Stop Scanning Me

by favourable • 4 years ago

505 134 4 years ago

raspyberr• 4 years ago

Would be nice to be able to use my RSS reeder for this instead of giving an email address.

sneak• 4 years ago

Apple intends to roll this feature out for iOS devices; they announced that they would do so, and they did not subsequently announce that they would not.

I get the impression they are being compelled.

LAC-Tech• 4 years ago

In 2022, European lawmakers proposed new rules with the noble intent to protect children.

How can a grown adult be this naive?

hilbert42• 4 years ago

Exactly. But that won't change the 'respectable' cover story.

chabad360• 4 years ago

I don't think they believe that. But the only way you get anywhere is by not making ad hominem attacks.

derefr2• 4 years ago

They know exactly what they're writing. They're not saying it because it's true; they're saying it because saying anything else would leave them open to certain rhetorical attacks from the people willing to manipulate their audience to get these bills passed.

Remember: the goal of political speech isn't to convince reasonable people of anything; reasonable people don't need convincing, they just need facts. The goal of political speech is to (somehow) convince unreasonable people of things. Which requires, for a start, showing deference to what they already believe.

cr4nberry4• 4 years ago

Remember: the goal of political speech isn't to convince reasonable people of anything; reasonable people don't need convincing, they just need facts. The goal of political speech is to (somehow) convince unreasonable people of things. Which requires, for a start, showing deference to what they already believe.

I think this says less about political speech and more about the time we're living in

Fogest• 4 years ago

Governments in Canada have tried to pass similar laws and have literally made statements saying 'Stand with us or with the child pornographers' [1].

It's quite obvious they use these tactics to make people have a hard time arguing against the laws and it's honestly a disgusting tactic I wish people could recognize.

[1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tories-on-e-sn...

jbirer• 4 years ago

This is actually a smart move by the author, as this type of debate will usually lead to someone try to call him a pedophile in an attempt to shut down conversation.

quickthrower2• 4 years ago

It is an effective steelman (opposite of strawman).

I thought it was clever. Also any counter solution has to address this to survive scrutiny.

anigbrowl3• 4 years ago

It's literally the same as the HN guideline of responding to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says; it enables the debate to proceed on a substantive basis, rather than becoming a pointless back-and-forth of unfalsifiable allegations about motives.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It seems at least equally naive to me to ignore the strategic value of choosing the ground on which to make your rhetorical stand instead of charging forward blindly.

MichaelZuo• 4 years ago

Notably, the UN report linked is a report TO the Human Rights Council f a subordinate office, and not the official recommendation of the council itself, or any equivalent or superior UN organ.

The actual recommendations of the OHCHR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Right), who wrote the report, are as follows:

" 56. With this in mind, OHCHR recommends that States:

(a) Ensure that any interference with the right to privacy, including hacking, restrictions to access and use of encryption technology and surveillance of the public, complies with international human rights law, including the principles of legality, legitimate aim, necessity and proportionality and non-discrimination, and does not impair the essence of that right;

(b) Conduct human rights due diligence systematically, including regular comprehensive human rights impact assessments, when designing, developing, purchasing, deploying and operating surveillance systems;

(c) Take into account, when conducting human rights due diligence and assessing the necessity and proportionality of new surveillance systems and powers, the entire legal and technological environment in which those systems or powers are or would be embedded; States should also consider risks of abuse, function creep and repurposing, including risks as a result of future political changes;

(d) Adopt and effectively enforce, through independent, impartial and well- resourced authorities, data privacy legislation for the public and private sectors that complies with international human rights law, including safeguards, oversight and remedies to effectively protect the right to privacy;

(e) Take immediate measures to effectively increase the transparency of the use of surveillance technologies, including by appropriately informing the public and affected individuals and communities and regularly providing data relevant for the public to assess their efficacy and impact on human rights;

(f) Promote public debate of the use of surveillance technologies and ensure meaningful participation of all stakeholders in decisions on the acquisition, transfer, sale, development, deployment and use of surveillance technologies, including the elaboration of public policies and their implementation;

(g) Implement moratoriums on the domestic and transnational sale and use of surveillance systems, such as hacking tools and biometric systems that can be used for the identification or classification of individuals in public places, until adequate safeguards to protect human rights are in place; such safeguards should include domestic and export control measures, in line with the recommendations made herein and in previous reports to the Human Rights Council

(h) Ensure that victims of human rights violations and abuses linked to the use of surveillance systems have access to effective remedies.

