Comment by timpera
2 days ago
It's not the end of the fight, but it's great to see that the efforts are working! I sent a handwritten letter to my MPs a few weeks ago about this issue but no answer so far...
2 days ago
It's not the end of the fight, but it's great to see that the efforts are working! I sent a handwritten letter to my MPs a few weeks ago about this issue but no answer so far...
They oppose breaking encryption, however, I see no true opposition to on device scanning, which is a bit worrying.
>The BMI representative explained that they could not fully support the Danish position. They were, for example, opposed to breaking the encryption. The goal was to develop a unified compromise proposal – also to prevent the interim regulation from expiring. [0]
Edit: source [0] https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1108356
There is no on-device scanning without compromising privacy. Scanning that can detect child abuse can also detect human rights activists, investigative journalists, and so on. I imagine this technology can be easily used by the government to identify journalists by scanning for material related to their investigation.
On-device scanning is a fabrication that Apple foolishly introduced to the mainstream, and one that rabid politicians bit into and refuse to let go.
Some say "Apple got too much shit for on device scanning". I think they didn't get nearly enough.
If you as much as give the "think of the children" crowd an inch, they'll take a mile. And giving them on device scanning was way more than "an inch".
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That is exactly the problem. I still can imagine that they come up with some scheme as a compromise, that particularly targets particularly encrypted group chats along with all kind of server side automatic scanning, that as you mention could be abused at least by intelligence to track non CSAM content. I wonder what other 'compromise' will actually be effectively possible.
"Es sei klar, dass privater, vertraulicher Austausch auch weiterhin privat sein müsse."
"Private communication needs to stay private"
I interprete this as not having a dumb police bot installed on my devices checking all my communication. That sometimes by misstake sends very private pictures away, because it missclassified.
This is what chat control means and I believe if most people would understand it, they would not be in support of it. It is no coincidence, that the outcry mainly happens in tech affine groups.
I bet what the politicians mean is "we have to make sure our surveillance is safe, like our digital health data, so that no bad actors can tap it". The only one who should be reading your messages is you, the sender, and the government.
I used the online form at fightchatcontrol.eu to send an e-mail to all of my representatives. Of the 90ish contacts, 4 replied – all agreeing to be against the proposal. One of them even mentioned the influx of mails they were receiving about the topic. So that gives me hope.
I know in the US it's very common to write emails or letters to their governor, but still I see it somewhat cynical. Like a popular tweet mattering much more than letters that probably won't be opened at all, and if it is opened I cannot imagine a MP reading all of them, more likely a clerk saying "You've got x citizens sending you letters about y", which would then again be somewhat valuable but I also can't imagine they have clerks opening every letter.
Sometimes making a politician aware that "if you vote for this, it may annoy people" can be enough. Your average politician votes on a _lot_ of things, many of which they know little or nothing about. They will take only a small number of them seriously, and a big factor in what gets taken seriously is what people are moaning about.
The first step really is just getting the politician to think about what they're voting on.
They also don't actually necessarily get _that_ many letters.
> common to write emails or letters to their governor, but still I see it somewhat cynical.
Yes, writing letters to these people is unlikely to help. The only language they speak is in votes. They have to be convinced that they will lose reelection over the issue. A conditional prediction market for their reelection given they vote a certain way would be the most effective tool.
The fight shouldn't have to be fought continuously. If legislation is shot down repeatedly, there should be a delay before it can be brought back again.
Politicians notice when enough people take the time to reach out, especially in such a personal way