Europol sought unlimited data access in online child sexual abuse regulation

https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/29/europol-sought-unlimited-data-access-in-online-child-sexual-abuse-regulation/

by t0bia_s • 3 years ago

217 195 3 years ago

Even if it might have been eventually struck down under the Charter of Fundamental Rights that would take years to arrive at, and by then their access would be de-facto entrenched. They know this as much as anybody.

ryandrake2• 3 years ago

In the same meeting, Europol proposed that detection be expanded to other crime areas beyond CSAM, and suggested including them in the proposed regulation.

And there it is, just as anyone would expect. It’s never just about Protecting The Children™.

tomohelix• 3 years ago

I was wondering why there are suddenly so much vitriol online lately about "protecting the children". I guess it is just the same old social engineering trick.

Like the war on terror and drug war and all kind of "icky things" previously. Just excuses and a red herring to implement something dubious.

matheusmoreira• 3 years ago

Children are the perfect political weapon to get people to accept any tyranny. If you oppose this stuff, they'll treat you like a pedophile.

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

johnnyworker• 3 years ago

There's plenty to actually protect children from. Doesn't mean it doesn't also get used as a fig leaf for other things, but if you think it's only ever a fig leaf you are sorely mistaken.

p-e-w4• 3 years ago

Always keep in mind that such oppressive legislation backed by silly arguments is possible because the people at large are essentially OK with this, and many of them even support it outright if it means getting "tougher on crime" or whatever.

The true enemies of freedom aren't shadowy cabals scheming in back rooms – they are your neighbors, your coworkers, some of your friends, and possibly even some of your family members.

jjulius2• 3 years ago

The true enemies...

The "true enemies" are the folk scheming in backrooms who hope to succeed by the ignorance of the rest of the folk you listed. Are my neighbors, coworkers, etc. a problem in this battle? Yes, absolutely, but they're not the ones acting with malicious intent.

p-e-w4• 3 years ago

It's not ignorance, it's malice. "The people" are much smarter, but much more evil, than commonly assumed.

And ironically, the false idea that the population is ignorant of every important issue is yet another argument for invasive, controlling regulation of everything...

MrBuddyCasino• 3 years ago

By deduction, the true enemy of freedom is universal suffrage.

p-e-w4• 3 years ago

You are quite possibly correct. Late-modern monarchies, absolutist on paper, were certainly granting more freedoms to their people than those people themselves would have likely voted for, had they been given the power to do so. I can only imagine what an "Enlightened Absolutist" European monarchy would look like in the 21st century. Pity that proto-fascist faux-democracies are all that is left.

vaylian5• 3 years ago

because the people at large are essentially OK with this,

Only because they are not informed about what this is actually about. It's all about framing.

* Do you want the police to have better tools to fight child abuse? -> Of course!

* Do you want the police to see what private messages you are sending to your loved ones so that they can ensure that you are not a pedophile? -> Hell no!

userbinator2• 3 years ago

A similar thing happens with the word "security".

hollow-moe• 3 years ago

Do you want the police to see what private messages you are sending to your loved ones so that they can ensure that you are not a pedophile?

Most people doesn't even care anymore, they know they're always spied on when they use messenger or instagram (covering the whole age spectrum here), they'll always hit you with the "I don't have anything to hide"

brabel4• 3 years ago

These two questions are at the root of this conundrum, but you're not being completely accurate.

What exactly is your justification for regarding your right to privacy in your communication with your loved ones is more important than the right of the police to fight child abuse?

I believe most people would not agree with this exact proposition, but with a different one: that once the police is given the power to fight child abuse, which can only be given by allowing them to access private communications of anyone suspect of being involved in such crime, then there will be abuse of power and they will use that access to also fight other crimes or even for political gain, as tends to happen in authoritarian states.

I would absolutely be willing to forego my right to privacy under certain circumstances given that there were strong enough guardrails in place to prevent abuse in the future if that would allow child abuse and other hideous crimes to be prevented - it would be immoral to not do so. However, as most other people in tech, I have enough knowledge to understand that it would not be possible at all to prevent abuse with current technology - once the power exists at all to break into communications, anyone with enough motivation and resources available will be able to do it, not just the intended receipients of such power, unfortunately.

If you really want people on the other side of the debate to understand you, you need to stop being so simplistic - there are very good justifications for their positions if you remove the practical limitations of being able to stop abuse - which they do not understand, and I suspect a lot of people in tech even also fail to comprehend.

I would even go as far as to say that future technology may change this: it may be possible to have completely abuse-proof technologies in the future which, if it existed, would make me change my position on this matter.

For example, something that uses blockchain technology to make it cryptographically impossible for the police to access someone's communications without having a warrant?? And making that warrant only usable by the police if it was also approved by a number of different, independent groups, including groups advocating for privacy (something like a "smart contract" could do this?)??

You can say these are stupid ideas, and I would probably agree... but my point is that this may not be impossible, and perhaps people who are really concerned about privacy while also having an understanding of why the police may need this sort of power should be actually trying to find ways to do this properly instea d of just keeping repeating the mantra that no, this is impossible and we'll have to live with child abuse , terrorism etc. forever?!

silveraxe932• 3 years ago

That's what _you_ and _I_ think.

Most conversations I have with non-techy people, they end up saying "Yes" to both.

tommiegannert• 3 years ago

One of my problems with representative democracy is that there is never a candidate that ticks all my boxes. I.e. an actual representative. If I vote for someone to keep my digital liberties, they want to ban nuclear power instead, or whatever. It's all a tradeoff, and I don't think it's good that the tradeoff needs to happen so early in the process of representating me.

I like Switzerland (where I currently live,) because they have direct voting on topics, mixed with electing representatives. There's a filter so the people don't have to vote on everything, but for the big questions, there's already a system in place to ask the people. That must have sucked 100 years ago, when communication was more limited, but today, I think every nation should move to it. It also keeps the people engaged (voting on 3-4 topics every quarter,) and not just something that happens every four years.

Maybe that would have saved Sweden from the extreme sides of (nationalist) politics, and from banning investments into nuclear for 40 years before ripping that up. Mind you the nuclear disinvestment was based on a (non-binding) ballot vote, but my problem is no one dared challenge it, or have a process to re-ballot the question, in 40 years. Even in light of new climate information.

intunderflow3• 3 years ago

This is part of why I think politically there is no point trying to co-operate with these people and convince them to maybe not collect so much.

The only way to stop them doing this is for folks in the right places to make it technically impossible.

In a similar note: The fact that its taken years to roll out TLS ECH and DoH which would make a lot of passive surveillance of the internet much more difficult is only enabling bad faith actors like Europol et al.

p-e-w4• 3 years ago

The only way to stop them doing this is for folks in the right places to make it technically impossible.

Sure. Then they'll pass legislation making it a crime to implement technical measures preventing such data collection, and simply lock up everyone you are talking about.

What's the real solution?

rustymonday• 3 years ago

The solution is to do it before it's made illegal.

intunderflow3• 3 years ago

At the transport level: The EU has a lot of power, but the power to force the IETF to withdraw an RFC globally? That would be a reach even for them.

bathtub365• 3 years ago

Steal the private communications of politicians and post them in public

roenxi• 3 years ago

The premise is more optimistic than you are suggesting:

1. Mass spying is unpopular. The only reliable support base is a small-ish group of unlikable busybodies.

2. Reducing civil liberties tends to come back to bite the people who implement it. The best part of the Trump backlash is watching the intelligence apparatus come down on the Republicans. Karma in a nutshell, they were one of the major enablers of all that stuff after 9/11. All these ideas like free speech and private communication are ultimately to protect politicians.

3. It is practically difficult to stop. Any country that tries to stop encrypted messengers would have to cripple their own economy by bringing in such limited computers that they can't do anything. And they'd be hopelessly vulnerable to foreign espionage.

This is not that hard of a political fight. They tried to ban strong encryption back in the PGP era and look how that went - SSL is everywhere, encrypted protocols are everywhere, we have cryptographically based assets and every company is encrypting everything they can lay their hands on at rest. The ban-encryption camp has a track record of complete failure. And The Children have been Thought Of and are living in the best era ever to be children.

raverbashing• 3 years ago

But funnily enough I remember people complaining about DoH and how it was bad for privacy, etc...

