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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday April 13 2021, @12:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the is-the-signup-page-encrypted? dept.

MEP Patrick Breyer, representing Germany via the Pirate Party, has written that there is a short time left to provide input to the public consultation on the proposal to eliminate encrypted services in Europe. The deadline is April 15th. He goes over the key survey questions to pay particular attention to, the gist of the draft legislation is as follows:

  • The EU Commission is drafting permanent legislation on the automatic searching of all online activities, including personal electronic mail and messages of each citizen, for suspicious content in the search for child pornography. Suspected cases would be notified to the police. An online consultation is underway until 15 April. It includes questions on whether private communications should be covered and whether backdoors to end-to-end encrypted communications services should be required to enable this monitoring.
  • Such privatised mass surveillance is unprecedented in western democracies and would have unacceptable consequences for our freedom of communications and expression. According to police reports, in the vast majority of cases, innocent citizens come under suspicion of having committed an offence due to unreliable processes.
  • Therefore, please participate in the ongoing consultation. The responses will be taken into account by the Commission when deciding on the content of the planned legislation. So far, almost only child protection organizations and industry stakeholders have participated.
  • The public consultation on chat control legislation is open until 15 April: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12726-Child-sexual-abuse-online-detection-removal-and-reporting-/public-consultation

To participate, you need to create an account as well as be able to vote in the EU.


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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @12:49PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @12:49PM (#1136962)

    If these communist pirates defeat this proposal, European children will be at risk of child pornography or worse. I for one support the automatic scanning of emails and other online activity for evidence of major crimes like child pornography, murder and copyright infringement.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:02PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:02PM (#1136970)

      I'm founding a company for deciding which naughty images contain women under/over eighteen years. Would you like to help me in the manual triaging process?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @02:23PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @02:23PM (#1137007)

        The company specializes in analyzing pictures of the morbidly obese. Agents will also be required to determine photo subjects' gender as well as any visually identifiable STDs. Oh, and its a scat site. Did I miss anything?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @04:01PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @04:01PM (#1137040)

          I actually wanted to ask you for your bank account and access, passport copy and for sending a hefty admission fee. The web is full of pictures, not a need to seek for other ones.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 14 2021, @03:40AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 14 2021, @03:40AM (#1137285)

            If that's the case then you've got one hell of a captcha guarding your phishing site. -∞. Would not recommend.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 14 2021, @12:20PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 14 2021, @12:20PM (#1137402)

              As it turns out, I was only getting scam requests when it was without the captcha hell. A terrible irony. I have at least enough time for masturbation this current way when no one is able to pass through the captcha. ¡No Pasarán!

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @05:23PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @05:23PM (#1137066)

      https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/547551-boston-police-kept-child-molestation-allegations-against-union [thehill.com]

      and if that isn't enough, dig up theregister.co.uk, or theguardian's articles on parliamentary sex abuse scandals.

      Then go and ask these EU politicians: 'You've been thinking of the children an awful lot. Would it be safe for us to assume you're paedophiles using these laws to make it easier for you to abuse our children, while making it harder for us to abuse yours?'

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:22PM (2 children)

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:22PM (#1136983) Journal

    He also has an older overview of the problems with the proposed legislation [patrick-breyer.de] at his blog:

    The End of the Privacy of Digital Correspondence

    The EU wants to have all private chats, messages, and emails automatically searched for suspicious content, generally and indiscriminately. The stated aim: To prosecute child pornography. The result: Mass surveillance through fully automated real-time messaging and chat control and the end of secrecy of digital correspondence.

    In 2020 the European Commission proposed “temporary” legislation aimed at allowing the search of all private chats, messages, and emails for illegal depictions of minors and attempted initiation of contacts with minors. This is to allow the providers of Facebook Messenger, Gmail, et al, to scan every message for suspicious text and images. This takes place in a fully automated process and using error-prone “artificial intelligence”. If an algorithm considers a message suspicious, its content and meta-data are disclosed automatically and without human verification to a private US-based organization and from there to national police authorities worldwide. The reported users are not notified.

    Some U.S. providers of services such as Gmail and Outlook.com are already performing such automated messaging and chat controls. Through a second piece of legislation, the EU Commission intends to oblige all providers of chat, messaging and e-mail services to deploy this mass surveillance technology.

    This is tiresome, again, but wearing the public down is a tactic these days. So is using "harmonization" to ratchet downwards on either side of the Atlantic. Should this go through, the US and Canada will leap to do the same thing.

    --
    Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:31PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:31PM (#1136992)

      Some U.S. providers of services such as Gmail and Outlook.com are already performing such automated messaging and chat controls. Through a second piece of legislation, the EU Commission intends to oblige all providers of chat, messaging and e-mail services to deploy this mass surveillance technology.

