What's new with "earn it" / "chat control" and impact on free software with and to and encryption?

22

Governments all across the world, including both the the US and the EU, have recently been proposing devastating anti-privacy laws. They will be able to monitor every part of our digital lives if they get their way. Given how completely technology has been entwined with our civilization, we might as well refer to our governments as gods once they obtain this power.

But that’s not the scariest part: it appears that we all secretly want it. Think about it. If we honestly did not want governments to become gods, we would fight these laws with everything we have.

  • They’d be discussed nonstop on social media practically everywhere.

  • Banners condemning them would appear all over the Web, much like they did in the fight against SOPA and the loss of Net Neutrality.

  • Encrypted messengers like Signal would be warning users in every way conceivable, up to and including persistent nag bars in actual apps.

  • Last but not least, people would take to the streets to oppose them, again, just as they did against SOPA and the repeal of Net Neutrality.

Here’s how it’s done:

800×626 180 KB

However, nothing like this is taking place. There are no street protests or online banners. As if these laws aren’t an apocalyptic threat, pro-privacy organizations like the EFF and FSF merely post regular news items on them, which are then knocked off the front page by new ones. Even conspiracy theorists seem strangely silent on the topic…

Let’s face reality. No matter what we say or think, deep in our hearts we all love our governments and fully trust them to love us back and care for us. They’ve always been our gods, in a sense. Praise be the government!

23

But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

24
25

anyone wishing to participate in this petition can follow this link.

26

F-Droid should:

  • Remove all references to privacy.

  • Remove the “Tracking” anti-feature.

  • On its website, encourage people to search deep within themselves and realize that they love their governments and consider them gods.

Think about it. If people were so opposed to governments acting as gods, projects like Matrix, Monero, Signal, and Tor would do all they could to raise awareness of the current spate of anti-encryption legislation, up to and including adding nag bars to their apps. Both online and offline, people would fight tooth and nail.

But nothing like this is happening. It’s time to confront the truth. We will not prevent 1984 from coming true not because we can’t, but because we won’t. After all, we all worship the government deep down.

27

people would fight tooth and nail.

codepink dot org

  • It appears in the photo to be actually a small, symbolic-only protest, with minimal “diversity”; not a large rally with wide support.

  • Their site, like so many others, forbids my access over Tor, which means they do not respect privacy like they say.

  • Bigger issue: Internet is failing: Some thought bringing worldwide communication was the purpose. Maybe divide/surveil/conquer was the real goal. (Reference: internet balkanization)

  • 98-99% of people are more or less content with GAFAM etc. We are outliers.

  • Bigger bigger issues: war, economy, …

Edit: "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” Scott McNealy, 1999 (https://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/578408/scott-mcnealy-privacy-still-don-t-any/ )

1 Like
28

Looking back I made a post about raising awareness but honeatly, this is nothing new at all. There was media coverage about it loud as Covid and Russia + Ukraine war at obe point when whistle blowers like Snowden, Manning, the journalist Assange and more. Nobody damn cared about it but us who have been online for years and saw it coming long before it seems. The average newer smartphone/tablet user’s just ignored it or could never believe it’s a big deal at all and our government loves us.

I know many wont agree with me but bringing up the US’s Net Neutrality “Government Law” believing it did any good for us was just a beg for them to take more privacy away and at the time it was in place, that’s exactly what happened. Every large ISP and many smaller ones had DPI setup but not for our good of delivering out equality but sniffing through our traffic, rendering encrypted DNS useless if they decided to sniff.
And broadband internet is still missing all over, which I don’t believe the bill even included anything about making ISP’s expand coverage but many claim it did. The internet capital of the world itself has gaps all over with no land based internet, it’s pathetic.

I’m for Net Neutrality, but not the kind that includes giving the very crooked FCC more power than government should have in businesses that ALL of our information goes through in the actual hope of them to do something to better us civilian’s lives by way of saving money and getting better Internet access is a fairy tale in my eye’s.
It’s not even Net Neutrality too me.

Since im not posting sources right now and typing in between jobs lol, so just assume then that’s what allowed them too easier collect personal information from an Information Service (Early 2000 Name change) by having more governing by the FCC. Also the famous government use their own words and vague term’s that changed Telecommunications Company into an Information/Broadband Service Company or w/e gave its own new set of regulations with the name, making it even easier to move in thre opposite direction of net neutrality.
And from all that’s been done to destroy our freedoms like privacy, we are now hoping that the government is yet again going to protect our children from sick pedophiles. But in order to do so they just need a quick peek into our entire devices which hold most peoples most personal data. Okay, its for the children now, were safe from middle eastern terrorists now. Pedophile’s and Domestic Terrorist’s are all thats left… Sorry, radicals delighting misinformation and fake news as well. Im nog sure if they are domestic terrorists or white supremacist’s, maybe they are Kremlin agents.

And ir will go on and on like this until it stops for good because there’s nothkng left thats only yours.

