Current Events > The EARN IT Act is back again

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/02/its-back-senators-want-earn-it-bill-scan-all-online-messages
https://www.engadget.com/earn-it-act-2022-explained-153058123.html

Back in 2020, a bipartisan group of senators wrote an awful piece of legislation called EARN IT. The EARN IT Act would create a committee of law enforcement experts who would make rules about tackling child abuse material. Companies who fail to follow these recommendations would lose all protections under Section 230. It also empowers states to pass their own laws about policing content online. Although the senators involved deny it, the goal of this legislation is to give the government vast powers over what can and cannot be put on the internet, and to make it possible (and required) to scan everything online with automated tools for law enforcement, all under the guise of "protecting children".

Bump.

we china now

Bump!

Guide posted...

we china now

Somehow Xi Jinping returned.

"Think of the Children!"

It's a hard line to argue against no wonder they keep using it when trying to expand the reach of their power and control.

Bidens America

But at least we killed Osama Bin Laden right?

My rule is that if a law regarding the Internet is supposed to protect children, then it is a shitty bill designed to restrict legitimate activity. Children are not going to get any safer online with any laws they could pass.

Ill never forgive them for getting rid of Craigslist personals. I used to crush ass off that.

uwnim posted...

My rule is that if a law regarding the Internet is supposed to protect children, then it is a shitty bill designed to restrict legitimate activity. Children are not going to get any safer online with any laws they could pass.

Yeah, this is true. They want encryption ended and everything scanned by government approved software, despite the fact that said software sucks and produces huge numbers of false positives, bogging down law enforcement and increasing the risk of innocent people having an interaction with law enforcement. And they like to pretend those false positives are real hits, thereby claiming that there has been an increase in internet sex crimes!

It's disgusting. I'm worried that this will pass. The EU apparently at one point wanted to pursue mandatory scanning of all messages too for the same reason, but I'm not sure if those plans have stalled or been put aside.

Warn what, lol? That is a bold title for something that has happened already

Edit: earn

Earn what?

SweetieBeIle462 posted...

Earn what?

Your freedom

@MedeaLysistrata
@SweetieBeIle462
From my opening post:

Back in 2020, a bipartisan group of senators wrote an awful piece of legislation called EARN IT. The EARN IT Act would create a committee of law enforcement experts who would make rules about tackling child abuse material. Companies who fail to follow these recommendations would lose all protections under Section 230. It also empowers states to pass their own laws about policing content online. Although the senators involved deny it, the goal of this legislation is to give the government vast powers over what can and cannot be put on the internet, and to make it possible (and required) to scan everything online with automated tools for law enforcement, all under the guise of "protecting children".

Let me know if you actually had a different question and I just misunderstood.

Sounds good. Too much smut as it is.

This makes the UK's recent efforts look almost benign.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

It passed the Judiciary Committee with all "yes" votes. We don't know when or if it will be voted on by the full Senate or House.

@WhereTwoFeom
I can't find the link right now, but representatives from some organizations like the EFF did an AMA on a Reddit sub about EARN IT. The general feeling is that if it comes up for a vote, it will pass easily because it's an election year and child safety bills are seen as an easy win. Also, most of the representatives in Congress don't seem to understand what is in the bill, including the bill's primary sponsors. There was a kind of darkly hilarious article on Tech Dirt about all the things they got wrong during the committee meeting. They don't seem to understand why some of the things in EARN IT don't already exist, or even what exactly the bill would do. Who the hell writes these things anyway?

If you don't agree with EARN IT, be sure and contact your representatives early this week. There is a general feeling that they might try and pass this quickly. The best hope of that not happening is to make the bill not seem like an easy win for lawmakers.

Didnt Apple already have a CP data base and a pedobear AI?

Unsugarized_Foo posted...

Didnt Apple already have a CP data base and a pedobear AI?

@Unsugarized_Foo
No. Apple had planned to introduce two new child safety features: one that would scan every image you uploaded to iCloud by hashing the image and comparing it to a database of known bad hashes provided by law enforcement organizations, and the other would have alerted parents if their children were sending or receiving what was believed to be nude images. Due to a huge backlash, these features have been shelved for now.

What's a hash? That some way to encrypt an image but still ID it?

Unsugarized_Foo posted...

What's a hash? That some way to encrypt an image but still ID it?

its a unique ID that identifies a file

@Unsugarized_Foo
Basically, what happens is that you feed an image into what is known as a hash function and it gives you back a number that "uniquely" identifies the image. So the idea is that your iPhone would only need to store a database of hashes for bad images. Each time you upload an image to iCloud, the hash function is run on the image and compared to the database to see if there is a match.

Unfortunately, more than one image can have the same hash, and the tools currently being used also try and match altered versions of bad images to keep criminals from just altering a bad image or video a bit and getting away with it. This decreases the reliability of detection.

Although Apple hasn't revealed any plans to do so yet, many large tech companies also use machine learning to try and identify unknown illegal porn. They tend to report huge numbers of images, but the number of false positives (that is, the number of images reported that are actually legal) is unknown. The only organization that can store illegal images and videos long term for study is NCMEC, a non-profit organization that is technically a quasi-governmental organization because it has special powers and was created by Congress. They are the main source for hashes. To my knowledge, they have never allowed an audit of their databases or process. There is no way to know how reliable their work actually is. They also have a pro-surveillance and anti-porn political bias. They will be one of the key players making the rules that companies have to follow if EARN IT is passed.

Some European police agencies have reported that most of what gets referred to them is either legal stuff or things involving minors (so two teenagers sending each other stuff, rather than an adult and a child).

It's important to note that internet companies are already criminally liable for hosting abuse material and although not legally required to, most already take significant steps to find and remove it. EARN IT will open up companies to serious civil liabilities if they don't adhere to what will essentially be a police wishlist of demands, including things like breaking secure communications, scanning for inappropriate words and phrases (things that are legal, but which might point to "problematic behavior") and mandatory data retention, for starters. And each state will be able to make its own rules as well. You can no doubt imagine the problems this will cause. Also, forcing companies to use tools that report to NCMEC is almost certainly a 4th Amendment violation and will lead to criminals with lawyers escaping justice.

That's a good explanation, thanks

@WhereTwoFeom
The EU also intends to introduce mandatory scanning legislation in March, with a final vote over the Summer, tentatively. EU Law flat out forbids blanket scanning so we'll see how that goes. The UK is also doing a child safety/anti-encryption push right now.

Why is it that they always have to give their dystopian legislation some dopey acronym title?