      The problem is, the 'providers' can be private servers and the 'users' are family. In this case, the only option to run such services would be 'illegal' or whatever as they are outside of the main services. Also, we have things like non-EU companies providing chat servers for games or whatever.

      Anyway, the idea is bad because it's non-workable and doesn't really solve anything. Child Porn and related are probably already hiding behind distributed systems like onion servers and laws will not change if police can track these criminals easier.

      Should this go through, the US and Canada will leap to do the same thing.

      Like a famour quote from Canada's minister, "you are with us or with child pornographers". Reality is not so simple.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Children_from_Internet_Predators_Act#Vic_Toews_controversy [wikipedia.org]

      Didn't advance either.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @07:26PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @07:26PM (#1137101)

        Like a famour quote from Canada's minister, "you are with us or with child pornographers".

        Wow, I never thought anyone could make child pornographers look good by comparison.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:26PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:26PM (#1136988)

    Yeah! EU! Way to go!

    Literally the first thing they do before you can do *anything* concerning that survey is: you must create an account!

    I gather that's probably meant to ensure that they are not bot-bombed, and to validate the email address you also have to give, and .... COME ON! Doing a survey whether privacy should be scrapped, and then requiring me to give up my privacy before I can answer at all, way to skew your results by forcing all more-than-lukewarm privacy advocates into self-exclusion!!

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:41PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:41PM (#1136997)

    So, look here,

    https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12726-Child-sexual-abuse-online-detection-removal-and-reporting- [europa.eu]

    There is already feedback from major players. Like Microsoft and Cloudflare and others. They already shoot down the proposal as nonsensical.

    Personally, I will provide some feedback (there is a questionnaire), the problem is this is getting spun by the Pirate Party here like the end of the world. People have ideas. Some are good, some are non-workable, some are stupid. This idea belongs to the 2nd category. It does not come out of malice, but like we all know, road to hell is paved with good intentions. This includes too much freedom and too little ;-) But I think they will just go back to the drawing board on how best to fight the scourge of child porn. Sadly, like Microsoft said in their feedback, there is no silver bullet here.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:47PM (#1137001)

      Eventually a law like this will get through. Microsoft and Cloudflare will adapt to the situation, just like many companies adapted to get into China.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @02:42PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @02:42PM (#1137011)

      'Think of the Children' has been the go-to fig leaf for the most malicious authoritarians since at least the late '30s*. Denying law abiding citizens access to encryption in this networked age is akin to denying people the right to lock their doors. No good can come of it and those pushing such draconian measures have never cared one whit about their purported justifications.

      *At risk of Godwin: I'm not saying that it is evil because Hitler did it. I'm saying that Hitler was evil because he did it.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @03:53PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @03:53PM (#1137037)

        Denying law abiding citizens access to encryption in this networked age is akin to denying people the right to lock their doors.

        The problem is legislators don't know what is internet. People will think that 'google is internet' or 'facebook', but then they don't know. Talking about right to encryption will do nothing as they don't understand the fundamentals.

        I work at a software development company. I just had to explain that Github is not Git. That git is distributed, and works without network. Network is just for syncing. And it blew people's minds (at least some). So, don't expect politicians to know what internet is. Making bad analogies doesn't really help. They actually need feedback to understand.

        So yeah, world is not coming to an end. And technology proposal is dead on arrival.

        To sum it up, what they appear to want to do is throw money at a problem and make some prevention center where 3rd party providers would throw data at and it would then return CP=(percentage). Then they would have to do something about it. Basically, a copyright filter but CP. Sadly, it's not that easy. Major providers like Google or Facebook already do this and have advanced tech for detection. EC can't really take a lead there. What they could do is provide better facility for coordination. But like I said, it's not a tech issue. It's a human problem.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @06:05PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @06:05PM (#1137081)

          They know full well what the internet is, or rather, their paymasters do. The ultimate purpose of all legislation is to remove competitors for the big players --- who're as a rule going to be in cahoots with the powers that be.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @03:43PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @03:43PM (#1137033)

      So, now I provided feedback there. I raised question like '10 euro hosting provider - who police that when disks are encrypted?'. Anyway, took a while. 24 pages result survey output. You can see from timestamp how long that took -- not 20 minutes.

      Basically, there is no silver bullet here. EU also doesn't make laws like a nation - they make laws that then need to be adopted by individual members. They have a law from 2011 or something that was not even adopted yet. But I did learn something,

      https://www.inhope.org/EN [inhope.org]

      This is sponsored by the EU. They should probably expand on this and get more nations to join. But CP has no technological solution because it's not a technological problem. Just because 'the internet' doesn't make it technological problem. Tech can help, but it will not solve it. Even in China, the problem exists.