57. In relation to the specific issues raised in the present report, OHCHR recommends that States:

Hacking

(a) Ensure that the hacking of personal devices is employed by authorities only as a last resort, used only to prevent or investigate a specific act amounting to a serious threat to national security or a specific serious crime, and narrowly targeted at the person suspected of committing those acts; such measures should be subject to strict independent oversight and should require prior approval by a judicial body;

Encryption

(b) Promote and protect strong encryption and avoid all direct, or indirect, general and indiscriminate restrictions on the use of encryption, such as prohibitions, criminalization, the imposition of weak encryption standards or requirements for mandatory general client-side scanning; interference with the encryption of private communications of individuals should only be carried out when authorized by an independent judiciary body and on a case-by-case basis, targeting individuals if strictly necessary for the investigation of serious crimes or the prevention of serious crimes or serious threats to public safety or national security;

Surveillance of public spaces and export control of surveillance technology

(c) Adopt adequate legal frameworks to govern the collection, analysis and sharing of social media intelligence that clearly define permissible grounds, prerequisites, authorization procedures and adequate oversight mechanisms;

(d) Avoid general privacy-intrusive monitoring of public spaces and ensure that all public surveillance measures are strictly necessary and proportionate for achieving important legitimate objectives, including by strictly limiting their location and time, as well as the duration of data storage, the purpose of data use and access to data; biometric recognition systems should only be used in public spaces to prevent or investigate serious crimes or serious public safety threats and if all requirements under international human rights law are implemented with regard to public spaces;

(e) Establish robust well-tailored export control regimes applicable to surveillance technologies, the use of which carries high risks for the enjoyment of human rights; States should require transparent human rights impact assessments that take into account the capacities of the technologies at issue as well as the situation in the recipient State, including compliance with human rights, adherence to the rule of law, the existence and effective enforcement of applicable laws regulating surveillance activities and the existence of independent oversight mechanisms;

(f) Ensure that, in the provision and use of surveillance technologies, public- private partnerships uphold and expressly incorporate human rights standards and do not result in an abdication of governmental accountability for human rights."

However, many of the recommendations only make sense for countries that recognize the supremacy of international law over domestic law.

BoGoToTo• 4 years ago

Honest question. Are these laws being put forward by groups who only want a plausible excuse to violate people's privacy, or is it misguided people who genuinely care about stoping child exploitation and don't care about the profound effects of privacy?

I'm guessing the answer is 'both' but I was hoping someone might have insight if it leans one way or the other.

civilized2• 4 years ago

We live in a society where people can get entered into an immutable Child Abuse Registry and blacklisted from society if they're "caught" leaving their own kid alone in a cool car for a few minutes while they use the nearby ATM.

If that's unbelievable to you, look up what happened to Kim Brooks, then read what she wrote about it and the other cases of alleged "child neglect" she and Lenore Skenazy (of Free Range Kids fame) found people getting persecuted for. The exact details vary, but the scenario above is quite plausible if you consider the things that have actually happened.

There are definitely people who will stop at nothing to do what they view as protecting children. What their motivations, whether they get some kind of sick sadistic pleasure out of their "virtuous" actions, I'm not sure. But they're out there.

boosteri• 4 years ago

For those of us not in the know, what happened to Kim Brooks? My search throws up nothing and I'm questioning the wiki page being about the same person you are talking about ...

irusensei• 4 years ago

"Why are you against protecting the children?"
"Why are you against fighting terrorism?"

And so on. You can pass all kinds of crap if you make the people who oppose you look like monsters. Plus, business and products will need to be created to support those new regulations. Its supper lucrative!

the_other• 4 years ago

One could fight terrorism by dropping nukes on all the places terrorists live or work. But that would have bad consequences beyond the intended effect.

It's possible to be for some strategy or aim, but against an individual tactic which could fulfil that aim.