As a start, moving away from UDP is an improvement

ako2• 3 years ago

If you were in government, how would you propose to limit child porn?

dsign2• 3 years ago

If I were a government, I would let the police do its job without mass surveillance. Also, not all problems can be solved. Or, if I were a government, I would command all companies and individuals to drop what they are doing and work non-stop on cancer research.

harshreality• 3 years ago

What are authorities going to do when there's an image generation AI model that can output infinite amounts of CSAM? Are they going to keep trying to enforce these laws, which have good intent (at least by some advocates) but end up being a disaster that barely puts a dent in the problem, while massively increasing government power and decreasing privacy?

rpmisms• 3 years ago

I've used this example (CSAM-making AI models) as an illustration of the difference between ethics and morals many times. It would be theoretically ethical to use these models. It would, however, be immoral. Since governments are allergic to morality these days, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

smabie• 3 years ago

Why would it be immoral?

ziddoap• 3 years ago

Related (from today): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37716928

South Korea has jailed a man for using AI to create sexual images of children

AnthonyMouse3• 3 years ago

It's not new information that this kind of content is illegal, in many countries even if it's only computer-generated.

The issue is that hash-based scanning will be rendered irrelevant by AI-generated images because there could be an unlimited number of them, and they could be produced by general-purpose image generating software that isn't itself illegal.

AnonC• 3 years ago

Apple’s ill thought out on-device CSAM detection and thankfully, the removal of it from its plans after heavy pushback comes to mind.

Any time a specific ability is granted or is available to law enforcement, it will expand to broaden surveillance on everything. CSAM is horrific, despicable and devastating. But the way law enforcement treats it as an easy “in” to push for more surveillance and more powers for itself is shameful.

dcow3• 3 years ago

It’s not shameful that people try to grab power to stop evil, it’s natural. What’s shameful is that we don’t have more political checks against these type of power grabs. And that citizens who could stand up and fight against abusive surveillance are increasingly apathetic.

errantmind• 3 years ago

The statement is that it is shameful to grab for powers that invade the privacy of law abiding citizens.

colordrops• 3 years ago

It's absolutely shameful. These people are not naive children. They know exactly the ramifications of the tradeoff, which indicates that they are not doing so in good faith, but rather at the behest of vested interests.

ekianjo• 3 years ago

try to grab power to stop evil, it’s natural

Those who seek this kind of power over others are themselves EVIL by definition

noobermin• 3 years ago

Pedantic but I would still say it's shameful although expected. Like that it is shameful to have your car stolen if you leave it unlocked with the keys in clear view on the driver's seat, although it is expected.

Xelbair• 3 years ago

Mostly because they can go for those power grabs again, and again - ad nauseam. After a while populace is just bored of fighting, and only few people care.

ajsnigrutin2• 3 years ago

The problem is, that we have to complain loudly every goddamn time, get the media, protest, write articles, etc., to get them to pull back.

They only have to succeed once, and the law is written and stamped.

nucleardog• 3 years ago

Apple’s ill thought out on-device CSAM detection and thankfully, the removal of it from its plans after heavy pushback comes to mind.

Calling Apple's CSAM detection "ill thought out" seems to me to be letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Remember when everyone was up in arms about W3C standardizing DRM? Yes, the world would be better without DRM. But the DRM exists and will continue to exist. Arguing for not standardizing DRM isn't arguing for DRM to not exist, it's arguing for it to not be standardized. The encrypted media extensions let me watch DRM-protected content on Linux instead of being locked out of it all because none of the proprietary DRM everyone's using works on anything but Windows/OSX. Linux and Firefox and a DRM blob so I can watch Netflix is better than being forced to use Windows 10 with all its telemetry, Microsoft proprietary DRM, and a browser from Google or Microsoft to watch things.

Yes. It would be better if the government stayed the hell away from my files. Apple not implementing their CSAM scanning didn't get rid of the underlying issue or argument. It just means that it's no longer the tech industry setting the standard for how this will work--it's going to be the government.

Apple's implementation[0] was about as privacy preserving as we can hope for. It only scanned media that was about to be uploaded to their cloud service. It did scanning on device and used crypto to ensure, mathematically, that they couldn't even access the _hash_ of matching images until such a point that enough images matched to cross a threshold. They had client devices feed in fake matches to obscure even the number of potential matches that occur before reaching the threshold. At any no point in any of this is it possible for them to retrieve even the hash of an image that does not match, even after you've passed the threshold.

Would it be better if none of this happened at all? Sure. Is this a _fuck_ of a lot better than what we're seeing Europol pushing for? Absolutely.

Apple cancelling their scanning was a short term win. This isn't a new problem, and this isn't one that's going away. We can throw all the technical solutions we want at it, but it's not a technical problem. ("Sorry, can't scan user's content it's all end-to-end encrypted!". "Don't care. You wrote the encryption. Work around it.". "It's impossible!". "Okay, enjoy your new regulation that all encryption has to have a backdoor HTH HAND.")

