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Chat control


Pandora's iPhone, by Stuart Carlson, 2016. Still spot-on in 2026:

A backdoor for the good guys simply does not exist. Once you build it, hackers walk through, authoritarian governments walk through, and the rest follows.

The UK is pressuring for chat control right now. EU Chat Control initiatives keep popping up. We need to keep saying NO to this!

in reply to rikviergever

What’s the ETC or behind it? What else could be worse?

And why isn’t the FBI part of the repressive regimes man?

in reply to Domino

why isn’t the FBI part of the repressive regimes man?


Or the hackers

in reply to Domino

the cia? oligarch pedophiles?
This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to Domino

I guess the difference is that FBI makes Apple install the backdoors, while the rest of the bigger guys just reap the spoils afterwards.
in reply to Domino

It's a respectable and necessary "intelligence agency" when we do it, nefarious and unjust spying when they do it. Same old propaganda.
in reply to rikviergever

This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to dropdrip

Really great comment! I do not agree with the edit, tho. Apple's dude is the one with they on his and, on an Apple device. Doesn't look like Apple is depicted as an innocent agent here, to me
in reply to dropdrip

me and a lot of us on lemmy do whenever possible.

the problem comes from the societal changes that spawn off of that shit when most normies are using it and/or don't care.

like how i can be super careful i don't upload my picture, but then the first normie takes it and my face is suddenly on a database. or public surveillance camers etc.

or how facebook mindrot culture is now mainstream even if i don't use it.

This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to ☂️-

This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to dropdrip

i wholeheartedly agree with you. my great question is how.

how the fuck we take computing back and convince a critical mass of people this is wrong as fuck? because it looks like we are barely able to resist.

in reply to ☂️-

in reply to rikviergever

"Authoritarian governments" as if the US is isn't exactly fucking that
in reply to Amnesigenic

I think it's more like a "protest the regime and have a 50+% chance of getting executed for it" thing
in reply to couldhavebeenyou

And the odds of getting killed at a protest here are what, only 30%? Bullshit. It's a propaganda thing, the US has always been a violent repressive menace to world peace.
in reply to Amnesigenic

I pray you understand I'm trying to create a picture that's comprehensible for the average. ml user here
in reply to couldhavebeenyou

What you think/claim you're doing doesn't matter at all, this is presenting the US federal government as less of a threat to our privacy than some other "repressive regime" somewhere else in the world and that's 100% bullshit
in reply to Amnesigenic

Ah yes those people worried about getting executed for opposing their government face the same threat as someone in the US worried for their privacy

One struggle

in reply to couldhavebeenyou

People in the US are summarily executed by law enforcement without consequence, pretty well documented actually
in reply to Amnesigenic

Are they legally executing people protesting the government at a comparable rate to, say, Iran or Saudi Arabia?
in reply to couldhavebeenyou

Definitely higher than Iran, possibly lower than Saudi Arabia lol
in reply to Amnesigenic

Iran is executing about 100 prisoners per month. How many do you have the US at?
in reply to couldhavebeenyou

"Of course Iran is worse than the US, this extremely well documented US propaganda operation told me so"
This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to couldhavebeenyou

"Oh yeah well it's not happening every day" dude it's fine that there are groups of people in the US who fear execution by their government who you forgot about. Nobody remembers everyone all the time, but it's weird to get argumentative and start moving goalposts about it.
This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to Amnesigenic

The odds of getting killed at a protest aren't 30%. If that were true we would have hundreds of thousands dead each year.
in reply to LesserAbe

Based on what? Statistics provided by the same government we're talking about?
in reply to Amnesigenic

It's a ridiculous claim. If it were 30%, even just off anecdotal data from social media, people you know at work, friends, you would hear about tons of people dying. I've been to numerous protests, I would have personally seen dozens to thousands of people dead.
in reply to LesserAbe

And the 50% claim I'm responding to is no less ridiculous or baseless, the difference in how people respond to them is pure chauvinism
in reply to Amnesigenic

You said, "And the odds of getting killed at a protest here are what, only 30%? Bullshit. It's a propaganda thing, the US has always been a violent repressive menace to world peace."

The U.S. has done many reprehensible things. But I'm talking about your specific claim that the odds of getting killed at a protest in the U.S. are 30%, which is false.

in reply to Amnesigenic

"Public forum discussions aren't just about persuading the person you're interacting with directly, they're about persuading every single person who reads that interaction for as long as it exists. The only reason not to try is because you suspect you'll come out of it looking worse to observers, not just losing the argument with one person but inadvertently reinforcing their position to third parties and popularizing their views over your own."
in reply to jaybone

Public forum discussions aren't just about persuading the person you're interacting with directly, they're about persuading every single person who reads that interaction for as long as it exists. The only reason not to try is because you suspect you'll come out of it looking worse to observers, not just losing the argument with one person but inadvertently reinforcing their position to third parties and popularizing their views over your own.
in reply to LesserAbe

Allow me to facetiously talk about the US the way people from this country typically talk about the DPRK:

How do we know they don't kill hundreds of thousands of protestors a year? The repressive ~~government~~ regime hides any information that makes it look bad, such as job reports, climate reports, and war casualties. They've got concentration camps all over and people dissappear all the time. There's just no way we can trust their numbers.