This tactic (pervasive surveillance) has significant, proven fallout. It also has a history of fuelling long-term pervasive discontent that ultimately lead to the collapse of regimes which used it. It should not be on the table.

fullsend• 4 years ago

The laws are voted on by very old people who can’t even use computers at all and probably don’t understand why anyone wants to.

Rexxar• 4 years ago

Europe is not like America, average age of European parliament was 49 years when they where elected so logically 52 now (1)

Politicians seems much older in united states: "The average age of Members of the House at the beginning of the 117th Congress was 58.4 years; of Senators, 64.3 years."(2)

(1) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/eu-affairs/...

(2) https://guides.loc.gov/117th-congress-book-list

TedDoesntTalk• 4 years ago

Age has nothing to do with it. Every generation has imbeciles. Gen Z will have lawmakers someday that believe AI can be elected as judges because they are infallible. Or something equally ridiculous.

robocat• 4 years ago

That is so casually bigoted.

Be careful: for every argument you make about the ignorance of older people, another argument can be made about the ignorance of younger people. Valid or not.

There is no need for thoughtless stereotypes.

bakugo• 4 years ago

Most young people can't use computers at all either, all they know is scrolling through tiktok on their phone. What's the difference here?

II2II• 4 years ago

Protecting children, fighting terrorism, and other hot button rationalizations are definitely true. Those who try to discount those lines are either ignoring real problems or are as guilty of having ulterior motives as those they accuse. That said, there is certainly plenty of reason to question the consequences of violating people's privacy, and likely plenty of reason to question its effectiveness. For example: having all of the evidence in the world is going to do very little if it is buried to protect an individual or an organization.

As for plausible excuses to violate people's privacy ... I am not so sure about that one. It certainly may be true when you look at things at an institutional level. It may also be the cases that everything looks like a nail when you have a hammer, which is to say these organizations may be looking at evidence gathering as an exercise in data harvesting since information technology is currently the most popular tool at hand. While I don't think there is a clear-cut answer at an institutional level, I do believe that having the data at hand opens up many avenues for abuse. Institutions lobbying to collect that data may not have the intent to abuse it, yet individual members of the institution may find excuses to violate people's privacy since the data is at hand.

cr4nberry4• 4 years ago

I'd say both. It's a combination of misguided politicians and voters, and also police departments and the intelligence community that want to normalize a certain degree of surveillance

lmm• 4 years ago

You can't ascribe intent to the lobbying-lawmaking complex, it's too big and complex for that. A bunch of individuals with various intentions do various things, and this is the end result.

b800h• 4 years ago

There's a huge monitoring industry lobbying for it.

atoav• 4 years ago

There exist societal ideas that thrive on the mere thought of controlling people's lifes to the fullest extent. They cannot imagine a live where there is no authortity that you either are yourself, or that tou can appeal to or believe in. Ironically it is those people who tend to have the most "dirty secrets" because of their suppressed sexuality and authotarian mindset.

They always think everybody is like them and also has those secrets. But because they are ashamed about themselves, they need to prove to the rest of us they don't have any of those well hidden dirty secrets. The best way they see to do that is to go all hard on everybody else while they always feel there should be exceptions for themselves. The kids are just a good pretense for this, they don't give a damn about them.

Source: I grew up in a catholic country, where the right wing province leader had a secret gay relationship while going hard against homosexuality.

jtolmar• 4 years ago

Companies that sell security systems want big stable government paychecks, but can't just bribe lawmakers, so they instead secure votes for pro-surveillance policies by getting "think of the children" style articles published.

sumtechguy• 4 years ago

http://www.americantable.org/2012/07/how-bacon-and-eggs-beca...

Basically it is a sales technique. You want to sell X that does Y which fixes Z. Well turns out Z does something that can be used to emotionally manipulate people. If it does not directly emotionally manipulate them you can craft a story so it does. So you start putting out puff pieces about the dangers of Z. How it is killing you, your children will be worse off etc. Even better if you can get news stations to pick it up (easier than you would think). Then you start a second round showing you doing Y fixes Z. Then you introduce X the fix all that does Y and cures Z.

