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EU Council Approves New "Chat Control" Mandate Pushing Mass Surveillance
- baal80spam 10mo agoWho would have thought?!
- AndrewSwift 10mo agoIt would be nice to have details: It rewards or penalizes online services depending on whether they agree to carry out “voluntary” scanning, effectively making intrusive monitoring a business expectation rather than a legal requirement.
- snvzz 10mo agoBusiness, eh. Maybe it's time to go open source and fully distributed peer-to-peer. Something like Tox[0] or SimpleX[1]. The (actual) solution should be to fix legislation to adequate protect privacy, because they'll attack this next. But meantime, a technical solution is better than nothing. 0. https://tox.chat/ https://tox.chat/ 1. https://simplex.chat/ https://simplex.chat/
- IlikeKitties 10mo ago> Hi Mom, please install this peer to peer dark net chat to talk to me in the future, thanks Oh honey, why don't we just use iMessage instead. Thx bye.
- john01dav 10mo agoI have been successful in getting non-technical people onto Signal. As far as a technical product goes, Signal is kindof shit (among other things: no support for non-Debian-based Linux forcing users to use sketchy third party repos when they are a massive target for backdoors, really shitty UX for backups), but it gets the job done and seems to have robust encryption from what other people say (I am not qualified to evaluate this myself). If a P2P solution that solved the aforementioned Signal issues were to have excellent UX, then that could probably work. Lastly, what counts as "excellent UX" for technical and non-technical people seems to differ. For example, I consider Discord and Slack to be quite intuitive and easy to use, but multiple technical people have expressed to me that they find it to be very confusing and that they prefer other solutions, such as GroupMe in one example. To me, GroupMe shoving the SMS paradigm into something that's fundamentally not SMS is more confusing and poor UX, but to these non-technical people that seems easy. I suspect that Signal's shortcomings that I perceive are an example of this: making UX trade-offs that work great for non-technical people but are less good for technical people. I'm not sure what these specific UX trade-offs are, but I suspect that it's something akin to having a conceptually sound underlying model (like Discord or Slack servers/workspaces and channels), versus having really obvious "CLICK HERE TO NOT FUSS" buttons like GroupMe, while having graceful failures for non-technical users that can't even figure that out (like just pretending to be SMS in GroupMe's case if you can't figure out how to install an app, or don't want to put that effort in, something that many people know how to use).
- tiborsaas 10mo agoThis seems a bit more polished: https://tryquiet.org/ https://tryquiet.org/ But some friction is to be expected.
- snvzz 10mo agoMore? You sure not mean less? SimpleX, and especially Tox, are much more mature. They're not newcomers. They are only lacking in users, as they don't have the marketing resources companies like Slack or Discord do.
- tiborsaas 10mo agoI have never heard of the ones you mentioned so it's indeed a marketing problem. I've looked at the sites and made a quick judgement.
- rjdj377dhabsn 10mo agoMy (very non-technical) 70 year old mom was actually happy to use Element because it has a nice desktop client, so she can more easily type and see pictures than on her phone screen. Simplex Chat would have worked for her as well.
- Workaccount2 10mo agoWhet nerds perpetually don't understand, is that regular people hate the apps that nerds love, which are largely apps made by nerds who hate the apps that normal people love.
- raverbashing 10mo agoExactly this But people like to sensationalize stuff This is less worse than the original proposal Oh and honestly game chat rooms should not be private. (of course personal 1:1 messages should)
- jeroenhd 10mo agoThis achieves every goal the original proposal achieved, except the wording is sneakier. Services are obligated to do risk analysis and take appropriate safety precautions against high risk actions. High risk actions include "anonymous accounts", "uploading media", and of course "encrypted messages". The moment they catch the next random pedo, every messenger app on their phone will be tasked with explaining why they didn't do enough to stop the pedo. They'd better get their business together next time, because otherwise they might be held liable! There's no law that says you have to hand over arbitrary data to the police without a warrant but when Telegrams shady owner landed in france, he was locked up until his company pledged to "work together with police better". Don't be fooled by pretty words, none of this optional stuff is optional for any messenger the government doesn't already have the ability to read along with.
