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Comment by 1gn15 | Hacker News Reader

Thanks Joachim! Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM, given that everyone who wants to trade it will obviously just use another layer of encryption.

> The campaign has irked some recipients. “In terms of dialog within a democracy, this is not a dialog,” said Lena Düpont, a German member of the European People’s Party group and its home affairs spokesperson, of the mass emails.

What is a dialog, then? A dialogue between well-connected lobbyists and bureaucrats, and everyone else should just shut up and take it?

Or, or, "normal people" sending emails only for the lawmakers to go "thanks for the feedback, we're doing it anyway"?

> One EU diplomat said some EU member countries are now more hesitant to support Denmark’s proposal, at least in part because of the campaign: “There is a clear link.”

> Ella Jakubowska, head of policy at digital rights group EDRi, said “This campaign seems to have raised the topic high up the agenda in member states where there was previously little to no public debate."

This is amazing, and makes me regain a bit of (much destroyed) faith in democracy.

> But Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard, one of the loudest proponents of tough measures to get child abuse material off online platforms, said in a statement that his proposal is far more balanced than the Commission’s original version and would mean that scanning would only happen as a last resort.

If the option is there, it will be abused.

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A metaphor: I once played in a D&D campaign where a player tried to create an extremely overpowered but technically legal character. His justification was that he would only use the extreme powers in moderation, so it would not be unfair or unbalanced. But why would he ask for such unprecedented powers if he didn't intend to use them?

Another one: someone buys a sports car and promises to drive within legal speed limits at all times.

Nobody does that.

I mean, every person who purchases a car does so, at least implicitly. The very act of obtaining a driving license contains an (often explicit) promise to abide by the rules of the road.

You’re conflating two things and ignoring the thrust of the point: nobody buys a fast car to drive it slowly. Maybe some people do, the vast majority do not.

If promises about licenses meant a damn, we wouldn’t have speeding cameras.

The promise is still made, regardless of whether one plans to keep it

No, the “promise” is forced. It’s like an arranged marriage.

Except in Germany!

(Technically correct is the best kind of correct)

I believe the Autobahn still carries the legal requirement to drive at a safe speed at all times. Pedal to the floor racing is not often safe speeds for a public road.

Yes, yet [1] happened where someone took precautions to drive safely at >400 km/h speed.

[1] https://www.drivencarguide.co.nz/news/no-charges-laid-on-bug...

It sounds like an investigation was quite reasonable, and then it cleared him before charges were pressed. Seems pretty good!

A better one: the large number of individuals who drive super-duty pickup trucks only for commuting to their office jobs.

IMO that's a little different since many of them also buying the utility of appearances, which be flaunted at entirely legal speeds or even while parked.

In contrast, an expensive speedy car disguised as a cheap slow one would be much more suspicious.

There are also ways to drive fast legally

Allow me to introduce you to sleepers which are somewhat expensive cars disguised as cheap pieces of shit. Most I've been in are absolutely terrifying but seem like lots of fun.

A sports car could be bought just for the looks.

Based on how often I find myself watching laden work vans pass vehicles that can easily "do better" this, or something like it, is likely a common reason for purchase

You can buy fancy sports car for looks and status.

"and my successors will all do the same"

The threat already silences the opposition. You don't have to use it to silence people.

I actually think that a role playing game is exactly the soft of situation where this is in fact reasonable.

There is a lot of mythology about gods walking among men, hiding their true nature, etc. And more recent examples include the TV show Lucifer.

Someone wanting to roleplay that sort of being is entirely plausible. Without knowing the person's personality (which you presumably did) it's hard to say whether they would have genuinely wanted to do that or if it was an excuse.

Yeah, if you have a huge amount of trust between player and DM that can work. There are both in-game and out-of-game ways to manage issues if they arise: in-game a DM can always limit or restrict something after the fact, out-of-game a problem can spark a conversation and ultimately a D&D game is a set of people who voluntarily get together and play.

