being "of a common group" and hence do
| not think these borders matter so much.
|
| What russia hasnt fully understood is that essentially the
| rest of the world has become nationalist, whilst it still
| operates under an ethnic-imperial model.
| danenania wrote:
| I don't think your reading lines up with history. Putin
| was clearly content to allow Ukraine a large degree of
| sovereignty and autonomy as long as they remained under
| an authoritarian system. If nationalism was the only
| driver, why overthrow Yanukovych, thereby spitting in
| Putin's face and risking domination by another country?
|
| What wasn't tolerable to Putin was a bourgeoning
| democracy on Russia's doorstep with similar ethnography
| and demography to Russia. If it proved to be more
| successful than Russia's model (which isn't hard), that's
| a clear threat to his regime.
|
| 'I think this has extraordinarily little to do with any
| "political system", of which Ukraine and Russia were both
| quite similar.'
|
| It seems like you're simply ignoring what happened in
| 2014. The stark difference between Ukraine and Russia's
| political systems (and their future trajectories) after
| that point is one of the main causes of the war.
| mjburgess wrote:
| The "authoritarian system" in question was russia's
| ethnic-imperial system of empire. That it was
| "authoritarian" is far less important than its being
| Russian, ethnically and culturally.
|
| The offense to russia was first to turn to the west, and
| hence as Russia sees it, a counter-empire; and the
| secondly, the suprise and outrage, to believe that it's a
| Nation.
|
| Both are incomprehensible to Russia -- it has nothing to
| do with how "authoritarian" anything is.
|
| These are the concerns of intellectuals in op-eds
| danenania wrote:
| I see some truth to your point, but it's also very
| reductive, and you're providing nothing to back up your
| reductionism.
|
| The "turn to the west" is geopolitical but it's also a
| turn away from a conservative authoritarian order and
| toward a liberal democratic order. Is that just a
| meaningless geopolitical coincidence? No, it's clearly
| part of the equation, though certainly not the only part.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Well my point is only that a person reading my comments
| comes to see their "intuitive nationalism" as an explicit
| feature of their thinking, rather than a natural fact of
| the world.
|
| My analysis doesnt need to be 100% to show that even the
| very idea of "invasion" in the modern sense is full of
| contingencies we don't acknowledge.
|
| What a weird thing, no, in the history of the world that
| the US invades iraq and wishes for it to govern "itself".
|
| Once you remove the "Nation" from your thinking, various
| issues become clearer, esp. why so many "countries"
| appear unstable. Ie., politically they are countries, but
| havent yet "progressed" to "default nationalism".
|
| Once a region adopts nationalism, it seems there's no
| going back; and people of that Nation are fundamentally
| radicalised by that notion. There are "borders",
| "immigration" and indeed -- how strangely -- "illegal"
| immigration; there are armies, and you should join one if
| you're "invaded".
|
| These ideas appear in our thinking as transparent,
| obvious, facts of the world; and if we feel they are
| violated, then we feel outraged -- and would act very
| severely to get redress. This is radicalism, and a
| certain "liberal nationalism" has deeply radicalised the
| west.
|
| I think, foremost, we want Ukraine to fight Russia
| because we believe Ukraine to be a Nation. I think
| something many of its own people did not think 20 years
| ago, and now, many die because they believe it.
| O__________O wrote:
| Tribes have existed since before written history; not sure if
| you're referring to something else, but to me a tribe is
| essentially same thing, us vs them.
| klabb3 wrote:
| For reference, many years ago when a similar surveillance law
| was implemented in Sweden (the FRA law), 90% of people were
| against it (in random polling) but politicians voted it in
| anyway. It later turned out this was a diplomatic back channel
| direct order from the US, which was found out through that big
| Wikileaks dump.
|
| So, the people are not at fault in these situations imo. First,
| it's politicians and after that it's journalists. Sunlight
| keeps malicious politicians in check, investigative journalism
| has been severely crippled with corporate media. As has
| whistleblowing.
| O__________O wrote:
| Regardless of what form of government is currently ruling a
| given country, ultimately the people within it are
| responsible for the actions taken by the government, not the
| government itself.
|
| As for your other point, I agree, free balanced independent
| journalism, whistleblower, leaks, etc - play a clear role in
| insuring public stays informed.
|
| That said, in my opinion, if 90% percent of a population was
| against something, but they passively allowed it to happen,
| it is no one's fault but there own. I don't for a second
| believe average person does not understand they have a choice
| over who rules them and how, even if that choice is to fight
| to the death to defend that right, flee the area, or for that
| matter, simply do whatever they're told to do.
| Taurenking wrote:
| [dead]
| kmeisthax wrote:
| There's a difference between "90% of the population is
| against something" and "the same, but they are also willing
| to vote against their chosen representative in order to
| stop it, and have a viable alternative that will".
|
| In the US, we talk a lot of partisan issues that pit parts
| of the country against one another; and of bipartisan
| issues that unite them. I'd like to introduce the concept
| of an _antipartisan_ issue: one that unites the country
| against its own politicians. In this particular case,
| surveillance is antipartisan, because:
|
| - People do not want to be surveilled
|
| - Politicians believe the people need to be surveilled in
| order to stay in office
|
| The last one might seem confusing. But keep in mind that
| things like high crime rates tend to get politicians thrown
| out of their job. Big, high-profile busts of scumbag
| criminals tend to make politicians look more competent and
| thus increase chances of reelection. And if politicians as
| a class believe that surveillance is necessary to prosecute
| crime, then they will disobey democratic instruction not
| to.
