EU-Commissioned Study Proposes European Firewall [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

EU-Commissioned Study Proposes European Firewall [pdf]

europarl.europa.eu

56 pointslftherios34 comments

Open articleView on HN

Just pointing out that this is not the EU opinion, all the authors work for https://www.futurecandy.com/

> AUTHORS

> Nick SOHNEMANN, Future Candy

> Lasse Michael UFFRECHT, Future Candy

> Marie Constanze HARTKOPF, Future Candy

> Jette Paulina KRUSE, Future Candy

> Lena Marie de NOELLEN, Future Candy

Also WTF the EU is thinking to task what looks like a "house of lies" consulting agency for a Study Digital services

look at this presentation they did for EU .. I was expecting a Better of Ted jaberwooky at any moment in the slide deck .. -> https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/196436/IMCO%20KEYNOTE...

Innovation management, an ISO standard is in the work[1], this will help smooth out any irregularities in the consulting industry, by standardising how to innovate, leading to improved ideation of the future.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_TC_279

Seriously, wtf

Relevant section:

> 5.1. European Cloud / European Internet

The EU should include an action plan for a digital cloud – a European Internet – in the DSA. This European Cloud would foster a European digital ecosystem based on data and innovation. It would drive competition and set standards. Foreign web services could become part of such a digital ecosystem but must adhere to the rules and standards of the EU – such as democratic values, data protection, data accessibility, transparency and user friendliness.

> Technologically, it would require a top-level infrastructure, high-speed 5G or a 6G data network and a firewall. Setting up such a network would promote many European companies and therefore boost business and drive innovation.

> Like the Chinese firewall, this European internet would block off services that condone or support unlawful conduct from third party countries.

From 5.4. Action Plan Timeline - Act Now

> Despite all the negative effects on the health system and the large parts of the economy the corona crisis has worked as a positive image campaign for the entire digital services industry.

> As e-commerce and remote working solutions became widely used and even smartphone tracking to prevent infections met very little scepticism. Now in the aftermath of this pandemic it’s the perfect time to act and to push for ambitious goal in digitalising Europe.

> Long term 2025 – 2030

> Phase 3 of the eGovernment Venture Programme: Implementation of innovations developed in the programme. Officially Launching the European Internet: Similar to the Chinese Firewall.

It's a cloud and an internet? Uh, I think a better title for this should be "European Parliament fleeced by 'innovation agency'" or "European Parliament wastes money on private consultants" (depending on your basic stance on government)

I think the guys and gals at FUTURE CANDY, the agency that made the study, should be really proud of the combination "standards of the EU – such as democratic values, data protection, data accessibility, transparency and user friendliness" and "Like the Chinese firewall, this European internet would block off services". Hard to see that as anything but just outright trolling.

This study was mainly written by this Hamburg-based company: https://www.futurecandy.com/en/company/

Controversial take:

Freedom is not the same thing as anarchy. Freedom comes from Constitution and some form of state that enforces laws, and protects it's citizens. (Paraphrasing Lessig's CODE 2.0 http://www.codev2.cc/ from 1999!)

Is it possible, that in order to gain freedom the internet has to become more regulated not less?

If this is the case, how can we do this?

There are no international bodies that have been successful at regulating the internet as a whole. So far regulation of the internet has effectively come from large governments like the US/EU which are limited in scope and had great trouble being effectively enforced.

Given that there are no global institutions, that can effectively enforce internet regulation: Is there any way around some form of segregation of the internet along national borders (EU/US/CN/..), that allows the states to enforce their rules within their part of the internet, and keep out bad actors from elsewhere?

wondering what's more disappointing here 1. the quality of discourse in that study 2. the way the EU allocates money on "innovation studies" or 3. their actual recommendations...

They are not even shy to compare their plans to China's great firewall. Goes to show that free speech and democracy has never been and continues not to be a European strong point.

It’s not a proposition from the EU. The EU requested a study, the study group suggested that proposition.

Now the question is: what does the EU do with that proposal?

If they say “fuck yeah, let’s act on that fine suggestion of a European Great Firewall” then I would agree with you, but that’s not the situation.

Such studies are usually intended to give external legitimacy to pre-decided internal plans. So someone had them draw up the study, telling them what the conclusion should be.

There's also the opposite effect - that organisations pretending to be legitimate create "studies" to shift the Overton window a bit. In practice, most of these things go into the circular file anyway. If you go searching on pretty much any topic, there's pretty much all the possible opinions in the form of "studies" for the EC.

Keep in mind this study was commissioned by a work group of the European Parliament, not the EC.

I think the point of this would be to protect the EU IT market from American IT monopolies. Because currently EU is completely dependent on the USA when it comes to IT software and architecture, which is becoming a real problem. China's firewall has been a great success in that regard.

Just like the US is completely dependent on China, Japan and Korea for hardware manufacturing.

Modern reality is that everyone is really dependent on everyone. It's perhaps not ideal from a national security point of view.

> The way pores are scattered around the face does not change over time (from adolescence) and cannot actively be changed. Even if the face is partially covered, theseadvanced technologies are still able to recognise the pores in the part of the face that is not covered.

This is news to me. Does anyone here know how well that works? It seems to be referring to a product by Identix, but I can’t open their website because their HTTPS certificate isn’t valid.

China's firewall works because it's a single country with an authoritarian government. The EU is more likely a big dysfunctional family. They might want the same thing in the EU, but good luck getting anyone to agree on what it does, much less implement it without leakage.

AUTHORS

Nick SOHNEMANN, Future Candy

Lasse Michael UFFRECHT, Future Candy

Marie Constanze HARTKOPF, Future Candy

Jette Paulina KRUSE, Future Candy

Lena Marie de NOELLEN, Future Candy

Sweet gig for Future Candy

Their addresses explain why it spoke of buying “gas” when I’d have expected “petrol”. (When talking about fuels in en-gb, “gas” means methane, not gasoline as it does in en-us).

Ursula von der Layen's nickname is "Zensursula" (Zensur == censorship) for a reason.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com