If you remember, the Internet is stupid and and e2e. It couldn’t be the disaster it is now if the same data sent from user a was the same data user b received. Just like a telephone call, being only 2 users and no one and nothing in the middle to alter your words or voice.

We gave it all away while it was being stolen and most didn’t care or realize it. Silly Siri’s…

This isnt a rant btw but i aee it is sonewhat of a longer post than most want to see today. Which is another thjng I don’t understand lol
Sorry for any typos or grammer mistakes, as said i had to type while traveling between jobs. And no im not driving.

29

There’s a possibility for public feedback regarding “chatcontrol” on the EU page:

30

Ashton Kutcher, actor, CIA fan…, his foundation’s analysis software shall run on European smartphones:

Kutcher CIA
Kutcher CIA614×901 56.5 KB

31

It doesn’t look good:

  • The Free Software Movement has lost its most critical battle: the mobile. Custom ROMs are becoming increasingly difficult to find as smartphones and tablets become increasingly locked down. I’m terrified to think of what cyborg implants will be like, and they’re coming soon…

  • The vision of a free and open Web has been destroyed, with Google now controlling it entirely; Mozilla, its guardian angel, has devolved into an anti-user husk that Google only keeps alive to avoid antitrust lawsuits.

  • Cryptocurrency has failed to free us from central banking and become useable everyday money, has solely benefited the wealthy, and has been a disaster for the environment.

  • Despite Edward Snowden’s revelations, all of the surveillance abuses we’ve seen over the years, and the continual barrage of dystopian fiction, persuading normal people to care about their privacy remains a near-impossible task.

  • Worst of all, our will to fight has vanished. Do you recall how the whole Internet rose in opposition to SOPA? They’re now proposing even worse laws, and the response has been dead silence…

It’s time to confront the facts: we’re nothing more than billionaires’ cattle. All of our gains in human liberty will be undone shortly.

From here, it’s all downhill. The majority of humankind will very likely be replaced by robots, leaving the others to suffer in a dystopian nightmare until their very humanity is taken away by implants or genetic modification…

Our current era of relative freedom is drawing to a close…

2 Likes
32

Yeah the EU probosed something like that too and even the childrights activist(ir however theyre called in englisch) said that the law is bullshit

Germany tried to block that law but belgium are trieing to collect all data of EU users with the “Voratsdatenspeicherung” law

33

Wow! That’s a lot to take in. I don’t think living is a waste of time though lol!

34

The bill is almost through, and the objections from civil rights organizations are being ignored…

US and EU will follow suit.

It’s pretty obvious that the client-side scanning plan won’t work unless all non-backdoored or jailbroken devices are blocked from the Internet, forcibly backdoored, or confiscated.

And yet, even sites like PrivacyGuides are talking about things like Meta’s Threads as if there’s no impending apocalypse… I thought by now, anyone who cares about privacy would have pinned calls to action against these bills on their websites and social media.

Remember the huge uproar over SOPA and Net Neutrality repeal? But there doesn’t seem to be any similar campaigns being planned to try and save what little is left of our tech freedom.

It seems that all the FOSS and privacy groups secretly believe in the absolute goodness of the West and its ability to handle such immense power, despite saying otherwise.

If that’s the case, I have a suggestion for a new app label (assuming F-Droid is even allowed to exist in this new world):

Benevolent Surveillance

This app scans all your private online chats to keep kids safe, prevent terrorism, and stop illegal drug deals, as the law demands.

I know that benevolent surveillance isn’t an anti-feature, so it doesn’t technically need a badge. But I still think it’s worth adding to celebrate the awesome and incorruptible nature of loving and caring Western democracies.

35

Who’s gonna save us? The same gov’s that push this legislation?

Maybe we didn’t read the same post? Here, read again: Threads Is the Perfect Twitter Alternative, Just Not for You - Privacy Guides also lookup “sarcasm”…

36

Finally got what I wanted! It took so long, but I finally got a straight answer. Kind of.

Not the usual non-answers like “out of project scope” (come on, this apocalypse deserves an exception) or “links are too hard” (seriously?), or even “go protest yourself” (what can a nobody do?), or “you’re dumb” (but we won’t explain why, haha).

So, the answer, it seems, really is just overwhelming despair. Well, at least we’re not dealing with brainwashing or mass blackmail. Maybe…

37

I think that all the attacks on privacy like chat control, practical prohibition of encryption or the coming forced publication of medical data (EHDS) are not only part of an effort to take control of the digital world, but to majorize the analog identity by the digital imprint.
At the end the bits and bytes could become more important than the actual person.
As long as a majority is putting Alexa and the like into their places themselves, there is little left to withdraw to.

38

My brother F-Droid is the opposition, apps, repos, FOSS.

XMPP is the opposition, hosting, guiding new users, taking care of apps.

Me/others zealot-ing for/on these communities is the protest.

You want more?

Effing do more yourself, how many did you get off Discord? How many use Monal instead of Whatsapp to talk to you? How many install apps from F-Droid at your recommendation?

But pretty please… don’t go on about not “seeing” the work being done. Specially when “the adversaries” have literally billions and/or guns.

1 Like