(That said, another approach is to have a conversation about "what are you trying to achieve", and find a way for everyone to have the fun they'd like to have without risking something game-breaking.)

As GM, I strongly disagree. Any player who wants a character with "I can overrule the GM but I will do that only occasionally" power is a very big red flag. A D&D game isn't a mythological story or TV show. It's a community told story where one character having an "OP" (over powered) character basically destroys the balance between player and GM as well as between player and player, both of which are extremely important.

To make it clearer, the players and the GM will be struggling against each - in a controlled way, yes, but also a meaningful way. I'm not a super deadly GM but players will be risking death in at least low-key way and so everyone will sooner or later be "using everything they have".

Edit: basically, saying "this rule/power/etc exists but won't have an impact" is more or less saying that the "rules aren't serious", in either the 'Chat Control' or the DM situation. But the very nature of rules is that we wouldn't have them if they weren't serious.

I of course agree that the player should not be able to overrule the GM. I don't think that was the situation here.

If you're playing an off-the-shelf campaign this is problematic. If the GM is creating the game as you go, then a good GM should be able work with the player to make this reasonable. The GM can always use GM-power to prevent a player from doing something, even if it involves a literal hand of God reaching down to stop them.

A conversation with the player beforehand to make sure you're on the same page about this sort of thing would go a long way. Let them know under what circumstances you're willing to allow them to use whatever the power is. Let them know the consequences if they don't follow those rules.

Unlike with ChatControl, a D&D game is a situation where the necessary trust is able to exist.

An example: agree the player character is some trickster djinn sent from another plane to learn to be a human and how to trick people. They have immense cosmic powers of life and death, but as part of being sent over, they can only use the power for immediate comedy. Violations result in the djinn getting yanked back to their plane and disincorporated.

Boom done. Now you have a massively OP character that can only use their power in humorous situations that don't affect the storyline, and if they try to abuse that then that's instant-death.

I personally, as GM, don't like to be the one that kills a character. I want to set up a situation where the situation-and/or-the-rules kills the character.

I've played in games with "the GM kills you" mechanics and it felt juvenile/arbitrary/abusive. Remember, this is a game where every players' character needs to "shine" and similarly needs to know they're being judged with fairness and compassion by the GM (compassion especially along the lines of "understand what I say my character does as something reasonable").

Isn't that what I proposed in my example though? Where a rule is made in advance that if the player abuses their power, they die. due to the canon situation in which that player's character existed?

A player that in good faith wanted to role play such a character, would work with the DM in advance to structure rules well-understood by all parties about exactly what would happen if they abuse their situation.

All the DnD situations can be trivially resolved by good-faith and communication on all sides.

Unlike Chat Control, where good faith cannot be assumed.

While I agree it's a red flag in many cases (power gaming is an issue), I think you already provided an adequate justification for it yourself: ttrpg play is a community told story. While you may want to play a type of game where the DM is always fully in control, I've played at tables where the DM intentionally gives up some of their control to the more experienced players, sharing the load of creating the world. There are even whole systems where this is an intentionally encouraged mechanic! Even giving overpowered stuff isn't fundamentally different from a DM dropping in an overpowered DMPC to help step in when the players need something.

D&D is intentionally a collaborative story, and it shouldn't be out of the question for players to collaborate with the DM. Focusing on "the balance between player and GM" is great for a dungeon-crawl style game (which I would argue is the only thing 5e is actually designed for, and is poor for what most people try to use it for, but that's a whole other rant), but putting too much focus on it in a more roleplay-centered campaign can lead to a very adversarial relationship between players and the DM. If you have great players, you should trust them to collaborate with you, not just opposed to you.

Oh, giving the player power to make a world and otherwise help in GMing process is fine, something I do sometimes. The thing is, a reasonably skilled player can do that without it involving adding power to their character. Indeed, I've seen this device make players less "power-gamey" because it makes them think of the larger picture, they want to interest the other players in their story etc.