- raverbashing 10mo agoYou're reading too much into this Technical gotchas are not the same as legal gotchas
- rdm_blackhole 10mo ago> You're reading too much into this OP is not reading too much into this. You are being naive if you think that this is not the intended goal of this law. Everyone who has looked at this proposal know that the 'changes" made to the latest draft are not real changes and that voluntary scanning with repercussions is the same exact thing as mandatory. If a robber walks into your house and ask you to give all your cash and threatens to break your legs if you don't do it, did you give your money voluntarily or was it forced by the threat of violence? Either something is mandatory and if not done, should be punished accordingly or something is voluntary in which case, then if someone does not do it there are no repercussions. You can't say that something is voluntary and but that there would be repercussions if that thing is not done. It does not make sense. Yet that is exactly what this law says. High risk companies should prevent the spread of CSAM but they are not forced to do it, except that if they don't do it then bad things will happen to them but don't worry it's not mandatory. Those are just weasel words by politicians. Nothing more.
- jeroenhd 10mo agoThis is the same way the law in many EU countries mandates ISPs to store communication logs for every internet subscriber for months or longer. The legal mandate was shot down by the EU courts, but every country then figured out their own loophole and as a result data retention is effectively mandatory but not by clear and public law.
- npodbielski 10mo agoAs a first step, after that they will expand it and force to do it effectively boiling the frog. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
- latexr 10mo agoFrom the second paragraph in your link: > While some 19th-century experiments suggested that the underlying premise is true if the heating is sufficiently gradual, according to modern biologists the premise is false: changing location is a natural thermoregulation strategy for frogs and other ectotherms, and is necessary for survival in the wild. A frog that is gradually heated will jump out. Furthermore, a frog placed into already boiling water will die immediately, not jump out.
- aqfamnzc 10mo agoIt's just a metaphor.
- npodbielski 10mo agoIt is just a saying my dear friend. I added link because I was not sure how known it is in other countries - if at all. But of course some HN commenter had to do: 'well actually...'. :D If I would write something like: 'Better late than never' would you be correcting me too? 'Well actually studies shows that it is better never...' I recommend some chilling with a nice cup of tea.
- latexr 10mo agoI genuinely didn’t mean to upset you, and apologise for that. I enjoy learning about idioms and their origins, and find it doubly interesting when something is widespread but based on an incorrect notion. My comment was made in good faith, it was in no way intended as a slight on you.
- pixelpoet 10mo agoWhy are all politicians so shit? Launch these no-good leeches into the sun. Nobody wants this, including they themselves, which is why they specifically exempt themselves from it.
- usrnm 10mo agoMostly because they are people
- latexr 10mo agoClearly it’s not all of them. Some countries voted against, and even the ones voting in favour had a few people against. The question is more why do the shit politicians rise to the top. Outside forces (rich people and companies) have too much power and can exert too much influence. In this case I’m particularly curious about the Danes. They insisted on this more than any other previous attempt. They are forever soiled as fighting against the will of the people.
- lambdaone 10mo agoIt's baffling from our perspective, but perhaps not so much if you try to look at it the mindset of its proponents. It's been sold as "for the children". A very substantial proportion of the population are natural authoritarians, and this is red meat for them. Never mind that "the children" that they profess to be protecting are going to grow up living in an increasingly authoritarian surveillance state, this is what authoritarians want for our future, and they see it as not only morally good, but any opposition to it as indefensible.
- tgv 10mo ago> The question is more why do the shit politicians rise to the top. Dumb and greedy voters, traditional and social media, and electoral interference are known reasons. But it's also a matter of compromise: you vote for a party because you agree with a bunch of their points, but almost certainly not all. Topics like privacy are ignored by the general public, so politicians are hardly held accountable for them.