| brewdad wrote:
| I can be against something but not believe it is worth
| fighting to the death for. My town implemented a new tax
| that is highly unlikely to accomplish its stated goals. I'm
| not going to overthrow the government over $300 a year.
|
| It's the thousands of little paper cuts that build up over
| time but that can go on for an entire lifetime without ever
| reaching a breaking point.
| O__________O wrote:
| Agree, there's rarely critical point that would merit
| such a response, but obviously one that for some reason,
| for example being invaded by an authoritarian regime that
| intents to kill you regardless of what you to would I
| think for most be an ethical response. Fortunately, world
| has managed to avoid significant percentage of the world
| needing to make that choice for awhile.
|
| While understand the death from thousands of little paper
| cuts issue, generally speaking, even when face with
| notable conflict, most people rarely independently take
| responsibility for insuring they aware of what's going on
| and attempt to have an impact on the situation.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > it's obvious vast percentage of citizens within democracies
| wish they lived in an authoritarian country, yet choose to live
| in a democracy
|
| Most people don't get to choose where they live. It's really a
| relatively tiny percentage of the population who would have the
| financial ability and/or skills to emigrate, and those are
| really the people you're talking about. They have no loyalty to
| where they live because they don't need any; they can leave
| whenever they want, and threaten to whenever they get upset
| about anything.
| O__________O wrote:
| Understand your point, though disagree. My understanding is
| the majority of people on Earth stay within days walking
| distance from where they grew up. Further, there are numerous
| countries that if they wanted could easily cover the costs
| related to relocating anyone that desired to leave another
| country.
|
| I would argue the real explanation is most likely regardless
| of person's situation, most want a predictable future,
| regardless of how good or bad their current situation. Moving
| to a new culture with no home, no source of income, no family
| or friends, etc -- is viewed as predictably unpredictable by
| most.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > My understanding is the majority of people on Earth stay
| within days walking distance from where they grew up.
|
| I can't see where you're disagreeing with me. What I'm
| saying is that people aren't _choosing_ democracy, they
| just happen to live in one, and aren 't willing or able to
| give up everything in order to move to a country that
| matches their political beliefs better.
|
| > there are numerous countries that if they wanted could
| easily cover the costs related to relocating anyone
|
| I don't understand what this means. If _who_ wanted? Are
| you saying that there are lots of countries that are paying
| poor people to immigrate to them?
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I think both you and parent are right to an extent. Both
| are, in fact, factor when it comes to a person staying
| within a certain distance of their birthplace. I did move
| and pretty far by most standards, but I did have both
| opportunity and some support to do just that. I am not
| entirely certain I would do the same without it. On the
| other hand, I was young and predictability was the least of
| my considerations. Come to think of it, I wanted to break
| free of the predictable pattern within my own familial
| social circle.
|
| That said, I do value predictability and stability now, but
| being young has its own rights and values. I guess what I
| am saying is that we need to look at it as more than just x
| or y. There are multiple reasons for moving and lots of
| reason people choose to remain where they currently are. If
| pressed for one, I would argue convenience or maybe 'devil
| known'.
| O__________O wrote:
| Understand.
|
| For clarity though, I don't mean literal predictability,
| I mean relative predictability from the individual's
| perspective, which for some actual means life being
| predictability unpredictable; to some degree, I am, in
| part because I value the chance to improvise, but anyone
| that knows me would say that's predictable.
|
| As for population migration, statistics I had heard
| before, was roughly half of world's population doesn't
| move more than days walk from where they grew up and
| remaining in a given area is rarely tied to personal or
| regional opportunities or threats. Clearly my
| understanding might be wrong or things like climate
| change might force people to move; for example, roughly
| billion of the eight billion people on Earth will likely
| be displaced by climate change.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I am absolutely willing to buy the rationale based on
| personal anecdata, but wouldn't it also mean that the
| other half of the world's population does ( as in, it is
| basically a coin toss as to whether or move or not)?
|
| I might be conflating some word meanings here so please
| correct me as needed.
| O__________O wrote:
| Yes, agree, given it's roughly 50/50, it actually might
| in fact be random.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Most people voting/supporting these kinds of things believe
| there is a dastardly "other" that this will apply to more than
| it will apply to them. There are plenty of recent political
| endeavors where this was extremely obvious and loudly detailed
| and, yet...
|
| So much of the large-scale political nastiness these days isn't
| because a rising minority wants to enforce fair rules that
| everyone has to abide by together. They want rules that
| suppress the opportunities of someone else and are certain that
| the rules won't suppress them.
|
| You can argue that there's little difference between one side
| or the other, but it's like a game cube -- in one direction
| it's left vs right, flip the cube and it's rich vs poor, spin
| the cube again, it's majority race/religion against others. The
| dastardly part is that, say, the propaganda of one orientation
| of the cube is often accepted by the oppressed parties of
| another orientation of cube.
| O__________O wrote:
| Agree. Another possibility (or possibly expansion of your
| points) is that people feel that they are being responsible
| by amplifying the predictability of their current environment
| without realizing the potential for it to destabilize it
| instead. Honestly puzzled by topic and it's one that spent a
| lot of time and effort trying to impact. Ultimately, I want
| to believe people understand they're making an informed
| choice, but obviously concerned and puzzled by the pattern,
| which is neither new, nor likely to fade away, especially as
| AI's role advances in societies. That said, I have hope, and
| believe future is truly open to those willing to take the
| time to make a positive difference.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Well, I think we had a solid bipartisan support for classical-
| liberism up until 2015. It's worth going back to it with the
| lessons learned. It was the bedrock that allowed limited
| centralization and most importantly, _accountability_.
|
| We need new journalism that keeps powers in check and hold them
| accountable, not pander to their readers in an ever resonating
| echo chambers.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Pandering is the only way to feed and house the journalists.
| O__________O wrote:
| Assuming by "we" you are referring to Americans, which to me
| not a democracy, but a plutocracy; that is, a society that is
| ruled or controlled by people of great wealth, either as a
| individual or organization.
|
| As for American media, issues related to pandering to readers
| is likely related to it deregulating media industry in the
| 80s; for more information see:
|
| https://apnews.com/article/business-immigration-
| deregulation...