But I don't think this really relates to "my character has excess-or-god-like powers but I won't use them" situation. The point isn't the characters can't have more free-form powers that GM interprets sympathetically. The point is if the player has to say their character has special over-the-top-powers, they are creating a rule, not leaving things for free collaboration. I remember in a FATE game in which one player specified has character's aspect that "world's greatest thief" and this both abuse of the FATE system and actual harassment/psychological abuse of another players. I learned the lesson that aspects never should superlatives to them.

I actually did that for a campaign. It wasn't extremely overpowered but I did have some abilities that could have been extremely OP if abused. I don't even think it was really legal as far as RAW was concerned. In the end I was probably one of the least effective characters, but I was able to do some cool things with those powers and we had fun roleplaying it.

I understand the metaphor, but there is a huge difference between a D&D player and an entity such as a government.

For starters the government is not in the habit of releasing these new powers, once it's established it will stay for a very, very long time.

And you can be sure the new powers will be used in unintended ways, which the citizens will have a hard time blocking.

So it's actually very simple: No to Chatcontrol, now and forever.

Let's not forget that a former politician AND member of the Danish parliament, colleague of Peter Hummelgaard, went on trial this year for being in possession of CSAM, his name Henrik Sass Larsen [0].

[0] https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/08/21/trial-begins-f...

It's not so surprising that the original proposal includes an exception for politicians, they don't want to be scanned themselves: https://european-pirateparty.eu/chatcontrol-eu-ministers-wan...

It is a really bad bill idea. It’s ironic that the proponents want to exempt thrmselves from the very mass surveillance they're proposing! It definitely isn't about protecting children and it can't work this way. What a propagandist article. :/

> “In terms of dialog within a democracy, this is not a dialog,” said Lena Düpont.

She's German, so probably a letter on approved paper in an approved envelope. And you will get a response via a certified letter. Or maybe a fax?

Or the dialog should be in the next election cycle when she is voted out and then it will be interpreted as "the people have spoken". I find it funny how politicians when they're cornered start claiming that this is not the right way to stall for time to pass whatever laws they want to pass anyway.

Fax. Definitely fax. It's legislated to be equivalent to a certified letter, and cheaper, and you don't have to walk to the post office like an animal! headdesk

(Did you know it's a criminal offense in Germany to have your fax "participant ID" set incorrectly? The one transmitted in-band, that you configure on your fax device, not the network provided caller ID.)

Maybe she would prefer a phone call?

It's a dialogue between Thorn, who sells scanning software and the EU commission working group, and the relationship is murky at the best:

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Chat-control-EU-Ombudsman-criti...

Thorn hires Europol police officers to lobby their software.

> This is amazing, and makes me regain a bit of (much destroyed) faith in democracy.

As a general rule, politicians don't actually have a strong opinion on, or much context on, most things which they are asked to vote on. This can make this sort of lobbying/campaigning quite effective; at a certain point you're forcing the politician to _think_ about it, and that's half the battle.

> "[...] A dialogue between well-connected lobbyists and bureaucrats, and everyone else should just shut up and take it?"

Why, yes... that's exactly what the types of outfits like the European People's Party [1] expect on many things. But year after year these incompetent grouches get the majority of votes. And that's before one has to deal with the full-blown far right, fascists, and the like (e. g. ESN [2], PfE [3], et cetera).

1. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_People's_Party]

2. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe_of_Sovereign_Nations_Gr...]

3. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriots_for_Europe]

Given the dealings with Pfizer and the blocking of an ethics committee, why, yes, the EPP prefers lobbying to remain opaque.

This is not a left-right issue. You have the danish S&Ds pushing it and ALDE opposing it.

Agreed. Even in the U.S. personal privacy is not a left/right issue. Both major political parties will sometimes pay lip service to privacy when campaigning yet when in power they both engineer votes that permit further erosion of privacy rights and expand exceptions for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to vacuum up personal data from citizens with little oversight.