- jeroenhd 10mo ago
- piker 10mo agoEven living nearby in the UK it blows my mind how quickly the EU proposes, kills and then revives and passes controversial legislation in such a short timeframe.
- Simulacra 10mo agoThat could be a result of the Parliamentary style system. With multiple parties - each sharing a part of the government - proposals and alliances can shift rapidly. It all depends on how big the pie becomes for each to get a slice
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- hexbin010 10mo agoPower sharing is very rare in the UK. What is more common is a party with a large majority with lots of infighting between factions of their party
- graemep 10mo agoNot usual, but two out of the last 20 governments is not what I would call very rare. its more likely than it has been in a very long time with multiple smaller parties gaining seats. Nationalists in Scotland and Wales have been around a whole, and NI always had its own parties, but on top of that we now have Reform and the Greens making gains.
- hexbin010 10mo agoFair - "very rare" was a little over the top. I'm sure we can agree on "uncommon" :) Are you predicting a minority government in the next election? Time will tell!
- iLoveOncall 10mo agoYou are a fool if you think the UK is better. I've moved from the EU to the UK and it is worse in every way when it comes to authoritarian measures. I'm not sure how you can have already forgotten the fact that we have to upload or face or ID to access websites.
- mrtksn 10mo ago[dupe] 135 comments : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062777
- dupedupedupe 10mo agoThank you ChrisArchitect. That story was mysteriously (downranked/downmodded/deranked/downweighted) from the front page. Perhaps it met the criteria for a Major Ongoing Topic (MOT) or a MegaMOT, or the "flamewar detector" kicked in, or just that it wasn't convenient to discuss, but we'll never know since the precise moderation action applied to individual stories is opaque. https://hnrankings.info/46062777/ https://hnrankings.info/46062777/
- dang 10mo agohttps://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=chat%20control%20comments%3E20&sort=byDate&type=story&storyText=none https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- permo-w 10mo agowhy are specifically the Danish so obsessed with pushing this through? it always seems to come back to them
- sillyfluke 10mo agoI guess it never hurts to try and find alternate ways of placating the US in order to make them get over their Greenland obession.
- MangoToupe 10mo agoHard to believe any of them actually take that seriously. What a bunch of babies
- concinds 10mo agoThe US pressured the UK to withdrawn encryption backdoors.
- petcat 10mo agoI don't care about Greenland one way or another, but I find it funny that the Europeans are so visibly upset about this when the Danish took the territory without permission themselves and are now crying that an even bigger thief might want to come take it from them.
- scotty79 10mo agoTime is a factor. Taking land is what was done in the past. US wanting to do it now is as if Mexico decided to revive slavery and threatend to capture Afroamericans in USA. It's a touchy subject and I think most of US wouldn't be exactly on board with this idea. Especially since putin shows us exactly what happens if you try.
- petcat 10mo ago> Mexico decided to revive slavery and threatend to capture Afroamericans in USA It's a bad example because the power balance doesn't make sense. I think you will have a hard time coming up with any example where USA would be on the receiving end of something like this.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- margorczynski 10mo agoHow they're packaging it now? Terrorism? Child porn? Russian agents? Either way politicians prefer to push unpopular stuff like this via the EU because the responsibility gets muddied - "we didn't want it, the EU regulation requires us to spy on you!".
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- SiempreViernes 10mo agoIt's important to know that the "new" in the title is entirely made up, it's the same draft as last week when they just ran out of time at the meeting, probably because they were fighting about Ukraine stuff.
- amazingman 10mo agoHonestly that's fine, even good. This issue needs to come to the attention of everyday people.
- wartywhoa23 10mo agoThey've optimized the packaging away. What's left of it now is a recycled paper tag that reads "because", and then if you scrutinize it further, there is poorly printed, barely readable "we're fascists".
- falcor84 10mo agoWell, historically "Won't someone think of the children!" has been the most successful, so they're using that here too.