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Which then is a true democracy according to you?
| O__________O wrote:
| One where majority of citizens actively participate in
| matters impacting the majority of citizens, understand
| all significant views on a topic, and no entities are
| allowed have power beyond their own personal independent
| interests. As is, to me, America, Russian, China, EU, etc
| are all plutocratic -- because the average person doesn't
| want the responsibility of dealing that comes with
| running a society.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| So what is an example then?
| O__________O wrote:
| There is no example, especially if you're limiting to
| significant global powers.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| What if we don't limit to significant global powers and
| look at all countries on earth?
| O__________O wrote:
| For starters, have you reviewed this Wikipedia page:
|
| https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy
|
| As for my specific response, the existence of a non-
| global power example to me is irrelevant, since it's
| unlikely to change the course of humanity. If you have an
| example, specific counter point, request for
| clarification, etc -- happy to attempt to respond.
|
| This comment by me within this thread might also expand
| on the topic you're asking about:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34629443
| sgt wrote:
| Not many democracies then...
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Well, I think we had a solid bipartisan support for
| classical-liberism up until 2015.
|
| This is a fantasy history. We have had solid bipartisan
| support for neoliberalism (property rights are king) and
| neoconservatism (and we need motivating myths about them to
| keep the proles in line) for a long time. That consensus
| continues. "Classical liberalism" has never been popular
| anywhere.
|
| edit: we're having an extreme authoritarian wave as a
| reaction to the internet, but we shouldn't pretend like we
| don't come from countries that used to open people's mail to
| look for pamphlets about contraception.
| dingusdew wrote:
| Unpopular opinion: If you don't like democracy and use your
| democratic rights to actively work to dismantle it, you
| probably shouldn't actually be allowed to participate in
| democracy since you are operating in bad faith.
| pessimizer wrote:
| That's not unpopular, it's a typical authoritarian opinion.
| Every censor out there is defending us from threats to our
| democracy. They would love the idea of setting up the _Agency
| for the Good Faith Belief in Democracy and Democratic Rights_
| , who would certify individuals as being qualified to vote.
|
| https://allthatsinteresting.com/voting-literacy-test
| O__________O wrote:
| While I don't agree, I do believe it's a common perspective
| and one that's important to have dialogue on.
|
| While for sure an imperfect response, I would say that no
| democracy will ever be absolutely perfect, since it would
| require a consensus on everything and everyone understanding
| the topic equally prior to voicing their opinion. Further,
| authoritarian beliefs are only true threat to a democracy if
| majority support authoritarian rule, at which point I would
| argue it's not a democracy.
|
| That said, with the advancements of AI, it increasingly
| dangerous, since if given the tools and opportunity, an
| authoritarian minority might over take an unprepared
| majority.
| rwmj wrote:
| A few constitutions explicitly defend democracy, so you
| cannot modify the constitution to remove the democratic
| system. Germany is the most famous example (because, you
| know, Hitler).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrenched_clause#Germany
| lizzardbraind wrote:
| If you let them vote, they'll vote to destroy their society.
|
| If you don't let them vote, they'll act to destroy their
| society.
|
| It would be emotionally satisfying, but ultimately
| destructive. It would also be ripe for abuse; imagine how
| awful it would be if we had secret lists of people who
| weren't allowed to do other normal activities, like air
| travel or vehicle registration.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| seems like you dont like democracy lol. If the members of a
| democratic country dont want a democracy anymore, that seems
| within their rights.
| [deleted]
| micadep wrote:
| Reminds me of Popper's idea that a democracy shouldn't give
| it's tools to those who seek to destroy it.
|
| "If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are
| intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant
| society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the
| tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." Karl
| Popper
| alexbiet wrote:
| Let them have it. Complete and absolute control over all
| citizens. Nothing more, nothing less. Then what? They will
| finally realise absolute power is an empty pursuit that brings
| nothing but misery for both the masses and the so called elites.
|
| False leaders have no place leading anyone as they lead through
| fear and insecurity. Their lack of trust cemented in
| incompetence, arrogance and hubris leads to a neurotic chase for
| absolute and utter control over everything and everybody. How
| empty that path must be... and deemed for nothing but failure.
|
| True leaders inspire through visions for the future and they will
| eventually rise to lead. A true leader inspires action and trust,
| unity and purpose. True leaders are instinctually acknowledged by
| everyone, are accountable to everyone and value responsibility
| over personal power. Maturity, good character and wisdom is
| naturally part of their character.
|
| Hardly anything resembling a true leader can be observed in the
| current political space... and that speaks volumes to the state
| of our society.
|
| Here comes the change, unexpected and imminent, to sweep away all
| falsities and reveal the truth.
| walterbell wrote:
| Why would mortal humans waste time/money on mass experiments
| with predictably useless outcomes?
