this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 141 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Sorry citizen, every time you enter the bar we've got to take a swab from your genitals to check that since you were last here you haven't fucked any kids.

Fucking ridiculous. If you want to prevent CSAM spreading across Europe do this instead:

  • new funding for a cross boarder specialist taskforce to coordinate law enforcement agencies.
  • hide the identity of defendant and victim during trials.
  • offer a slightly lighter sentence to offenders if they successfully help with bringing down the rings.
  • a large cross-boarder sting operation.
  • new funding for therapy for offenders to reform them and during and after they've served their time.
  • new funding for a confidential service to provide prevention therapy to potential offenders before they commit that horrid act against a child.

Investigation and surgical removal of the whole rotten ring of kid fuckers will curve CSAM creation and distribution in the EU.

Then preventative measures to stop creators/ consumers of CSAM because prevention is more effective than trying to cure it.

Child sexual abuse is one of, if not the most evil act someone can commit and they should face very steep punishment for it. And anyone proposing any policy offering help to reform them is committing political suicide.

But ignoring the fact that people have the capacity to commit an evil act of that magnitude, demonising them, and then offering no support network to prevent them is not going to solve the problem. It doesn't work for any crime and certainly not this.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 5 months ago

Unfortunately stopping CSAM isn’t the point. The point is eroding privacy and pretending it’s protecting kids.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 5 months ago

Yes, but those policies don’t provide political cover to eliminate everyone’s encryption and privacy, so…

[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 months ago (1 children)

new funding for a confidential service to provide prevention therapy to potential offenders before they commit that horrid act against a child.

THIS.

I would recommend watching "Louis Theroux - Among the sex offenders" to get a better understanding of the lack of treatment available for people who don't want to offend but feel compelled. Some of them are crying out for treatment!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

Yup. Let's not forget that pedophilia is a mental disorder. I'd assume that many people with pedophilia don't become offenders, but I think that the number of offenders could be much lower still if these people got proper help and treatment before they ever commit a crime.

Sure, if these people actually commit crimes or if they're about to, we have to make sure they're physically unable to get anywhere near children. But I feel like in most circles if someone were to come out and admit they have this mental disorder, they'll be frowned upon, probably lose all their "friends" and not get any help. On the internet, it's far worse than this.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 months ago

I really believe that this has nothing to do with kids. "For the kids" has made me suspicious of intentions for a long time. It makes it difficult to argue against it because it implies that you're a pedo or are doing something illegal otherwise. You implement general monitoring "for the kids", and then you add some anti piracy stuff to it, then you add some hate group detection, some anti government group detection, etc. Now you have everything you need to get ahead of any danger to the government. If the people can't organize, you can do whatever you want.

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[–] [email protected] 76 points 5 months ago (2 children)

The real offenders (except for some stupid rookies) move to the dark web and won't touch the official apps while politicians use this power to scan for political and environmental activists, opponents and critics.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I said the same to a coworker this week. If i were to be part or manage an illegal ring like csam, id make my own protocol/app that just uses encryption. Youre already doing illegal shit, go one further so you dont get caught

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Probably won't even need anonymizers for this! Chances are concealing usage of your own server would not be that hard on the clearnet either.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No it will be. Having your own XMPP/IRC server doesn't prevent the NSA from spying on your metadata, and that's exactly what will happen. It's just that TOR and I2P will likely see an increase in traffic

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Indeed. Protecting the metadata is already a completely different task from protecting the contents. But how would this law in particular change this aspect? It concerns message contents, surveillance of metadata stays the same (aka full). I was saying this about getting back access to encrypted messaging even with a low threat model.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 5 months ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago

Freedom of goods, freedom of services, freedom of capital, freedom of movement, and freedom of reading all of your private messages (excluding EU officials, naturally).

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago
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[–] Jocker 41 points 5 months ago (1 children)

May I also suggest surveiling every knife in every kitchen, since people historically had killed other people with knife

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Two German states are about to attempt introducing a law at the federal level banning all knives with blades longer then 6cm (~~1.5~2.3 in) from beeing carried in publicin public.

Source in german: https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/rheinland-pfalz/messer-verbot-gesetz-bundesrat-rlp-100.html

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This law, if it were to pass, is 100% guaranteed to be shot down by the European courts for invasion of privacy.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago

Unfortunately the court wasn't that strict in it's most recent decision regarding data retention (different lead judge combined with the endless tries from the politics)

[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Feels like a strange move, from an American who is used to seeing the EU do things that should put our government to shame.