I'd rather lose the battle and win the war. Let's put the most privacy-preserving CSAM scanning we can in place and take that card out of play. Let the regulators come out and try and explain how "Well yeah, you're scanning every image for CSAM but, uh, it's not enough. We do really need to see _all_ the images people have on their phones!". We're not making an argument, we're drawing a hard line and standing in place. The Europols of the world are not going to stop pushing. Apple's big, but not "override the EU" big.

When push comes to shove, we will lose. The EU _will_ respond with regulations. Maybe not now, but it should be obvious the way the winds are shifting. I'd bet my left testicle their vision for this is much more onerous than what Apple was proposing.

But hey, at least we can tell our children (away from our phones or any other electronics, and probably standing somewhere deep in the woods) that we were proudly defiant to the end.

[0] https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/CSAM_Detection_Techni...

throwaway29011• 3 years ago

That's exactly it. We know Apple plays by the rules. EU demands it and they make all phones USB-C, CCP demands it and they host iCloud stuff in PRC. If they are required to give out data to fight CSAM, they will comply. Hopefully Apple would try to not make it "free for all" but whatever they do it will probably be hidden behind relevant regulations, as opposed to a solution they tried to push.

Kim_Bruning2• 3 years ago

Is it still a slippery slope fallacy when someone at the bottom of the first slope argues for further slopes?

dchftcs• 3 years ago

I don't think they would have stopped at Apple.

miki1232114• 3 years ago

Remember when everyone was up in arms about W3C standardizing DRM?

I'm really surprised how well that actually turned out.

Whatever you say about DRM (and I'm no fan of it myself), at least W3C's version is as open as it can be. You're prevented from making a copy of whatever you watch (which, to be entirely honest, is a very reasonable precaution in the age of streaming), but you can still write browser extensions[1] or even custom Electron apps[2] that interact with the video element in other ways. If you want automatic skipping of intros, changing playback rate where such functionality isn't supported, access to community subtitles or subtitle-related tools useful when learning foreign languages[3], automatic subtitle reading (with a synthetic voice) or even a completely custom Multi View interface, it's all possible. You can even do synchronized playback across multiple users[4], as long as all of them are authorized to play the relevant media. You could have achieve none of this if you had to use a Flash-based player with no programmatic access to its state whatsoever. It's the best compromise we could have hoped for.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/netflix-extended/g... [2] https://multiviewer.app/ [3] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/netflix-dual-subti... [4] https://www.teleparty.com/

cmcaleer2• 3 years ago

It's very naive to think that Apple's solution would remain as described in that paper. All it takes is a push for 'proactive searching for images not in the database' through e.g. models predicting whether an image is CSAM or something and you have countless cases like [0]. This needs to be wholly unacceptable. Once the system is put in place, expanding it is a much easier pill for the public to swallow.

You're just advocating for frog boiling.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil...

matthewdgreen2• 3 years ago

The question being debated right now is not “which precise scanning technology should we use,” but rather: “should we scan private photos and messages for CSAM and other illicit content.” By proposing a scanning system that scanned user-private, unshared photos Apple announced that they felt the answer was “yes.” Everything else is a technical detail.

And to be clear, once you’ve established the capability and the principle of the thing, the technical details will not remain static. The EU regulation already requires scanning for novel CSAM content and “grooming conversations,” because the people proposing this tech think hash-based photo scanning is insufficient. Having conceded the need to scan users’ private data Apple would have found itself mired in a long-term losing argument about specific technologies, one that the public wouldn’t understand or care about. And the other side would have the force of law behind them.

What precisely was Apple’s plan to maintain this “balance” then? Refuse to obey the law? Leave Europe? To paraphrase apocryphal Winston Churchill: there is one point at which you can defend your stance on principle, once you abandon that everything else is just haggling on price.

stjohnswarts• 3 years ago

CSAM & apple debacle shows we can win some of the time. I'm not going to give up. CSAM was a huge precedent for having government sponsored software on your phone, running 100% of the time, scanning your device. That is just plain fucking awful and it was new and precedent setting. It had to fought tooth and nail, and it was just "don't let perfect be the enemy of the good". I'm sorry to be so blatant but that's what it was. Yeah I read the pdf and understood what they were doing, it was a crack in the armor of having government surveillance software on your phone and computer 24/7 and that is huge.

jacooper5• 3 years ago

Apple announcing that stupid Csam scanning started all of this and they proved it's possible.