| alexbiet wrote:
| Entirely the point I am making, albeit indirectly. The
| majority of rules and regulations nowadays are aimed at more
| and more control over the people at little to no benefit to
| them. People get angry and protest such measures. Rinse and
| repeat, for at least the last decade or two. It's repetitive
| and pointless. When does it become clear the once great
| system which brought us growth and prosperity is no longer
| fit for purpose? At what point people realise we need to shed
| the old system and its top creme de la creme in favour of a
| new one?
|
| We need new leaders capable of creating a vision for our
| future to inspire 8+ BLN people and to put in place the means
| to get us there.
| walterbell wrote:
| _> At what point people realise we need to shed the old
| system and its top creme de la creme in favour of a new
| one?_
|
| Excluding migration to new land, what is a good historical
| precedent?
|
| Sounds a bit like "Rewrite It In Rust!"
|
| Reboot is good for those who have extracted and sequestered
| value out of the old system.
|
| Less good for those whose assets were extracted and still
| have legal claims within the old system.
| charles_f wrote:
| Ok I know it sounds crazy but hear me out.
|
| I'm certain my neighbour is secretly conspiring against me. I've
| seen the signs, I'm not an idiot. He closes the curtains when I
| look into his place, I've seen him talking with the other
| neighbours, and you won't believe it! He named his dog Bozo,
| which I'm sure is just to allow him to call me names scott-free!
| I confronted him but he tells me to chill out. The balls on this
| guys...
|
| Now if we get that mass surveillance going on, we can safely
| assume that they'll mission private companies to do it. We all
| knoe what's happening in this case, they hire the best of the
| best (and by that I mean the best at cutting on cost and
| maximizing shareholders revenues). These have the best security
| teams! (and by that I mean that they cost very little). I can
| only hope for an Equifax or a Lastpass like breach, but worst
| case scenario I'm sure they will gladly sell my neighbour's data,
| and I'll finally be able to prove that SoaB is after me.
|
| I know all the privacy-conscious sissies out there will cry out,
| but I don't have anything to hide. I take good care of deleting
| my browser history and using private mode when I browse illegal
| websites
| okokwhatever wrote:
| Jokes aside. You and me knows that this will happen. Maybe not
| today, maybe not tomorrow but it will happen. And when the day
| comes nobody will be accountable for the great mistake some
| politicians are gonna commit.
| skrebbel wrote:
| Any tips for what an EU citizen can do against this, beyond
| upvoting this story on HN?
| mordae wrote:
| I think it's too late.
|
| https://european-pirateparty.eu/parliament-approves-chatcont...
|
| https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/
| prof-dr-ir wrote:
| Your first link talks about a specific derogation approved by
| the EU parliament. It provides an exemption to the ePrivacy
| directive, which allows for (existing) searches for child
| sexual abuse material by major content providers to remain
| legal. Without this exemption these searches would apparently
| be in violation of the ePrivacy directive.
|
| You can read the derogation here: https://eur-
| lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A... . There
| is a somewhat helpful first page that provides context.
|
| Personally I think it is quite a reasonable derogation; the
| pirate party clearly disagrees.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _EU chat control law will ban open source operating systems_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34608330 - Feb 2023 (190
| comments)
|
| _Chat Control: The EU's CSEM scanner proposal_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34183772 - Dec 2022 (3
| comments)
|
| _EU chat control bill: fundamental rights terrorism_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31416599 - May 2022 (5
| comments)
|
| _Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on
| May 11_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31329368 - May
| 2022 (323 comments)
|
| _The latest EU plan to outlaw encryption and introduce
| communication surveillance_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29308617 - Nov 2021 (251
| comments)
|
| _EU interior ministers welcome mandatory chat control for all
| smartphones_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29200506 -
| Nov 2021 (59 comments)
|
| _EU Chatcontrol 2.0 [video]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29066894 - Nov 2021 (197
| comments)
|
| _Messaging and chat control_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28115343 - Aug 2021 (317
| comments)
|
| _EU Parliament approves mass surveillance of private
| communications_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27759814 -
| July 2021 (11 comments)
|
| _European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private
| communication_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27753727 -
| July 2021 (415 comments)
|
| _Indiscriminate messaging and chatcontrol: Last chance to
| protest_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27736435 - July
| 2021 (104 comments)
|
| _IT companies warn in open letter: EU wants to ban encryption_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26825653 - April 2021 (217
| comments)
| bodge5000 wrote:
| Not sure if it was here before, but they also posted an article
| yesterday on how this may (or may not, its up to interpretation)
| affect open source operating systems
|
| https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/2/1/eu-chat-control-law-wil...
| demindiro wrote:
| It was[1] but for some reason it got pushed off from the front
| page very quickly.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34608330
| gadders wrote:
| Is this more or less stringent than the UK law?
| Hizonner wrote:
| Somewhat different in emphasis. Less about a vague "duty of
| care" and more about detailed, specific spying mandates.
| Different enforcement structure. Maybe slightly less chaotic in
| its impact. Still a giant shitshow.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| As a pro-EU citizen I feel more and more inclined to agree on
| some of the Brexit rhetoric.
|
| Commissioners have shown multiple times that they are too
| permeable to lobbying, too willing to water down tough
| environmental regulation, and too keen on 'security'
| surveillance.
|
| So far the EU parliament members have balanced the act with some
| sanity. But the power and lack of transparency of the EC both
| with regards to lobbying and conflict of interest is very
| concerning.
| starkd wrote:
| The EU is literally a government by committee. A kind of
| technocracy with very little accountability for those making
| these decisions. The UK has a lot of problems right now, but at
| least BREXIT helped preserve some sovereignty from that
| behomoth. That is good for the long term.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| I had several discussions like that and always said something
| along the lines of: "Well, I am not so sure about it being a
| bad decision in the long term. I think time will tell." and
| every time people have valid arguments of why Brexit is bad
| for the UK, but still I will say something like "Lets see how
| it all turns out.", because we do not know the future.
|
| When the EU cooks up the next surveillance law attempt, I am
| always reminded of those conversations. But where else to go,
| if even EU gets too crazy? There are probably only worse
| places with regards to privacy.
| dijit wrote:
| EU Parliament has nothing to do with this proposal.
|
| It's proposed by the EU Commission, and such things have been
| struck down by the Parliament before.
|
| Also: Britain hardly has _any_ leg to stand on regarding
| privacy (which is something the EU _usually_ has a focus
| on[0]).
|
| Did you forget the Snoopers Charter[1]? That isn't a proposal.
| That's law.
|
| [0]: https://gdpr.eu
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigatory_Powers_Act_2016
| irusensei wrote:
| > It's proposed by the EU Commission, and such things have
| been struck down by the Parliament before.
|
| Like article 13?
| doh wrote:
| Which Article 13? If you mean of the European Copyright
| Directive, it was renamed to Article 17 and passed 4 years
| ago.
| zx85wes wrote:
| They've voted in favour of mass surveillance too.
| https://www.euractiv.com/section/data-protection/news/new-
| eu...
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| I am making the point that the parliament votes, and
| _rejects_ proposals that overreach.
|
| My point is not Britain as an example, but that one of the
| Brexit rhetoric points was the rah rah 'unelected officials'.
|
| Arguably we both know that EC comissioners are appointed by
| democratic governments but we see multiple times how
| permeable EC commisioners are:
|
| 1. Surveillance proposals such as posted in this thread
|
| 2. Net Neutrality exemptions - allowing Facebook/Youtube/et
| al. 'zero ratings' on metered connections
|
| 3. SUPD with guidelines that have so many Plastic exceptions
| that basically only q-tips and plastic forks got banned.
| Nestle, Coca-Cola, all the supermarket wrapping remain
| untouched.
|
| 4. 'Green Deal' was completely watered down on
| implementation. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/06/exxonmob
| il-...
|
| Over and over they start with strong technocrat proposals and
| then cave in to business lobby.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| * 'unelected officials'
|
| The UK has had 4 unelected PMs since 1990, and dozens
| before that.
|
| And as pointed out before, the UK is ahead of the EU in
| terms of surveillance. You even have to opt in with your
| ISP to watch porn.
|
| The UK has hundreds of thousands of government CCTV cameras
| and they can comprehensively track your movements through
| the entire country.
|
| The Brexit rhetoric was more about nationalism than
| anything else, it was marketed as "we don't want the EU
| telling us what to do", but that just played heavily into
| nationalism.
|
| All that aside, if you think any major political system in
| the west, or indeed globally is safe from lobbying and
| major corruption you are wrong. Corporate and industrial
| influence is rife throughout, IMO. When was the last time
| you saw any significant legislation come through to give
| working-middle class any kind of help or upward mobility?
|
| I am wandering from your initial point, but I am angry and
| frustrated with our rapid decline. We trashed our economies
| over COVID and we're now splooging billions of dollars into
| an un-winnable proxy war which escalates monthly.
|
| All of this shit is done in the same vein as this
| surveillance proposal "think of the children", I mean how
| could you not think of the children?? How could you not
| think of your neighbour? How could you not think of your
| fellow Europeans? It's all built to socially shame and
| coerce us into terrible policy that ultimately puts us in
| the hole unable to get out.
|
| Anyways, yes I have an axe to grind and probably have some
| stuff wrong here, but I am frustrated with my economic
| decline. It feels like the middle class is constantly being
| drained for the benefit of oligarch, war mongering liars.
|
| Apologies for a reactionary derail, it's cathartic at
| least. Please feel free to tell me how I am wrong, I
| genuinely want to be corrected because I feel depressed
| with my perspective.
| dmitriid wrote:
| > The UK has hundreds of thousands of government CCTV
| cameras and they can comprehensively track your movements
| through the entire country.
|
| It's not a new thing either. _1984_ was about Britain
| after all...
| monkeynotes wrote:
| With the US govt. literally creating a Ministry of
| Truth[1], and no one batting an eyelid, 1984 is actually
| a reality.
|
| Our media is compromised. The recent Pfizer scandal has
| been buried, NYT went to great lengths to dismiss it. The
| article was laughable.
|
| The phrase "conspiracy theory" is slapped on any descent.
| We have lost our way while we sleep through social media.
| We follow the script or face social isolation.
|
| 10 years ago our current society would look like China,
| now the general pop is adopting that as a good thing.
|
| We are fucked and it's going to take violence and death
| to claw back any sense of moral decency. No one wants
| that, and when all our wealth has been extracted we won't
| be able to compete with the robots that will keep us
| compliant.
|
| I know this sounds crazy, but the writing is on the wall.
| I can see no reason it won't happen. Crazy shit becomes
| reality time after time and it's accelerating.
|
| [1] https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3472878-joe-
| bidens-m...
| starkd wrote:
| But at least those are the fault of the UK government
| itself. The people have greater likelihood of being able
| to fix it than if they have to defer to the EU commission
| for compliance. Brexit is expensive in the short term,
| but, in the long term, the nation is much better off for
| having preserved some of their sovereignty.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Absolutely, every government is absolutely a bunch of
| corrupted criminals.
|
| Totally onboard. The thing is the more layers of
| corrupted politicians you put on top of people, the more
| theft and harassment you'll get from the aforementioned
| politicians and - surprise! - less accountability or ways
| to complain / protest.
|
| Brexit actually damaged me personally, but I'm glad for
| the British people that they won't be subjected to the
| extra EU rules. The UK government is bad enough, they
| don't need EU bureaucrats on top.
|
| I wouldn't wish it to my worst enemy.
| [deleted]
| yreg wrote:
| UK conservatives wanted _less_ surveillance?