Conservatives and allied centrists have, and traditionally always had, much more access to the levers of power than leftists even in democratic countries. And right-wingers will oppose such intrusive government power only until they get to be the ones calling the shots and it's finally time to "drain the swamp". ;)

Besides, your reading of the decidedly centrist Danish Socialdemokraterne as leftists is bizarre to me, especially since they moved more and more towards the right. Something they share with other classic social democrat, i. e. centrist (status quo), parties in the S&D, e. g. their German compatriots from the SPD.

In the past half century, “progressives” have pushed through huge societal advances (particularly) across Europe in areas of family rights, women's rights, gay rights, minority rights, worker's rights.

Things that were anathema in my very Catholic country just 20 years ago (divorce, abortion, gay marriage, assisted dying, but also maximum work hours, minimum wage policies, equal pay policies, women's quotas, tax funded subsidies/pensions for people who never contributed to social security, etc) are now so mainstream that even “conservatives” (never mind “centrists”) have co-opted most of them.

But for certain leftists, “ideological purity” apparently trumps all of those advancements.

Now, we're starting to find out what “ideological purity” looks like when that gets co-opted by the right side of the spectrum. And it's not pretty.

> "In the past half century, “progressives” have pushed through huge societal advances (particularly) across Europe in areas of family rights, women's rights, gay rights, minority rights, worker's rights."

Progressives, sans scare quotes, fought long and hard for lobbying access to get the parties in power push through what should be considered basic human rights in any civilized society.

> "Things that were anathema in my very Catholic country just 20 years ago [...] are now so mainstream that even “conservatives” (never mind “centrists”) have co-opted most of them."

In my reality, many conservatives, especially of the clerical variety, are very busy rolling back these basic human rights. And their centrist allies play ball. As usual.

> "Now, we're starting to find out what 'ideological purity' looks like when that gets co-opted by the right side of the spectrum."

Starting to find out? You sound like you labor under the absurd illusion that conservatives/right-wingers of any couleur never had some sort of ideological ideal they tried to pitch to hoi polloi. Well, there's enough libraries worth of works to cure someone of that misbelief.

None of my quotes should scare you. What you might call progressives, liberals, centrists, whatever, varies widely across the EU. That's the only reason I've put those terms in quotes.

> is far more balanced than the Commission’s original version

It doesn't require analyzing of all text and sound. Everything else is still fair game.

> and would mean that scanning would only happen as a last resort.

This is completely besides the point, and illustrates exactly what he doesn't want to understand: as long as that last-resort mechanism is available, it will be used and abused. The latest clear example of that exact same thing is the terrorism charges brought against the pro-Palestine campaigners in London: terrorism legislation was also brought in under the excuse that "it would only be used in the narrowest of circumstances".

This kind of legislation is a red line that democracies should never cross.

> given that everyone who wants to trade it will obviously just use another layer of encryption.

Anyone remember OTR on Pidgin/gaim back in the day? That kind of system could work on any medium rendering this whole thing completely pointless.

> Anyone remember OTR on Pidgin/gaim back in the day? That kind of system could work on any medium rendering this whole thing completely pointless.

Fun days those were.

Somehow I think in the eyes of the politicians the next step would be that you can only install government approved chat apps on your phones.

Desire for control knows no limits.

> But Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard, one of the loudest proponents of tough measures

Good, this is the person that should be blamed loud and clear

Peter Hummelgaard, Danish Minister of Justice: "I indisputably believe that surveillance creates an increased sense of security ... and given that the prerequisite for freedom is security, yes, I believe that more surveillance equates to more freedom"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45473136

I'm sure the Stasi would very much agree with him.

The fact that he's actually saying this is incredible, and not in a good way.

I'd love to hear him explain the government exemptions in the bill with this in mind.

Peter Hummelgaard, Danish Minister of Justice: "We must break with the totally erroneous perception that it is everyone's civil liberty to communicate on encrypted messaging services."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/danish-justice-min...

Perhaps the EU should consider adding access to secure encrypted communication to the human intrinsic rights to prevent such things in the future. He seems to be motivated by increases in gang crime that he will get blamed for.