An absolutely stupid and disastrous move.

zimpenfish4• 3 years ago

Apple announcing that stupid Csam scanning started all of this

Except all of the cloud providers are already scanning uploaded photos for CSAM and have been for years. Trying to blame Apple for this is insane.

lost_tourist5• 3 years ago

Also that would have set the precedence for the police to use apple as a proxy to put software on your phone/computer to monitor everything you do and scan for them, while they lean back in office chairs and wait for a hit. Same would have been extended to any and all government bureaucracy. No warrant, no innocent until proven guilty; guilty until proven innocent is their credo.

dbmikus• 3 years ago

It's ironic to me that the EU led the charge in cookie notices and is now pushing this. Although one is privacy from corporations and the other is privacy from the government.

userbinator2• 3 years ago

It's called authoritarianism.

personomas7• 3 years ago

Definitely, it's this. The EU treats companies like they're horrible monsters, and then looks away when it does far worse shit.

It's (the EU's) authoritative to companies by suppressing them with penalties and bueacratic laws, but allows itself (the governments and states) unending tolerance in whatever it does.

Proven• 3 years ago

Why would that be ironic?

It's one and the same thing.

They disregard property rights and order everyone about.

The reason this seems strange to you is you didn't care when they did that to Web site operators.

ethbr14• 3 years ago

It's a distinction between method and goal.

'Authoritarian supporters of privacy' is a position it's possible to take.

Which begs the question of whether democratic/authoritarian or surveillance/privacy is the more important characteristic.

sambazi• 3 years ago

EU led the charge in cookie notices

you got it backwards

eu: cookies/tracking is bad, don't do it. if you _really_ need to, you have to ask.

big-tech: fuck this! of course we need to track users. we're just gonna ask everyone all the time and put the blame back on you.

Jigsy2• 3 years ago

On the topic of scanning a device for CSAM, even if this were extended to computers, and Microsoft/Linux/etc. coded it into the OS, how would this even work when it comes to RAM where an image isn't directly touching a hard drive? (Though I'm not sure how that would work exactly.)

Esp. in cases like isolated virtual machines running old versions of say Windows or Linux where child molesters and pedophiles don't have to worry about the scanning software.

I can't pretend to be an expert on the subject, but isn't a VM in a separate area of RAM where it doesn't bleed out?

dcow3• 3 years ago

They hypervisor or host OS can just read the memory.

Jigsy2• 3 years ago

I see.

That said, continuous RAM scanning would be incredibly resource intensive.

justinclift3• 3 years ago

Don't AMD server class processors have some way to encrypt VM memory so the host can't read it?

Looking around quickly, it seems to be Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV):

https://www.amd.com/en/developer/sev.html

vaylian5• 3 years ago

The chatcontrol law does not require scanning on the OS level.

The chatcontrol law requires scanning on the ISP level and on the internet service level.

That means:

* ISPs are required to check for connections to flagged servers. They also have to check for illegal URLs (yes, HTTPS will make that pointless)

* Services like chat/e-mail/file-sharing services need to effectively check if a user is sending illegal material (no, the law doesn't take into account the complexity of open source ecosystems and the many options you have for client software and server hosting options)

beebeepka• 3 years ago

“All data is useful and should be passed on to law enforcement, there should be no filtering by the [EU] Centre because even an innocent image might contain information that could at some point be useful to law enforcement.

Aha, you first. Oh, this lady only meant our data, not theirs.

Stuff like this happens because people at large lose their shit, or at least pretend to, when it comes to "child safety". Impossible to even have a straight conversation. It's straight up dangerous

catoc3• 3 years ago

It’s naive to think this is about child-abuse. That’s just there to frame the discussion. Interpol is not going to stop at analyzing images for csam - it’s not even the real goal. The goal is complete government oversight.

And no I am not into conspiracy theories. It’s same as with attempts at “breakable encryption”, it’s offered up under the guise of fighting child-abuse/terrorism/<insert-terrible-thing-everybody-has-to-agree-is-terrible>, but the goal is to increase government access to all communications between civilians.

verisimi• 3 years ago

You are so conspiratorial! I just can't believe that anyone would want total control of everyone else's data, while remaining entirely anonymous and unaccountable themselves! /s

I actually think that it's coming to the point that the gains of technology, even large bits such as 'the internet' or mobile phones, are so inhuman that it's not worth it. I think modern tech can easily be characterised an almost entirely subsumed for governmental and corporate control. If we thought giving banks licenses to print money was bad, giving these nefarious entities control over everyone's data will be far worse.