      I also hinted that organizations like EFF should be consulted prior to coming up with future proposals. This is no because of privacy. It's just so they know how the internet actually works before they come up with unworkable proposals.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @02:55PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @02:55PM (#1137015)

    Is for one end of the encrypted link to be compromised by nosey US-ian law enforcement, then it's game over.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @03:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @03:34PM (#1137030)

    the children need to be protected so they can become upstanding unmolested cannon fodder in the coming 1 billion men wars ...
    i really think that parents or the source of children and subsequent abuse of them should be accountable ... not the wider internet!
    if this law passes there will be first requirment on encryption software but it will escalate very soon and the backdoor will soon be mandated on the operating level ...
    and anyways if cheap profit enhancing chinese equipment does "backdooring" then it's bad but some letters on a piece of paper requires the SAME then it's good (nothing different but a ficional line in the sand)!
    lastly taking piece of mind of private comms FROM everyone because of a FEW perversts (and bad parents) does not sound right but rather like a straw argument.
    now, really lastly, no modern network is a "bare metal" network but are rather "overlay" networks so following packets, impersonating a pervert as a policeman/woman, boots on the ground and hiring "hackers" that can find one in miriard software flaws is enough to find 'em pervs ... no need for a "kollektiv strafe".
    in conlusion " think about the kids, but not too much!"

    end note: internet is 99% hard and software NOT made in europe, so LOL.
    now really really the end: maybe them europaburocrats need to ask themselfs why there are so many pervers in europe? maybe you're ever increasing repressive laws are driving normal people desperate (their way of "rebelling")?

  • (Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Tuesday April 13 2021, @04:19PM (3 children)

    by Mojibake Tengu (8598) on Tuesday April 13 2021, @04:19PM (#1137048) Journal

    We knew how to operate underground digitally 40 years ago, we will do it again.
    Perhaps even better, with more complete situation understanding and lifetime of experience.

    Expect new protocols and communication console tools to be released soon.

    Frankly, I do not trust Pirates a single iota democracy point at Planck's scale metric, here they pretend to be anarchists[1] but in Parliament they actually collaborate with aristocratic nobility party[2] very closely. It's a classic political trap for naive youngsters with ideals.

    [1] https://www.pirati.cz/ [pirati.cz]
    [2] https://en.top09.cz/about-us/ [top09.cz]

    --
    Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
    • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday April 13 2021, @05:19PM (1 child)

      by fustakrakich (6150) on Tuesday April 13 2021, @05:19PM (#1137063) Journal

      There is no "digital underground". I mean, there is kind of a a quasi-thing going on for now, but blocking unauthorized protocols and encryption and redirection is already trivial with the ISP's deep packet inspection in place. Gotta make the one time pad more practical.

      --
      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Tuesday April 13 2021, @06:05PM

        by Mojibake Tengu (8598) on Tuesday April 13 2021, @06:05PM (#1137082) Journal

        Nowhere to hide, yes. Our current strategy against packet inspection is "make outside observation very costly to the extreme, infinite costs at best".

        We focus on stateless secure messaging, and this goal requires a very low bandwidth resources. It is so low we could move this to side channels completely.

        For example, I have an experimental transport protocol over udp6 parallel which uses tricks like zero size packet and/or random payload packet. Any attempt for deep inspection on this is a complete waste of money. You absolutely need a complete network flow stored to perform any analysis on this. Of course, using innocent data instead of random payload provides another camo layer.
        And this is only a transport layer mechanics, encryption and network aggregation mechanics will come above that.

        And, no business-aware ISP (yes, no true Scotsman argument) would block ports ranges actually used for shits like video streaming, online gaming, game lobbies and such...

        I absolutely recommend fragmentation for digital sovereignty: any family, group of friends, street gang, village, town, social group or class, tribe, nation, state... let they design their own network protocols!

        --
        Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 14 2021, @12:44AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 14 2021, @12:44AM (#1137195) Journal

      but in Parliament they actually collaborate with aristocratic nobility party[2] very closely.

      Not seeing the alleged issue here. It's politics. If the Pirate Party is successful at all, it's because they collaborated to get what they want.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @09:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @09:16PM (#1137127)

    so you found a way to do something clandestine and secret and ofc the people who want to know (and have the power (to make laws)) will declare that you are doing the worst thing possible with it.
    this ofc excludes forever the case where "the secret methode" can be used to communicate "the secrets" of the "so-called" elected or democratic government.
    so you can chose: "no child porn" -or- a government with a shotgun tied to its forehead (which the majority can pull the trigger if it feels the government is failing or is abusing the power given to them by the public).

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