> He seems to be motivated by increases in gang crime that he will get blamed for

...which is the government's fault and they should be blamed.

I'd love to see this argument transfered to physical mail. Should it be illegal to send physical letters that are encrypted without also somehow providing the government with an unencrypted copy?

If that somehow seams reasonable on its face to someone, then I don't know where to begin a reasonable discussion.

The cops can intercept physical mail

Yes, but that parallel example is not relevant here because modern online messaging is profoundly different in crucial ways. Governments can (and do) intercept and store nearly all electronic messages which permits instant searching and deep cross-referencing of all content and sender/receiver metadata for every message ever sent by anyone, anywhere, at any time. None of which is true for physical mail. If you don't find that terrifying, you don't fully understand what it means.

When they do intercept physical mail messages, if the sender has encoded the message, in most democracies, the government is not permitted to compel the sender to decode the message. And even if you come under suspicion today and they start intercepting your physical mail, they can't have an LLM read ALL the physical letters you've ever sent at the press of a key. With electronic communications they don't even need suspicion first. The LLMs are already actively searching everything hunting for anything the government labels sufficiently "suspicious." The "Five Eyes" intelligence agencies have been capturing all email, instant messages and phone call metadata for more than 15 years already.

Yes but it too can be encrypted

>> Should it be illegal to send physical letters that are encrypted without also somehow providing the government with an unencrypted copy?

> The cops can intercept physical mail

You didn't answer the question...

The post you replied to mentioned encrypted messages

I'd love to have access to his private email then. Please lead by example, Peter!

He has no good explanations or arguments. He was beaten as a child by his father and now he is reproducing the abuse of power he experienced on all of us. I'm not even trying to be snarky, it's the only framing that can explain his behavior.

It's not even the fact that that belief is unfounded, but that he's actually equating a sense of security with security itself that makes that statement a bold yet easily overlooked lie. That he calls himself a social-democrat!

Wouldn't that party lean more towards early identification and rehabilitation of potential predators with therapy etc.?

Sexual orientation cannot be changed as far as science knows.

I was thinking about cognitive therapy to decrease the likelihood they would harm people as a result of the proclivities they cannot change. Some people have a natural urge to murder people all the time, if they learn to control it there is no reason they cannot contribute to society.

There's a program in Germany related to this, called Kein Täter Werden (to not become an abuser / don't become an absuer). I think it's controversial because the therapy is confidential, even if the participants have committed abuse.

Honest but hard question: do you believe evolution applies to humans.

I am worried what happens when those people who would otherwise be in prison instead have children and those children don't get this kind of therapy.

Do we have any evidence that sexual preference is genetic? My understanding was that it was primarily based on hormone levels during pregnancy, kind of like handedness. Some amount pf experience also certainly plays a factor when it comes to abusive behavior, people can turn people into abusers via abuse.

This guy is insane

> Peter Hummelgaard, Danish Minister of Justice: "I indisputably believe that surveillance creates an increased sense of security ... and given that the prerequisite for freedom is security, yes, I believe that more surveillance equates to more freedom"

I mean, he's kinda right. It just depends on if you feel you're a target or not. If you're not the target, you feel an increased sense of security from any threat caused by the people who are the target.

A really obvious example is a dictator like Kim Jong Un: there's a huge amount of surveillance in North Korea, but all of it serves him and none of it threatens him.

So, especially someone kind of unthoughtful and ignorant of the complexities might feel "an increased sense of security" from this surveillance, because they know they're not a pedophile so assume surveillance purportedly targeted at pedophiles will do them no harm. You might even feel "more freedom" to the degree you feel pedophiles are a threat to you or your family.

It's not freedom if it's only afforded to a privileged few at the expense of everyone else. And no oppression is ever truly limited to the intended targets only. It'll always be abused and applied beyond the original or stated intent.

