Hacker News Reader

Comment by BoGoToTo | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

> "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!

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.

Or make traveling by air more painful and expensive by wasting an hour of every fliers time.

Sounds like someone who doesn’t live in a country that’s further than 3 hours across.

I gotta be somewhere. Takes 10 hours to get there by car. I’m flying. 1h45. Plus transport to airport and security I’m still at 1/2 the amount of time.

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.

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.

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 ...

Here is the Kim Brooks story, as well as some other stories that substantiate the picture I gave above:

https://www.salon.com/2018/08/21/kim-brooks-left-her-son-in-...

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2015/05/16/skenazy...

https://reason.com/2020/10/14/colorado-couple-adoption-plans...

https://reason.com/2022/06/02/child-abuse-and-neglect-regist...

https://reason.com/2022/08/17/arizona-central-registry-park-...

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/scottpham/child-abuse-a...

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.

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.

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.

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?

There's a huge monitoring industry lobbying for it.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

GP is wrong. It isn't boomers responsible for poor computer laws, it is normies. Normies who are too dumb to operate the powerful tool they have.

There is a reason there is a lower bound on age allowing you to be elected. I do think there should be an upper bound as well.

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?

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com