Comment by mrtksn
2 days ago
>At the beginning of the month, the Danish Presidency decided to change its approach with a new compromise text that makes the chat scanning voluntary, instead.
Hmm, so this will probably make the life for those who don't scan quite hard and if they experience a high profile scandal getting out of it will not be easy I assume.
I'm not sure what to think of it, not being mandatory and requiring risk assessment sounds like "Fine, whatever don't do it if you don't want to do it but if something bad happens it's on you". May be fair to some extent, i.e. Reddit and Telegram can decide how much they trust their users not to run pedo business and be on the hook for it.
On the other hand, it is a backdoor and if the governments go crazy like they did in some other countries where high level politicians are implicated with actual pedophiles and have a tendency for authoritarianism Europe may end up having checking user chats for "enemies of the state" instead of CSAM materials. Being not mandatory here may mean that you get constant bullying because you must be hiding something.
I assume this is a delay to get a foot in the door. After some time, the scanning will be made no longer voluntary.
One has to take rights away slowly, otherwise the frog jumps before you can boil it.
While I fully agree with your sentiment, I'd like to take the opportunity to share a favorite fun-fact of mine: the frogs in the not-jumping-out experiment had their brains removed beforehand. Which might make the analogy more apt, actually, considering how much under siege our attention is these days.
>the not-jumping-out experiment
you mean cooking a frog? I'm not aware that the phrase refers to an experiment, rather a cooking pot, and anything with its brain removed is dead anyway?
anyway, the same can equally be said for flies. if you swat fast at a landed fly it will notice and fly away; however if you bring the swatter close slowly and evenly the fly will allow it close enough that there's no escape
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Really? So "boiling the frog" saying should really mean "peripheral reflexes does not react to slow changes"?
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"voluntary" can also be pretty meaningless depending on the context. In the UK, if the police suspects you of shenanigans, they'll politely invite you for an "voluntary interview".
Of course you can decide to not go, it's voluntary, right? Yes, you can. Your choice. And when you reject their kind offer they'll come and arrest you so you can attend the interview.
> The scanning will be made no longer voluntary.
Yes, it's always like that. Eat piece by piece until nothing is left to eat.
They have removed the backdoor paragraph, and inserted a new one that states that scanning is entirely voluntary and best effort, and also state that the EU cannot force them to scan.
As far as the mass surveillance scanning goes, it has completely been removed, and what remains is still the mandatory age checks, which might be problematic.
From reading the specification, it appears to be reasonably well designed, where identification is handled by authorities, and the requesting party cannot get your identification details, only send an "is the user of this session older than 18". The verifier cannot see which site the request comes from, and you identify yourself in the session, and a reply goes back to the requester with a "yes/no" answer.
So, it at least appears to be simply an age check, and not some sort of surveillance program to stalk your online browsing habits.
The age check is already present in France, since I think a month? I will probably test it soon to see how inconvenient/insecure it is, but from what I read it seems to be well designed for privacy.
Problem is that once you've gotten this thing through to begin with it's comparatively easy to make slight amendments later, also of course with the justification of "protecting the children".
More like: Authorities will look more closely at those who don't scan, so you'll be harassed until you comply. E.g. just like how many authorities consider using a VPN === user is doing something criminal.
I feel like this will just incentivise the creation of privately run federated messaging systems. Powerful people will always be protected, any smart people will run fed messengers for their private stuff and normie tech for normie comms. This power will just turn into another form of control. As always, the only losers will be the average citizens.
And, clearly, all the mass surveillance in the USA has worked wonders to stop key political figures from engaging in pedophilia and other shenanigans. It's been 100% successful.
We must do it in Europe, lest the children be harmed. You know, instead of improving daycares and schools, the general economy, give them access to safe outdoor spaces, help families so they don't take it out on the kids…
I don't know. I've a son now, and I expected that to make me connect with this type of policy. It didn't.
you people need to disabuse yourselves of the idea that only a Trumpian type regime could possibly have any interest in finding and incapacitating “enemies of the state”.
Of course but Trump is a really good cautionary tale