By making a minor concession EU governments hope to find a majority next week to approve the controversial „chat control“ bill. According to the proposed child sexual abuse regulation (CSAR), providers of messengers, e-mail and chat services would be forced to automatically search all private messag

This would probably fit in better in the technology community and I’m pretty sure it has been shared already, so sorry for the duplicate, especially since it was already on the [email protected] and and [email protected] communities.

I found it interesting because just a few months ago The Linux Experiment made a video that I shared and, while that video was talking about laws in France that I believed at the time would lead to eventually banning encrypted apps it now appears that the possibility of that is now looming over us…moreso after what happened in Arras.

Edit (in French) https://www.numerama.com/tech/1533652-attaque-a-arras-darmanin-vise-les-messageries-et-leur-chiffrement.html

Yes, the attack in Arras is being used as a reason to consider banning encrypted chat apps like Signal and WhatsApp.

  • Norgur@kbin.social
    13·
    1 year ago

    Looking forward to the flood of lawsuits to strike this thing down, just as any other proposal that goes on thisndirecto

    • dark_stang@beehaw.orgEnglish
      24·
      1 year ago

      It can’t be enforced outside of their borders. And it’s barely enforceable inside of them. Matrix chat will probably get more popular. Proton, and other private email services, will still exist. This seems like people who don’t understand tech trying to regulate it.

      ETA: if you think this is enforceable, look at how common piracy still is despite it being illegal in most places. VPNs, onion routing, alternative DNS, etc.

      • EthicalAI@beehaw.org
        5·
        1 year ago

        The only effect a law like this would have on me is me using the stuff more and probably contributing it to it.

      • library_napper@monyet.cc
        2·
        1 year ago

        There’s many corporations with offices in the EU that would face fines.

        Obviously that doesn’t mean people wouldn’t be able to use e2ee services without backdoors, but this law would still result in degraded privacy for millions of people.

    • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      The (Tory) UK government tried this exact same thing, accepted that it wasn’t possible to enforce, but pushed the law through anyway earlier this year.

  • library_napper@monyet.cc
    10·
    1 year ago

    Maybe that’s good that Wire moved to the US.

    Buy honestly I dont see how this could pass. It would be terrible for the privacy of both children and adults. In general the EU has done great work on digital privacy rights recently

    • bbbhltz@beehaw.orgOP
      8·
      1 year ago

      But this law is for the protection of children. It was inevitable, in my opinion as a somewhat informed layman, that it would come to this. It was either going to be about protecting children or something to do with terrorism.

      Many FOSS users will find it easy to adapt. We have some choices, and a few countries are trying to block it. Here in France, people buy and sell drugs on Twitter and Instagram thinking they’re being sneaky with their codewords like “broccoli” and “chocolate” so they won’t notice a difference. They think Snapchat is private cause the messages disappear.

      We just want our data stored here.

    • willhig@beehaw.org
      9·
      1 year ago

      Proton is a Swiss entity, so while they may have to change how they work where a law like this is in effect, they could continue to offer the same e2e encryption for Swiss and other markets.

    • jarfil@beehaw.org
      3·
      1 year ago

      Obligatory warning: Protonmail offers zero protection against orders issued to Protonmail to spy on any target.

      They serve you the JavaScript used for encryption, you have no way of checking whether it’s the same they serve everyone else, or whether your version has a backdoor.

      • Xavier
        2·
        1 year ago

        Exactly! I always wondered about that particular issue.

        Although, if one encrypt themself their email through GPG or other means before sending it, it’s almost a non issue excepting metadata (sender, receiving email address, timestamp, etc.).

  • Greenpepper@beehaw.orgEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    I’m pessimistic about the chances to stop this. People in the EU are more and more living in an era where privacy is a thing of the past and where every citizen is guilty unless proven otherwise. It has become clear that the EU is not working in the interest of civilians, as they are seen as a potential threat that needs to be monitored. It has become a oligarchy working for the rich.

    For the people willing to resist we have p2p, onion services and privacy respecting free software to defend ourselves against these shameless attacks against our privacy.

    • Valmond@beehaw.org
      2·
      1 year ago

      Hi,

      Where do people like you hang out? I’m building a fully encrypted, takedown safe, decentralized, free protocol and implementation (I’m ironing out some last important aspects, but it already functions) and I’d love having feedback and thoughts and maybe even someone trying it out…

      Cheers