Do not think this method is effective? We eat bacon for breakfast and an entire generation of women took up smoking because they thought it empowered them. This 3 step sales method is used every day in many goods and political narratives. It is not 100% effective but when it works it is stunning in its effectiveness.

You are seeing this method in action. Once pointed out it is totally obvious it is happening. But most of these sorts of campaigns are not obvious unless you are well versed in the particular field they are selling into.

thefz2• 4 years ago

This and incompetent politicians want a silver bullet to solve all of the world problems at once, look good to the public on the pedo/terrorist fight, and genuine ignorance on the issue of privacy.

gadders• 4 years ago

I think there are good intentioned and bad intentioned people on both sides. I'm sure there are a minority of people that want to violate privacy, just as I am sure there is a minority of pedophiles and terrorists that want their privacy kept.

bodge5000• 4 years ago

Doesn't answer your question, but I'd imagine a third motive for supporting these things (when they already exist but are gathering support) is just optics. If your in the public eye, would you rather be seen as pro-terrorist/anti-children, or anti-privacy. The latter seems to generate less anger, so the choice for many career politicians is obvious.

goodpoint• 4 years ago

Widespread surveillance creates enormous centralization of power. Politicians always want more power.

2Gkashmiri• 4 years ago

when whatsapp had NOT turned on E2EE, or facebook messenger still hasn't done that, how many were convicted for CSAM and now because of e2ee people like these are "hidden"?

aren't these same "e2ee is protecting child predators" the same argument as "bitcoin is used to buy drugs on dark web"?

did child predators not exist before e2ee that suddenly they have emerged and they need to be stopped ?

suppose tomorrow ALL e2ee is stopped and everyone is chatting in cleartext. what will happen? will suddenly all child predators be unmasked and the world be free of them in an instant?

i am not no where supporting those predators. they are subhuman creatures that need to be slaughtered with a rusty sword but why are 99.999% of human population not going to reap the benefits of e2ee when the "risks" outweigh the beneifts?

why do these people believe all those people will not move to lesser known platforms away from the public eye and continue? what will happen in the end?

wackycat• 4 years ago

I agree the answer is likely both. However, one important thing to note is that the 'people who genuinely care about stoping child exploitation' really want to ensure that it is only used for preventing child exploitation and not by 'groups who only want a plausible excuse to violate people's privacy'. I am against the false dichotomy of protect children or preserve privacy; I truly believe, and have good reason to believe, that both can be accomplished together with care, thought, and trust.

pfoof• 4 years ago

Imagine: they succeed in implelenting this and suddenly some black hat collects all the data on the actual lawmakers. That would be a plot twist.

landemva• 4 years ago

I heard the FBI does this to control politicians and what bills are introduced. Like this guy https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-dennis-haste...

account42• 4 years ago

Not at all a new concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kompromat

glandium• 4 years ago

John Oliver did something like that. https://youtu.be/wqn3gR1WTcA (from about 21 minutes in)

thewanderer1983• 4 years ago

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

bombolo2• 4 years ago

I wouldn't say good intentions are involved here. I think the idea here is just to cast the net and collect data about everyone, to then be able to actually use the data against your opponents.

jacooper• 4 years ago

Chat control absolutely flies against everything the EU has done to improve digital privacy, even its own (big) members are against it.

It feels its not the normal people who made the GDPR and DMA are the ones writing this, rather Secret agencies pushing for more surveillance.

djbebs• 4 years ago

It doesn't though, it's perfectly in line with their past behavior

glogla• 4 years ago

Because they are not the same people. The good stuff usually comes from EU parliament while the messed up stuff usually comes from EU commission.

EU parliament is staffed by elected officials from all over Europe, while EU commission is staffed by ministers from governments of member countries.

It is pretty obvious that the latter will be pretty corrupt.

chmod7752• 4 years ago

Every year like clockwork they try this shit.

I worry that at some point people will grow too weary to nip it in the bud.

