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submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by makeasnek@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

What you can do: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/messaging-and-chat-control/#WhatYouCanDo

Contact your MEP: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/home

Edit: Article linked is from 2002 (overview of why this legislation is bad), but it is coming up for a vote on the 19th see https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/council-to-greenlight-chat-control-take-action-now/

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[-] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 65 points 4 months ago

My point being, what are they going to achieve with this? Ask WhatsApp to pass over their encryption keys?

It should be pretty obvious that you shouldn't be sharing sensitive stuff on chat apps controlled by the NSA. Use element with encryption or something, maybe Briar etc. What are they going to do if you insist on using apps which use asymmetric client-side encryption, break TOR? Force you to use symmetric encryption and give the government your decryption keys?

I don't see how they are going to spy on sensitive details of Europeans with this. They might as well ban phones completely if they want to limit communication.

[-] makeasnek@lemmy.ml 95 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

These laws are being passed by politicians who generally don't understand technology. What they will achieve is a reduction in privacy and liberty for every citizen in the EU and easier methods to clamp down on dissent. Just because it's not technically perfect or difficult to implement fully doesn't mean it's not a threat. It's one step closer totalitarianism, and what's stopping totalitarianism is everyday people, one step at a time, battling it back.

[-] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 16 points 4 months ago

Well I get that they are stupid, but unless it's their fetish to catch 14 year olds trying to spread rubbish propaganda, I doubt they're going to get much. Any reporter, activist and consumer knows that anything they put on these apps goes straight to the NSA's and MI6's AI algorithms at the very least, and now they're going to go to the rest of Europe.

Yes, we should be protesting against this. Does Europe have an equivalents of the EFF to fight for such rights?

[-] Eheran@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago

I have to strongly disagree, you overestimate what people know/can/want to do. Some, sure, but not the majority. They either stay ignorant or are too lazy. Just look at add blocker usage. I can not even imagine to live without them, but here we are, I am the tiny minority! Most either do not care or are too stupid or somehow happen to not know about them.

[-] ByteWelder@lemmy.ml 48 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It’s literally in the article: They want to use client-side scanning. The client already has the data decrypted. This is much like what Apple wanted to introduce with CSAM scanning a while back. It’s a backdoor in each client and it’s a matter of time until it will be abused by malicious entities.

[-] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 13 points 4 months ago

Yea, it is clear if there is just one closed-source app. But if we're talking XMPP/Matrix - they have multiple open-source clients, even if some of them does introduce scanning, no way it wouldn't be forked to remove it.

[-] ByteWelder@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 months ago

If a messaging service is non-compliant, the government could theoretically take action with court orders against domain owners, server owners or pursue anyone hosting a node in case of a distributed setup. In a worse case scenario, they might instruct ISPs via court orders to block these services (e.g. The Pirate Bay in some countries)

[-] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago

Yeah let's have them block github. I kind of want to see a federated git hosting platform integrated with the fediverse

[-] kbotc@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

They literally will do that. GDPR shows that they will go after big American companies (That’s the point, a huge chunk of this is protectionism to build a tech industry in the EU that they control)

[-] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 3 points 4 months ago

And if an app like Signal bypasses blocks, having it installed could become a crime.

[-] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 2 points 4 months ago

Where I live, a lot of popular services, including major foreign social media and torrents everyone uses, are blocked - yet they still have a massive userbase.

And since the scanning is supposed to be client-side, how would a server check if the scanning was really performed? What if the server does receive and log the needed responses, just to be safe, but the client actually just sends them automatically while lacking such functionality?

[-] GravitySpoiled@lemmy.ml 21 points 4 months ago

You are 100% right.

They can't ban encryption, yet they can make it difficult. If all noobs don't use encryption, only the pros are left. That means they only have to spy on 10 instead of 100 people. Those that don't use encryption aren't interesting.

The problem is that they can't spy on the 10 and hence they spy on the 90 and wait for the 1 guy making a mistake and becoming one of the 90.

[-] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Fairly sure my good Eastern Europeans don't give a fuck about what France and Germany think and will pirate and TOR and I2P their merry life away (or so I'd like to think - you tell me)

[-] Wooki@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

When the endpoint is controlled the keys are published

[-] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

I'm wondering, what are EU politicians doing dirty jobs using?

[-] crispy_kilt@feddit.de 5 points 4 months ago
[-] vxx@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

As far as I know, Prism is able to read encrypted messages.

[-] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

Prism has broken AES-256???

It is more likely that Prism can use android exploits to read data before it is encrypted by the client

[-] vxx@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)
[-] DmMacniel@feddit.de 37 points 4 months ago

Tomorrow liberty probably dies :(

[-] Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 4 months ago

I just did my part and wrote an email.