Kim_Bruning2• 3 years ago

I'm not even sure complete oversight is the goal. All of the individuals involved might even have the purest of intentions.

But time and time again the outcome of such actions (when left un-countered) does seem to end up with more spying on civilians.

Sakos• 3 years ago

Even the purest of intentions can't justify by itself any particular decision or action taken. The decision or action itself must be evaluated on its own merits. Or you find yourself excusing everybody from abusive partners to dictators (which we see everywhere, unfortunately).

lozenge• 3 years ago

Complete oversight is a pure intention to some people.

csomar• 3 years ago

The persistence to pass this regardless of all the push-back that happened suggests that there is no "pure" intention out there. Zero.

KineticLensman• 3 years ago

But time and time again the outcome of such actions (when left un-countered) does seem to end up with more spying on civilians.

A good example of this in the UK is the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act [0] that constrains anti-terrorist surveillance and investigation, but which ended up, amongst other things, being used by local councils to track whether children lived in particular school catchment areas, tracking fly-tippers, etc.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Po...

lost_tourist5• 3 years ago

It's the same with benevolent aristocracy, I'm sure there have been good rulers in the past who considered it their duty to serve the interest of the people and be benevolent, however 80-90% (conservative estimate) are not. They see themselves as the pinnacle of humanity and "why not? why shouldn't I do whatever I want? The peasants are wrong!" . It's the same with all positions of power and why there have to be counterbalances like courts and laws to protect privacy.

corn13read2• 3 years ago

Very well said, it’s unfortunate that they can simply pick this as a pressure point and the public might accept it.

draugadrotten• 3 years ago

Behind the proposal is several Big Tech companies with a lot of money which are seeking lucrative government contracts. One of them is Aston Kutcher's Thorn which seems to have a very good report with the EU Commissioner Ylva Johansson.

https://www-svd-se.translate.goog/a/ona477/kandisbolaget-tho...

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2023/09/26/t...

belter2• 3 years ago

https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2023/09/2023-09-28_LIB...

"...Those aforementioned media reports point to alleged close working relationships between the European Commission and a broad network of tech companies, foundations, security agencies and PR agencies, including Thorn and WeProtect Global Alliance, indicating possible undue influence in the drafting of the proposal. Of particular concern are the allegations that the solutions laid down in the legislative proposal to fight CSAM supposedly replicate the solutions designed by those groups, contributing thereby to furthering their economic interests..."

This is of course, the same Ashton Kutcher, who recently wrote a letter advocating leniency for a Scientology member convicted to 30 years in prison for rape, after his sentence.

miki1232114• 3 years ago

Do we actually have any proof of this?

I see this argument often, it's basically taken as an obvious truth in tech circles at this point, but I've seen very little evidence of that happening so far.

To be clear, I think these anti-CSAM laws are pretty terrible, but I wouldn't attribute malice where simple incompetence suffices, as the saying goes.

catoc3• 3 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_Record_(autobiograph...

salawat3• 3 years ago

Stop using Hanlon's Razor. The only people it cuts are the people who use it. Stupidity is weaponized soas to become indstinguishable from malice.

lost_tourist5• 3 years ago

Why not both? Incompetence AND lust for power. It's evident all over humanity, back as long as we have recorded history. You can see it from an assistant manager at your local convenient mart all the way up to Presidency and Prime Ministership. Every bit of liberty you cede to these jokers is one you likely won't get back. I don't want that for my children or descendants.

postmodest• 3 years ago

The thing that gets me is that "paedophile" is an easy bogey man to let us point fingers because literally everyone (no offense ace folk) has at one time been attracted to minors. And we are embedded in a Patriarchal society that puts an emphasis on youthful femininity as a commodity. So pushing the "paedo" button is the same thing that cults do: leverage shame to gain authority.

mk892• 3 years ago

I am all for privacy and so on, however you have to admit that with the current technology alone it's basically impossible to track or prevent certain types of crimes - and it's becoming more and more difficult. I am decently sure that terror attacks are prevented on a monthly/yearly basis - luckily, it doesn't make the news, when it does it's too late.

Child pornography is another beast difficult to solve - again, I am quite sure that they are able to find groups etc on a more frequent basis than we think. When they don't, I don't even want to think about it.

What tools do current investigators have? If you were a detective investigating a case, what would you do or use?

