And they're also pushing emotionally manipulative propaganda in the form of advertisements through microtargeting on social media platforms[0].

[0] original: https://netzpolitik.org/2023/politisches-mikrotargeting-eu-k...

[0] translated: https://netzpolitik-org.translate.goog/2023/politisches-mikr...

IMHO, they will only be able to spy on regular citizens. Obviously, this is not a reason not to lobby against the law.

2) they will fine FOSS developers until they comply

3) they will fine YOU until you comply

It is hard to prevent me or any regular user from downloading and running software. Are they going to block Git forges and repositories?

They won't be able to see what my communications are, nor confirm what I am using if I tunnel all traffic through Tor or a VPN.

Will they block VPNs like authoritarian states?

What makes you think they won't filter out means of private communication? It's just an electronic box from china.

To stop laws like this, the power needs to return to the people. That means, dismantling the EU and implementing direct democracy.

Yes. Not yet, next.

If I can read anyone's messages, I'm absolutely fine with everyone else reading mine.

If governments want access to our data, they should open up their data for us to see as well.

Honestly I'd love to live in a world where everything is out in the open, no secrets, no agendas, nothing to hide, no passwords. Everyone knows everyone's intentions, perhaps even thoughts one day via Neurolink. I think after the initial chaos in the first couple of decades, humanity will leap forward beyond imagination.

A community might come close during good times, but once the fortunes turn there are always hunts for scapegoatsband witches. My 2c.

I think it would quickly go to a "he who is without sin cast the first stone" situation. Any accusation against pretty much anyone could be countered.

And even if they did, the average person have even less power to do anything about it.

the only outcome would be mass panic.

en plein air decision making has already been tried several times throughout history, it never worked as intended.

social networks are an experiment in that sense and have been weaponized against the people using them in a very short time.

secondly: that would not stop propaganda, which is the real problem, we would only know what people say they think, not what they really think.

also I am not really fine with everyone reading my messages, some things need to stay private to live peacefully and/or not harm other people's feelings.

Greek tragedy shows the way: systematic problems can make even a group of people making all the "right" decisions (individually) result in disaster.

For examples, I highly recommend the podcast "Cautionary Tales." Start from Episode 1.

EU: Company, this looks like you're facilitating breaking the EU law. Encryption we can't break is forbidden, except when we use it.

Company: Prove it. Maybe we're just sending random bytes to test the network.

The blatant disregard for and violation of the basic rights of hundreds of millions of humans by the few putting forward this proposal is or at least borders on the criminal in my opinion

> Even personal storage that is not being shared, such as Apple’s iCloud, will be subject to chat control

This is new to me. In that case it looks like all services with encryption 'baked in' lose their effectiveness. And that encryption/decryption of text & data needs to be done independently of said service layer to regain privacy.

What if generic encryption apps would integrate with chat apps and the like? According to these rules the chat apps are still required to do scanning, but that will be done on encrypted data which seems pointless.

Unless the rules will be adapted at some point that general encryption needs to be scanned as well, but that would be impractical and undesirable for the EU as well.

https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2023/06/eu-member-states-...

Hungary surprises me as a supporter for this

While you cannot be sentenced for a crime based on the fact that you possess encrypted data, if that data is evidence in a criminal case you can be put in detention on remand for an indefinete amount of time, until you give up the password.

Here is a list of countries compelled to reveal passwords to encrypted data by laws in force.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law

Which it is. The person you responded to doesn't know what the hell they're talking about, and in fact most of the stuff in the "United States" subsection of the "Legislation by nation" section of their very own link they provided says as much, that the Fifth Amendment provides protection against such self-incrimination and that judges usually find as such.

What one federal court of appeals decides doesn't necessarily apply in other districts. The Eleventh Circuit made the Fifth Amendment ruling in 2012, but Lavabit temporarily shut down in 2013 due to FBI demands to hand over encryption keys [1]. (Lavabit was founded in Texas, which is in the Fifth Circuit [2].) The FBI can still send national security letters, which prohibit receivers from telling the public about them [3].

Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's ruling only applies to Pennsylvania, and the prosecutors were from Luzerne County, not the FBI [4].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter#Conte...

[4] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/11/police-cant-forc...

I was expecting some kind of Firefox addon to implement this kind of encryption to regular messaging websites

Google translate: https://dawn-fi.translate.goog/uutiset/2023/10/14/eu-csam-su...

It's gotten to the point where I just dismiss such arguments outright. It's like the Godwin's law of encryption and surveillance. If you make such an argument, it's likely you're trying to manipulate others and are therefore wrong. Using children as political weapons is a form of abuse too and they seriously gotta stop.

I've yet to hear an at least plausible story of how a massive prep operation could not just have been missed by the world's most advanced embedded spy agencies in what is possibly the most surveiled group in the world, but then not just effectively executed but lingered on without direct response at again, maybe with exception of Korea, the most heavily secured high tech guarded border in the world.

With encryption, it's a whole another story. The danger is much greater. People may read hate speech or Putin's propaganda, and spread it on the Internet. This is a threat to democracy. Or even worse, they may communicate freely and share independent unsanctioned news. We don't yet have a tool for that, so we're working hard on it.

politicians really are the most disgusting people

in the modern day, if someone can't go on a podcast and openly discuss why they want to do something, they're basically a fraud

"we need more security" isn't a reason. why do you need to be obscure? what are the threats? i want to know them. share them. there's no harm in me knowing. as a matter of fact there's probably a few million people in your own country that can come up with a better solution than you. why not crowdsource?

it's irresponsible behavior to keep these secrets

which one? not those who vote the things we like or against the things we don't like I suppose.

am I right?

politicians are people, made the same way as anyone else, they are different he same way people in the society are different.

you're basically saying that people are the most disgusting people.