- sebtron 10mo ago> Child porn? This, the article says so in the first paragraph. The bullshit justification hasn't change in the last couple of years afaik.
- Ray20 10mo ago
- lifestyleguru 10mo agoSuddenly it has become normal to scan face in 3D, nonchalantly demand copy of ID and passport, freeze people's money and demand full financial statement arbitrarily. Not only there is no push back but things are becoming more and more restrictive. Authorities and banks avalanche everyone within their reach over all available communication channels with "warnings" about scams and frauds. What direction are they aiming with this total control?
- crimsonnoodle58 10mo agoYes I experienced this with FastSpring. Had a store with them for 15+ years, then suddenly they froze it and demanded all of the above. Was quite disturbing to say the least.
- lifestyleguru 10mo agoIf you look up comments on fintechs, trading platforms, and even legit banks on reddit and review websites there has been surge of these practices in last maybe 12 months. Basically "all savings and accumulated funds are illegal by default". In the past I only had heard horror stories about Paypal but now this it widespread.
- r_lee 10mo agoThat's the blessing of the KYC/AML laws/regulations for ya. Moving money needs source of funds, documentation etc... doing any business requires you to doxx yourself to the world and to vendors in the name of transparency. Luckily though none of this is a problem for large multinationals :) which the EU cares about most in the end
- lifestyleguru 10mo agoSo after you paid income tax, then capital gains tax while accumulating, and about to pay VAT tax while purchasing something, they say "hold on, this money looks illegal!". Savings don't have documentation in form of recent payslip or deed of sale. The yachts and private jets on European harbors and airports don't look like their owners have any problem with money transfers. Wirecard billions? poof, vanished! If feels as if elites were in process of cutting off everyone else.
- christkv 10mo agoNote how they exclude themselves. No privacy for the you only for them. We will all become lawbreakers in the near future as the voluntary aspect is enforced.
- udev4096 10mo agoWhy is this even surprising? Mass surveillance is not a new thing. It's been there since the inception of the internet. This only makes it "official" and is nothing more than a formality. We need to fight back by using decentralized and p2p software
- pjmlp 10mo agoUnfortunely it was to be expected, the mighty ones would not rest until they managed to make it happen.
- ax0ar 10mo agoIt's not just the EU. OpenAI doesn't let you use their latest models via API unless you provide your biometric information. It's all about slowly laying the foundations of a repressive dystopian world.
- stingraycharles 10mo agoThis is nonsense, stop spreading FUD.
- ax0ar 10mo agoWhat is untrue? You need to verify your identity with Persona to use GPT-5 or GPT 5.1 or a lot of other models. "By filling the checkbox below, you consent to Persona, OpenAI’s vendor, collecting, using, and utilizing its service providers to process your biometric information to verify your identity, identify fraud, and conduct quality assurance for Persona’s platform in accordance with its Privacy Policy and OpenAI’s privacy policy. Your biometric information will be stored for no more than 1 year."
- aniviacat 10mo agoAre you perhaps a UK citizen? I, a German, can use GPT-5.1 without providing biometric information.
- ax0ar 10mo agoAre you able to access the API models without verifying your organization? See if you can access all models here. https://platform.openai.com/chat/edit https://platform.openai.com/chat/edit Web/app interface and API access are two different access layers for the model. Everyone can use the web or app interface for accessing all models, but API access is restricted unless you provide biometric information.
- pixelpoet 10mo agoNot very subtle moving of the goalposts there.
- glemmaPaul 10mo agoAnd all this was done in a highly democratic manner, thanks EU!
- oblio 10mo agoDid you read the article? Edit: Based on the downvotes, you obviously didn't. This is a PROPOSAL, not a LAW. It needs to be voted by the EU Parliament (you know, one of the 3 components of democracy as in "separation of powers").
