[Tyyps]

The anti-privacy movement in Europe is really concerning. In particular as general population don't really care about it, we are going toward some major shifts. I'm wondering though how this radical turn was initiated and if some lobbies are pulling the strings behind the scene...

[dobremeno]

Not just in Europe, in the US too - Roman Storm is on trial as of last week for building a privacy tool that ended up getting used by criminals.

Not much good coverage on it out there apart from the great work by The Rage journalists.

[omdv]

will save a google search for some: - “privacy tool” == cryptocurrency mixer - “ended up getting used by criminals” == claimed to help launder $1b

Let’s just say it is in a different category than Alexandra Elbakyan.

[dobremeno]

It's just a neutral tool, open for everyone to use. There's plenty of people that used the tool for completely legitimate reasons, simply wanting to protect their privacy just like GrapheneOS users.

Why is the creator of this tool being held responsible for how others use it? That's like dragging Henry Ford to court the moment a car driver runs someone over.

[Terr_]

> It's just a neutral tool

Tool != Service

Making and selling lockpicks is very different from running an "I will pick a lock for you" service. The latter is a dramatically higher level of involvement and culpability.

> Why is the creator of [Tornado Cash] being held responsible for how others use it?

Nonsense, they didn't give away (or even sell) a tool, they were actively operating the tool themselves, taking requests to control and aim it in different ways.

> That's like dragging Henry Ford to court the moment a car driver runs someone over.

No, it's like dragging Henry Ford to court because he was the driver of a vehicle that struck people, and his taxi service was advertised as The Light Is Green If The Passenger Says So™.

Driver Ford might not be the only person in the vehicle responsible for manslaughter, but a court case is absolutely justified.

[dobremeno]

I agree with you that creating a tool is different from providing a service. However, I disagree on the rest of what you said, here's why:

> Nonsense, they didn't give away (or even sell) a tool, they were actively operating the tool themselves, taking requests to control and aim it in different ways.

They did give away a tool - they published (open-source, GPL3) a set of smart contracts. They then deployed those immutable (!) smart contracts as a one-time thing. From that point forward, anyone could interact with those smart contracts permissionlessly, that's just how Ethereum works. They didn't afterwards control or aim it in different ways - how could they? The smart contracts are immutable.

All they actually did afterwards is host a user interface (also open-source btw) that made it easy for users to interact with those smart contracts. After some outside pressure they added geo-blocking to the user interface they hosted, which —unsurprisingly— didn't actually stop bad actors from using Tornado Cash. After all, even if they were unable to get around the geo-blocking, bad actors could self-host the user interface or interact with the smart contracts directly.

Think of their user interface as an email client. Would somehow blocking an email client actually stop people from sending emails? No, they could still just use SMTP and directly interact with a server. In the same way, taking down their user interface or implementing any sort of check would not have prevented bad actors from interacting with the smart contracts directly.

[buuuuutee]

Roman Storm helped North Korea launder billions. That’s a bit different than average person just wanting a phone detached from the hivemind.

[dobremeno]

That's like saying Adi Shamir helps drug cartels, Tim Berners-Lee helps facilitate online fraud or that Henry Ford helped kill millions of people on the road.

All these people created tools that could be used by anyone. Encryption, the Internet, cars. All have legitimate uses cases just like Tornado Cash does.

To me, not wanting to have all of your public blockchain transactions linked to you is actually quite similar to wanting a phone detached from the hivemind - all you want is a bit of privacy.

[rdm_blackhole]

Also to add to this discussion, to me, it makes zero sense that you would deploy such a system that could be weaponized by a rogue government to hunt down political opponents.

One could argue that they may very well think that this sort of thing could never happen, that the center will always prevail etc... but then again I remember seeing this video compilation of a lot of very confident people in the US saying that Trump would never be president a few months before the 2016 election, let alone be elected for a second term.

So that makes me think, how can they so confident that "the good guys" will always be in charge?

Because from where I am standing there is a massive chance that Reform will win in the UK and that the National Rally will win in France in 2027.

Nobody can say that they did not know.

[heavyset_go]

They don't care, what they're absolutely terrified is another Arab Spring happening at home.

The bet is that no matter who is in power, the ruling classes won't find themselves under the boot, which is a pretty good bet to make. Beats a revolution, in their eyes.

[hollerith]

A person doesn't need to be elite to be terrified that something like Arab Spring will happen in their own country: the Arab Spring was really terrible for ordinary people: millions violently killed, millions of refugees, over ten million made homeless. In Syria, the mass killing is still going on.

(I'm surprised anyone still calls it the Arab Spring now that we know how disastrously it turned out.)

[Ray20]

>how can they so confident that "the good guys" will always be in charge?

They implement such systems precisely to always be in charge.

[0points]

> In particular as general population don't really care about it

> if some lobbies are pulling the strings

Sure looks like it. Many people don't understand the consequences of the ChatControl proposition (backdoors for governments into all messaging apps) [1].

Politicians insists it is only about protecting kids from predators online, but see for example Sweden:

* Police and secret police will have this access for swedish citizens.

* Secret police have an agreement with NSA about data sharing (see Snowden).

* NSA will end up storing all my DM:s.

* Another country also have an agreement with NSA about data sharing.

* This other country will find out about my sexual orientation or political beliefs the moment I board a plane to their country.

All of this will be outside of control from my country or the laws of my country (Sweden), that is supposed to protect my free speech [2] and anti discrimination laws [3].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_to_Prevent_and_Comb...

2: https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-och-lagar/dokument/sven...

3: https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-och-lagar/dokument/sven...

F*k Ylva Johansson:

> Research by several newspapers led to allegations of questionable connections between Johansson and her staff and companies that would benefit financially from her proposal, including Thorn and WeProtect.

> Johansson rejected the accusations as being untrue, true but not illegal and as not even being accusations.

> Her claim to have given data protection organizations the same access as to the backers of her proposal was rejected as untrue by several organizations and members of the EU parliament. Johansson reacted to growing rejection of her proposal by ordering commercial advertisement on Twitter paid for with EU funds. The advertisement was criticized as being misleading and illegal according to the EU's rules for targeted advertisement. [4]

4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ylva_Johansson#Surveillance_of...

[jajko]

One can't rely on some sort of 'decency' of a given country and hope for the best, that ship has long sailed.

You mention Sweden, I can easily also name Switzerland, the land of generally very decent, moral and polite people. Yet sometimes curtains falls off a bit and one can see how various police departments will do everything possible to track and follow people. Police are generally very nice but I've also seen some unprovoked brutality and generally less-than-stellar behavior by various authorities that should know and do better.

Protect what you can, while you can. No state is your friend, its not normally an outright enemy but rather a party focused on its own interests, your rights or needs be damned.

[lo_zamoyski]

> Police are generally very nice but I've also seen some unprovoked brutality

The so-called israelization[0] of the police. Certainly you see that in the US. If you compare the local police, say, 50 years ago with their counterparts today, you definitely notice a strong militarization. That may be appropriate for special units handling dangerous cases, but it should not characterize the rank and file that handle petty crime or public disorder.

> No state is your friend, its not normally an outright enemy but rather a party focused on its own interests

The state is the only recourse of the common man against powerful private interests. In this case (surveillance, etc), private interest has been used as a way to get around the legal limitations of government. Companies like Google and Facebook can track people with greater ease than the government can.

[0] https://www.amnestyusa.org/blog/with-whom-are-many-u-s-polic...

[octopoc]

I have in the past often advocated for more training for police, so I have to say this is an eye opener for sure. Thanks for posting this.

The question I have is, why?? I assume some Israelis or people with ties to Israel who wanted Israel to have influence over the US police. (But why?)

I doubt it was a big thing like “gee, you know what Israel can export? Police brutality!” “Hey that’s a great idea!”

But that’s kind of how it comes across.

