European Commission to Release Draft Law Enforcing Mandatory Detection of Child Sexual Abuse Material on Digital Platforms

[siddavis]

Read this : https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/world/europe/12iht-food.4.17771299.html
And these are just a few examples. They have tens of thousands of people working full time on similarly idiotic ideas.

Control here, control there, control everywhere.

 

[siddavis]

Ok but it’s not Brussels making these decisions.
It’s a group of people that are made up of representatives from each member state.
If you ignore the fact that the operational office is Brussels, (at any one particular time and certainly not forever), and just concentrate on the fact that a decision might need agreement from all or a significant proportion of those involved does that still qualify as centralised?

Just because people vote for tyranny does not transform it to something other than tyranny.

 

[randomgeeza]

Do the people of the EU get to vote for the representation in the EU?

No they don't... And it was that, along with other things that prompted Brexit.

 

[centauratlas]

From a technical perspective, this would not work. A simple hash scan would be ineffective. If you used a hash, changing a single pixel would break it. What would need to be done would be to change the image into a vector, then train ML software to rotate, scale and compare that vector to a very large database. This would result in a very large percentage of false positives. When you had a positive, you would need to upload the original non vectored image and have a human compare it to the suspected child porn image. As most of these false positives would be very intimate images, this would be an extreme violation of privacy.

It is more of a fuzzy hash. This has more technical details:

PhotoDNA - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

It is still a bad idea given the use it could be out for tanks, Winnie the Pooh and tigger, ducks etc. but it is more robust than some other hashing algorithms.

 

[siddavis]

That's how it works in the United States too. Each state gets two members in the Senate. (The equivalent to the upper house of Parliament.) The Lower House (We call it the House of Representatives) is based off of population. All this leads to states with very low populations having many more votes in presidential elections. (In the United States, the low population states tend to have much lower levels of education and much higher levels of poverty. They are generally failed states. The residents of these states tend to base most of their decisions on religion.) On top of all this, almost nothing can pass the Senate without a 60% majority, effectively giving the minority party the right to veto all legislation.

Ugh... so much condescension and lack of understanding WHY it was structured this way in the US.
It was designed to decentralize power/control AND ensure that mob rule would not prevail.

 

[ct2k7]

No they don't... And it was that, along with other things that prompted Brexit.

What I really don't understand about people is that they complain about the lack of representation whilst making no effort to improve their situation.

Brexit was and is a somewhat complicated subject. You'll always get Farage complaining about the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels whilst completely forgetting what happens in his own country.

 

[mzeb]

At least this time it is a government entity passing laws rather than a private company.
Still, this is trading the freedom to privacy for many for the security of a few. “Those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither.”
Yes, this is a problem that needs to be solved but how about going after the creators of this content? That is a far greater evil as I see it and solves the problems of both the creation and consumption.

 

[justperry]

Normally I defend the EU with lots of laws, this time however I totally disagree, what a horrible draft.

 

[jimbobb24]

The problem with tech companies is that they were warned by the EC (European Commission) many years ago that were to improve their systems to prevent their online system(s) from being misued for the purposes of sharing child sexual abuse content. Basically it was the EC's way of say 'voluntarity come up with a way to prevent child sexual abuse content from appearing on your systems otherwise we will be forced to do it for you'.

Now a few years after that warning, the tech companies have not done enough to prevent child sexual abuse content from appearing on their systems and the EC are now taking further action. The tech companies have only got themselves to blame. They was warned to come up with solutions to prevent child sexual abuse content from appearing on their systems and they have not done so, they have dragged their feet, not done enough so the EU has now decided to step in and do it for them.

Do not blame the EC for this, this is clearly the fault of the tech companies for not doing enough. The EC warned them there was a problem with child sexual abuse content appearing on their systems and they needed to do something about it. They have not done so.

Nor should they ever. Monitoring content is not their job. It’s like if the EU told them to listen to all their phone calls and read all the texts looking for terrorists. The correct response is to tell the EU to pound sand.

Get a warrant if you want to search but mass surveillance is every govts dream. They always have a reason they need to watch you … the children is just as wrong as any other one.

 

[ackmondual]

There was a news bit about 15 years ago where Google called law enforcement because one of their users used Gmail to send child porn. I'm wondering what the EU has in store to further some of those efforts

Also not a fan. EU is doing too much As. Per usual. The EU doesnt know how to leave people alone. The its for a good cause is a terrible argument. Do the people of the EU get to vote for the representation in the EU?

EU has been "acting up" of lates. However, I'm in the US, and it's not like things are going well here, so "who am I to judge?"

 

[dk001]

So the EU wants E-E encryption for user privacy
So the EU doesn't want Apple's CSAM tool deployed
So the EU wants mandatory CSAM detection
So the Eu wants ... what? 😶

I need coffee ....

 

[ChromeAce]

As AI improves, it will soon be able to scan all content for pre-crime activity as well! Connect it to Musk’s NeuraLink and let’s get people arrested before they even think about defying authority!

