EU Versus Free Software (and Privacy)
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EU chat control law will ban open source operating systems [iophk: Most of the legislators certainly didn't think about it or even know enough to have thoughts on the topic. However, those few that did were mostly in the pocket of Microsoft.]
The proposed Chat control EU law will not only seize totalitarian control of all private communication. It will also ban open source operating systems as an unintended consequence.
The EU is currently in the process of enacting the chat control law. It has been criticized for creating an EU-wide centralized mass surveillance and censorship system and enabling government eavesdropping on all private communication. But one little talked about consequence of the proposed law is that it makes practically all existing open source operating systems illegal, including all major Linux distributions. It would also effectively ban the F-Droid open source Android app archive.
Article 6 of the law requires all "software application stores" to: [...]
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When the EU wanted to own all computers
Their desire to monitor 100% of all communication is understandable, it’s for a good cause, but the only way to do that technically is if the are the admin user on every single computer (because otherwise people can still chat over Omemo, PGP, Matrix, or SSH+talk).
So no more passwords, SSL certs, bank login, no more free operating systems, no more Jitsi or SSH or HTTPS. This law literally breaks all computing and the entire Internet. Which, if that’s what they really intend to do, they should just say so explicitly. The EU anti–all-computers-ever law. I can kind of see the appeal but I doubt business & politicians would, if they really understood that that was the ramifications.
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There is a high possibility that open source OS such as Linux will become illegal due to the EU's ``chat regulation law''
The chat regulation law is a bill submitted to the European Parliament in May 2022, and aims to oblige providers of email and chat services to ``constantly monitor communication content'' and ``implement age verification''. . Since this bill requires the monitoring of communication content regardless of whether communication is encrypted, there are many voices who oppose the bill on the grounds that it ``infringes on privacy'' and ``increases the risk of misjudgment due to false reports.'' has been submitted.