This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to couldhavebeenyou

Something which the good people at Radio Free Asia have assured me is totally real and definitely happens
This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to Amnesigenic

Authoritarian? The US currently even outscored North Corea.
in reply to Zerush

Outscored where? Based on what?
This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to Zerush

I'm not saying I don't believe the US has repressive policies, but I am questioning any source that claims to have detailed enough info about NK internal policy to accurately rank them compared to other countries
in reply to Amnesigenic

The thing is, being repressive becomes more and more expensive past a certain point. It's not cheap being the prison capital of the world or building a surveillance state. The US is one of the only countries that can even afford to do as much repression as it does.
in reply to queermunist she/her

That's why we use our prison population for slave labor, helps to offset the cost!
in reply to Amnesigenic

Maybe to some extent, but prison slavery only provides about $9 billion in services and produces over $2 billion in goods annually.

For comparison, the total cost of the U.S. prison system is approximately $445 billion annually.

in reply to queermunist she/her

Sure, but that's why we are the only country in the world to charge prisoners hundreds of dollars a day for the privilege of being in prison, on top of the price gouging for basic services.
in reply to queermunist she/her

Absolutely correct! Tbf I did say it helps to offset the cost, not that it's anywhere near profitable
in reply to rikviergever

The problem is, that nearly no OS is perfect. Even grapheneOS and copperheadOS.
If a three letter agency wants to get access to the systems running a privacy OS, they will somehow get it. Who should block the door to the devs home? They raid them, acquire the signing keys with their methods and deploy a backdoor in the next OTA update.

It is always about thread level and alternative options. If they get Apple, you move to Android, then to graphene, then to sailfishOS and whatever comes next. If you care about it.
But the thing is…. Who cares?
Privacy and security enthusiast, for sure.
Freedom of the press people? Hopefully
But these people don’t always know about that shit, and those are to protect.

in reply to rikviergever

that’s a good image to convey the message to people propagandized by the us, but yes, "fbi" and "repressive regimes" are one and the same here

your domestic government poses much more of a threat to your privacy than some foreign "repressive regime" far away

in reply to Chloé 🥕

I took it as “repressive regime” to mean the administration itself, (not some foreign government), as in more normal times the fbi was a separate entity. And would even investigate the president for crimes. But given the current consolidation of power and that checks and balances have been compromised, I suppose the distinction is moot now.
in reply to mistermodal

A famous Carlos cartoon from long before the adoption of AI?

Doubtful.

in reply to el_abuelo

I never said it was AI slop but that's an etymologically interesting thing you've got going on there, if I was a scientist I'd look into it
in reply to rikviergever

My conspiracy mind sometimes thinks that Apple has said backdoor and has given the keys, but plays a pretend game with the govt as if they didn't
in reply to rikviergever

The world is so vast and complicated, you just cant comprehend what good things your representatives are trying to do for you with your simple, tired, working class, simple brain.

Its hard work running a government, not that you would ever know because youre not in the big club. That's why good things are hard to accomplish.

Your government loves you so much its worked its butt off towards this common goal with other nation states across the world simultaneously. Why arent you grateful?

Now go on back to your increasingly more expensive apartment, you got to get a lot to do before you get to your shift at your 3rd part time job. Oh and the retirement age went up again. Youre welcome.

This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to rikviergever

Is really sad when a company is forced to install a backdoor like that, kill all their revenue, how they will sell all your data if the buyer can get it for free? Poor companies.
in reply to rikviergever

The FBI and others have had the open back door to iPhones for years.
in reply to Dale

as per the snowden leaks!

they apparently need even more

This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to rikviergever

Love the weird scale of threat depicted here.

-smol bean megacorporation

-regular bean fbi man

-Big Hacker, the big hacker lobbyist

-giant evil FOREIGNER with their evil UNIFORM and MEDALS

-ect, other guys, artist kind of blew his load drawing all those evil medals

Like the scale implies I should be most worried about the biggest guy, but I live in America. The feds are the biggest threat to me. You can tell this wasn't drawn by a leftist because...well, almost everything, but mostly because of how normal they seem to think the FBI is, and how small a deal being spied on by them apparently is compared to being spied on by someone that doesn't have the capacity to send a death squad to my apartment at any moment.

in reply to RiverRock

Yeah the choice of scale is very weird, why are hackers larger than the FBI? Also doesn't really seem mutually exclusive
in reply to Hypocrite9554

Because whoever made this (naively) trusts their government
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to RiverRock

That's only because the FBI guy and the Oppressive Regime guy have become the same guy
in reply to Thesilverpig

Probably more of a "Corporate wants you to find the difference..." than the astronaut one.
in reply to RiverRock

I also love the idea that all these people are waiting, specifically, for YOUR phone. This is masterful propaganda. Only thing missing is Putin drawn with bat wings, bloody fangs, and black eyes, and Zelensky as an angel blocking Putin.
in reply to rikviergever

This illustration is completely wrong.

The man representing hackers isn't in a fur suit.

in reply to Rcklsabndn

Furries never hurt anyone. We don't bite hard 🤭🦊
in reply to rikviergever

Apple only needs to push a dodgy software update to the phone.. No need for a backdoor. All phones are registered with Apple so they know who to push to
in reply to rikviergever

Always keep in mind that your own state is almost always the group of actors having the most power over you. They are the ones who can hurt you or just make you jump though an infinite amount of hoops without any fear of consequence.

Normal people really can just ignore everyone who is or comes after "Hackers". Focus on your own government. That's where the real risks are.

in reply to rikviergever

"If you don't have anything to hide, why would you be against this?" -- Americans
in reply to SnarkoPolo

Agreed! Police will now be going through the streets daily. If they find your front door locked, you're going on a list, because you're clearly hiding something.
in reply to rikviergever

If you need a Chat use the anonymous securebit.chat/, showing the middle finger to control initiatives.
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to Zerush

I think reinventing SimpleX Chat is already a lost cause