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| I clarified my point in a child comment you are choosing to
| misread.
| yreg wrote:
| No, I haven't seen that comment when I made mine.
| gpvos wrote:
| On the other hand, I am happy with EU environmental regulation
| because it's often stronger than that in my own country
| (Netherlands). It's a balance.
|
| More transparency is indeed needed though.
| walterbell wrote:
| Earlier Mullvad op-ed mentions age-verification,
| https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/2/1/eu-chat-control-law-wil...
| Article 6 of the law requires all "software application stores"
| to: - Assess whether each service provided by each
| software application enables human-to-human communication -
| Verify whether each user is over or under the age of 17 -
| Prevent users under 17 from installing such communication
| software
|
| California passed the AADC law in 2022, taking effect in 2024,
| requiring, https://www.techdirt.com/2022/09/16/californias-age-
| appropri... - "impact assessments" before
| launching new features that kids are likely to access -
| businesses, not parents, to figure out what's in the best
| interest of children - [treating] children as if they all
| .. face the same risks .. lumps together 17 year-olds and 2 year-
| olds - threatens to make face scans a routine and everyday
| occurrence - before you can go to a new site, you will have
| to do either face scanning or upload age authenticating documents
|
| Utah draft legislation,
| https://www.ksl.com/article/50569189/utah-lawmakers-want-age...
| - would require every adult in Utah to submit age verification in
| order to use social media - minor accounts would need to be
| associated with a verified adult account - social media
| companies.. collect personal information from their parents
| FpUser wrote:
| >"The politicians proposing this legislation claim to be doing it
| for the sake of the children."
|
| For the sake of those children having an actual future rather
| than political GULAG I propose to fire those politicians, never
| let them close to any position of power again and have them
| monitored 24x7 as offenders.
| ecmascript wrote:
| This is really, really scary and what scares me even more is
| these proposals just seems to keep coming and in time some of
| them will probably make their way into law.
|
| Used to be for EU but if any regulation like this goes through, I
| will immedietly vote for any politician willing to exit the EU.
|
| Honestly, I am kind of for leaving the EU anyway since I don't
| like the large centralized power it has become. There is
| litterally few who understand how the EU works, there is
| practically no way of knowing how to change EU politicians minds
| etc. If I want to change public opinion in my home country, that
| is way easier than doing it for the majority of the EU countries.
|
| It is barely a question of time until bad stuff happens in my
| view.
| TheFattestNinja wrote:
| Brexit happened and I'm not sure the UK tech law landscape on
| these topics is a lot more reassuring. But who knows.
| 988747 wrote:
| Actually, seems like one of the reasons for Brexit was
| ability to do even more surveillance and other totalitarian
| practices without EU interfering. Not surprising given the
| fact that UK is one of the Five Eyes.
| jiriknesl wrote:
| Do you have proof for such a claim?
| ben_w wrote:
| "Seems like" doesn't need proof, it is clearly opinion.
|
| "the fact that UK is one of the Five Eyes" is attested to
| on the NSA's own domain: https://www.nsa.gov/Helpful-
| Links/NSA-FOIA/Declassification-...
|
| ...although the "and that's bad" part of Five Eyes is
| tied to what Snowden released.
| stinos wrote:
| _I will immedietly vote for any politician willing to exit the
| EU_
|
| Willing to exit EU might however be completely orthogonal to
| preferences regarding surveillance laws. I mean, such
| politician might just as well propose similar laws like Chat
| Control after the country leaves the EU. And looking at some of
| the specimens around here that would not even be unlikely.
| ecmascript wrote:
| I don't understand how this is an argument for staying
| though, even if so many brings it up.
|
| It feels more or less impossible to influence EU-politicians.
| I don't know who they are, what they do or barely how the EU
| system works. It is too complicated for laymen to get into in
| general.
|
| If a local politician proposes a stupid law as this one, I
| can call them up on my phone while when EU does it you don't
| even know it's happening.
| tokai wrote:
| >I don't know who they are, what they do
|
| It is extremely easy to find out. You even had an election
| where you voted for one of them (if you showed up for the
| vote). Here you go [0]. Start sending them emails about
| this.
|
| [0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/search/advanced?
| count...
| stinos wrote:
| _I don 't understand how this is an argument for staying
| though, even if so many brings it up._
|
| I did not intend to use this as such argument.
|
| Wrt not being able to even reach EU-politicians: that's a
| bit far fetched, no? Maybe you don't know who they are but
| it's easy enough to look that up, for my country the first
| hit is spot on and the second one is a Wikipedia entry
| saying the same. Likewise for questions like 'how does EU
| parliament work'.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't" is the
| idiom used for this kind of thinking.
|
| The pessimist says "Things can't get worse, I'll vote to
| leave the EU", the optimist says "Things can always get
| worse, let's stay in the EU".
