EU to greenlight Chat Control tomorrow

The current draft would cover every kind of service that allows people to exchange information so that every DM you send on reddit, twitter, discord, steam, ... would be have to be scanned. Not even the most totalitarian governments on this planet have tried to implement something like this. Also it sounds extremely illusory that the people exchanging CSAM wouldn&#x27;t simply switch to private services knowing their messages on public services are scanned.<p>&quot;... As services which enable direct interpersonal and interactive exchange of information merely as a minor ancillary feature that is intrinsically linked to another service, such as chat and similar functions as part of gaming, image-sharing and video-hosting are equally at risk of misuse, they should also be covered by this Regulation. &quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cdn.netzpolitik.org&#x2F;wp-upload&#x2F;2024&#x2F;05&#x2F;2024-05-28_Council_Presidency_LEWP_CSAR_Compromise-texts_9093.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cdn.netzpolitik.org&#x2F;wp-upload&#x2F;2024&#x2F;05&#x2F;2024-05-28_Cou...</a>

Signal Foundation has already said they would leave the EU if Chat Control goes ahead.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mastodon.world&#x2F;@Mer__edith&#x2F;112535616774247450" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mastodon.world&#x2F;@Mer__edith&#x2F;112535616774247450</a>

This is why the roles of the major players in society (government, monopolies) need to be circumscribed.<p>Large organizations will always try to grow in size and power.<p>We need some sort of human right for digital privacy to make this sort of thing illegal.

EU is, and always was, a compensation job for failed national politicians at their respective national levels. It&#x27;s the trade horse for allowing your party buddies to take over the government jobs.<p>EU politicians should keep their over inflated salaries, and stick to what they are good at. Meeting with Google and Microsoft lobbyists at the best Brussels luxury restaurants.

I already kicked up a shit here in NL together with a few other well connected people (with success) but it&#x27;s a little frustrating that there&#x27;s little more to do other than hope that nerds in other EU countries can make a difference.

Patrick&#x27;s &amp; a number of other Pirate Party seats were lost in the last EU elections. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stackdiary.com&#x2F;patrick-breyer-and-pirate-party-lose-eu-parliament-seats&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stackdiary.com&#x2F;patrick-breyer-and-pirate-party-lose-...</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=40631517">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=40631517</a><p>It&#x27;s going to be awful not having Patrick Breyer reporting these activities.

I think the government is more reasonable than the private corporations. As an example, I got suspended by Facebook yesterday with nobody to contact. All my friends from school, relatives, and former coworkers are gone - with most of them I was connected only via Facebook. All my messages in Facebook Messenger groups have been deleted! Everything that I ever posted, shared, or reacted to - gone! With no recourse - all at the mercy of some 20-year-old reviewer. Yeah, the government sucks, but private corporations suck much more! At least I can complain to the government and talk to real people!<p>I know there are alternatives to Facebook - I&#x27;ve pitched all of them to my friends, but people my age are still only on Facebook.

The proposal leaked a few weeks ago[1] is extremely vague on this matter and does not clarify how providers should detect CSAM &quot;prior to transmission&quot;. Is anyone aware of any sort of scanning technology that can be implemented purely on the client side? Note that the leaked text says that it should be able to detect known and <i>new</i> abuse material.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cdn.netzpolitik.org&#x2F;wp-upload&#x2F;2024&#x2F;05&#x2F;2024-05-28_Council_Presidency_LEWP_CSAR_Compromise-texts_9093.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cdn.netzpolitik.org&#x2F;wp-upload&#x2F;2024&#x2F;05&#x2F;2024-05-28_Cou...</a>

Headline is clickbait nonsense. Nothing is being greenlighted.<p>Here&#x27;s the only relevant section, which links to an article [1] that says only that discussion will continue on the 19th June:<p><i>According to documents leaked by netzpolitik.org, the COREPER 2 meeting in which they will put it [compromise proposal] to a vote will already take place on Wednesday, 19 June.</i><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;netzpolitik.org&#x2F;2024&#x2F;anlasslose-massenueberwachung-frankreich-wackelt-in-der-ablehnung-der-chatkontrolle" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;netzpolitik.org&#x2F;2024&#x2F;anlasslose-massenueberwachung-f...</a>

How is VPN supposed to work? How are internet banks supposed to operate? All security will go out the window? Backdoors everywhere?<p>Will TLS have to be redone with a third snooping party in the mix? Is that what we&#x27;re going for here?

It will be very interesting to see the responses of WhatsApp and Apple if this moves forward. Do their commitments to E2EE mean anything or not. Will iMessage and WhatsApp leave the EU or not. That would be extremely telling as to the actual quality of the security guarantees they purport to provide.

Already was somewhat degraded by the EU parliament:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;proton.me&#x2F;blog&#x2F;eu-parliament-chat-control" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;proton.me&#x2F;blog&#x2F;eu-parliament-chat-control</a>

I&#x27;d like to hear from actual law enforcement personnel why&#x2F;if violating my constitutional rights this way is actually necessary, specifically.

This whole thing stinks.<p>The relentless push, I feel may mean some American contractors are demanding their pound of flesh.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mullvad.net&#x2F;en&#x2F;why-privacy-matters&#x2F;going-dark" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mullvad.net&#x2F;en&#x2F;why-privacy-matters&#x2F;going-dark</a><p>They should be checking the bank statements of those on the EU payroll, and who are relentlessly pushing this. Make sure everything is above board.

&gt; Only Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria and Poland are relatively clear that they will not support the proposal, but this is not sufficient for a “blocking minority”.<p>Ahem what? Last I checked any EU country can veto anything on its own.<p>&gt; Belgian EU Council presidency<p>It&#x27;s Council of the EU, not EU Council, that&#x27;s the heads of state who don&#x27;t have any legislative role. But the Council only does inter-country treaties, how is this even their thing?

I can see how that would be implemented for WhatsApp and other apps from large companies. But how would that work in practice for applications like Matrix where clients are not controlled by the server operator nor the server developer?<p>Some questions I have from reading Patrick&#x27;s website:<p>- How do you even ensure a client is actually self-reporting? On-device attestation doesn&#x27;t really work.<p>- As a provider of E2EE chats, should the client report to you or to a third-party (Who?)? If the client reports to you, you are now possessing CSAM. Since even possession of CSAM is illegal, how does that work?<p>- If a photo are flagged, will it appear in a GDPR access request?

EU continues its descent into an authoritarian surveillance state. I hope all the EU netizens wake up and realize how much more control the EU has been exerting over its citizens since the pandemic.

wasn&#x27;t there a specific lobbying group pushing for this kind of legislation in some places (connected to the makers of software for this type of scanning)?

Once implemented it would be just a matter of time until they advance the features of this with image scanning and of course active actions like taking control over your device with a warrant obtained digitally.

Do you think that Discord will leave the european union if chatcontrol pass ?

Good, our children can now sleep safe. Emphasis on sleep

Are these guys so unimaginative that they ended up taking a page from the playbook of authoritarian regimes?

It will really happen. And it will happen fast

In addition to usual communication, everyone should just start spamming as much as possible of &quot;content&quot; generated with GenAI. Good luck sorting through all that nonsense.