If the govvies (any govvies; there is nothing specific to EU here) drive that process of forking a large, powerful, universally used system you will end up with more surveillance, not less.

Because kids, because pornography, because terrorism, whatever. This is too powerful an option for control freaks to resist.

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mosura 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And this is why everyone gives up on doing anything while standing around complaining that no one does the right thing.

What is so pernicious about the EU approach is the enthusiasm and efficiency with which it stops anyone from doing anything, while simultaneously attempting to regulate what everyone else in the world can do. If they put even a small part of that energy into encouraging the right thing to happen they would be in such a better place it is insane.

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inigyou 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Not really. They weren't saying if it existed in the EU it'd have to surveil. They were saying if the EU government created it it'd have to surveil.

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mosura 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Honestly your reading comprehension is not good today.

They said if the government “drive the process of forking” which could mean encourage a group of academics to do it, or a commercial consortium. It does not mean the EU government take on the task themselves. *

It is self evident from actual EU behaviour that any mobile os that gets to users will be legally required to be a surveillance disaster area, regardless of origin, and the only people that have prevented this already are evil US corporations.

* edit to add, the EU did encourage many technical efforts vital to the mobile phone industry at different times with a mix of funding, political support etc. The Arm people would tell you AMBA (a standard relating to SoC component integration) wouldn’t exist without this, and yet no one would classify this as “a creation of the EU” but very much enabled by them. For whatever reason since about 2005 their strategic ability in this area has not merely disappeared but become actively wrong.

	▲	inigyou an hour ago \| parent [-]
		If the EU government told a group of academics "hey, go make a phone" it wouldn't have mass surveillance. If it insisted on being closely involved in the process, then it would.

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inigyou 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm not 100% sure about surveillance but you will definitely end up with the most milquetoast risk-averse bland corporate system ever, complete with 6 months of paperwork and KYC to get a certificate to sign any executable with your real name, so it will be allowed to run.