Test0129• 4 years ago

That assumes that democracy even continues to work after the Nth time. Eventually, like all tinpot dictatorships, they'll just force the issue and you'll get it anyway. IMO, there is only a faint shadow of democracy left in the world. Your vote really doesn't matter. In this case, enough people made noise the demons will go back into their lair for another year or more before fielding it again. All it will take is one of those guys to realize they don't really have to listen to anyone to get what they want. This is the genesis of the 5 eyes, and it will be the genesis of modern AI-driven surveillance like OP's link.

danuker• 4 years ago

They made noise about the copyright directive and online platforms, yet nothing changed.

https://danuker.go.ro/eu-copyright-directive.html

fsflover2• 4 years ago

The actual solution is to use devices obeying the user and not corporations. My GNU/Linux phone doesn't collect any data on me and nobody can force anyone to get it.

yrgulation2• 4 years ago

The STASI, Securitate and KGB are all looking down upon us and smiling. We truly have reached a level where everyone is monitored minute by minute day by day. Corporations do it and now governments too. All you need is the wrong captain at helm and the right mix of storms and all this can turn very bad very fast. In theory this sound good, but without careful oversight it can be abused.

godelski9• 4 years ago

All you need is the wrong captain at helm

Even if you don't buy the argument of turnkey tyranny (the above concept), it is also important to remember that nothing is unhackable. So if you're the "well I trust X" or "what is X going to do with it, sell me ads?" type, you should also question "What ,,could'' my enemies do with this data?" (Foreign or domestic. State sponsored or run of the mill hacker)

While governments can be the most egregious abusers of this data, they aren't the only ones that can abuse the data. We have hundreds of reports about cops stalking their (current and former) partners, hackers blackmailing high profile people (including politicians), and plenty of reports about how nation states use this data to influence your countrymen. You may be immune (you aren't) but is everyone else?

I think pigeon holing this conversation to governments is wrong. There's a whole laundry list of potential problems with data collection like this and checking off any item on the list is generally enough to be against this type of policy. For example, I don't think anyone wants a national repository of children's IP addresses. That's not only valuable to nation state actors (who want to influence the next generation), but also pedophiles.

With intentions to protect children you end up actually putting them in more danger. We should HIDE children's personal data rather than gather it. But the only way to do that is to hide everyone's data.

Edit: I do believe in turnkey tyranny. I'm just saying that the argument isn't effective to everyone (as time has shown). I'm saying that when you run into these people don't keep talking about turnkey tyranny, shift your argument to one of the other many issues to choose from. One of them will (likely) be something they care about and use that as the baseline for your argument. If you keep arguing something that someone doesn't care about then I'm not sure how you all expect to convince anyone. Our exclusively turnkey arguments have been ineffective, let's adopt a better strategy.

soulofmischief4• 4 years ago

I don't know. To me, it's like arguing that cannabis is relatively safe to consume and has health benefits. Completely sails past (and loses by default) the argument of personal autonomy. By shifting the discussion away from turnkey tyranny, we're admitting, at least for the moment, a defeat in that argument.

sterlind2• 4 years ago

the recent abortion laws have made the turnkey tyranny argument more convincing and practical, lately. states have subpoenaed tech companies for surveillance data, attempting to catch women who seek abortions out of state. even my non-techie friends are wary now about period tracking apps.

regardless of your stance on abortion, and the extent to which law enforcement seeks this data, it's woken up a large chunk of the population to the risks of their personal data.

dane-pgp• 4 years ago

The STASI, Securitate and KGB are all looking down upon us and smiling.

I know you only mean that figuratively, but I think it would be more evocative to say they are looking up at us (from below).

yrgulation2• 4 years ago

I see your point, but i intentionally worded it that way. In this dystopian hell we are heading towards everything is upside down. Privacy is frowned upon - because why worry if you have nothing to hide? The government and corporations know and want what’s best for you and in doing so you must reveal everything to these benevolent all loving all knowing entities. Our hell is their heaven. And although i do want a solution to the problems they claim to solve i do worry that we might achieve the opposite.

trcflow• 4 years ago

The European Commission and von der Leyen are at it again. I presume that her conversations with Katrin Suder and Mc Kinsey have not been scanned. Unlike the plebs, perhaps they have their own mail servers like Hilary Clinton:

https://www.dw.com/en/german-opposition-to-probe-defense-min...

