Fight Chat ControlSep 14, 2025

Danish Minister of Justice and chief architect of the current Chat Control proposal, Peter Hummelgaard:

"We must break with the totally erroneous perception that it is everyone's civil liberty to communicate on encrypted messaging services."

Share your thoughts via https://fightchatcontrol.eu/, or to [email protected] directly.

Source: https://www.ft.dk/samling/20231/almdel/REU/spm/1426/index.htm

Show threadOndřej PokornýSep 14, 2025
@chatcontrol We must break with the totally erroneous perception that it is technically feasible to outlaw encryption.
Show threadAti
@ondra @chatcontrol That is my first question in chat control topic. How on earth would they enforce it ? 🤔
Sep 14, 2025 at 8:44pmTusky
Show threadcubeSep 15, 2025
@ati1 @ondra @chatcontrol they can't. They would have to basically outlaw non-approved apps to be installed or used on any computer in Europe. Cory Doctorow has talked about this multiple times; authoritarians and Capitalists would love to put the Turing machine back into the proverbial bottle … but it doesn't work like that. You cannot exclude a Turing machine from doing "a specific thing". You cannot subtract features from a Turing machine, because it has only one feature: turing-completedness
Show threadcubeSep 15, 2025

@ati1 @ondra @chatcontrol talk for reference: https://www.youtube.com/embed/HUEvRyemKSg?feature=oembed

transcript:
http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/coming-war-general-computation/

28c3: The coming war on general computation

YouTube
Show threadAlexSep 15, 2025

@qbe @ati1 @ondra @chatcontrol

if you look at the age verification app proposal from the EU, they are pretty much enforcing it in a way that you can only use the EU age verification apps if your phone passes Android integrity tests, which Google is changing in the next version to require developer verification for sideloading apps to your phone (i.e., only verified developers can create an app that can be sideloaded)

Show threadAlexSep 15, 2025

@qbe @ati1 @ondra @chatcontrol

meaning, if you have lots of sideloaded apps through F-Droid, your phone would probably fail integrity tests, which would not allow you to use the age verification app, locking you out of the service you want to access...

Show threadAtiSep 15, 2025
@xinayder @qbe @ondra @chatcontrol So you're basically saying EU would force everybody to use either Google Android or iOS? No web browser access? Laptops/desktops? Like you have to verify you login credentials / age once? Say on a desktop? Or each and every time on any platform? Well that would be pretty stupid of EU. But luckily I think you may just be projecting your worst fears, worst case scenario that won't materialise. So heads up ✌️
Show threadcubeSep 15, 2025

@ati1 @xinayder @ondra @chatcontrol I am not projecting my worst Fears, I am just pointing out that ANY implementation of this bullshit will either

* be so ineffective that moderately smart criminals can subvert it relatively easily

OR

* be so disruptive that it will require the police randomly coming to your house to have a look at your computer, or general computing being taken away from users, etc., which would destroy large parts of the IT industry.

There is no way around this. Its math.

Show threadcubeSep 15, 2025

@ati1 @xinayder @ondra @chatcontrol the hard part is making that clear to laypersons, the general populace, and politicians.

No-one should debate anyone on chat control without having thought about how to communicate this effectively.

You cannot prove that a computer is NOT doing a specific thing (halting Problem)

Trying to make a computer that can do everything _except_ illegal things is like trying to invent a wheel that can't be used in bank robbery get away - it doesn't work.

Show threadAtiSep 15, 2025
@qbe @xinayder @ondra @chatcontrol I was refering to your toot where you wrote that EU os gonna make age verification app that only works with Google Play Services / integrity tests and you would not be able to log into web services without that.
Show threadAlexSep 15, 2025

@ati1 @qbe @ondra @chatcontrol I don't know to which extent the EU will require the use of its age verification app/national implementations, but seeing how they have a dream of a techno-fascist surveillance state, I'd dare to say your assumptions are more likely to be correct.

this is all speculation, though.

Show thread Tired Bunny  Sep 16, 2025
@qbe @ati1 @ondra @chatcontrol

To be fair, as far as I understand chat control in it's current form specifically tries to legally pressure services from companies they can fine, not requiring "non commercial" stuff to conform since it will be harder to come after smaller, open source software. For now.

But there is a different precedent, Russia, which requires any service to give out private messages on formal request, and either sues local services or blocks foreign services for not complying, regardless if it's just refusal or if it's impossible because of e2ee. It requires a massive internet censorship apparatus to be in place and enforcement is selective despite that, but this is a real world example of such system being sucessfully introduced to a nation that had freedom of internet for long enough to see it as norm.

Which means, regardless of how absurd and delusional that idea of banning e2ee sounds, it is a real threat to your freedom as long as some individual in power has it.