[MSFT_Edging]

It's not that complex. Policing in general attracts certain kinds of people with a desire for authority. It should go without saying that it's not 100% of police officers joining.

Those with that fixation on authority want to maintain the authority. With various post 9/11 movements, the patriot act, tons of military spending, etc, there was both a desire for "security" as well as a lot of ex military gear going to police stations.

Israel just happens to be pros at violently suppressing groups of people, and just happen to be an ally and generally sorted into the "good guy" category. Additionally, Israel exports many "security" type goods and services, from cyber weapons, to traditional weapons. It only makes sense that Israeli physical security companies, where all of their employees have served under the IDF and received the training, would want to start a business offering said training.

So we have a police force who like their authority, are receiving ex-military gear to "protect" either themselves or the population at large, and are fed a constant stream of fearmongering about them being in constant danger. So they begin to act violently first as a means of defense. This creates a feedback loop where the police are seen as violent and corrupt, so criminals are more likely to try their hand at defending themselves or escaping, which makes the Police's job more dangerous.

So now their job is getting more dangerous because people can't trust that their lives wont be ruined by the luck of the draw, if they happen to get a shitty cop that's protected by the establishment. So the police want training to better protect themselves against this agitated populace. There just happens to be an ally known to export weapons and security products who offers training for subjugating a populace, and the police sign up.

[heavyset_go]

> The question I have is, why?? I assume some Israelis or people with ties to Israel who wanted Israel to have influence over the US police. (But why?)

The same reasons Nazis studied American segregation: they admired what they were able to accomplish and want to do something similar themselves.

[heavyset_go]

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_boomerang

[0points]

Yea, I started using ProtonVPN specifically because they are placed in Switzerland.

Switzerland is not in EU, not in 12-eyes, not in any of that shit.

I'm sure they are up to no good, too but at least the distance between them and NSA is farther, I hope.

[johnisgood]

> This other country will find out about my sexual orientation or political beliefs the moment I board a plane to their country.

That is literally going to put people's lives at risk. Crazy.

[edg5000]

Agreed. Although to be the devil's advocate for a moment: Governments can currently easily tap email, and phone tapping is more feasible at scale due to machine transcription. So the apps gave use a temporary safe haven, which may get compromised by Chat Control. And before email we had mail, handled directly by the government, although reading mail is more difficult without leaving traces.

[0points]

> And before email we had mail, handled directly by the government, although reading mail is more difficult without leaving traces.

At least in my country, there has been serious laws protecting the users from police opening letters (1962:700; Postlagens tystnadsplikt). This was changed in January 2023 because people exploited it to send drugs thru post office [1].

Of course without any protests in Sweden because again people don't realize their rights to privacy are taken away from them.

1: https://www.svenskhandel.se/nyheter/nyhet/lagandring-ger-moj...

[poly2it]

I'm increasingly annoyed by the extent at which our state (Sweden, EU) is willing to sacrifice our rights to hinder the usage of recreational drugs by a minority of the population. How can it be that alcohol is endorsed so widely, given that we know many of the drugs we are being sacrificed to stop are safer, less addictive and less potent [1]? It's perhaps cynical to ask, but are we protecting the citizens, or the alcohol industry?

1: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_harm_asse...

[rdm_blackhole]

Sweden is a nanny state. Can't buy booze on Sundays and the government shop's are only open 5 hours on Saturday.

Yet I can go to certain neighborhoods in Stockholm and get pretty much every thing under the sun and that's open 24/7.

[JoshTriplett]

The devil doesn't need an advocate here. "Temporary safe haven" is the kind of phrasing the advocates of anti-privacy policies use to argue that this "temporary" state of affairs should be destroyed.

[bee_rider]

> And before email we had mail, handled directly by the government, although reading mail is more difficult without leaving traces.

This is the source of some massive disconnects between people and their governments, I think. They had some permission, which we basically agreed on as a society, when their tampering was obvious and/or limited in scale (just due to practical constraints). We gave our consent to be governed with those constraints in mind.