[-] makeasnek@lemmy.ml 11 points 4 months ago

🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡

[-] Majestic@lemmy.ml 19 points 4 months ago

So first it's client-side scanning for CSAM. Not without some nobility. But the problem is once you wedge open that door it's technically possible to do it for other things and so you become compelled to.

It'll move from just CSAM to stopping and tracking "propaganda" as deemed by them which will be narrow-ish at first (anything pro-Russia, RT links, etc) but gradually expand over time to anything outside the mainstream branded as extremist (and guess what, privacy advocates will definitely fall within that label). And once that's in place the private stake-holders, copyright holders will come knocking, they'll say rightly so "hey you have the capability right now, we demand you implement client-side scanning to detect copyright violations" and then that will be ordered by a court, further enshrined by a law and oh look now you can no longer send political thought that the ruling regime disagrees with, can no longer surf the high seas, and so on and so forth. Congratulations and please enjoy living in the "garden" of Europe.

[-] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 13 points 4 months ago

The US uses the Patriot Act to spy on innocent people under the guise of terrorism. Once you open the door, they knock the wall down.

[-] TheWonderfool@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago

The article is from May 19, 2022. I can find very little information about the vote of this Wednesday. While I don't doubt its authenticity, I find it unlikely that it would pass. Last time they tried, doing it much more loudly and going as far as spreading disinformation campaigns on TV and in social media, they still completely failed at having the legislation passed. To me it looks like someone is finishing their mandate, so they are scrambling to show that they are doing the work they have been paid to do (by lobbist, obviously not by the people).

I hope I will not be proven wrong.

[-] makeasnek@lemmy.ml 12 points 4 months ago

Good point about the article date, but it is coming up for a vote this week https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/council-to-greenlight-chat-control-take-action-now/

[-] fluckx@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago

Well. Now seems to be a good time to be ashamed to be Belgian.

Shameful politicians :(

[-] Boomkop3@reddthat.com 2 points 4 months ago

Reading it, it looks like it doesn't require invasive oversight as long as the chat apps and app stores have sufficient detection and such.

really, that's what such places already should have, considering how much profit they make off of our data

[-] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It does require invasive oversight. If I send a picture of my kid to my wife, I don't want some AI algorithm to have a brainfart and instead upload the picture to Europol for strangers to see and to put me on some list I don't belong.

People sharing CSAM are unlikely to use apps that force these scans anyway.

[-] Boomkop3@reddthat.com 2 points 4 months ago

The proposal only does so under specific circumstances, which makes sense. Try to read more than three words before your respond

[-] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 2 points 4 months ago

The point is is that it should never, under no circumstances monitor and eavesdrop private chats. It's an unacceptable breach of privacy.

Also, please explain what "specific circumstances" you are referring to. The current proposal doesn't limit the scanning of messages in any way whatsoever.

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[-] anticurrent@sh.itjust.works 10 points 4 months ago

It is already law in the UK, they are just waiting for the right moment to activate it.

Maybe this move by the EU will embolden other countries to follow suite. the best thing to do is to move to a corner of the internet they can't control. like Tor , I2P and similar projects

[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago

Yah, but the UK has been an Orwellian nightmare since Maggie's day. Everyone expects laws that completely negate privacy there and just roll over for it.

[-] Fijxu@programming.dev 10 points 4 months ago

Keep me updated Europe friends. If they implement this, for sure other countries will implement this as well.

[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 8 points 4 months ago

It's somewhat amusing how western liberals once touted freedom of speech as a defining characteristic separating them from states like China, which impose stricter limitations on freedom of expression. The argument was made that the pursuit of personal liberties is what sets western liberal culture apart and makes it superior to others.

However, this narrative succeeded primarily due to broad public agreement within mainstream Western society. When economic conditions were favorable and people generally content with their system, there was little reason to suppress dissenting views. In fact, allowing such opinions on the fringe even served to reinforce the narrative. But now that growing discontent is causing this illusion of freedom they once believed in to unravel.

[-] Ninjazzon@infosec.pub 6 points 4 months ago
[-] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

yes, then it got rejected, and now another iteration is about to be voted on on June 20, 2024 https://digitalcourage.social/@echo_pbreyer/112637908478562409

[-] kylian0087@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 months ago

Regarding email which provider would be best suited if this goes true? Because Tuta is hosted in Germany it seems less optimal then say Proton?

[-] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 10 points 4 months ago

If I cared about the contents of email staying safe, would rather not depend on a provider and just use provider-independent PGP. If safety is more important than universality - then I'd use something outside of email in general, like XMPP+OMEMO or maybe Simplex.

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this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
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