| maxehmookau wrote:
| EU commissioners propose laws, they don't vote for them. The EU
| parliament will probably reject this.
|
| As a brit, let me tell you that leaving the EU will not solve
| this problem. Your local politicians will just do that anyway.
| gghhzzgghhzz wrote:
| It won't solve your problems, correct.
|
| But it will make responsibility clear. Out of the EU, no
| domestic government can claim plausible deniability on a
| directive like this, claiming not to support it yet there
| being nothing they can do about it - while secretly wanting
| to implement something like that anyway, but without the
| political fallout.
| anfogoat wrote:
| > _EU commissioners propose laws, they don 't vote for them._
|
| The distinction isn't meaningless but it's certainly a
| generous one when left to stand on its own.
|
| The commissioners hold little allegiance to the spirit of
| democracy and these proposals are either career boosters or
| pet projects for them. They're not just going to pass it on
| to the parliament and leave it at that. They're going to do
| their best to finagle behind the scenes, horse trade,
| intimidate and pull from their endless infatuation with
| coddling the children the most fantastical justifications
| that, by pure chance I guess, smear any opponents.
|
| > _As a brit, let me tell you that leaving the EU will not
| solve this problem. Your local politicians will just do that
| anyway._
|
| But it will help. No modern government will pass a law that
| grants its citizens more privacy. It's better to have a many
| smaller ones, each with different rates of deterioration (re
| privacy) than a super government where every little nudge
| towards the eventual zero-privacy Internet affects us all at
| once.
|
| Sadly, residing in a region formerly part of the Russian
| Empire, together with last year's events, kind of kills the
| glee I felt in the past whenever I fantasized about the EU
| disintegrating, which is to say voting to leave the EU would
| only makes sense if online privacy was the only thing you
| cared about.
| zirgs wrote:
| >No modern government will pass a law that grants its
| citizens more privacy.
|
| GDPR was passed not that long ago.
| anfogoat wrote:
| > _GDPR was passed not that long ago._
|
| Sorry, I should have been more careful. It's a citizen
| versus a consumer thing; GDPR is about the latter and
| does not give you any real privacy gains in regards to
| your government except in areas where your relationship
| is business like.
|
| Some Menial Low-Stakes Agency is required to handle your
| email and address details appropriately, sure, but
| meanwhile Europol was still able to mass collect data and
| have the Commission cover for them after they were found
| out.
| niclo wrote:
| It's just the same good old EU BAD -> everything coming
| from there BAD. There's even a comment under this post on
| how GDPR "degrades the web in the name of privacy", I
| guess trackers are just way better then cookie banners
| after all.
|
| Then you read Utah and California have comparable
| proposals yet I've seen a single mention of them in the
| whole comment section.
| zx85wes wrote:
| I wouldn't be so sure...
| https://www.euractiv.com/section/data-protection/news/new-
| eu...
| ecmascript wrote:
| I do not think so, Swedens population has a history of
| rejecting mass surveillance ideas and lot's of privacy
| advocating stuff has come from Sweden like Mullvad and The
| Pirate Bay.
|
| Anyway, it is way easier for a citizen to affect your local
| politician rather than some other random countries
| politicians that don't care about you.
| supermatt wrote:
| > Swedens population has a history of rejecting mass
| surveillance ideas
|
| What about the Swedish NDRE, which was found by the ECHR to
| violate personal privacy, and when urged to correct it they
| instead extended it? (as per the article).
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Sweden has one of the most comprehensive mass surveillance
| systems in the world. In short, the military is allowed to
| do mass surveillance on all communications within the
| borders of the country. Sweden is somewhere near the bottom
| of the list among countries worldwide when it comes to
| respecting online privacy of citizens.
| miohtama wrote:
| Even if the EU parliament passes a neutered bill, it is going
| to be lose. Some politicians seem to have inane will (and
| lobby money) to pass these laws no matter what, including in
| bit by bit in smaller pieces and partial defeats.
| jiriknesl wrote:
| Yes, but it's easier to influence politicians in your country
| than in the EU. It's easier to influence politicians in your
| county council than in your country. It's easier to influence
| politicians in your town hall than in your county council.
| ben_w wrote:
| Prior to the referendum, I met my local member of
| parliament to try to convince her to vote against the
| Investigatory Powers Bill.
|
| She seemed nice, and did eventually (albeit briefly) lead a
| splinter party.
|
| But it didn't stop the Bill becoming an Act.
| zx85wes wrote:
| I'm pro decentralisation too. The eurosceptic parties I know
| are all in favour of more surveillance. Pick your poison. ;-)
| esskay wrote:
| Be careful what you wish for. Here in the UK since leaving the
| government have been doing all they can to ensure mass
| surveilance and repression becomes more and more common,
| without those "pesky" EU laws stopping them.
| ecmascript wrote:
| Yeah I know, sorry to hear that but:
|
| 1. It is way easier to change the minds of the people in your
| home country rather than in several countries.
|
| 2. My country of birth, Sweden, has more history of rejecting
| stuff like that.
| msm_ wrote:
| Can your country of birth lobby in the EU to stop laws like
| this?
| ecmascript wrote:
| Honestly, I would believe some of them already do it.
| You're reading the news from a Swedish company anyway so
| we use to be pretty vigilant on privacy issues.
|
| Sweden is a small player compared to Germany and France,
| so I am uncertain how much weight our words have.
