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Comment by thw_9a83c | Hacker News Reader

As both an EU citizen and a computer programmer, I applaud this article, and I generally agree with its sentiment. But let's be realistic. Chat control is going to happen sooner or later. This is a Hacker News forum. The audience here is very knowledgeable about computer science and fully aware of how technologically impractical the idea of fighting CSAM in this way is. But the general public is somewhere else entirely. They genuinely believe that this will help, to whatever they think it will help. They have no idea that real CSAM distributors will simply adapt by encrypting files into ZIP (or whatever) with strong passwords or using different channels. I've tried explaining this to some of my non-IT friends and family members. I think they now think I'm a pedophile. It's kind of stupid for a father of two teenage daughters, but that's the general public. They want it; they'll get it.

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I dont think it should be taken as a given that it'll happen. While this may be something the public is generally in favour of or ambivalent towards, there's a LOT of EU countries and MEPs that are not at all in favour of this, and already a few EU countries whose courts have ruled that this would violate their constitutions.

While its certainly possible it'll happen, it's far from certain. It can be stopped. Of all the currently 'undecided' countries, if just Germany came out against it, that'd be enough to sink it. Germans are pretty pro-privacy people, and the government would win no popularity by supporting it. Even if the German government supported it though, the German MEPs would likely still end up mostly voting no

I know there are some countries that are surprisingly sane in this respect, and Germany is one of them. Also, the EU parliament is probably still mostly against it, too. So it will certainly be some time before this happens. However, we should never underestimate the "salami" method, this matter will certainly go through.

> Chat control is going to happen sooner or later.

Even if that is true—which you don’t know, because you cannot predict the future—later is definitely better than sooner. Later is worth fighting for.

Your defeatist attitude is exactly what these bad actors want, you’re playing right into their hands. Thankfully not everyone thinks like you, or Chat Control would have passed first time and no positive change would have been enacted ever about anything.

I beg your pardon. :) I already explained that I did my part and the result was hopeless. Perhaps you should do your part, too. Don't bother arguing on Hacker News, because it has no material effect on the EU population outside the narrow IT crowd. Besides, I'm not a defeatist at all, because I know GnuPG! However, the non-IT EU civilians who also coincidentally agreed with this, are unfortunately lost.

> I already explained that I did my part and the result was hopeless. Perhaps you should do your part, too.

What I see in your post is that you tried to explain to a few people in your life what Chat Control is, it was an utter failure, and now you’re spreading defeatism to strangers on the internet.

In contrast, everyone in my life I explained it to understood that it is an urgent problem and that it must be stopped. Consider that your explanation might’ve been the problem, and that truly doing your part involves learning from the mistake and improving the messaging, or at least encourage others who can do it better, or at the very least not discourage them, which has the same effect as supporting the bad outcome. We need people ready for action, not defeatists bringing everyone down. You’re hurting yourself and the cause by doing so.

> Besides, I'm not a defeatist at all, because I know GnuPG!

That is incredibly naive. What does that even matter, in a world where everyone around you is surveilled.

> ...and now you’re spreading defeatism to strangers on the internet.

It's more like I took a bit cynical view about the current situation. However, this view is based not only on my own experience, but also on what I read in the linked article.

  - 14 EU countries in favour of Chat Control
  - 5 EU countries not in favour 
  - 8 EU Undecided / Unclear

So this technologically absurd solution to a given problem is clearly gaining traction. Perhaps it's a good thing that my cynical perspective is so triggering to random strangers on the internet.

> That is incredibly naive. What does that even matter, in a world where everyone around you is surveilled.

I think this comment was unnecessary. My notion of GnuPG was humorous satire.

Of course the elephant in the room is all of this content and bad behavior predates the internet entirely. The internet is used because it is more convenient than mailing polaroids to a dead drop address. Not because it enables anything that wasn't happening previously. Makes it a little easier perhaps, but even that is arguable given the oversight today.

This "bad behavior" could easily regress into encrypted files stored on CD-R discs and distributed via the postal service at any time. However, we will all suffer from an invasion of privacy due to constant, non-transparent online monitoring. The real criminals won't notice anything, and the rest of us will simply accept that we are being constantly watched by mega-corporations, the police, and the government.

Why be so hopeless? Especially when the people that push these things are so brazen

If someone states their opinion on something, it shouldn't be turned around as them being hopeless.

When we know that a particular political party will win an election, stating that fact isn't being hopeless. It just is what it is.

I don't really understand this attitude because clearly if this passes, it will create a (black) market of new communication tools to bypass this and so on and will end up locking down every connected device so we can't run anything that is not government approved. It does not matter there will be ways around this - what matters is they will be illegal. So no, this can't be allowed to happen.

Ehh, the great firewall of China has been in place for a long time now, it's also illegal to evade it, and yet, it has sprouted many great tools that make it so simple to evade, that enforcement becomes impossible.

If anything, technology will always win over the legislation if it happens at scale. It may even lead to some new breakthroughs.