But with sortition they could be.

of course they are not random, like medics and engineers are not random, but they certainly are more representative of the sentiments of the population than many other jobs out there.

Tens-of-millionaires certainly are not.[1]

What kind of jobs are supposed to be less representative of the population? Big corporation CEOs?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37893547

Unless you have drank from the kool aid and believe politics to be a force for good and change; in that case it'll be hard to convince you otherwise.

We're constantly patting ourselves on the back for how intelligent we are. And yet we fail to address such systemic problems, which reduce our quality of life. This feels much more like stroking our own egos while letting ourselves off the hook, than an insightful analysis of the situation.

What that implies is that being especially smart isn't sufficient. If being smart was a powerful differentiator, then there would be an opportunity for smart people to enter politics. They would excel because they would have a competitive advantage over the less intelligent people who are currently in politics. They would have the smarts to avoid pitfalls, and profit from their powerful status and accomplishments.

But apparently they don't do this because every single person who is smart enough, has a better opportunity elsewhere. Every single one? I think the more likely reality, is this theory about insufficient compensation being the primary issue, is bunk.

We reward capitalism irrespective of how much (or little) benefit they provide to society at large.

All you're doing is dressing up selfishness as "intelligence", which is not the same thing.

Look at the net worth of someone like Dianne Feinstein (RIP) or Nancy Pelosi.

See: corrupt police departments.

Austria (9.1M) and Estonia (1.4M) are also mentioned and if they all vote "No", that is a bit over 99M people which is only 22% of EU citizens. So not enough to prevent it passing. No idea where the rest of the EU bloc sits on Yes/No, I'm hoping it does *not* pass.

Quoting from the translation where they explain how it works:

"EU countries will vote on the proposal at the end of October. At that time, the proposal will go through, if it is not opposed by a number of countries representing a total of at least 35 percent of EU citizens."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_member_...

- Spain (caught using Pegasus spyware to spy their own politicians)

- Hungary (Orban has good dictator vibes)

- Cyprus

https://www.wired.com/story/europe-break-encryption-leaked-d...

In this case in the Council (of member states) of the European Union needs to pass with 55% of the member states agreeing and they need to have 65% of the EU population.

In addition, the (directly elected) European Parliament will need to pass the proposed directive with a simple majority.

So calling the "vote" unneeded is not true at all.

It's basically like the senate in the US, except the states are represented by ministers instead of elected senators.

It's also worth noting that the US Senate was originally not elected either. The transition to an elected Senate was triggered by two states individually deciding to elect their Senator, then the rest followed. The same could happen in the EU, which would make it much more democratic. And it would only take one country to make the first move.

> Citizens are directly represented at Union level in the European Parliament.

> Member States are represented in the European Council by their Heads of State or Government and in the Council by their governments, themselves democratically accountable either to their national Parliaments, or to their citizens.

> Since 1979, the Parliament has been directly elected every five years by the citizens of the European Union through universal suffrage.

Yes,the parliament exists. I have voted for members of it. It is the most democratic part of the EU. The rules give it much more influence than hereto. But it has problems.

1) The Council, which is not so democratic, can veto it

2) The parliament is huge, so each member has very limited influence

3) Because of 2) it has not succeeded in creating an EU 'public sphere' or 'demos'. The 'parties' are just agglomerations of national parties. When you think of EU politicians, who are the big names? They are a) national figures and , b) Commissioners. Rarely do parliamentarians become well known,and usually for some other reason (Eg Nigel Farage).

I stand by my statement that the EU would be much more democratic if the council were elected. Firstly, do you really think the US was not more democratic when the Senate became elected? Secondly, it would mean that there were 'big figures' that get elected at an EU level. That would get the pubic much more interested and that is a significant part of what it means to be democratic. It doesn't matter how democratic the rules are of nobody cares.

Formally, yes, the Council represents democratically elected governments, and obviously people have heard of their national politicians. But that doesn't mean it makes the EU democratic. Some things to think about:

- When was the last time, if ever, you considered voting against someone at your national level because of how they might vote in the EU council?

- How much do you hear about EU council votes in the media, vs national parliamentary votes? (the OP is relatively unusual IMO)

The Commission is definitely undemocratic. But it has less power than many believe. It has the right to make proposals, but no power over whether they get adopted. It's more of a civil service in many ways. In my view, the council is the structure that has the most power in the EU. And the national politicians who operate it are content that it remains avenue for back-room deals whose results they can blame on the Commission, rather than being accountable to an electorate.

Otherwise you could have the weird situation where the elected government and the elected council members work against each others because of mismatched voting cycles (or personalities).

That sounds like a recipe for legslative lockup.

In the end most fundamental EU "laws" need to be implemented into national law by the same government that is now sending its members to the council.

A similar system is in use her in Germany, where the state government send a representative to the upper house.

The commission is where we have the major lack of democracy currently. Not sure how to improve without a massive transfer of power to the Union (e.g. an elected president), but it’s a problem worth solving.

The council isn't exactly a 'Cabinet' right now - in fact, the Commission is more like a Cabinet than the council. Electing a commissioner would be another option, but the head of the commission can reject them, so it's not under the control of the member state.

> EU countries will vote on the proposal at the end of October. At that time, the proposal will go through, if it is not opposed by a number of countries representing a total of at least 35 percent of EU citizens.