The fun thing is, that those filters cannot work.
The request begins with a normal looking https request to a non illegal (DNS) server. Then comes the secure handshake with one of the many cloudflare IPs and then the connection goes on like that.
The only way of stopping or recognizing this traffic at this point is via the IP. So they would have to ban all cloudflare IPs to block that and no western politician will survive that.
Those filters would only work on small sites that don’t use cloudflare, since then you might have a small number of static IPs.
And they way to report illegal sites is there. You just write cloudflare and they will most certainly deal with the CSAM.
Just make a law that states, in order to protect the citizenship from the dangers of CSAM, it’s illegal to use protocols like this or can’t operate in the country. Make a smear campaign to appease public opinion to say that cloudflare is helping hide CSAM sites.
Once this first step is done, the road to stricter filters for any other use is paved
All the filters that are used in Europe to block illegal soccer streams within 30 minutes or to block those dangerous gambling sites (just because they don’t pay taxes, not because of actual concern) are all coming from a “we need to find a way to block CSAM”, then “we already have the tech, we should apply them also to other stuff”
tl;dr europol people said they might want to get the scanned (chat) data (proposed in a new set of laws to prevent csa and grooming and find csam) without any limitations on the data and no restrictions on how they can use it
The fun thing is, that those filters cannot work.
The request begins with a normal looking https request to a non illegal (DNS) server. Then comes the secure handshake with one of the many cloudflare IPs and then the connection goes on like that.
The only way of stopping or recognizing this traffic at this point is via the IP. So they would have to ban all cloudflare IPs to block that and no western politician will survive that.
Those filters would only work on small sites that don’t use cloudflare, since then you might have a small number of static IPs.
And they way to report illegal sites is there. You just write cloudflare and they will most certainly deal with the CSAM.
Just make a law that states, in order to protect the citizenship from the dangers of CSAM, it’s illegal to use protocols like this or can’t operate in the country. Make a smear campaign to appease public opinion to say that cloudflare is helping hide CSAM sites.
Once this first step is done, the road to stricter filters for any other use is paved
All the filters that are used in Europe to block illegal soccer streams within 30 minutes or to block those dangerous gambling sites (just because they don’t pay taxes, not because of actual concern) are all coming from a “we need to find a way to block CSAM”, then “we already have the tech, we should apply them also to other stuff”
Already happening: (german article) https://netzpolitik.org/2023/interne-dokumente-europol-will-chatkontrolle-daten-unbegrenzt-sammeln/
tl;dr europol people said they might want to get the scanned (chat) data (proposed in a new set of laws to prevent csa and grooming and find csam) without any limitations on the data and no restrictions on how they can use it
100% it would then change “we should also use this for other crimes”
… that is basically what they said