The computer from Star Trek is always correct though.

We created something close, and yes that is amazing, but it’s highly fallible.

I think the issue is more there is a cloud over their future. There is much more scrutiny on them and who they are selling to, whether they will be able to continue as they have been doesn’t seem so certain.

By asking random people on the internet what to do?

Yes, many recommended good index funds or FAANG companies.

Keep in mind that it’s easy to win in a market that’s just going up. You could pick random stocks and you’d probably get decent returns.

The last decade has been pretty spectacular for stocks but that doesn’t most of us wizards at investing.

The thing is if you’re well diversified, then when you win, you win big, but when you lose, you lose small.

My worst losses have left me with maybe 0.5x-0.25x of my inital investment. But my big wins have been 10x+.

Even if you leveraged hard, brokers would close out your positions before you go negative.

Perhaps it’d go that way.

But the chat control proposal specifically involves forcing the makers of messaging apps to scan the contents of messages.

PGP remains very relevant under those current proposals.

I’m amazed to see this.

I’d have assumed the way to spam SMS is having some sort of dodgy SS7 connection somewhere?

Wild that the radio interface is the way to connect to the network for this.

And spoofing caller id is easy you shouldn’t need local SIMs?

I mean it’s not hard to predict. Inevitably they will as their parent companies won’t give up such a big market.

How well a ban on signal would be enforced if they don’t comply would be interesting.

I still feel like this will fail to come into effect like all the other times. But we gotta keep eyes on it.

Apple did not bend the knee in the UK, it forced the hand of the UK to reveal it's goals. Obviously we will see, I don't have much hope either. As for Signal, I hope they pull out as it will get media coverage somewhat on this issue.

I have understood that Whatsapp is not a terribly profitable product for Meta, so it is possible that it would just be withdrawn from Europe, instead of making expensive and controversial modifications.

iMessage is not really a thing in Europe. Apple phones are simply not popular enough here for it to be an useful feature. I guess Apple would just disable it for European users.

It won’t.

It makes no attempt to outlaw encryption. We can still legally use PGP and completely avoid eavesdropping.

What it does mandate is that messaging providers who they will name (think WhatsApp, Signal), will be obliged to have people reviewing the content of all messages sent.

All but the stupidest of criminals will thus work around it, encrypting themselves over the top. While the average Joe gets all their messages read.

If you read it closely they are not mandating backdoors in encryption.

WhatsApp could still have messages end-to-end encrypted. What they would be mandated to do is for the app to send copies of the messages to WhatsApp for their staff to review the contents.

This obviously breaks the point of end-to-end encryption. Without actually making it illegal for them to use encryption, or add any “backdoor” so it can be reversed.

It’s a weasely way of trying to have their cake and eat it.

So… a backdoor?

Not a backdoor, but a built-in snitch.

isn't that a backdoor?

To me, a backdoor is passive. There for someone to enter. What's under discussion here is sonething active, so in some sense worse.

I think this is more the entire front of the house being open to the street.

To be honest, I’m starting to consider this more a front door. You don’t need to break encryption if you can just bypass it.

Backdoor kinda implies it is not used very much or it would be a front door.

But it is available for use. Corruption is not a fantasy but a reality. Usually who reach the top on political scale have seen it all, I mean all. Being polite to describe this reality use cases, (inside trading, political targeting, discrimination, monopoly etc). Who would know, who can stop it, who would dare!

What are the protection mechanisms? Are we suppose to hope that the untouchable/s is 100% honest?

It feels uncomfortable to say the least.

I was arguing if the "backdoor" is not secret or atleast seldomly used it is a ordinary door.

Chat Control would always spy on people and thus not be a backdoor.

postgres

Thank you for this explanation!

I had tried to describe this effect recently when Trump lowered bank reserve requirements, urging traditional banks to buy stablecoins with the extra funds this gives them.

My comment was that it increased risk (less reserves), without any potential upside in new economic activity. Basically all the money would flow to the govt in the form of treasuries the stablecoin issuers buy.

As opposed to the banks, you know, lending money to businesses.