The quotes I've been seeing from him, makes him sound like a cartoon villain, I'm hoping for his sake he is misquoted.

He probably also believes that war equates to more peace.

Sounds like believer in managed democracy.

He's the one screaming "Dude, where's my Chat Control?" the loudest, but there are a lot of those digital-Stasi politicians

> Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM

Their framing it as "Spam campaign" is just as awful, rather than "Outreach campaign". Politico is just another capital interests establishment outfit despite occasionally pretending otherwise.

The bill is bad, but this is disingenuously stupid:

> Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM, given that everyone who wants to trade it will obviously just use another layer of encryption.

Obviously, many people will not because many are already caught not using any, and many more are just using simple consumer options that this legislation would eliminate.

We can agree that the legislation is horrible without lying to ourselves and asserting that it would have zero impact

Agree that it would have impact, but not the good kind.

The services that deal with CSAM would be flooded with false positives from the automated scanning. They would, in turn, have to find methods of short-cutting the assessment of these false positives so that they can actually function.

The real CSAM would be drowned out by family snaps of kids in pools, of teenagers sexting each other, etc. The ability of the relevant services to actually detect and catch real abusers would be severely hampered. Actual abuse would be caught less and more kids would be harmed.

Five minutes of thought leads to this obvious conclusion. Which implies that this was never about protecting kids in the first place. It's about controlling what people say, as always.

>Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM, given that everyone who wants to trade it will obviously just use another layer of encryption.

MSM today has no choice but to parrot or echo the opinions of those in power if they want to stay in business otherwise they get shut down for $REASON witch can be any of the following labels: hate speech, misinformation, fake news, woke left, radical right wing, Putin supporters, etc. Just spin the roulette and pick one.

>What is a dialog, then? A dialogue between well-connected lobbyists and bureaucrats, and everyone else should just shut up and take it?

Yes, that's precisely how it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtdbF-nRJqs

> MSM today has no choice but to parrot or echo the opinions of those in power if they want to stay in business otherwise they get shut down for $REASON

What a load of crap! There is still tons of "mainstream media" outlets that don't do this. One of the biggest in the UK would be The Guardian, there are hundreds like it.

The decision to toe the line, like the WaPo, are purely because of money (Jeff's and his readership's), not because anyone is "shutting them down" for X or Y.

>One of the biggest in the UK would be The Guardian

I used to like the Guardian in 2009-214 but now, I trust someone's "it came to me in a dream", before I trust The Guardian, given their recent flops and biases.

The quote from Yes, Prime Minster - "The only way to understand the press, is to remember that they pander to their readers prejudices" which makes those news aggregations sites more appealing, though cheaper to stick with other avenues for balance.

So much wisdom on comedy, even 80s comedy Who reads the papers? - Yes, Prime Minister - BBC comedy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M

The US is seeing lots of pressure on media because of not parroting the ruling party line. The current US president openly says any news he doesn't agree with is not only a lie but that the media companies are literally the enemies of the people. This doesn't even get into the tweet storms and the canceled programs in order to fall in line!

Your last point seems to be the parent's point as well -- if you want to keep your media business alive (to make money; that's what businesses are) in the US you have to be careful criticizing those currently in power. Unless I misunderstood you to and you meant that parroting the party line is a way to make more money but not doing it is also perfectly effective and not at all a risk.

I haven't checked the Guardian in dept, but I believe they towed the same messaging during COVID as any other major Western publication and the same regarding the Russia / Ukraine situation right now.

Alternative voices are to be found on tight corners of the internet, like an individual on Twitter for example.

That doesn't make that much sense, those issues are ones that the Guardian would be aligned with anyway - at least in general. I'm pretty sure I've read disputing opinion pieces on there on both subjects.

If I didn't know any better, I would think you are describing Congress.

"Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM"

Why wouldn't they? It's a NATO aligned, pro-Israel rag under Axel Springer, of course they're helping to sell surveillance technology that can be abused by militaries and state agencies, one of the main israeli exports and generally appreciated industry by NATO.

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