alt Hacker NewsThe Going Dark initiative or ProtectEU is a Chat Control 3.0 attempt
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The cycle of proposing the same surveillance legislation under different names is exhausting. Chat Control, ProtectEU, Going Dark - same invasive proposals, different branding.
What's particularly concerning is the metadata retention scope: "which websites you visit, and who is communicating with whom, when and how often" with "the broadest possible scope of application" including VPN services. This isn't about protecting children or fighting terrorism anymore - it's about normalizing mass surveillance through legislative attrition. Keep proposing it until opposition fatigues and it slips through.
The only sustainable solution is enshrining privacy rights into constitutional law with penalties for repeated attempts to circumvent them. Otherwise we'll be fighting Chat Control 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 forever.
Until people lobby for these privacy rights to be enshrined in law, this will continue to be a problem.
Defeating one bad law isn't enough.
If Mullvad could bother to link to this supposed "Presidency outcome paper" that would be great, after extensive searches on Concilium and eur-lex I have no idea what that is supposed to reference.
In any case here's the actual "ProtectEU" text the Comission sent on the first of April which contains most of the text Mullvad is quoting from the "presidency outcome paper": https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...
As a bonus, here's input report listing the problems that are supposed to be solved: https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/document/download/05963640...
This is from the introduction:
> Access to this data is understood as access granted to law enforcement subject to judicial authorisation when required, in the context of criminal investigations and on a case-by-case basis. As a rule, in the cases where such judicial authorisation is necessary due to the sensitive nature of the data in question, it represents an integral part of the applicable legal and operational framework for facilitating access to this data by law enforcement. Access to data on behalf of law enforcement authorities must be achieved in full respect of data protection, privacy, and cybersecurity legislation, as well as the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) case-law on these matters and applicable standards on procedural safeguards.
In the ancient Greek colony of Locri, any who proposed a new law would do so with a rope around their neck, if the law was voted down, they would get hanged.
Food for thought.
And hopefully this gets voted down like all the other laws. Even if it passes, it will probably be repealed or just not enforced within some member nations.
At least this is talked about and discussed... unlike in China, or Russia, or the US's own 20+-years-and-still-going-patriot act.
The way to stop it is to introduce a law that does exactly the opposite: that encrypted communication is always protected and should always be protected and that no legislation shall be introduced that weakens these technical guarantees.
That way, it essentially has to do a two step solution, of repealing the previous law that prohibits it, and then introducing their own.
Well, Chat Control was approved by the Council, so I can't wait for the time Going Dark is also approved by ot.
EU, a democracy idol, now turning into a fascism idol.
These lobbyists will never give up. This is one reason why the EU in its current form simply does not work.
I love The Internet, it came into my life as I became an adult, I’ve watched it change the world, and I find attempts to lock it down to be abhorrent.
I also grew up in a world where intelligence fieldcraft was an in-person activity where it was just about possible for one side to keep track of the other side, or at least hold some kind of leverage, counter-leverage, and counter-counter-leverage to stop the Cold War getting out of control.
The internet, as well as giving us all this freedom to communicate, also gave the Controls of this world — high level intelligence officers based in their home countries but directing operations overseas — a wonderful new lever to influence, harass, and sabotage. Why burn an agent when you can find a useful idiot in a foreign country to agitate on your behalf?
I sympathize with nation states’ urge to be able to see what’s going on online, but I hate the way they’re going about it. How do we balance a free Internet against a need to crack down on foreign influence?
How long before the EU comes out with a social credit system like China?
How long before the EU has its own version of China's Great Firewall?
VPN is a trust exercise, but, I’m sure if Mullvlad isn’t the best out there, they’re far from the worst.
Like, whos is pushing this shit? Who exactly is it that wants this? Which individuals?
So, they succeed and repeal it a third time. What can be done to stop them from trying again and again and again until they get away with it?
I once liked the EU. Well still do it because of the east to travel without borders. But it's leadership is something dangerous and may shape to some form of dictatorship or entity that does not serve its people. But a small minority consisting out of some large companies.
> The EU Commission and several member states are also looking for new rules on data retention. In a new ”Presidency outcome paper”, the member states discuss metadata retention: which websites you visit, and who is communicating with whom, when and how often. The ambition is “to have the broadest possible scope of application” and this time some member states also want the proposal to include VPN services.
Well... Until people will react protecting their own interests we will only go in a death spiral.
Only recently have we witnessed, particularly in the EU but also in the US and Canada, the blocking of personal bank accounts of individuals who were simply "inconvenient" to the ruling class, from Wikileaks to OnlyFans creators, Francesca Albanese, Frédéric Baldan, Jacques Baud, and various players in the crypto world, all without trial, without any crime committed, just unwelcome.
This makes it clear that for Democracy to exist, a balance of power is needed, including internal balance, which requires that the population remains outside the potential control of the State to preserve a significant degree of freedom. Privacy is one of these fundamental freedoms, like freedom of speech, because the ideas circulating can be dangerous, but it is far more dangerous to have someone with the power to prevent ideas and news from circulating.
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To be honest, I think VPN businesses and specifically politically charged ones like Mullvad is doing disservice for the security of the country and specifically EU in this case.
I think the right course of action should be a political activism, not a technological one. Especially when the company doing it makes a fortune.
The course, when one can just disengage from participating in society by sidestepping the problems by either using VPNs in terms of censorship or by using Crypto in case of regulations is very dangerous and will reinforce the worst trends.
Finally such person will still have to rely on the community around for physical protection to live.
So instead of speaking from the high ground, please, tell us what your solution about mass disinformation happening from US social media megacorps, Russia mass disinformation, mass recruitment of people for sabotage on critical infrastructure.
Tell us, how can we keep living in free society when this freedom is being used as a leverage by forces trying to destroy your union.
I just want to remind you that dismantling EU is strategic goal of the US, Russia and China.
Please, give us your political solutions to the modern problems instead of earning a fortune by a performance free speech activism.
The problem with "child abuse" is that some countries classify drawing things as "child abuse," or "rape," or "animal abuse." (Something I don't agree with.)
I mentioned in another thread a few weeks back that I got raided by the British police last February for "uploading/downloading "illegal" anime artwork on one of the (anime) artwork websites we're criminally investigating." (Yes, the British police are criminally investigating artwork websites, and I'm still under investigation at the time of writing this.)
Even if somehow the government were able to catch everybody who abuse children, take photos and upload them to sites on Tor, they can classify anything they like as "child abuse" in order to justify survillancing people and restricting further freedoms.
What's even sadder is that people don't care about safety. They care about the illusion of safety. As long as people have the illusion that they're being kept safe - the farce known as the Online Safety Bill being a great example - they'll tolerate any injustice.
Honestly, I'd recommend downloading software like Signal, Session, VeraCrypt, etc. as well as making a Linux USB stick now (especially since countries like the UK wants Red Star OS levels of snooping) because this is honestly going to get much, much worse...