Slashdot Mirror
EU Debates Installing a Black Box On Your Computer
bs0d3 writes "EU MEP Tiziano Motti (Italy), wants everything you do online to be logged and saved, for the sake of the children. Like a black box installed on every computer. He proposes an early warning system of criminal activity, specifically whenever an image of sexually abused children is detected, an alarm, goes to the authorities to be able to see who uploaded it. Tiziano Motti was a politician who just over a year ago managed to get a majority of European Members of Parliament to support the proposal to expand the data storage directive to Google searches. The purpose was to protect children from pedophiles — the same excuse he is using now. His proposal involves a technology called Logbox. And just as with an aircraft's black box, Logbox is installed on computers, laptops, smartphones, and e-readers because yes, all that can be connected to the internet."
Fuck you!
Like Members of Congress in the USA, EU MEPs come in all shapes, sizes, and states of sanity. This guy's just flying a kite, but any such law would apply the the MEPs too, and you can assume some of them have skeletons in their hard drives. Fuhgeddabouttit.
(this is not a
OK, this is Slashdot but 1 MEP suggests something, and it becomes "EU Debates Installing a Black Box On Your Computer". No one is debating anything !! (Unless TFA says more: it is currently Slashdotted.)
Never mind that, here's some statistics!
a) Most of the computers in the world are not involved in distribution of indecent images of minors.
b) Most of the incidents of sexual indecency with a minor are by members of the family, or close family friends.
Therefore, to have a greater chance of saving more children from sexual predators, we should ignore computers and break up all families. (Liberal use of the "~" marker here, folks).
Child exploitation, of all sorts, is very serious. However, this kind of outright idiocy on the part of policy makers is starting to make me physically ill. There are so many reason why this is an awful, awful idea, and I know I don't need to spell them out.
Why can't we have politicians who can think rationally?
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Both this Slashdot story and TFA have a very misleading title. ONE MEP is thinking about this insane idea. It is not even in Parliament for discussion. Another MEP already vehemently spoke against it.
Come on, ideas like these pop up and fizz out all the time. I bet there are other MEPs thinking about imprisoning gay people, reinstating a theocracy, establishing re-education centers, idolizing Hitler and Stalin, and so on and so forth. That doesn't mean any of these wacky ideas come through. There are no indications that this one will.
Plus, it is not technically feasible, even with deep packet inspection. To connect the dots, to know who uploaded what where, is far from trivial, especially if the bad scary pedophile uses non-standard ways of transmitting this data. For example, what if he uses zip files? Also, there is encryption, which totally defeats this "logbox".
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
1984 is not a manual for politicians.
Hitler is back, in Brussels,. But don't worry. What could possibly go wrong ?
One out of over seven hundred MEPs, one out of over seven hundred members of a body with very little real power within the EU, one man says something technologically illiterate and Slashdot runs for the hills for fear of Blackshirts and deathcamps?
Your post is absurd, absurd, hysterical and absurd. But thank you for keeping the world safe from totalitarianism. It's the thought (well, not thought, in this case... sentiment, perhaps) that counts....
P.S. Never, under any circumstances, watch C-SPAN. Your terror will know no bounds.
It's not about kids, it's about control (and media rights)
The people who actually molest kids are those with easy access to them. most cases of abuse are from moms, dads, stepmoms, aunts and uncles, sometimes even a teacher. They don't care if you monitor their computer because they don't need one to get what they're after. No amount of computer monitoring or demonizing things that are even tangentially related to kiddie porn will prevent or even slow down actual cases of actual abuse.
These laws are about removing people from society who don't have a "healthy" sexual attitude. That's why drawings are illegal in many places. Because it's not about reducing abuse, it's about people making themselves feel less uncomfortable about their own sexuality. In my own country, the people here are absolutely bat shit crazy when it comes to sexuality. They fear it, and they hate people who have a different attitude about it than they do. My generation is the first where simply being gay is not a crime. Hell at this point I can see things at the beach that would be illegal on my computer. There have even been people investigated for looking at porn of adults who are young looking. And if you let yourself get wrapped up in this paranoia you are helping no one and hurting everyone, including yourself.
And this needs to be said:
I would rather live in a world where occasional child abuse happens, than one where it never happens because we're all under constant surveillance.
Why can't we have politicians who can think rationally?
They rationally play on people's irrational fears. Don't assume all politicians are drooling idiots, being a successful politician and a successful manipulator share many of the same traits.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings