from Hacker News

New branding, same scanning: Upload moderation undermines end-to-end encryption [pdf]

by unnervingduck on 6/17/24, 3:54 PM with 42 comments

  • by Centigonal on 6/17/24, 8:25 PM

    I just want to express how much I appreciate Meredith Whittaker. She helped organize the Google walkouts, She's been working on AI safety since at least 2016, She advised Lina Khan at the FTC, and new she's out here advocating for preserving E2EE. A lot of people online give her flak for her opinions, but she's been consistently very loud and occasionally influential.

    She's done some cool uncontroversial tech work too (like helping start M-Lab), but her advocacy is what is most interesting to me. I don't agree with all of her positions, but I like that there are still people in the tech world who are willing to take strong and sometimes radical stances on moral issues against the current of capitalism. I feel like she's the closest thing we have to an rms-type figure today.

  • by t0bia_s on 6/18/24, 7:07 AM

    Why those moderation attempts are not considered as national security threat? I can imagine how foreign power could take advantage of this.

  • by eterps on 6/17/24, 8:38 PM

    I'm wondering if this proposal is enforced, and you opt out, how would it be known whether you're sending someone a URL? How would a URL even be distinguished from other text when you have opted out?

    I suppose you could detect some patterns, and it definitely wouldn't be clickable. But is the text google.com considered a URL for example? I guess it isn't?

    (yeah I know, it's a stupid law anyway, but just wondering)

  • by mihaic on 6/17/24, 8:20 PM

    After losing my phone and not having a way to recover a lot of data, I've come to the realization that I don't want end to end encryption. I just want a responsible entity to store all my data in a secure way, and they'd only make money from what I'd pay them. If I lose everything, I still want access to my data, even if a proof of identity costs me.

    Of course incentive systems make that very hard in today's corporate world, but I can still wish for my ideal world.