"The investigative committee will examine irregularities in a contract awarded to McKinsey and a €390 million ($442 million) IT contract given to another company that failed to pass through the company's supervisory board as required.

It will also investigate whether von der Leyen committed nepotism by hiring Katrin Suder, a former McKinsey consultant, as her deputy to oversee the ministry's arms procurement section."

I think the presentation in stopscanningme.eu is too kind. We should not have to beg for our constitutional rights.

rnk• 4 years ago

What's with all these aspersions about European politicians? What do they have to do with the topic at hand?

novok• 4 years ago

Where do you think the proposed laws are coming from? It's extra bad when they act hypocritical too.

ravel-bar-foo• 4 years ago

If these politicians are supportive of invasive surveillance, then "You first" is a decent rebuttal. Let the politicians make ALL their phone OS and data open, then we can talk about letting them install bugs into our phones. So perhaps GP is casting aspersions to bring attention to something fishy that deserves a (privacy-violating) investigation.

Mind, I am not under EU law and don't know who these specific politicians are, let alone whether the allegations against them have merit.

zx10rse• 4 years ago

Everything.

"The plot thickened further after the European Court of Auditors published a report today, accusing the Commission of refusing to disclose any details of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's personal role in the talks." - https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-stonewalls-over-von-der-l...

We have a saying here - everyone are equal but some are more equal than others, which doesn't fit very well in a union that is supposed to be a beacon for democracy and human rights, quite the opposite it is slowly becoming into something very grotesque.

sixothree2• 4 years ago

What about the constitution makes you believe you have a right to privacy? Seriously.

Etheryte• 4 years ago

Not sure about the country you're from, but many European countries have the right to a private life in their constitution in one wording or another.

nix23• 4 years ago

Well for example in germany Art 10(1):

Das Briefgeheimnis sowie das Post- und Fernmeldegeheimnis sind unverletzlich.
The secrecy(privacy) of correspondence and the secrecy of mail and telecommunications are inviolable.

And it's more or less the same in Switzerland....but honestly in what country do you live where privacy is not a fundamental right?

It even part of the UN Human Rights Convention:

Niemand darf willkürlichen oder rechtswidrigen Eingriffen in sein Privatleben, seine Familie, seine Wohnung und seinen Schriftverkehr oder rechtswidrigen Beeinträchtigungen seiner Ehre und seines Rufes ausgesetzt werden.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her private life, family, home and correspondence, or to unlawful impairment of his or her honor and reputation.

Gustomaximus3• 4 years ago

As a side point I feel this is a good exame of where the EU is going wrong and will cause more exits. And generally shows how government via its leaders always wants more power.

In my mind EU focus should be on trade efficiency internaly and globally.

The more the reach into people's daily lives the more people will look for a door.

anigbrowl3• 4 years ago

Or, it's a misstep that can and probably will be corrected. there's a lot of things the EU gets right in the privacy domain. I don't really think this is likely to cause more exits; look what a complete shitshow the UK is at present, and reflect on the fact that their freshly 'liberated' government has been in a rush to introduce or increase all sorts of draconian laws now that it's no longer constrained by the EU's human rights framework.

Gustomaximus3• 4 years ago

To be clear I dont think this will cause exits. More this adds one more to a death of one thousand cuts type situation. Followed by a tipping point moment who knows when.

And absolutly it can be corrected. I also find it incredible a rule like this got so far. It means there is a significant amount of people in powerful positions supporting it. That makes it hardee to correct and generally shows the people in power seem out of alignment to my views towards citizens privacy anyway. Even if not passed its amazing it got so far, at least to me.

ilkke• 4 years ago

Are you suggesting citizen privacy concerns were a factor in Brexit?

edit: typo

Gustomaximus3• 4 years ago

thefz2• 4 years ago

There will always be some inept politician pushing for stuff like this. I am glad for measures like the GDPR and I think the EU is doing more good than harm to its state members.

