The Going Dark initiative or ProtectEU is a Chat Control 3.0 attempt

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

VPNs, Mullvad, and Technical Concerns

  • VPNs are seen as a “trust exercise”; Mullvad is considered relatively good but criticized for ending port forwarding and using “low-quality” IP ranges that trigger fraud filters.
  • Some argue all major VPN IPs get flagged; financial incentives push providers to oversubscribe IPs, making detection easier.
  • Alternatives with port-forwarding or public IPv4 exist (e.g., AirVPN, Njalla, Proton), but each has trade-offs (legal-entity changes, obscurity, price, or shared/residential IP gray areas).
  • Technical suggestions include NAT-PMP/PCP-based port allocation rather than per-user IPv4.

ProtectEU / Going Dark / Chat Control: Scope and Intent

  • The initiative is framed as another iteration of “Chat Control,” focusing on broad metadata retention: who contacts whom, when, how often, and which websites are visited, with explicit interest in covering VPNs.
  • Many see a pattern of rebranding essentially the same surveillance package (Chat Control 1.0/2.0/3.0, ProtectEU, Going Dark) until resistance wears down.
  • Others point to official texts noting judicial authorization, proportionality, and CJEU case law, but critics view this as boilerplate that has not prevented prior overreach.

EU Governance, Democratic Deficit, and Authoritarian Drift

  • Some commenters fear the EU is sliding toward “soft totalitarianism,” driven by unelected Commission bureaucrats and opaque processes, with national parliaments and voters effectively sidelined.
  • Others defend the EU as comparatively less captured by corporations than the US and argue that proposals are just that—proposals—still subject to parliamentary votes and judicial review.
  • There is recurring concern that such measures are pushed largely by police and interior ministries, with politicians either captured, fearful, or technically uninformed.

Privacy Rights, Constitutions, and Legislative Ratchets

  • Several participants argue that privacy and strong encryption must be explicitly and constitutionally protected (EU‑level or national), with mechanisms to block reintroduction of functionally identical bills (“dismiss with prejudice,” mandatory sunsets, or high referendum thresholds).
  • Others point out that strong constitutional/privacy language already exists (Germany’s Basic Law, Article 8 ECHR, Italian constitution, US 4th Amendment) yet is routinely stretched or sidestepped via secret courts, “national security” exceptions, and supranational agreements.
  • The lawmaking “ratchet” is seen as asymmetric: passing new surveillance powers is easier than repealing them, and international cooperation lets states outsource surveillance to friendlier jurisdictions.

Security, Disinformation, and the Case for/Against Censorship

  • A minority argues privacy tech companies (like VPN providers) can weaken democratic states by making regulation and counter‑disinformation harder, and that solutions should be political, not technical.
  • The dominant response:
    • Education and media literacy are the only sustainable answers to disinformation.
    • Mass surveillance and censorship erode the very freedoms they claim to defend and are ineffective against serious adversaries, who will simply move to robust tools (PGP, Signal, custom ops).
    • Any system for targeting “foreign influence” or “fake news” inevitably becomes a tool to entrench incumbents and suppress legitimate opposition.
  • Some participants criticize modern elites and parts of academia for embracing “censorship to fight disinformation,” viewing this as an illiberal turn.

Mullvad, Activism, and the Role of Business

  • One thread debates whether Mullvad’s activism is “performative” marketing versus genuine political engagement.
  • Mullvad’s representative responds that:
    • Their activism predates the company; the business is a vehicle to push back on mass surveillance and censorship.
    • They see making mass surveillance technically ineffective as a net long‑term good, even if it also weakens state capabilities.
    • They acknowledge no simple fix for social media‑driven disinformation but insist that mass surveillance will worsen, not solve, these problems.
  • A critic worries that technical workarounds let citizens “opt out” instead of fighting politically, weakening incentives for systemic reform.

Child Protection, “Online Safety,” and Overreach

  • Many commenters highlight the “protect the children” framing as a recurring justification for expansive surveillance powers.
  • A vivid subthread centers on countries criminalizing purely drawn/animated sexual depictions of minors.
    • One participant describes being raided in the UK over “illegal anime artwork,” sparking debate on whether such laws meaningfully protect children or mainly enable broad police discretion.
    • Critics argue that drawn material involving no real minors should not be equated with abuse; supporters counter that such content may normalize or encourage harmful behavior.
  • Several warn that once the legal category of “child abuse material” is broad and fuzzy (including drawings, “deemed under 18” images, etc.), it becomes an all‑purpose pretext for surveillance and repression.

Enforcement, Practicalities, and Workarounds

  • Some question how VPNs can realistically “never spy” if EU law compels logging, predicting either court challenges, exit from certain jurisdictions, or quiet noncompliance.
  • Others expect uneven enforcement: some member states (e.g., Germany) would likely see constitutional challenges; others might ignore privacy rulings in practice.
  • Technical countermeasures frequently mentioned: wide adoption of end‑to‑end encryption (Signal, Session, Matrix, XMPP), local disk encryption (VeraCrypt), and self‑hosted or less‑visible infrastructures.

Political Strategies and Public Response

  • Proposed counter‑tactics include:
    • Enshrining strong encryption as a protected right.
    • Naming and shaming individual politicians backing such bills to make it career‑toxic.
    • Maintaining high civic engagement and voting out repeat offenders, though some doubt voters’ information quality or priorities.
  • Others are pessimistic: they see lobbying power, low public understanding, and populist distractions (immigration, culture wars) as structural obstacles to sustained defense of privacy.