[Teever]

Wait a minute, doesn't receiving child porn even if unintentionally like the situation above open up the receiver to legal liability?

It isn't reasonable to expect users to be 'mentally prepared' to have their devices download child porn because they visited a chat room for support about the chat app they're using.

[johnisgood]

As someone else have said, then that is an issue with the law.

Imagine someone sending you a link that you open and then now you have child porn or whatever else on your hard drive, cached. Quite a shitty situation to be in.

Perhaps avoid non-technical rooms or rooms in which you do not trust people.

[lukan]

"Imagine someone sending you a link that you open and then now you have child porn or whatever else on your hard drive, cached. Quite a shitty situation to be in."

I guess the correct legal approach would be to go to police with this.

And the correct technical approach to keep online spaces clean, is the ability to kick, mute or ban people who violate the rules.

Saying, "just be mentally prepared" sounds to me like accepting it. Well, I don't. I go somewhere else.

[johnisgood]

I did not use the term "mentally prepared" because I thought it was appropriate, I was just quoting the other guy. I find it silly, too. I will not "accept" child porn or other degeneracies.

> Saying, "just be mentally prepared" sounds to me like accepting it. Well, I don't. I go somewhere else.

Exactly! You should be going somewhere else. Another Matrix instance, or at the very least another room, and you will be fine.

[lukan]

"You should be going somewhere else. Another Matrix instance, or at the very least another room, and you will be fine."

Well, but I never decided to hang around for longer. Maybe it is because the moderation tools are simply lacking? I would miss the option of not restricting certain users to send pictures in a group.

[johnisgood]

I am not sure if it is currently possible in Matrix, but it is not a bad idea to be able to restrict sending pictures (among other things), I agree.

[lukan]

I just read some complaints with links in sibling comments and sadly no, not possible. Maybe even hard to implement, because of the protocol.

[gosub100]

And then imagine you have windows with recall enabled (that you repeatedly disabled but keeps enabling after updates), and/or cloud backup with automatic CSAM detection. You're screwed

[johnisgood]

Yes, and we are screwed either way if we use Windows with Recall, or even in general.

I would not consider Windows secure at all, and it seems futile to use a privacy-oriented IM on Windows, it really defeats the purpose.

Imagine using Windows with Recall enabled that takes screenshots of your conversations all the time. You can be using the most effective IM for privacy but it would not help.

So what is the moral of the story? We have shitty laws, and you should not use Windows. :P

[Teever]

The issue with the law could be rectified and I'd still be in a scenario where I'm exposed to hideous child pornography when I wake up and check my phone messages with bleary eyes because I'm a member of an official support channel for Matrix.

This is unacceptable.

[jasonvorhe]

I don't know. I've read of this alleged nightmare scenario in hundreds of forum posts, mailing lists and threads and it's not something that's actually being followed up on in any capacity. The opposite is the case in that law enforcement doesn't have the resources to get as many perpetrators as they would like to. They're not going to raid your home because you idled in a channel that got spammed or because you received and email or because some service you hosted briefly cached a csam jpg on disk. If you've made political enemies and are under observation already than perhaps this might work as a way in but even then it would be easier to just do something illegal and construct the evidence to point to another cause.

I mean, when does this actually end up with consequences for anyone? Even on managed and surveilled company devices I'm not expecting this to cause any harm to anyone involved. IT staff at previous employers and clients had other things to worry about.

Maybe I'm just not familiar with some legal jurisdictions or cases where this was a cause of concern. Let me know.

[tcfhgj]

I'd blame the law if it does.