- moi2388 10mo agoDemocracy means that the people decide. Voting once every 5 years for groups which are organised cross-country, but not letting citizens vote cross-country, and this being the only democratic organ and the one with the least power, with no consequences for any of them breaking election promises, is imho not “letting the people decide”, but “oligarchy with the illusion of choice”
- r_lee 10mo agoAnd those politicians there form their own little interest groups across members states and vote accordingly, which is the exact opposite of what we think of democracy. You'd basically have to rely on magic to know how those politicians you vote in will decide to vote on because they join some sect that lobbies them to vote against your interests. And we all know no voter aside from the 1% will ever think this far. It's exactly like you called it, the illusion of choice
- turbonegrofa 10mo ago[dead]
- tasoeur 10mo agoAt this point, it’s clear these sort of measures will go through, if not now but in some foreseeable future. What would be our best bet moving forward? Moving to signal/telegram?
- npodbielski 10mo agoSignal is centralized. So this company operating in EU, under EU laws, will have to do the scanning too. How they implement it however and when and if at all remains to be seen. All maybe they will not and EU will block signal. Maybe they will allow you install apk and Google will block installing from apks directly, basically forcing companies to do the scanning. And if everybody will do the scanning, maybe they will be sending all of this data to the giant EU server then that will look for 'problematic citizens' like in minority report. Who knows, but it seems like running your own private chat for your own and your family and friends will be the only way to have some privacy in a few years.
- rjdj377dhabsn 10mo agoSimplex Chat looks like a decent alternative. It also has the benefit of not needing a phone number or email address.
- AJ007 10mo agoThey have the same jurisdiction problem as Signal. So does Delta Chat, Matrix which were mentioned in another response here. From a practical side, if the client and server are open source then the project is survivable even if the supporting organization is wiped out. For now users don't demand it nor do they understand it. At minimum, the clients must be open source and buildable, all encryption must happen on the user's device and there should be some control over the end server connections. It is also critical that there are near foolproof workarounds for tunneling the traffic in severely locked down countries like China. This is one of the big problems with requiring a phone number, for example. If users in China can't use a communications tool then it's bullshit. Some projects like Delta Chat are criticized for one reason while the critics take at face value unverifiable claims from other projects. Delta Chat checks a lot of boxes along with user control and deployment of servers. SimpleX is a good concept but I'm not sure how it can scale -- which is a detail that shouldn't be ignored. How Signal expects to continue with no visible revenue source is another good question. XMPP should not be written off either. If I had to bet on a protocol having users a decade from now, that's the one. AI coding agents are going to rapidly iterate on improving the front end stuff. With all of the privacy busting age verification coming from the US, I'd be willing to bet the replacement for Discord will be something XMPP based. On one side the EU funded open source projects to try to break away from the US tech giants, while passing laws to kneecap their own tiny open source alternatives (Cyber Resilience Act etc.) If the US & the EU wants to exist in the next century they need to be going the opposite direction. It was bad enough that western tech companies built China's great firewall and assisted authoritarian regimes elsewhere. Most end users don't understand that keeping communications secure is not a given, it is really expensive and difficult. Adding wacky, difficult, very expensive or impossible to follow requirements is the fingerprint of EU bureaucracy and not just unwelcome but very dangerous. For the EU Elon haters -- with the growth of Starlink, Elon Musk or whoever controls SpaceX is going to have a deep view of global internet communications in the years ahead. That will include an ability to block, filter, and allow things either they or those who control Starlink choose. Any regulation which weakens or cripples the security of internet communications is ceding power to that entity, whoever it may be.
