𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝙼𝚎𝚘𝚠

Aaand here’s your misunderstanding.

All messages detected by whatever algorithm/AI the provider implemented are sent to the authorities. The proposal specifically says that even if there is some doubt, the messages should be sent. Family photo or CSAM? Send it. Is it a raunchy text to a partner or might one of them be underage? Not 100% sure? Send it. The proposal is very explicit in this.

Providers are additionally required to review a subset of the messages sent over, for tweaking w.r.t. false positives. They do not do a manual review as an additional check before the messages are sent to the authorities.

If I send a letter to someone, the law forbids anyone from opening the letter if they’re not the intended recipient. E2E encryption ensures the same for digital communication. It’s why I know that Zuckerberg can’t read my messages, and neither can the people from Signal (metadata analysis is a different thing of course). But with this chat control proposal, suddenly they, as well as the authorities, would be able to read a part of the messages. This is why it’s an unacceptable breach of privacy.

Thankfully this nonsensical proposal didn’t get a majority.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=COM:2022:209:FIN

Here’s the text. There are no limits on which messages should be scanned anywhere in this text. Even worse: to address false positives, point 28 specifies that each provider should have human oversight to check if what the system finds is indeed CSAM/grooming. So it’s not only the authorities reading your messages, but Meta/Google/etc… as well.

You might be referring to when the EU can issue a detection order. This is not what is meant with the continued scanning of messages, which providers are always required to do, as outlined by the text. So either you are confused, or you’re a liar.

Cite directly from the text where it imposes limits on the automated scanning of messages. I’ll wait.

The point is is that it should never, under no circumstances monitor and eavesdrop private chats. It’s an unacceptable breach of privacy.

Also, please explain what “specific circumstances” you are referring to. The current proposal doesn’t limit the scanning of messages in any way whatsoever.

It does require invasive oversight. If I send a picture of my kid to my wife, I don’t want some AI algorithm to have a brainfart and instead upload the picture to Europol for strangers to see and to put me on some list I don’t belong.

People sharing CSAM are unlikely to use apps that force these scans anyway.

Yup, they shut it off for a couple of hours during exams so students won’t cheat.

Or at least, won’t cheat using the internet.

I would think it’s far more likely that a controversial law like this would trigger a Maidan-style coup, no? Or that if this law does end up frustrating EU accession talks, the population may be swayed to coup the government if they don’t follow up on their promise to become an EU member?

The current ruling party is still pro-EU and aims to become a member by 2030, which follows the large support for EU membership in Georgia. I’m not sure if the “political capture of the country by western interests” is relevant here, seeing as they are already fairly west-aligned.

It’s not the same law. FARA (which is not without criticism either) differs significantly in scope. They “translated” it, and then tacked on a lot of other stuff. The Georgian law would require all NGOs to disclose all funding. You might see why people may be uncomfortable with donating to a group which is against something the government wants to do. It risks stifling freedom of speech and it restricts freedom of capital, which is a requirement for being in the EU.

While transparancy in politics is good, note that political parties don’t face the same scrutiny under this law. Selectively enforcing transparency can be used to go after political dissenters. This is how it started in Russia; first it was just disclosure, which already led to harassment and dismissal of anything a group put out. Then additional measures were passed to prohibit these groups’ speech. And I haven’t even touched upon the possibility of selectively prosecuting dissenting parties for supposed violations of this law, which could be very costly and difficult to fight.

In countries with strong rule of law and low corruption, these laws are tricky to get right. In countries that have more problems, they can be quite dangerous. Georgia has a complicated history with plenty of turmoil. I can see why there’s not much faith that the Georgian government will not abuse this law to stifle dissent.

It’s not like there aren’t legitimate arguments in favour of this law, and it’s not like those NGOs have all been of exemplary behaviour. But I do wonder if there aren’t better ways of fighting malicious foreign influence than a law that feels like a catch-all method of suppressing any dissenting groups (which the FARA act is also criticised for, and imo that should be significantly amended too).

https://hackaday.com/2024/05/03/google-removes-risc-v-support-from-android/

Clearly says Walt Gisnep.

The financial sector offers a magnitude more services than just “transactions”. It’s a stupid comparison.

They’re all gods among men.

Steam apparently has a backup plan in case of a looming bankruptcy. But they never elaborated on what that is.

It could perhaps turns a fan due to the air current it generates by spinning?

The 24h cycle with subdivisions in 60 is easy for dividing them up though. 60 divides by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30.

https://seecheck.org/index.php/2024/01/11/despite-accusations-arnold-schwarzenegger-advocates-for-palestinian-statehood/#:~:text=The Palestinians have the right to live%2C the Palestinians have the right to have their own country

Schwarzenegger is in favour of the Palestinian state and has expressed his desire that all parties bring the conflict to a peaceful end.

I’m not saying life on balance is necessarily worse or better. Just pointing out that cherry-picking statistics can sketch a wrong image.

“Less commodities” sounds a bit dismissive of the difference though. It is significantly less, e.g. the average salary is less than 190 USD per month. Most Cubans struggle to get enough food to get by, and whilst there are measures to avoid starvation, they’re not exactly having much to eat either. They’re not using their time for intellectual/cultural pursuits, most use their time to find additional sources of income.

Healthcare is free, but the equipment is old. Outcomes are poorer, due to lack of drugs. Cuba has an excellent HIV-program, with mandatory testing and cheap antivirals. Yet, HIV cases (and STIs in general) are on the rise due to a high prevalence of prostitution, caused by the low salaries and high wealth inequality.

Upsides and downsides. Reality is that several hundreds of thousands of Cubans attempt to flee the country every year. Between 2021 and 2023, nearly 500k people tried to do so, ~5% of the population. That’s not very indicative of a place-to-be.

It may well be true that the US embargo is causing a lot of these issues. However, economists tend to argue that the lack of Soviet subsidies has a much larger negative effect.

I’m not so sure it’s a good trade. There are things we can learn, certainly. But on balance, it doesn’t seem better.

Sure, but other items cost much more compared to their salaries. It’s a definite downside.

PPP per capita is 5x lower in Cuba than in the US. In other words, salaries are low and people struggle to afford things in Cuba, whereas the average citizen in the US can afford much more.

The difficulty comes from figuring out who owns which address/wallet. But transactions are entirely public.

See https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/getting-started/crypto-education/what-is-the-bitcoin-blockchain for a simple explanation. Anyone can trace any bitcoin/cryptocoin or whatever from address to address. But that doesn’t tell you who owns the addresses (which is where the drug users come in).

Once you figure out who owns specific address, you can trace every one of their transactions. It’s part of crypto being a public, decentralised network.

Russia claims they received cryptocurrency.

Okay, so which currency and which transactions? Crypto has a public ledger, so it should be easily verifiable if these transactions happened.

But obviously, such evidence has not been provided.

Even the claim that they were fleeing to Ukraine is dubious, as a “hero’s welcome” would not fall well with the western public (eroding the support they need is not a winning strategy), and the road they were supposedly arrested on leads to Belarus, not Ukraine.

The Russian narrative does not logically add up, and there’s no actual evidence at all. Meanwhile, the west preemptively warned the FSB that an attack was imminent (which you wouldn’t do if you want the attack to succeed) and named the group behind it, which was backed by evidence (as said group published videos that only they could have taken).

Please keep an open mind. Ask yourself “which is more likely” and make sure the claims you believe are backed with evidence.