Denmark reportedly withdraws Chat Control proposal following controversy

I’m continually astounded that so many people, faced with a societal problem, reflexively turn to “Hmmm, perhaps if we monitored and read and listened to every single thing that every person does, all of the time…”

As though it would 1) be a practical possibility and 2) be effective.

Compounding the issue is that the more technology can solve #1, the more these people fixate on it as the solution without regards to the lack of #2.

I wish there were a way, once and for all, to prevent this ridiculous idea from taking hold over and over again. If I could get a hold of such people when these ideas were in their infancy… perhaps I should monitor everything everyone does and watch for people considering the same as a solution to their problem… ah well, no, still don’t see how that follows logically as a reasonable solution.

The issue is that there is a place where this model ~is working. It's in China and Russia. The GFW, its Russian equivalent, and the national security laws binding all of their tech companies and public discussion do exactly these things in a way that has allowed their leadership to go unchallenged for decades now.

The rest of the world isn't stupid or silly for suggesting these policies. They're following a proven effective model for the outcomes they are looking for.

We do ourselves a disservice by acting like there is some inherent flaw in it.

You're responding to a completely different thing:

>many people, faced with a societal problem, reflexively turn to (total surveillance)

It's not about the malicious elites. These societal problems surveillance keeps being pushed for never get fixed in either China or Russia. Yet people (not just politicians) keep pushing for it or at the very least ignoring the push. A decade+ after the push, things like KYC/AML regulations are not even controversial anymore, and never even were for most people. Oh, these are banks! Of course they need the info on your entire life because how else would you stop money laundering, child molesters, or shudders those North Koreans? What, are you a criminal?

And of course you somehow manage to blame the usual bad guys for something that happens in your society, because of course they're inherently evil and are always the reason for your problems. Guess what, the same often happens there and they copy your practices. Don't you have your own agency?

The reality is that the majority in any place in the world doesn't see privacy, or most of their or others' rights for that matter, worth fighting for. Having the abundancy and convenience is enough.

That last point is even enough as demonstrated by the swiss people voting for the eID, democratically paving the way for future mass surveillance and total dependency to our iOS and Android locked bootloaders overlords. As stated further down this is all stemming from education.