| msm_ wrote:
| The article we're commenting on paints a quite different
| picture:
|
| > When the NDRE law was implemented in 2008, the
| Director-General (...) wrote that "there is this idea
| that the NDRE is going to listen to all Swedes' phone
| calls and read their e-mails and text messages. A
| disgusting thought. How can so many people believe that a
| democratically elected parliament would treat its people
| so badly?"
|
| > However, 13 years later, in May 2021, Sweden was found
| by the European Court of Human Rights to have violated
| personal privacy due to the NDRE law. The Swedish
| government was urged to immediately correct these
| problems of legal uncertainty. Instead, however, the
| parliament did the exact opposite: they voted to extend
| the NDRE law in November 2021.
|
| In fact, it's completely opposite - Swedish government is
| trying hard to spy on their citizen, and the EU is
| trying[1] to stop that.
|
| [1] By sending strongly worded letters, and fails to
| achieve anything. There goes the idea that EU is some
| kind of a totalitarian dictatorships that forces
| countries to do what it wants.
| [deleted]
| daenney wrote:
| > You're reading the news from a Swedish company anyway
| so we use to be pretty vigilant on privacy issues.
|
| But the issue they're raising is that the issue isn't
| being reported and examined by others and especially not
| journalists who are best placed to raise wider awareness
| of this.
| daenney wrote:
| > 2. My country of birth, Sweden, has more history of
| rejecting stuff like that.
|
| You might want to check the article as to Swedes and
| Sweden's involvement in the drafting of this in the first
| place. And the NDRE is another thing which the country
| happily introduced and expanded upon. As far as mass
| surveillance of populations go, Sweden's not on the side of
| protecting privacy.
| xorry wrote:
| > every single line that you write in all kinds of messaging apps
| (including encrypted services), your e-mails -- yes, all of this
| -- can be filtered out ...
|
| how exactly will this work?
| menaerus wrote:
| Network equipment of our ISPs already have this type of
| surveillance software. And there are number of examples where
| we have seen that it is being used by the government intel with
| success, and regardless of the communication chain being
| encrypted or not.
| lcampbell wrote:
| Probably just an extension to existing ETSI legal interception
| interfaces[1] that I believe are required to be implemented by
| all service providers of a certain size in the EU. Your
| personal email server and private IRC network are probably out
| of scope.
|
| [1] e.g. for email:
| https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_ts/102200_102299/10223202/...
| - the specs are really boring to read and there are lots and
| lots of them, if you want to deep dive. From what I can tell
| it's basically just the service provider implementing an API
| client that feeds everything they're required to a centralized
| endpoint.
| [deleted]
| mderazon wrote:
| There's no shortage of ways. For example mandate preinstalling
| a spyware on every mobile device sold
| brutusborn wrote:
| Government controlled firmware on all devices that reads the
| messages after they are unencrypted?
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| Here in the comments I see dozens of instances of the same
| argument: is legislation like this the result of malicious power-
| grabbing conspiracy or the blind social fear of out-groups?
|
| Either way, the conclusion is the same: government-run mass
| surveillance gets proposed and taken (politically) seriously.
| It's impossible to use that conclusion alone as evidence for
| either side of this argument, yet that is precisely what most of
| the comments here are trying to do!
|
| It's such a pointless argument to be had. There is no utility in
| either answer.
|
| It's impossible to fight a conspiracy without constructive
| evidence, and if a conspiracy is using propaganda to increase
| fear (as opposed to that fear being organic), then fighting that
| propaganda directly (as opposed to fighting the fear itself)
| requires knowledge of the propaganda's source, which itself is
| evidence of conspiracy!
|
| Right now, both perspectives seem likely to be valid, but
| choosing one over the other is pointless. We are stuck fighting a
| single conclusion: fear itself; so we may as well focus our
| energy on that.
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| There should be a law against spamming the lawmaking process with
| proposals that have previously failed or are near identical to
| it, for a set time period. Means, you are no longer allowed to
| lobby for a law proposal once it has been rejected for a time
| period of one voting cycle.
| arlort wrote:
| This proposal hasn't been made before (at least in the EU at
| the EU level)
|
| If you're thinking that you saw something like this last year
| and now again it's the same law. The EU legislative process is
| extremely slow (not that it's a bad thing in this case, I'd
| rather this not get rushed through, or even better not get
| through at all)
|
| And even now it is not likely to pass before December 2023 or
| might even get delayed to January 2024
| ur-whale wrote:
| 1. The book of law should have a fixed number of words, written
| in stone in the constitution. Side effects:
| a) you want to pass a new law? Pick one in the book to get rid
| of. b) magically, the enforcement budget and the
| size of the fat leech that feeds off of it (the government)
| remains constant. See "The Advantage of a Dragon" by Stanislaw
| Lem [1]
|
| 2. A law should always (with the possible exception of those in
| the constitution) have an expiration date, voted _with_ the
| law, with a maximum of 10 years, at which time the law should
| get re-voted on if it turns out it was actually useful to
| society.
|
| [1] http://www.loper-os.org/?p=3725
| nemo44x wrote:
| The EU just seems like a more and more dystopian place where they
| placate the docile population with a few social benefits and
| threats to corporate interests at the cost of any sense of
| individual liberty and a rapidly declining set of rights and
| privacy from the state.
| pagutierrezn wrote:
| The proposal from the EU is not the first step towards the end of
| our privacy. In fact, it is the last one. Everyone else does
| already have our data, they just want what the rest already have.
|
| TBH, I think we've lost every opportunity to correct this. And
| I'd be happy to be wrong
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