- KronisLV 10mo agoAs the most "good faith" interpretation, I feel like the only way to do something like this in a remotely not-insane manner with the assumption that there are good reasons where messages must be decrypted would be: * Each user gets a key to sign a message, there's also one for decryption like E2EE * The platform owners get a part of a backdoor key for decryption (per message) as well (call it another end in E2EE if you want) * The feds get a part of a backdoor key for decryption (per message) as well (call it another end in E2EE if you want) * A watchdog organization also gets a part of a backdoor key for decryption (per message) as well (call it another end in E2EE if you want) * If the feds want to decrypt something for actual anti-terrorism/anti-CSAM purposes, they convince both the platform owners and the watchdog org that they need keys for specific messages * The watchdog automatically publishes data like: "Law enforcement agency X accessed message Y decryption key for internal case number Z" (maybe with a bit of delay) * That way the users who have their messages decrypted can find that out what was accessed eventually * If the feds are snooping for no good reason or political bullshit reasons, they can get sued * If the feds are snooping too much (mass surveillance), it'd become obvious too cause you'd see that they're accessing millions of messages and maybe a few percent lead to actual arrests and convictions * This kinda rests on the assumption that courts would be fair and wouldn't protect corrupt feds Obviously this would never get implemented, cause the people of any watchdog org could also be corrupted not to publish the data that they should, there's probably numerous issues with backdooring encryption that you can come up with, and in practice it's way easier to implement government overreach by "Oh god, think of the children!" and move towards mass surveillance.
- salawat 10mo agoNothing new under the Sun mate. Look up Clipper Chip. Further, don't let people here bait you into revealing these types of things for them. Some ideas are just meant to be data dumped/remain forever in silence.
- KronisLV 10mo agoDifference is that with the above you’d have a party that actually discloses what data is accessed so having the ability to access it doesn’t immediately turn into mass surveillance and the people (e.g. opposition politicians) would at least be able to bring attention to the fact by making the reasons for the surveillance be revealed in a court hearing. Of course I have 0 belief that it wouldn’t get hijacked/corrupted by horrible people anyways so whatever.
- hunglee2 10mo agothis is basically how Chinese social media works - liability for 'problematic' user posted content (ambiguously defined by the govt...) is on the technology platforms themselves, so they inevitably have to scan messages / posts, taking a zero risk policy on whatever content type is proscribed.
- MangoToupe 10mo ago[flagged]
- squigz 10mo agoI'm very curious what people in this thread think is happening now Do you think Meta, Google and them are not scanning every bit of data hosted on their servers to ensure they're not hosting things they don't want to? Do you think they don't cooperate with governments to share those findings? I don't disagree that this push is silly, ineffective, and bad for democracy. We should fight it and fight for the right to privacy. However, people are acting like we have privacy right now. What evidence is there for that?
- petcat 10mo agoIt's a massive difference when you consent to scanning by agreeing to the terms of service when you sign up for those services. It is not direct state imposed laws requiring you to be scanned wherever you are and every service you are using (including ones you built yourself)
- VWWHFSfQ 10mo agoThis is such a weird sentiment and I see it often when talking about EU politics. Is this just how the European constituency feels? Just like beatdown citizens in a government they have no passion about and no control over?
- squigz 10mo agoWell I'm Canadian, so... But going off what I said, I acknowledged this sort of legislation is bad and that a right to privacy is needed. How do you arrive at "beatdown citizens in a government they have no passion about"? All I did was point out the reality right now, even without this legislation.
- throaway54 10mo agotaking away our right to privacy sounds like a good way to get a lot more of what you say you dont want!
- greatgib 10mo agoWhat is also funny is that they are doing that at the same time that they are thinking about relaxing requirements on GDPR and things like that that are really beneficial to the citizens on the pretext to make the regulation easier for "innovation".
- hoppp 10mo agoI thought chatcontrol was dropped. What happened?
- pas 10mo agoit's a long process of negotiations, currently in this form it was approved by the council, it'll then go to the parliament the requirement to backdoor e2e was dropped, and who knows what will eventually remain of the reporting requirements, etc. of course if a company is processing unencrypted images they might be required to use some service to flag them ... will we end up in yet another false positive flood? who knows
- casenmgreen 10mo agoSeems to me this is a kind of advanced persistent threat. You defeat them one day, but they're still there, and they keep trying, day after day after day.