Basically everything useful is either 1) illegal, or 2) technically almost impossible to do (e.g, decrypting https which takes still years to brute force). You could try to ask for a favor left and right to get to a search warrant or install spying devices and "fix" (1) but how the hell do you break (2)?

Communication is happening online and a "military grade encrypted channel" has basically become the standard way of communicating with each other. The few who still use outdated clients or protocols - shame on them.

So, yeah, I really do understand the fact that governments want access to data for their own nasty purposes, however, what can we do as a society to make it 1) difficult for average Joe to use military grade encryption to act criminal, 2) easier for police to find criminals?

I know a knife can be used to cut bread or to kill someone, however, we're talking here about groups of hundreds of people sharing child pornography - that's not a knife, it's a freaking weapon of mass destruction in the hands of people who shouldn't ever ever have access to them.

No, I don't want the Chinese way, but what can we do to avoid getting there?

Can you think of something?

ganzuul• 3 years ago

Talk to children respectfully.

catoc3• 3 years ago

Using the encryption argument:

Encryption is a solved problem. Easy to implement solutions are available everywhere. (yes, post-quantum cryptography is not yet solved, irrelevant for the current discussion).

That means that even if it were technically possible to create "legally-breakable-encryption", criminals would simply use real encryption and law abiding citizens would be stuck with broken "encryption" and be vulnerable to government surveillance... and to said criminals. I.e.: there are only downsides. And government experts know this just as well as anyone. Which makes their agenda very clear.

More in general, imho, the benefits have to outweigh the costs: even if breaking all encryption would have offered a small benefit in fighting bad guys, that still does not outweigh the costs of a total loss of privacy (think china) for everyone.

t0bia_s• 3 years ago

Same for digitalID. Or digital currency. Soon there will be lobbying for removing cash. Of course because it is used by criminals and cannot be tracked. Who cares that you need electronic device and connection for make any digital transaction. Or who cares that it is absloute surveillance by state. But it is for our safety of course. You need to sacrifice your freedom for safety of others!

experimenting5• 3 years ago

Good. If you don't have online child sexual abuse to hide, you have nothing to worry about, since for all the other things people do have to hide, such access will ignore that (up to direct threats to safety and national security concerns).

Criminals get easier access to online CSAM, then law enforcement should get easier access to user data. If you think that trade is unfair, take it up with the criminals.

jacooper5• 3 years ago

No, I have much to worry about. I dont want people to read my private conversations, private photos and anything i don't want to be public.

They can catche them without such stupid measures, that will make any secure communication impossible for the masses.

experimenting5• 3 years ago

I am fine with people (especially if they are licensed professionals) reading my private conversations and photos, but I worry about people (especially licensed law enforcement) accessing my data on online child abuse.

We can not always get what we want.

Instead, we entrust the police a monopoly on violence, physical detainment, and violation of privacy, and hold them accountable if they can be shown to disregard their duty and responsibilities. As a civilian, your duty is to weigh your personal sense of discomfort against the societal benefits of improved child abuse detection.

ben_w6• 3 years ago

During the Cold War, everyone had spies in the other side.

Russia is certainly still trying that now (I assume the US is too, but haven't heard of it recently).

Giving any group legit access to this risks those spies having a convenient and easy way to find anyone with dirty laundry (even mild, legal stuff), and blackmail them into helping the spies.

This problem still exists even if we don't have the system for legit access, I'm only saying an official system makes it worse.

We still have to alter our societies so that nobody has anything secret to be ashamed of. This necessarily means making society radically more transparent, and I think the only way this is possible is to also make society radically more inclusive and tolerant. Why also tolerant? Because I've heard people typically commit 3 felonies a day (don't trust random factoids), and at that rate transparency without liberty turns the whole nation into a prison.

experimenting5• 3 years ago

Blackmail and coersion of civilian assets for intelligence work is both possible and a risk.

But it won't happen though an Interpol investigation and leave a formal audit trail.

It is just turning "think of the children!" into "think of the sexual blackmail!".

chimen2• 3 years ago

I do send my mom photos with my 2yr old taking a bath or stuff like that. "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about" - what a stupid argument. Letting criminals dictate the way I live sounds like such a wonderful idea. If you have nothing to hide can you post your credit card here?

experimenting5• 3 years ago

This is a discussion about bean soup recipes and you are telling me you don't like beans. Mediocre argument.

Be very careful with sharing explicit photos online. Your settings and encryption must be very strong, or people other than your mom may get access to it.

