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EU To Monitor All Internet Searches
Xemu writes "The European Parliament is issuing a written declaration about the need to set up an early warning system to combat sexual child abuse. However, the substance of the declaration is to extend the EU data retention directive to search engines, so that all searches done on for example Google will be monitored. If you are a citizen concerned about the right to privacy and freedom on the Internet, you can help by sending e-mail to the MEPs from your country and explaining the issue to them."
If I see a crime I'm supposed to report it. But this system can't differentiate between someone looking for child porn, and someone who is trying to use their spare time to locate and report people who deal in child porn.
Basically, we're teaching the public to turn a blind eye. Together with the mandatory filters implemented in even my "free" country the problem is just being buried even deeper.
.: Max Romantschuk
God help you if you are researcher (private or government) and search for naughty terms. At my local library they tried this a few years ago and some high school girl almost arrested because she was searching for terms like 'child porn' and 'naked kids'. Turns out she was actually writing a report on how easy it was to find illicit porn online. She even made to the local talk show circuit for a while.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Actually, several MEPs have already retracted their signatures. They where asked to sign the declaration under false pretences. They where not told that the declaration included clauses about extending the data retention directive.
Though, if Pen and Tellers stunt where they pulled of a petition to ban di-hydrogen-monoxide, taught us anything is that we should not pay to much attention to petitions in general, and we should be a bit careful about what we sign. For MEPs, that include reading the entire declaration before signing, not just signing based on what he petitioner claims it is about.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
I almost got kicked out of college because I, from school, googled "6 year old girl in sundress." I was looking for reference images for finishing a photoshop painting of a man walking with his daughter on a beach. I had the beach, I had the man, the ice-cream he was holding and in the middle of class I goggle images of kids because the bone structure of kids is different than adults. 2 days later I'm in the deans office getting a "Letter" added to my records. I'm like WTF? Did they think I was looking at child porn in a room full of twenty three people and the only one who noticed was the IT filter? So it's on my permanent scripts now.
If I go to a 4 year program I have to hope they explained it well enough I'm not just denied for "viewing inappropriate material" on campus. My teacher even backed me up and explained he was in the class with me and that the images where completely harmless, fully clothed, yet they still put it on the record. Pissed me off.
The world has gotten so freaking paranoid about pedos it's crazy. What's next public burnings? This pedo-paranoia has to be screwing up the kids too. When I was a kid we played with all the kids in the area, went where ever we wanted and were pretty damn safe. Now kids have play dates and a small circle of friends. Adults act like kids are made of glass and might break. If we screw up 90% of these kids childhoods with paranoia to save 10% of the kids who are going to get molested how the heck is that good for the human species?
We are going to have whole generations of social cripples afraid to be around each other and eating/drugging themselves to death while they wonder why they can't feel happy. The human race has moved along quite well without fenced in play grounds and cops policing public parks constantly. Kids shouldn't have to live in fear that the boogie man might touch them in their private places. "Keeping the kids safe" is doing more harm than good if you look at it from the big picture. Let them act like kids for Christ's sake.
But I'm sure by posting this I'll be marked as a child stalker. *rolls eyes*
Actually, here in Sweden, coordinated efforts from bloggers focused attention on a surveillance law our politicians tried to sneak through parlament without anyone noticing. In the end, the law was only delayed and slightly modified, but the newspapers started writing a lot more about the issue and people seem more aware of the problem now.
The problem I have with Freenet, and I'm personally glad it exists, is this: Nobody has actually tested their "plausible deniability" in court, have they? I mean lets say for the sake of argument you are running a Freenet node which has 5Gb of cache, okay? Lets say that 1Gb of that cache is CP, which some cop accesses and is able to track the source down to your node. Now as far as I know the law says you have to possess CP or distribute it, NOT that you yourself have to have access to it. If you handed me a safe that I didn't have the combo for and I get pulled over delivering it and they break it open and find CP I'm pretty sure that MY ass will be going to jail, even though I had NO way in hell of knowing what was in it. How is Freenet ANY different?
I have a feeling if the feds decide to shut down Freenet it really will be easy, as I can't remember ever seeing a statute that says you have to have access to the CP, only that you have to have distributed it. Total bullshit I know, but it wouldn't be the first time that someone has rotted in jail from bullshit charges. So has anybody actually tested Freenet or any other caching anonymous style app in court?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
If I'm using the search term "child porn" on Google, does that mean I'm looking for child porn or sites about child porn?
Thailand is blocking access to www.softpedia.com, subdomains like win.softpedia.com are still accessible. It is beyond me why a legal and legitimate software download site is being blocked. I fail to see what this has to do with the lese majeste law or child porn.
If you keep letting your ISPs and governments implement plans like this, then maybe in the distant, or not so distant, future, you will find yourself in the same situation as internet users in Thailand. That one fine day your favorite website is not accessible anymore, because your government decided to block it.
I am posting this as anonymous coward, not because I am a coward, but ... well - y'all know why.
Apparently delegates often sign petitions and declarations without really understanding them. After media picked up the story, several EU delegates withdrew their signatures from the declaration after realizing that the small-print violates several data-protection laws. I think the EU government largely understands the issues involved here.
...what if there were no rhetorical questions?
You can run Freenet on an encrypted disk. Then it's just the same as storing any data on an encrypted disk, which people do all the time. Some countries have laws to force you to turn over private keys, but this kind of thing has been tested in court often.
If it isn't just an Orwellian attempt to record what everyone thinks about everything, one wonders whether the person(s) who sneaked this in really thought through what they intended to _do_ with it.
If it's meant to make police work easier, might it in fact make it more difficult weeding through the false positives?
Do you send the searcher an email, "Dear Citizen, we are concerned for your mental hygiene"? Or a letter to the home to let the wife and kids know? Or perhaps publish a weekly compilation in the local newspaper to give the community a heads up on who is searching beyond the bounds of decorous thought?
Perhaps mandatory pre-emptive counseling is in order?
And, as always, the staffing. Particularly the human staffing for the sexual thought crimes division. Wouldn't do to have the Mayor's wife accused of lesbian incestuous thoughts for searching "telling your daughter about checking her breasts for lumps" now would it?
But, of course, we know it _is_ just an Orwellian attempt to record what everyone thinks about everything.
In the near future, everyone will conduct their lives online.
Everything you buy, read, watch, listen to will be logged (for many people that already happens.)
With your DNA in the database, your database record linked to your online ID, and CCTV to monitor everyone, you will not be able to move without their machine knowing about it.
Politicians, and more importantly, the civil servants and police who have the task of applying the law, are only now waking up to the possibilities.
They realised, to their amazement, that they could automate the monitoring of the whole population and pro actively track down every criminal. While you are shouting bullshit, they are putting the pieces in place which will allow it to happen.
When they are able to do that, they will introduce more legislation to make more of the things you do a crime and by then it will be too late. It is already difficult to mount effective opposition.
But you are too weak and shy to do anything about it. You keep waiting for someone else to do something about it, and they are waiting for you. You moan when what you ought to be doing is making the legislature aware of your anger, and if it comes to it, making them pay a heavy price for ignoring you.
Organise yourselves, make a plan, carry it out.
Now, I've got to go, America's Got Talent is just starting... yawn.
Why do you want to kill me? What have I ever done to harm you? Last time I checked, I was spending large amounts of my time and money fighting hard to protect people's privacy and freedom of expression. Now you're calling for my death?
The Church is opposed to freedom of expression. Doesn't that make you at best, a bad catholic? I mean, if you disagree with the church's or pope's interpretation of the bible in public, you're a heretic. If you've ever done so, are you really a Catholic?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"