- sneak 10mo agoThe purpose of the state is continuity of the state. The state is always the natural enemy of the people - specifically the liberty and privacy of the people. Any time you have a government, you will have a government that wishes to spy on you to make sure you will never attempt a competing government/army.
- saubeidl 10mo ago[flagged]
- pasiaj 10mo agoYou seem to mistake an ideal for reality and forgo a few difficult eventualities: eg. tyranny of the majority, corruption, regulatory capture, etc.
- ptero 10mo agoDepends on the specific incarnation of the democracy. Not infrequently in elections the majority sees the choice as the one of the lesser evil.
- d_k_f 10mo agoThe state might be comprised of people, but unless everybody is directly involved in the final decision process you'll always have (at least) a principal-agent problem between the people acting as political representatives and everybody else.
- saubeidl 10mo agoAs you do in most things in life. Do you grow your own food? Do you refine your own oil? Do you write your own contracts? I would assume you pick somebody to do those things for you because one human can't do literally everything.
- pcdoodle 10mo ago[dead]
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- pfdietz 10mo agoEurope is no longer a place that should be considered ideologically compatible with the United States. At best neutral. The US should abandon NATO and downgrade relations with the continent.
- hnarn 10mo agoYou can’t seriously be proposing that the United States respects the privacy of its citizens more.
- pfdietz 10mo agoWe have constitutional barriers that would obstruct something like this.
- jounker 10mo agoAs a US citizen, I have to say that you are completely mistaken. The US is a privacy hellscape.
- pb7 10mo agoLast I checked the US isn't trying to force legal backdoors into encryption which puts it firmly above the EU. Source: US citizen which gives me special knowledge
- abroszka33 10mo agoBecause US already has it. Did everyone forgot about Snowden? They have the ability and they are actively using it for at least the past 12 years. There is a reason that every major cloud provider is building a European sovereign cloud now, because US services are not trusted.
- myrmidon 10mo agoThere are also constitutional barriers to lie under oath, e.g. about spying and collecting data on US citizens, but those barriers seem very ineffective (I'm talking about the 2013 congressional hearing involving James Clapper). I see no clear indicator that the situation has improved since.
- mixxit 10mo agoGreat we need this
- josefritzishere 10mo agoThis is morally indefensible. The process arguments seem beside the point if the product is fascism.
- vezycash 10mo agoStep 1: Allow reckless immigration Step 2: Terrorism and Insecurity obviously Step 3: People give up their privacy for security Step 4: Insecurity continues and government safe regardless
- r_lee 10mo agoAll hail the EU Federation for pushing this no matter what. Can't wait to be protected even more by our beloved nanny!
- rdm_blackhole 10mo agoI am a fairly apolitical guy but in light of this I will cast my next votes for the parties that want to leave the EU from now on. Yes, I know Brexit was a failure and the UK is no better in terms of privacy but there has to be some sort sort of political repercussion for the people who made this possible. Since there seems to be nothing else to do, then voting to leave is better than the status quo.
- budududuroiu 10mo agoI can empathise with this, but I still believe in an economic union in Europe. The EU is flawed beyond and possible reform, but I feel the alternative of a segmented Europe is even crazier to think about
- rdm_blackhole 10mo ago> I can empathise with this, but I still believe in an economic union in Europe. I believe that EU countries having trading agreements, sharing technology and sharing intel would be good but what we have now as the EU is not that. It has become a single point of failure that is too easily gamed by lobbyists. Before the EU, you needed to have lobbyist in 27 countries to get all of them to agree to something, now you just send them to Brussels and only need to convince 15 countries to agree to something for it to be approved. We basically made the system easier to game. And now we are paying the price.
- budududuroiu 10mo agoYeah I agree with that. I think Europe needs a post-EU future
- Frieren 10mo ago> I am a fairly apolitical guy but in light of this I will cast my next votes for the parties that want to leave the EU from now on. You say that you are apolitical, but you sound like an extremist. What should I believe, what you say you are or what you actually do?
