One-Man Spam Campaign Ravages EU 'Chat Control' Bill (politico.eu)
- Reference: 0179725894
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/10/09/1017255/one-man-spam-campaign-ravages-eu-chat-control-bill
- Source link: https://www.politico.eu/article/one-man-spam-campaign-ravages-eu-chat-control-bill-fight-chat-control/
> A website set up by an unknown Dane over the course of one weekend in August is [1]giving a massive headache to those trying to pass a European bill aimed at stopping child sexual abuse material from spreading online.
>
> The website, called Fight Chat Control, was set up by Joachim, a 30-year-old software engineer living in Aalborg, Denmark. He made it after learning of a new attempt to approve a European Union proposal to fight child sexual abuse material (CSAM) -- a bill seen by privacy activists as breaking encryption and leading to mass surveillance.
>
> The site lets visitors compile a mass email warning about the bill and send it to national government officials, members of the European Parliament and others with ease. Since launching, it has broken the inboxes of MEPs and caused a stir in Brussels' corridors of power. "We are getting hundreds per day about it," said Evin Incir, a Swedish Socialists and Democrats MEP, of the email deluge.
[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/one-man-spam-campaign-ravages-eu-chat-control-bill-fight-chat-control/
FUD (Score:3)
Unfortunately the website in question is not accurate. For example: [1]https://fightchatcontrol.eu/#o... [fightchatcontrol.eu]
"Breaking Encryption
Weakening or breaking end-to-end encryption exposes everyone's communicationsâ"including sensitive financial, medical, and private dataâ"to hackers, criminals, and hostile actors."
That is not true. The requirement is for the app that sends or receives the message to scan it locally, against a database of known illegal images and URLs. No encryption is broken, the message is scanned only by apps that have access to the plaintext so that the user can send/receive the message.
The other claims seem accurate and are much more compelling. Apple tried it, it didn't work, it can't work, and it won't be effective.
If we are going to fight this, it needs to be done based on true and accurate information. I imagine most of these MEPs will be told that the claims are not true, and dismiss all opposition as being based on disinformation.
[1] https://fightchatcontrol.eu/#overview
Re: (Score:2)
It sends (false) positives to the authorities not encrypted by keys you hold, so in that respect it selectively breaks the encryption.
NOT a spam campaign. (Score:4, Insightful)
> The term "spam" is also used to describe unsolicited electronic messages, particularly in email, for advertising or phishing purposes
Activism is NOT spam. Whoever wrote this is definitely putting a huge amount of spin (intentionally or not) on this story because spam has significant negative connotations.
Re: (Score:1)
Spam is unwated e-mail. Many of the recipients have made it clear they don't want the e-mails. To them, it's spam.
Re: NOT a spam campaign. (Score:4, Insightful)
Constituent emails are never spam. Spam is "unsolicited commercial email" so it has to have a commercial purpose for it to be spam. Phishing is also not spam and is also not solicited. We have commonly accepted definitions. Let's use them.
Re: (Score:3)
It's both. He's intentionally spamming the politicians as a form of activism.
Re: (Score:2)
If:
Spam is unwanted e-mail
I receve official documents via registered e-mail
I don't want to receive speeding tickets, that now are sent via e-mail
then speeding tickets are spam.
Re: (Score:2)
> Activism is NOT spam.
That depends on the intent. If it is to communicate, then maybe it's not. Although sending hundreds of individual e-mails is just indicitave of Joachim not understanding how more efficient protocols could be used.
If the intent is to clog up mailboxes, then it's just vandalism. Although I do wonder what sort of crappy system they are using that can't just automatically round file this garbage. I get hundreds of e-mails a day from Nigerian princes. A simple rule "If GMail then delete" takes care of most of t
For the counter-argument... (Score:2)
[1]https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/... [eff.org]
[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/09/chat-control-back-menu-eu-it-still-must-be-stopped-0
Aalborg (Score:2)
Now there is a name I haven't heard in a while. Hope that Joachim is a proud member of F-klubben! I så fald håber du ikke bare vinder, men vinder stort! Genuinely curious how many will get the reference :)
Framing. (Score:5, Insightful)
> He made it after learning of a new attempt to approve a European Union proposal to fight child sexual abuse material (CSAM) — a bill seen by privacy activists as breaking encryption and leading to mass surveillance.
That's quite the framing. Instead of saying what the bill does , they write what they bill hopes to accomplish without mentioning how it does it. I have looked into it but given the history of politicians, I would be this is another, "we can't let the little people have secure communications, think of the children!" campaign to restrict the use of encryption.
I am 100% on board with fighting the exploitation of children but insisting on an an Orwellian approach is the only way to do this is lazy thinking at best.
Re: (Score:2)
Even if politicians weren't (let's be charitable) less-than-forthcoming, what mechanism is there to snoop on the nominal targets other than intercepting ?
I'd be interested in a commitment that if they do authorise themselves to snoop on everything, they commit to catching every single one of them and if they don't, they (personally - not the taxpayer) suffer financial consequences.
Also, which mechanism could be put in-place to ensure that noone can use the ability to read everything every
Re:Framing. (Score:4, Insightful)
> Instead of saying what the bill does , they write what they bill supposes to accomplish without mentioning how it does it.
FTFY. Never confuse what is used to sell a bill with what the bill is actually for. Politicians figure out what they want to do, and PR people figure out how to get the public on board. Rarely is there a solid connection between these two.
And with regard to CP in particular, why on earth would any of us believe those Epstein island politicians give a rats ass about children.
Re: (Score:1)
The purpose of a bill is what it does.
This bill introduces total surveillance of private messaging. That's what it's for.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, the hyperbole of "breaking inboxes" by sending a few hundred emails - what is this, 1993?
I'm sure their email server is more than capable of dealing with a few hundred thousand emails per day, and these assholes are just having a whinge that they someone made it easier to give electeds feedback about their stupid draconian crap that they justify "for the children" which may not even be technically feasible.