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Comment by usernomdeguerre | Hacker News Reader

The issue is that there is a place where this model ~is working. It's in China and Russia. The GFW, its Russian equivalent, and the national security laws binding all of their tech companies and public discussion do exactly these things in a way that has allowed their leadership to go unchallenged for decades now.

The rest of the world isn't stupid or silly for suggesting these policies. They're following a proven effective model for the outcomes they are looking for.

We do ourselves a disservice by acting like there is some inherent flaw in it.

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Are you seriously trying to suggest that monitoring of all private messages in Russia and China has stopped child abuse images from being shared?

That is preposterous.

We dismiss the suggestion of removing the right to privacy precisely because it doesn’t stop these crimes but it does support political repression.

The crimes go on, only criticism of the government for failing to address them is stopped.

EDIT: the more I reread your post the more I suspect this might be exactly the point you are making. Sorry, too subtle for me first thing in the morning. Need more coffee.

C'mon, we all know that the main reason for such laws is controlling dissent.

Allegedly, Spanish police is a great supporter of Chat Control, not because of CP, but because of them wanting to spy on Catalan and Basque separatists more effectively.

Is Catalan/Basque separatism still a thing, in the sense of violent outcomes (a la ETA)? I have the impression that it's become a fairly civil process (more along the lines of the Scottish or Bavarian independence movements)

Catalan separatism was never violent and the Basques concluded peace with Madrid, which holds. So it is all political.

Several Catalan politicians were prosecuted for holding an "illegal referendum" and had to hide in Belgium for some time.

I think when we want to get rid of violence to change borders (war), we must allow borders to be changed peacefully.

That's not what they're saying. They're talking about how digital surveillance from governments leads to these governments staying in power

I think it is not clear.

"They're following a proven effective model for the outcomes they are looking for."

That reads like just stating government perspective.

"We do ourselves a disservice by acting like there is some inherent flaw in it."

But this says something different to me. Because yes, I do see it as a inherent flaw if governments focus is on things that are mainly good for the government. Government's job should be focusing on what is good for the people.

I don't know about China, but in Russia private conversations do not trigger immediate response and they do not control every possible means of communication. They simply do not have capacity to investigate every violation - too many people talk negatively about the government and ongoing events, so use reactive approach. People may get in trouble while being searched on the border crossing or after being reported by someone, but it is hardly different from border searches in USA. Things may change with their new messenger and disruption of WhatsApp and Telegram there (Russia just started blocking SMS verification codes making registration there difficult).

They don’t need to monitor every conversation. Just enough that every conversation is a little risky. It’s the ability to read it all, if they want, that matters.

As far as I know, their biggest problem isn’t reading chats (if device seized and unlocked, not a problem at all regardless of service and encryption level), but listening encrypted calls. This one really bothers them and WhatsApp appears to be threat number one. I don’t know anything about the scale of CSAM distribution there, but I think they don’t need ChatControl-like technology for dealing with it. ChatControl was worse than Russian surveillance state, maybe on par with Chinese tech.

There's literally a white list of permitted sites now, supposedly only to be used when there's a 'drone threat'. Guess what, there are places in Russia where there's a constant 'drone threat' for at least half a year and vk.com is basically all they can use to communicate. Why would they start arresting people for private VK messages now, while their 'max' messenger is still struggling? It could wait until all other messengers are less than 10% market share, that way it won't impede adoption until it's the only option available.

> The GFW, its Russian equivalent, and the national security laws binding all of their tech companies and public discussion do exactly these things in a way that has allowed their leadership to go unchallenged for decades now.

Isn't this exactly the argument for never, ever doing it?

Yes Its an argument for the general public to think of their interests and that the interests of general public says to never do it

But they aren't thinking of our interests, they are thinking of theirs which is what I think that the parent comment wanted to share that their and our interests are fundamentally conflicting and so we must fight for our right I suppose as well.

It is also hard for me to understand this angle. While in Russia at the moment and China the "they" is pretty much constant, it is not the case in EU. Why would be in their interest something that can be used against them the moment the tide turns?

> Why would be in their interest something that can be used against them the moment the tide turns?

They are doing this to prevent tide turn and personally, I feel like if both/many political parties agree to something like chat-control and agree that they make it a bi-partisan issue, then they can fundamentally do it and the "they" would be constant

Also the "they" here also refers to lobbying efforts. The billionaires/millionaires/rich people might like these things solely because it increases the influence of govt. and thus the rich people as well

As an example, Let me present to you the UK censorship act which tries to threaten any and every website with a very large price which is very scary to many people who have thus shut down their services / websites to UK at large if they were a niche project/couldn't do it

Internet as we speak, would continue on to become more centralized. I feel like the idea here is that make internet so centralized that you can control the flow of information itself(I mean it already is but there are still some spots left like hackernews as an example)

Its also one step towards authoritarianism. This could be a stepping stone for something even larger which could have a more constant "they" as well but I have already provided some reasonings as to why they do that, simply because they can and chat control gives them a way to do mass surveillance which is something which to me increases the infleunece of both parties or the whole system massively in a way which feels very threatening to freedom/democracy making it thus dystopian.

But in those countries the intended goal is not just to stop CSAM, but primarily to censor communications and suppress the opposition from voicing their opinion. If you still want to give our politicians the benefit of doubt, then they don't, after all, want to actually censor communications in the same way to destroy democracy.

This is not because I support their mass surveillance proposal, I am strongly against it. I think that the politicians are naive (maybe even to the point of warranting the label stupid) and ignore the huge risks that exists of future governments to start using the mass surveillance platform, once it is in place, to start doing actual censorship. I am also extremely worried about the slow scope creep that will inevitably result from this; today it starts with CSAM and terrorism, next year it is about detecting recruiting of gang members, and in a couple of years it is about detecting small-scale drug transactions.

It is barely relevant to even think about the personal opinions of politicians, if the systemic outcome is the same.

> The rest of the world isn't stupid or silly for suggesting these policies

I know that. The problem it is evil, not that it is stupid and silly.

The whole point is that I do not want to give government power over me like it happened in China and Russia.

With "think about children" as smokescreen.

> We do ourselves a disservice by acting like there is some inherent flaw in it.

The inherent flaw is: It is despotic and only serves despots and their minions, at the cost of oppressing the majority of people.

That just sounds like advocating for these policies is inherently undemocratic, in a Western understanding of democracy. Which is even worse than the policies simply being ineffective at their stated goals. Leadership being challenged is an essential part of our (stated) government system

EDIT: I improved my comprehension, and it looks like I agree actually, not disagree.

I agree, it's a great, proven tool to do away with political enemies, and to selectively enforce the law, for whatever motivation.

I just don't understand what you mean by

>We do ourselves a disservice by acting like there is some inherent flaw in it.

We (as in, "the people") don't do any disservice for us by opposing such an effort. Specifically because we are also looking at what goes on in Russia and China to name a few. Authoritarian regimes do "work", but don't, generally, want that kind of working over here in Europe for example.

I think they meant it's a disservice to act like these panopticons are inefficient/ineffective and thus not a real threat. Even current-gen AI plus mass surveillance would make it trivially easy to build dossiers and trawl communications for specific ideas.

Thanks for the clarification, it went over my head. Re-reading the comment chain multiple times it's now clear that OP was alluding to the ulterior motive, and the ulterior motive being effective, which I agree with. Again, thanks for taking the time to clarify.

those are not democracies. thats why unchallanged. if chalanged you might fly out of the window or disappear for some years for "re-education".

You're responding to a completely different thing:

>many people, faced with a societal problem, reflexively turn to (total surveillance)

It's not about the malicious elites. These societal problems surveillance keeps being pushed for never get fixed in either China or Russia. Yet people (not just politicians) keep pushing for it or at the very least ignoring the push. A decade+ after the push, things like KYC/AML regulations are not even controversial anymore, and never even were for most people. Oh, these are banks! Of course they need the info on your entire life because how else would you stop money laundering, child molesters, or shudders those North Koreans? What, are you a criminal?

And of course you somehow manage to blame the usual bad guys for something that happens in your society, because of course they're inherently evil and are always the reason for your problems. Guess what, the same often happens there and they copy your practices. Don't you have your own agency?

The reality is that the majority in any place in the world doesn't see privacy, or most of their or others' rights for that matter, worth fighting for. Having the abundancy and convenience is enough.

That last point is even enough as demonstrated by the swiss people voting for the eID, democratically paving the way for future mass surveillance and total dependency to our iOS and Android locked bootloaders overlords. As stated further down this is all stemming from education.

>As stated further down this is all stemming from education.

This is the downside of public education: the state isn't incentivised to teach you things that could undermine its power.

It's working. But that's at the expense of individuals. Unless you consider people are just meat working for the all powerful state.

How ~is it working there though? Is there less CSAM going around in these places?

Literally the end of the same sentence says how it's working:

> do exactly these things in a way that has allowed their leadership to go unchallenged for decades now.

Yes it had a great impact on political opposition. Such a weird coincidence that the politicians who want to keep their unlimited power indefinietly supporting a way of catching opposition early.

I guess this is what we need in the West too. Lets just cement the current ruling class in for decades.

Why do you think that the Chinese "value" having political opposition? They're the largest developing economy in the world.

What is your sales pitch? "Hey, you guys should try having a less stable government, in exchange you'll get some abstract platitudes about freedom and privacy."

Really? It’s working? No crime, no abuse, it has stopped perfectly or near so compared to other countries all of the things, like CSAM, that proponents want it to?

Your comment is precisely what I mean when I said people end up fixating on #1 to the exclusion of #2.

Yes - it is working exactly towards the goals of the governments that are using it (which is not "stopping CSAM")

No, you have talked past my actual comment, inserted your own "control dissent, remain in power" purpose for this instead of what I actually said in my comment.

I didn't claim "there are no problems that can be solved or goals achieved by means of mass/total surveillance". My topic was societal problems. The political dilemma "how do I retain power and curtail disagreement?" isn't in this category.

No, you are talking past the point of the poster to whom you are replying.

"The issue is that there is a place where this model ~is working. It's in China and Russia. The GFW, its Russian equivalent, and the national security laws binding all of their tech companies and public discussion do exactly these things in a way that has allowed their leadership to go unchallenged for decades now.

The rest of the world isn't stupid or silly for suggesting these policies. They're following a proven effective model for the outcomes they are looking for.

We do ourselves a disservice by acting like there is some inherent flaw in it."

I stand by my comment that these technologies are doing exactly what they are intended for.

Right there are no pedos or child abuse in Russia and China? I kinda doubt it.

"proven effective model" -- lol what?

This is simply not true, this is Western paranoid fantasy. It's also the kind of fantasy that allows escalation of surveillance and censorship. You should look up the "missile gap."

Also, Russian and especially Chinese leadership doesn't go unchallenged. Chinese leadership has had many transitions. While Putin has squatted on the leadership of Russia for a very long time now, it isn't because he's not popular, and he's forced to do a lot of things he'd rather not do because of pressure on his leadership.

How do the neoliberal rulers in the West stay on top with extreme minorities of popular support, like in France or the UK? Why does popular opinion have no effect on the politics of the US*, and why are its politics completely run by two private clubs with the same billionaire financial supporters (that also finance politics all over the rest of the West)? How do they do it without massive surveillance, censorship and information control? Or a better question: how can we be given the evidence of massive surveillance efforts and huge operations dedicated to censorship and information control, over and over again, and still point to the East when we talk about the subject? Isn't that "whataboutism"?

* "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens" https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592714001595

Chinese Communist Party leadership had many transitions before Xi Jinping purged all rivals and alternative power centers, and personally took control of all key decision making. It will be "interesting" to see what happens when he finally dies.

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