- budududuroiu 10mo agoI have this feeling that I can’t shake off that this is done as the EU political class’ coping mechanism for being absolutely terrified because their whole worldview was shattered overnight: - Sanctions against Russia backfired (from the EU at least) - Trump-Vance slapping the EU around in a humiliating fashion (re: that guy that cried at the Munich security council, EU being forced to adopt unfair trade deals with the US) - look at the body language from Macron, VDL and Xi’s meeting a couple years ago, VDL is being sidelined on purpose, meanwhile Macron given royal treatment Liberalism is dead, and these career bureaucrats are clinging to any remaining feeling of control: - they can’t do the antitrust thing because Trump is wagging his finger at them - they can’t project power externally - they can’t engage with China (idk why, maybe due to their feeling of superiority) … so they resort to projecting power internally
- jason-richar15 10mo ago[dead]
- EGreg 10mo agoYou can imagine what forms most of the the “pressure” from the government will take, on platforms owned & controlled by large corporations. Hint: it will involve their profit motive. Also it is not just in Europe — digital ID is coming in USA starting January. State by state. Thanks to the Republican-dominated supreme court, and of course it is also done in the name of protecting the children: https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2025/07/dangerous-us-supreme-court-decision-for-online-privacy-and-security/ https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2025/07/dangerous-us-su... This “papers, please” is now happening quickly all around the world. Here we maintain the updates: https://community.qbix.com/t/the-global-war-on-end-to-end-encryption/214 https://community.qbix.com/t/the-global-war-on-end-to-end-en... This is why people will increasingly need open source alternatives, not owned by large corporations, but it needs to be far better than Mastodon and Matrix. People expect the convenience of Instagram and Telegram, and open source will have to match it. That’s why I have spent about $1 million to quietly build https://github.com/Qbix/Platform https://github.com/Qbix/Platform It is time to start rolling it out. This is supposed to be the People’s Platform. Anyone who is interested to get involved, find my profile on HN and get in touch by email. Put “hacker news” in the subject, so I can find it among all the bulk email. I would love to hear from people who want to join forces and contribute to something that’s already had about $1M and 10 years of work behind it, something By the People, for the People. We are welcoming anyone who has skills, some free time, and is looking to actually do something meaningful to help liberate people from what’s coming. Whether you are a developer, want to contact journalists, or just want to promote this in a community. (And to the HN people who like to downvote this kind of stuff… just this once consider that we need to actually _cooperate_ on producing free, open-source alternatives to Big Tech, not do the weird infighting thing.)
- r33b33 10mo agoLeave EU now and let them ROT.
- okokwhatever 10mo agoDone
- whywhywhywhy 10mo agoIn just a few short weeks we've gone from it losing by a vote to being forced through no questions asked so the question is, who paid them off?
- preisschild 10mo agoThe european parliament still has to vote for it where it will probably fail as long as public pressure against it keeps up
- phendrenad2 10mo agoSelfishly, part of me hopes this passes, because it will drive high-IQ people to move out of the EU (I highly recommend Armenia), and the EU is a major economic competitor of my own country.
- redleader55 10mo agoOf all places in the world, Armenia. A country so afraid of its neighbors they would allow Moscow to tell them to do anything. I hope I'm my IQ is not high enough to be included in this proposal.
- Fnoord 10mo agoIf as journalist or activist this is what you quote: > Czech MEP Markéta Gregorová called the Council’s position “a disappointment…Chat Control…opens the way to blanket scanning of our messages.” From this translation: https://reclaimthenet.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/CnZOD1FJo2Zk.jpg https://reclaimthenet.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/CnZOD1F... Then you're being dishonest. Your intention is to cause a stir instead of to inform (a word related to the word information). Because you are leaving out what she wrote about EP; the EP is, according to her, clearly against this. Why leave that out? What is your agenda? You just disqualified your entire article.
- okokwhatever 10mo agoHere we go again
- asgr 10mo agoashamed my home is pushing this garbage…