Are they trying to get the US to join the EU? Lol

[–] [email protected] 39 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Every other year the EU tries to pass another mass surveillance law - and the EU court of human rights rules it illegal.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago

This one was not passed yet.

The vote was pulled in the last minute, because they didn't expect to get the required qualified majority. This was among other things due to the German governmant announcing to vote against it.

Germany is about to have an election next year though and the conservative and faschist parties are expected to win, I doubt they would be holding this position. France is also having an election soon with the faschists expected to win big. And their current government is responsible for this law not beeing even worse.

TLDR: It didn't pass yet, but this will not be the last attempt at passing it.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Suppose the bill goes through. Is there any reliable alternative for privately communicating? Asking for myself.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Wow, did you just really confess as an child porn distributor/consumer? Who else would need such an communication alternative?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

... This is a really bad time for a "I am Spartacus" thing.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

I don't think it would be enforceable for everyone hosting servers for themselves. I personally use XMPP, Matrix and recently Simplex.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Distributed/Federated apps probably? Session, Briar...

Overlay networks like Tor, I2P and Hyphanet (ex-Freenet)?

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Positive news: at least Germany will reject it, let's hope more members follow their lead

According to [German Federal Minister of the Interior] Nancy Faeser, it is appropriate to "hold online platforms accountable so that depictions of abuse are discovered, deleted and the perpetrators prosecuted". However, if the current proposal remains, the representative of the Federal Republic of Germany would have to vote no, said the SPD politician. "Because we must take targeted action and maintain the balance of the rule of law. Encrypted private communications of millions of people must not be monitored without cause.

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Chat-control-Germany-will-vote-against-current-proposal-9770051.html

[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

And the reasoning? As always Terrorists, pedophile, criminals, etc. Guess what: If those guys have not learned yet to make a big detour around official chat apps, they deserve getting caught. My bet is, those people already have their own secured means of communication. Maybe they have their own encrypted app, or they have a forum somewhere in the Darknet, whatever. But the chance that this new law will catch anything worthwhile is practically nil.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Short question: how would they enforce that? What if I use some obscure messenger that nobody has ever heard of? What if I simply use telnet or netcat to send messages to other people?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Telnet? Banned. You now need the EUs approval to use networking software. The only apps that any EU users can use that uses the network interface are those whitelisted by the EU.

That's the only way that this is enforceable. And still pretty easy to defeat, or are they gonna Linux too? Since Linux comes with the source code, anyone could recompile it removing the restriction.

It's just absurd.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I think these things aren't designed to stop everyone, just most people, non-technical people - not people like us who know how to work around limitations etc.

It still sucks though, and it's a stupid idea.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Criminal would just use the communication method that is encrypted, because it will be known as such. Just like nowadays everyone knows that if you want to pirate you use torrent. And if you don't wanna be tracked you use VPNs and tor.

This will hurt the dumbest of criminals and all the non-criminals.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago

Imagine scanning encrypted messages

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Does this cover all messages sent between me and my teammates about the secret projects we're working on, or are we only fucking over the people, and not the companies?

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

Won't somebody think of le childrun!!!!11!1!1!!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


The law, first introduced in 2022, would implement an “upload moderation” system that scans all your digital messages, including shared images, videos, and links.

Several organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy & Technology, and Mozilla, have also signed a joint statement urging the EU to reject proposals that scan user content.

In a statement to The Verge, Breyer also points out that the Belgian Presidency ends later this month, and the country’s current Minister of the Interior has been at the forefront of the chat control bill.

Last year, a poll conducted by the European Digital Rights (EDRi) group suggested that 66 percent of young people in the EU disagree with policies allowing internet providers to scan their messages.

“Many lawmakers understand that fundamental rights prohibit mass surveillance, but they don’t want to be seen opposing a scheme that’s framed as combatting CSAM,” Breyer says.

“My message is that children and abuse victims deserve measures that are truly effective and will hold up in court, not just empty promises, tech solutionism and hidden agendas.”


The original article contains 642 words, the summary contains 177 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago

Let's see them deal with PGP-encrypted email lol

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

Yet again? Salamitaktik?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Can we just send 200 billion fake messages every millisecond to overload them constantly? Forcing them to pull out.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

The scanning is done on your device. You could theoretically only overload the CSAM reporting feature if such a thing will exist.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

Looks at gdpr Looks at new law Looks at gdpr Looks at security questionnaires from EU companies Looks at new law

Well past time to take up farming.

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