Nowadays they are continuing without those implicit constraints and they don’t want to have the conversation about implementing new explicit constraints. This isn’t the deal we agreed to, really, it is just what they can get away with without permission. You can rule over a populace without their permission, of course—it’s just very different from the sort of pleasant (albeit never perfect) relationship that willing populations and their elected officials have had recently.

[edg5000]

Good point about those constraints. It's bad when governments have a superhighway of information with an email provider. If they have to go through a painful process for each email, it would be like the paper envelope. But if they have an arrangement with the email provider where they can access whatever they want, that would be a terrible downgrade for the people compared to the paper mail days indeed. We have proof that such mass data collection happened in some countries.

[PeppySteppy]

You are misleading by using "secret police" when what you are are looking for is the "security police".

Secret police definition [1]

> Secret police (or political police) are police, intelligence, or security agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, ideological, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.

Security police definition [2]

> In some countries, security police is the name given to the secret security and intelligence services charged with protecting the state at the highest level, including responsibilities such as personal protection of the head of state, counter-espionage, and anti-terrorism.

Specific example for Swedish 'Security Police'.[3] if you look up any EU agency with similar roles it will be found that they are all security, not secret.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_police

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_police

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Security_Service

[0points]

Okay, I was not aware of this distinction. Thanks for correcting me!

FWIW, the distinction is not as clear cut to me. In the 1970s, the ruling government body (social democrats) passed on information in order to make registers of political opponents in the far left and far right to SÄPO.

More of that part here: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A4kerhetspolisen#%C3%96ve...

The Nixon watergate scandal was also similar to your first definition there.

[0points]

Just wanted to add an important piece about us not living in authoritarian states...

Palantir, founded by Peter Thiel (currently funding JD Vance), is building a vast person database [1].

I believe their biggest customer is the US government, and is being used by ICE [2].

1: https://beyondthefirewall.substack.com/p/palantirs-new-maste...

2: https://www.404media.co/leaked-palantirs-plan-to-help-ice-de...

[NoGravitas]

The distinction between "counter-espionage" and "covert operations against a government's political, ideological, or social opponents and dissidents" is historically extremely permeable.

[rdm_blackhole]

Of course lobbies are pulling the strings. That is a given.

But the more nefarious issue is that countries that use to uphold human rights and the rights to privacy for their citizens up until 10 to 15 years ago have made a complete U-turn.

And before someone says that this is due to the far-right getting into power, this has really nothing to do with it.

It simply is blatant attempt at muzzling the population. The worst part is that you still have European governments who feel the need to give lessons of democracy to China et al.

I could see how Hungary would want to get this passed because they are well on their way to authoritarianism but this proposal coming from the EU who is supposedly politically in the center, that makes zero sense.

[graemep]

> The worst part is that you still have European governments who feel the need to give lessons of democracy to China et al.

They need to highlight that we are nothing like as bad a China. We look good in comparison.

> this proposal coming from the EU who is supposedly politically in the center

Is it? Its the only country in the world with a constitutional commitment to privatisation (its in the treaties, which are the constitution, and came close to being called a constitution).

[rdm_blackhole]

> Its the only country in the world

The EU is not a country. It may very well be in 50 years from now but not presently.

> > this proposal coming from the EU who is supposedly politically in the center

I said `supposedly`.

> They need to highlight that we are nothing like as bad a China. We look good in comparison.

Not if they go through with this proposal. You can't claim to be a bastion of democracy and want/need to spy on your citizens 24/7. These 2 notions are just not compatible.

[graemep]

> The EU is not a country. It may very well be in 50 years from now but not presently.

Semantics. its near enough to being one to compare to countries in terms of law, policy and constitution.

> I said `supposedly`.

Depends what you mean by supposedly, I suppose! Its intent is clearly not centrist.

> Not if they go through with this proposal.

Still far better than China. No prison for holding the wrong views, or following the wrong religion, or having the wrong culture. No genocide. Having elections.

I am not happy with where the west is going, but comparing with China its still far better (against a low base).