WingNews

dobremeno|7 months ago

Not just in Europe, in the US too - Roman Storm is on trial as of last week for building a privacy tool that ended up getting used by criminals.

Not much good coverage on it out there apart from the great work by The Rage journalists.

omdv|7 months ago

will save a google search for some: - “privacy tool” == cryptocurrency mixer - “ended up getting used by criminals” == claimed to help launder $1b

Let’s just say it is in a different category than Alexandra Elbakyan.

buuuuutee|7 months ago

Roman Storm helped North Korea launder billions. That’s a bit different than average person just wanting a phone detached from the hivemind.

rdm_blackhole|7 months ago

Also to add to this discussion, to me, it makes zero sense that you would deploy such a system that could be weaponized by a rogue government to hunt down political opponents.

One could argue that they may very well think that this sort of thing could never happen, that the center will always prevail etc... but then again I remember seeing this video compilation of a lot of very confident people in the US saying that Trump would never be president a few months before the 2016 election, let alone be elected for a second term.

So that makes me think, how can they so confident that "the good guys" will always be in charge?

Because from where I am standing there is a massive chance that Reform will win in the UK and that the National Rally will win in France in 2027.

Nobody can say that they did not know.

heavyset_go|7 months ago

They don't care, what they're absolutely terrified is another Arab Spring happening at home.

The bet is that no matter who is in power, the ruling classes won't find themselves under the boot, which is a pretty good bet to make. Beats a revolution, in their eyes.

Ray20|7 months ago

>how can they so confident that "the good guys" will always be in charge?

They implement such systems precisely to always be in charge.

0points|7 months ago

> In particular as general population don't really care about it

> if some lobbies are pulling the strings

Sure looks like it. Many people don't understand the consequences of the ChatControl proposition (backdoors for governments into all messaging apps) [1].

Politicians insists it is only about protecting kids from predators online, but see for example Sweden:

* Police and secret police will have this access for swedish citizens.

* Secret police have an agreement with NSA about data sharing (see Snowden).

* NSA will end up storing all my DM:s.

* Another country also have an agreement with NSA about data sharing.

* This other country will find out about my sexual orientation or political beliefs the moment I board a plane to their country.

All of this will be outside of control from my country or the laws of my country (Sweden), that is supposed to protect my free speech [2] and anti discrimination laws [3].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_to_Prevent_and_Comb...

2: https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-och-lagar/dokument/sven...

3: https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-och-lagar/dokument/sven...

F*k Ylva Johansson:

> Research by several newspapers led to allegations of questionable connections between Johansson and her staff and companies that would benefit financially from her proposal, including Thorn and WeProtect.

> Johansson rejected the accusations as being untrue, true but not illegal and as not even being accusations.

> Her claim to have given data protection organizations the same access as to the backers of her proposal was rejected as untrue by several organizations and members of the EU parliament. Johansson reacted to growing rejection of her proposal by ordering commercial advertisement on Twitter paid for with EU funds. The advertisement was criticized as being misleading and illegal according to the EU's rules for targeted advertisement. [4]

4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ylva_Johansson#Surveillance_of...

jajko|7 months ago

One can't rely on some sort of 'decency' of a given country and hope for the best, that ship has long sailed.

You mention Sweden, I can easily also name Switzerland, the land of generally very decent, moral and polite people. Yet sometimes curtains falls off a bit and one can see how various police departments will do everything possible to track and follow people. Police are generally very nice but I've also seen some unprovoked brutality and generally less-than-stellar behavior by various authorities that should know and do better.

Protect what you can, while you can. No state is your friend, its not normally an outright enemy but rather a party focused on its own interests, your rights or needs be damned.

johnisgood|7 months ago

> This other country will find out about my sexual orientation or political beliefs the moment I board a plane to their country.

That is literally going to put people's lives at risk. Crazy.

edg5000|7 months ago

Agreed. Although to be the devil's advocate for a moment: Governments can currently easily tap email, and phone tapping is more feasible at scale due to machine transcription. So the apps gave use a temporary safe haven, which may get compromised by Chat Control. And before email we had mail, handled directly by the government, although reading mail is more difficult without leaving traces.

PeppySteppy|7 months ago

You are misleading by using "secret police" when what you are are looking for is the "security police".

Secret police definition [1]

> Secret police (or political police) are police, intelligence, or security agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, ideological, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.

Security police definition [2]

> In some countries, security police is the name given to the secret security and intelligence services charged with protecting the state at the highest level, including responsibilities such as personal protection of the head of state, counter-espionage, and anti-terrorism.

Specific example for Swedish 'Security Police'.[3] if you look up any EU agency with similar roles it will be found that they are all security, not secret.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_police

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_police

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Security_Service

rdm_blackhole|7 months ago

Of course lobbies are pulling the strings. That is a given.

But the more nefarious issue is that countries that use to uphold human rights and the rights to privacy for their citizens up until 10 to 15 years ago have made a complete U-turn.

And before someone says that this is due to the far-right getting into power, this has really nothing to do with it.

It simply is blatant attempt at muzzling the population. The worst part is that you still have European governments who feel the need to give lessons of democracy to China et al.

I could see how Hungary would want to get this passed because they are well on their way to authoritarianism but this proposal coming from the EU who is supposedly politically in the center, that makes zero sense.

graemep|7 months ago

> The worst part is that you still have European governments who feel the need to give lessons of democracy to China et al.

They need to highlight that we are nothing like as bad a China. We look good in comparison.

> this proposal coming from the EU who is supposedly politically in the center

Is it? Its the only country in the world with a constitutional commitment to privatisation (its in the treaties, which are the constitution, and came close to being called a constitution).