If these others then get investigated for child abuse, it should come out to the investigators that they joined a semi-private Facebook group and have access to beach photos of children. Their credit card number also should show up in registering for CSAM forums.

It is a wonderful idea to protect you and your family by taking precautions. Lock your doors. Don't accept requests from people you don't know, educate your mother on online security, and think long and hard about if it is worth it to send your mother a picture of your naked child, for there is a possibility this will end up everywhere.

Everyone has something to hide and to worry about:

It came in 2003 when Townshend, now 74, was arrested for using his credit card to access a website offering child pornography, though no images were downloaded.
Rock star Pete Townshend reveals today how his arrest on child pornography charges saved his life after it indirectly led him to discover he had cancer.

throwaway29011• 3 years ago

It seems like the thread is split between those who value privacy more than preventing child abuse and people who don't believe child abuse and crime in general can actually (gasp) motivate lawmakers to pass laws.

Actually, the view of those lawmakers in this thread seems to be some sort of caricature of self-interested future despots, as if most of commenters here are not living in democracies.

It would be astonishing if it was not routine on HN...

Sure maybe the moral tradeoff is worth it and privacy is top priority. Then I'd recommend to focus on all other areas of life that violate privacy first. Ban airport security, CCTVs etc. After that feel free to move on to banning measures that protect victims, who unlike most of you grown-up functioning adults, can't even stand up for themselves. And address the gravity of that tradeoff, or you're just making nonces out of yourselves.

akomtu• 3 years ago

If this was 1023 A.D. we would be talking about heretics, and Inquisition that must oppress every man and woman to protect them from themselves.

throwaway29011• 3 years ago

Thankfully it isn't.

sylware• 3 years ago

The problem is the music and movie industries which will want to use the technical systems setup for human trafficers, child abuse, murderers, you know, the real nasty.

A line must be clearly drawn in the usage of such "military" grade systems.

ExoticPearTree• 3 years ago

The police should be laughed out of a courtroom if any case they are trying to investigate is based solely on the potential evidence found on a mobile device, or only through the interception of encrypted communications.

Aerroon• 3 years ago

I thought General Monitoring was illegal in the EU?

How could this not run afoul of that?

I thought the EU had learned something from the Data Retention Directive.

What does the Prohibition of a General Monitoring Obligation mean? The prohibition of a general monitoring obligation means that companies cannot be obliged to introduce measures that will result in blanket monitoring of the activity of users of their service, nor obliged to seek out illegal activity.

cccbbbaaa• 3 years ago

It is, according to the EDPS. https://www.euractiv.com/section/law-enforcement/news/eu-wat...

Unfortunately, the commission doesn’t care about passing illegal legislation (DRD, the 3 EU-US transfer agreements, etc.), and the CJUE is not fast.

johndunne• 3 years ago

Blackbeltbarrister [1] has a good overview of what these regulations are attempting to do; legislate end to end encrypted inspection tech into existance. Either it's a smokescreen for something more sinister (require backdoors or weaker encryption) or its a delusional attempt by regulators to enforce oversight over encrypted traffic. Either way, something has to give.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUPeyqsVcU4

chimen2• 3 years ago

When Lauren McCluskey, a University of Utah senior and track star, first alerted campus police to the fact that someone had accessed compromising photos of her and was attempting to extort her for $1000 in 2018... But she forwarded the photos and threatening messages she’d received to campus police anyway, and now, nearly two years after her death, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that the officer who received them saved them to his personal cell phone and later flaunted the photos to male coworkers.

Can't wait for the competent police officers at my local station to call me in order to have full access to my phone based on some photos I sent to my mom regarding her niece (my daughter).

This will have a Streissand effect like no other.

extraduder_ire• 3 years ago

my mom regarding her niece (my daughter)

Is this a typo? I can't imagine how this would work without some familial intermingling.

lost_tourist5• 3 years ago

Police (in basically all countries) have the goal for their job to be as easy and efficient as possible. That will be priority one, like it is with most of this. You can't really blame Europol for this. They will ask for as much as they can get, as they seem themselves as the ultimate good guys. They "could never abuse their power". However as citizens, politicians and the rest of us peasants have to push back, that's just part of the contract, anything else is living in a dream world. It's not about child abuse, it's about concentrating power and making their lives as easy as possible.

xchip• 3 years ago

It is known which priests were kid rapist and the police didn't do much about it. Despite of their low interest in the past now they are very concerned about child sexual abuse and they want mass surveillance.

Europol sought unlimited data access in online child sexual abuse regulation

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