 

[rme]

Nor should they ever. Monitoring content is not their job. It’s like if the EU told them to listen to all their phone calls and read all the texts looking for terrorists. The correct response is to tell the EU to pound sand.

Get a warrant if you want to search but mass surveillance is every govts dream. They always have a reason they need to watch you … the children is just as wrong as any other one.

NO-ONE there cares about child abuse. Hell... they had a open pedophile in their midst. He rose to the position of leader of the Greens party in the European Parliament. They want these powers to suppress opposition, create an atmosphere of fear.

 

[MLVC]

No they don't... And it was that, along with other things that prompted Brexit.

What kind of nonsense is this? Of course they do, they vote for the European Parliament, and the EP has to approve the European Commission (of which the members are appointed (not approved) by the democratically chosen leaders of the member states).

 

[JMacHack]

Ugh... so much condescension and lack of understanding WHY it was structured this way in the US.
It was designed to decentralize power/control AND ensure that mob rule would not prevail.

For people who typically claim to be against classism, they seem to think it’s fair game when poor people in states that don’t agree with them vote.

 

[RalfTheDog]

Ugh... so much condescension and lack of understanding WHY it was structured this way in the US.
It was designed to decentralize power/control AND ensure that mob rule would not prevail.

It was done that way because, slave owning states wanted to make sure the civilized parts of the country could not outlaw slavery.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

From a technical perspective, this would not work. A simple hash scan would be ineffective. If you used a hash, changing a single pixel would break it. What would need to be done would be to change the image into a vector, then train ML software to rotate, scale and compare that vector to a very large database. This would result in a very large percentage of false positives. When you had a positive, you would need to upload the original non vectored image and have a human compare it to the suspected child porn image. As most of these false positives would be very intimate images, this would be an extreme violation of privacy.

The idea is that it’s exceedingly unlikely that a single person would be able to have a number of false matches in one library, not that they find one potential match and raise the red flags. As such, as it’s been considered, it’s effective enough. One way this could absolutely fail would be if someone carefully created test images such that they are designed to be false matches. Of course, in order to do so, they’d have to have both the specifics of the hash AND the original images they’re trying to test to create a false match for.

And, of course, if a user has the original images… that they’re trying to make a false match for… then, I mean, that would actually the user the process is designed to catch!

 

[Analog Kid]

So the EU wants E-E encryption for user privacy
So the EU doesn't want Apple's CSAM tool deployed
So the EU wants mandatory CSAM detection
So the Eu wants ... what? ?

relevance

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Also not a fan. EU is doing too much As. Per usual. The EU doesnt know how to leave people alone. The its for a good cause is a terrible argument. Do the people of the EU get to vote for the representation in the EU?

Yes, of course they do. Indirectly through voting for their own government.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Careful with having an opinion around here. MR don’t love that; you may get a temporary ban for such. Live in the EU and hate the EU. Centralised power corrupts. If child porn was the issue we’d know Maxwell’s client list and the court case transcript would be made public. Alas, child porn only matters when the perps are not wealthy and powerful.

Yah, the MacRumors Ministry of Truth is watching, with its finger poised on the ban button at all times.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

If the EU really cared about child porn, it would start with locking up a big fat chunk of the Catholic Church.

 

[Schismz]

It's governments wanting to track&control what you think. Read 1984.

Comrade you have wandered over to WrongThink, I have no option but to report you to the Ministry of Truth. Outreach from the Ministry of Love will arrive shortly to help you readjust your thinking.

Uhm, wow, just thinking what 90s me would think of right now. We've come a very long way from the internet is cool! to... this. And the iPhone? It used to be this incredibly awesome device I really loved. My relationship with my phone totally changed last year to the point where I just view it as a surveillance device 99 different companies, our government, and whomever has access to Pegasus, is sifting through.

It's reached the point where I have 2 phones. A GrapheneOS device which works just fine for most things, and an iPhone I leave laying on the desk as often as possible.

Anyway, as long as it keeps the children safe! Because... we deeply, truly, really care about the children, which is why Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein's client list is being actively pursued and brought to justice! Oh, no, wait, it's not. Everybody just ignored that.

I ❤️ and strongly support The Current Thing! Whatever it is this week.

 

[inkswamp]

Disclaimer: I know nothing about how AI technology works, but I do know that AI can only do what it does if it's fed a whole lot of sample data. That said, how exactly does one train an AI system to recognize this kind of material?

 

[hans1972]

Many posting above assume that Apple's local CSAM-detecting spying software is a response to pressure from governments like the US and EU. Perhaps.

Apple was given an almost direct warning by US senators in a Senate hearing where at least one senator threatened to make laws dictating Apple and others to implement such features.

 

[hans1972]

Disclaimer: I know nothing about how AI technology works, but I do know that AI can only do what it does if it's fed a whole lot of sample data. That said, how exactly does one train an AI system to recognize this kind of material?

You either train on this material or you use Apple's method which didn't require any training on the material only hashing.