By making a minor concession EU governments hope to find a majority next week to approve the controversial „chat control“ bill. According to the proposed child sexual abuse regulation (CSAR), providers of messengers, e-mail and chat services would be forced to automatically search all private messag
I sometimes wonder about this. I hugely value my private communication, and I grew up in a world with that ideal. But with the rise of more cleverly invasive apps and tracking, and ease of someone else putting a video of you online, and so on, I sometimes think about a world where non face-to-face communication isn’t private any more.
I don’t know what I think of that world.
After all, we haven’t always had private, at-a-distance communication, especially for all people
We always had. Many people wrote personal notes/letters in cryptic ways to prevent unwanted readers from deciphering it.
Imagine a word where we would teach children not to make their own cypher because this is illegal. What a distopian society.
Kind of, but written communication for everyone hasn’t even always been a thing. And cryptic letters perhaps aren’t reliable secrecy for ordinary people against trained spying. And anonymity… not without other layers to your communication. And all of that not for your ordinary postcard home: it’s something you do in special situations.
I don’t think the new law would outlaw encrypting messages to your friend with PGP; nor having a second phone that you leave at the library for anonymity.
Benjamin Franklin once said: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
This still applies.
But what liberty is essential? Proveably secret postcards to people on the other side of the world?
That’s also quite a harsh quote to bring in the context of the many hidden erosions of privacy - would you say the tick-tockers don’t deserve privacy or safety because they chose that social ability over a privacy they little understand?
Tangential, but Lemmy is filled with smart people so I’m going to ask: is it possible to legally make it impossible for wireless signals to work within your own home? That is, how would one dampen access to wireless networks? Would this require illegal use of signal jamming devices as I imagine a Faraday cage would be too difficult to make in a room.
Edit: where else on Lemmy could I ask this sort of question?
I imagine you could come up with something relatively easy to put on the walls/ceilings to block signals if you really felt like it.
Making it look like a sane person’s house might be a little more difficult though
The FCC has a lot of regulations on it. From what I remember active jamming within the home is still wildly illegal. Depending on the size of your house/room, a far as at cage wouldn’t be too difficult, especially if you did it during construction. If you’re on a budget and don’t mind looking crazy you can line a closet with tinfoil and connect it to ground.
Yeah shielding. Totally passive.
mobsters did that in their houses, people who buy them often only learn about the previous owner after realizing that one or two rooms are faraday cages - zero wifi or cellular.