Ylpertnodi• 4 years ago

GDPR is a fantastic piece of legislation, and I agree the EU is doing more good than harm - start with just on a financial level: The old joke was, that if you set off from the UK with £200 and visited every European country, by the time you got to Istanbul you would have £0, only by exchanging your remaining currency at each border. Ahhhh, good times doing expenses in those days :-)

anigbrowl3• 4 years ago

This is a masterpiece of effective advocacy, both graphically and textually. Very impressed.

thrdbndndn2• 4 years ago

A kinda off-topic question about the website itself:

why does it render slightly wider than the screen, causes an unnecessary horizontal scrollbar? I see this quite a lot lately.

dmak• 4 years ago

cmd+0

thrdbndndn2• 4 years ago

No, I didn't change the zoom level, it's 100%. I don't use HiDPI screen or change system UI scaling setting either.

I tested on two browsers (Firefox, Chrome), same issue. It only happens when I full-screen the browser. I use Windows if it matters.

defanor• 4 years ago

Apparently it's because of the messed up "responsiveness" with media queries:

  @media (min-width:1920px) {
      .responsive-width {
          width: 1920px;
      }
  }

Those are defined for multiple common screen widths, without taking the scroll width into account, so at those points the horizontal scrollbar appears.

cr4nberry4• 4 years ago

This wouldn't be a problem if people stopped going to the same platforms for literally everything and stopped using a bugged phone OS

Not only this, but closed source software in general, since the black box makes it harder to disable anti features

Once they put this infrastructure in place, it's just a matter of time before some "crisis" occurs and it gets used inappropriately

betwixthewires2• 4 years ago

The EU, home of laws like this and the reason for the cookies popup, where the citizens talk about how they have better privacy than the united states.

nirimda2• 4 years ago

The cookies popups are not the fault of the EU. It's the fault of private companies who want to collect more information than they're allowed to without installing cookie popups. All necessary cookies are allowed without a popup, so there's literally no reason for any website to ask you if you want cookies - unless they intend to do something which gratuitously risks your privacy.

betwixthewires2• 4 years ago

The response to incentives created by EU legislation were predictable. Are governments not responsible for the outcomes of incentives they create?

klabb32• 4 years ago

Always the same story. To me, it reads something like this:

Child sexual abuse often happens in bathrooms. Therefore, all bathrooms should have cameras. The video feeds should be stored and analyzed for illegal behavior, and law enforcement should have access, ideally in real time and without a court order. The risk of leaks, hacking, or abuse by law enforcement or system administrators is negligible, so citizens need not worry.

Historically, law enforcement has been chronically understaffed and generally ineffective enforcing these heinous crimes. Even credible and actionable reports that could lead to arrests often end up on a pile. When this system is deployed, the amount of flagged behavior will be 100x more than the reports of today, most of which will be false positives. This is ultimately what makes it obvious that these are bad faith arguments, and that the ulterior motive is good old mass surveillance.

_nalply• 4 years ago

Let me paraphrase more generally.

Crimes, like sexual abuse, do happen in private spaces like bedrooms. Some people propose or request that all private spaces have surveillance, for example with cameras. Data should be stored, analyzed and made accessible by law enforcement in real time and without legal process like court orders. However law enforcement is understaffed and won't be able to act in timely matter on flagged behavior, which will be hundreds times more than before. Citizen are told that risks like leaks or abuse are negligible or manageable. However people are bad at security and mistakes are unavoidable. Proponents don't understand this outcome or are in bad faith with hidden agendas like mass surveillance.

klabb32• 4 years ago

Yep! I think the main issue is that digital surveillance is new and abstract, and somehow the kind of privacy issues we have intuitions about – such as cameras in bedrooms and bathrooms – don't map naturally to the digital space, at least not intuitively, so people underestimate the level of detail it means. And then there are som novel nuances in the digital world, like metadata collection and automated analysis, that are essentially infeasible irl because not even stasi had the workforce to process that amount of data.

Dma54rhs• 4 years ago

Don't forget the politicians that are security risk to whole nation. Should they even have the right to privacy? Should they be monitored all the time?

BiteCode_dev• 4 years ago

Funny how during the cold war everyone was criticical of russia for spying on all citizens. This was a symbol of how little freedom they had, that it was a proof that communism was leading to terrible dictatorships.

But our politicians seem to think that if we do it, it's to help people.

Unlike the ussr politicians of course, because they were evil.

DeathArrow• 4 years ago

Before it was about protecting children it was about fighting terrorism. Before that it was about fighting drug lords.

fsflover2• 4 years ago

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

hit8run• 4 years ago

The situation in Europe is very bad. We have a conglomerate of corrupt people in power positions that are waiving anything their lobbies want them to. Living in Germany is the worst with the new government. They manage to destroy every form of wealth the citizens had. Decisions are made based on stubborn ideology and not on what’s best for the country. If you’re living in the US and ever thought your politicians are bad I invite you to have a look at Germany. Very weird country.

cebert• 4 years ago

The Internet is a global system but jurisdictions keep attempting to define how they want it to work within their borders. The Internet doesn’t work that way. Unless we stop trying to regulate the Internet or have one global government, we risk fragmenting the Internet and introducing so many different regional regulations it will too be expensive for all but the biggest players to build applications. Only Meta and Google scale companies can survive.

ai_ja_nai2• 4 years ago

I see a lot of grudge in the community about surveillance of posting surfaces for unlawful content, like if the authorities put in charge of fighting crime are some kind of extenal tyrannical force imposed onto poor people, and not the direct actions of a democratically elected government.

While I fully support lobbying efforts like stopscanningme, because they rise awareness in people that ultimately vote governments so that they might do more informed voting choices, I just don't condone all of this whining about mass surveillance on privately operated companies:

remember that gmail, facebook, whatsapp, etc.. are for profit, privately held companies that are held accountable for the content that circulates on their platforms. Companies, like any other citizen, must abide the law and not become a free field for Child Exploitation or Adult Exploitation Imagery.

You want total privacy, which in your mind is the word for "unaccountability"? Use different services or setup your own.

The topic is very vast, but it can't really handled by just saying "bad government, want to wiretap!"

pfortuny• 4 years ago

You mention gmail which is a "mail" service, and whatsapp, which is a "messaging" service.

In all of (Western) history, those services have been considered one of the most private, like it or not. So changing that status (in the West) should require very public and very clear discussion, not just hand-waving about "child molesters".

Facebook: that is something totally different.

The fact that mail is handled by a private entity does not make it less mail than the official post. At all, and this has been understood (in the West) since, probably, the Roman times.

varnaud• 4 years ago

Snail mail is still scanned for illicit content. Also many times in western history letters were read and then possibly censored at processing facilities. Back in those days, it was a human opening letter/package and inspecting the content. They had rules to respect the privacy of the sender/addressee, like not sharing the content with anyone else if the content is OK.

I'm not sure who considered these services to be one of the most private.

Also in those days, one could make use of a secure private mail service, bypassing the normal processing facilities and have grantee that the letter remained sealer the whole journey. To be even more secure, basic encryption could be used, or even invisible ink.

Today, things just got more sophisticated.

ai_ja_nai2• 4 years ago

I am afraid to be difficult, but postage IS checked. As an example, try sending around drug and you'll get caught.

Government is proposing bills not have messages read by officers (something that not even inside Meta can be done due to EU's Electronic Privacy Directive) but to "scan them": have machineries check for violating content, pretty much as a parcel is put under xrays in the airport to check for bombs or drugs.

The law protects also the right of a company to protect itself against being blamed for misuses of its services, not only individuals' rights.

garfieldnate• 4 years ago

A couple days ago I watched this video where Smash Bros. community members discuss their thoughts and emotions around discovering a lot of sexual predatory behavior in their community [1]. Pretty fascinating and worth a watch. But what really struck me is how little most people (including) know about predatorial behavior or victimization and what the warning signs are; the description of what grooming actually is I found particularly enlightening. I think we would gain far greater benefit from simply improving our understanding of our own psychology and sociology and from their trying to prevent humans from becoming predators in the first place.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSR3P9jayPo

bacan• 4 years ago

The age verification maybe a good idea if it is used to create a segregated place for kids. But instead of having filters & being able to scan messages, I think it'd be better to not have private messaging on those platforms. This will allow other users to report suspicious behavior.

EricE• 4 years ago

"think of the children" People uttering that should be immediately shot.

Stop Scanning Me

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