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Don't Panic: Seeking Points of Agreement on the “Going Dark” Debate

cyber.law.harvard.edu

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Re: Don't Panic: Seeking Points of Agreement on the “Going Dark” Debate

#61

Post by mirimir »

rayiner wrote: post #22
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #4

This fake crisis of "Going Dark" as if we haven't been that way for all of time before the Internet is dangerous. The "scary" notion that the police won't be able to read everything about everyone is being recast by the Feds as if it really is national crisis. Benjamin Wittes suggests on Lawfare we make Common Carrier Immunity conditional on the company being able to make all data available in the clear to the govern…

While I oppose things like encryption backdoors, I think it's disingenuous to say this is a "fake crisis." The 4th amendment has always required balancing security and privacy--that's why the distinction between "unreasonable searches" and reasonable ones appears right there in the text. And society has always balanced those two interests with a simple mechanism: the police can only search with a warrant, but once th…

The 4th Amendment doesn't protect foreigners.

Re: Don't Panic: Seeking Points of Agreement on the “Going Dark” Debate

#62

Post by mirimir »

obrero wrote: post #15
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #4

This fake crisis of "Going Dark" as if we haven't been that way for all of time before the Internet is dangerous. The "scary" notion that the police won't be able to read everything about everyone is being recast by the Feds as if it really is national crisis. Benjamin Wittes suggests on Lawfare we make Common Carrier Immunity conditional on the company being able to make all data available in the clear to the govern…

The facts which Wittes gives are way off. He links to "civil suits against the companies who provide service to ISIS and other bad guys". The civil suit is regarding a Jordanian police officer who shot and killed an American military contractor. Other than this lawsuit, almost nothing is linking the officer to ISIS. If you read the lawsuit, they really have nothing linking this officer to ISIS either, other than a va…

Republicans in 1929 were more or less what we today call libertarians. Or maybe Victorians. Honor, and all that.

Re: Don't Panic: Seeking Points of Agreement on the “Going Dark” Debate

#63

Post by PhasmaFelis »

rayiner wrote: post #22
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #4

This fake crisis of "Going Dark" as if we haven't been that way for all of time before the Internet is dangerous. The "scary" notion that the police won't be able to read everything about everyone is being recast by the Feds as if it really is national crisis. Benjamin Wittes suggests on Lawfare we make Common Carrier Immunity conditional on the company being able to make all data available in the clear to the govern…

While I oppose things like encryption backdoors, I think it's disingenuous to say this is a "fake crisis." The 4th amendment has always required balancing security and privacy--that's why the distinction between "unreasonable searches" and reasonable ones appears right there in the text. And society has always balanced those two interests with a simple mechanism: the police can only search with a warrant, but once th…

The government has always been able to spy on people, but before the internet, it was hard, so there was a motivation for them not to waste time and resources on it without real justification. (Not to say that surveillance never happened for stupid or malicious reasons, but there was at least a practical cap.)

In the age of the internet, that protection has been lost, and the government has taken advantage of the increased ease of surveillance to try to monitor everyone, all the time. Unfortunately, there's no way to put the genie back in the bottle--we either put up with ubiquitous surveillance, or fight it; either way, the era of limited, focused surveillance is over.

Re: Don't Panic: Seeking Points of Agreement on the “Going Dark” Debate

#65

Post by kwhitefoot »

marshray wrote: post #47
fredgrott wrote: post #11

put in proper context Imagine if its WWII and that they asked for all mail to be un-sealed..Shocking but did almost happen..as far as they got was asking Military Personnel to 'volunteer' not to seal mail..

They forced everyone to turn in their shortwave radios too.

Who? Where? In the UK that would have meant pretty much every radio would have had to be given up. At least every radio I have seen from the period had LW, MW, and SW.

Re: Don't Panic: Seeking Points of Agreement on the “Going Dark” Debate

#66

Post by allengeorge »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #39
rayiner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mostly not about banning encryption though. The debate mostly centers on regulating the products and services companies can provide to facilitate such communications. If there was a precursor to companies promising to make it easy for regular joe criminal to encrypt his postal mail, it's conceivable that the government would have fracked down on those companies. > It's one with only one right answer, but it's a…

> The debate mostly centers on regulating the products and services companies can provide to facilitate such communications. You're calling them products but the relevant thing they want to regulate is still more speech. If you want to communicate with your friends in code then you first have to communicate the code itself. In this context the code is code , but code is speech.

I fail to understand this point. Are you saying that because you have to transfer the tool (encryption software) over a medium, the tool is now speech?

I am pretty...unsympathetic...to this interpretation.

Re: Don't Panic: Seeking Points of Agreement on the “Going Dark” Debate

#67

Post by munin »

obrero wrote: post #15
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #4

This fake crisis of "Going Dark" as if we haven't been that way for all of time before the Internet is dangerous. The "scary" notion that the police won't be able to read everything about everyone is being recast by the Feds as if it really is national crisis. Benjamin Wittes suggests on Lawfare we make Common Carrier Immunity conditional on the company being able to make all data available in the clear to the govern…

The facts which Wittes gives are way off. He links to "civil suits against the companies who provide service to ISIS and other bad guys". The civil suit is regarding a Jordanian police officer who shot and killed an American military contractor. Other than this lawsuit, almost nothing is linking the officer to ISIS. If you read the lawsuit, they really have nothing linking this officer to ISIS either, other than a va…

> In 1929, the Republican (!) Secretary of State rolled up all the old World War I spying operations saying "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail". How far the US has fallen in freedom from the day Stimson uttered those words a century ago.

He also turned it all back on, to 11, as the secretary of war, once stuff heated up in Europe.

Re: Don't Panic: Seeking Points of Agreement on the “Going Dark” Debate

#68

Post by rayiner »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #45
rayiner wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Code is not speech any more than electronic circuits are speech. That is to say that in unique contexts when the code is itself a means of expression code may be speech,[1] but not when it is used to build something that enables communication. [1] Bricks can also be expression in unique contexts. That doesn't mean that bricks are speech.

A brick or electronic circuit is speech when being used as a medium of expression. Code is speech all the time because it can't be anything else. It's pure information. You can't email someone a brick. It happens we have machines that will turn that information into action, but the code isn't the machine or the action. It's just a type of speech that machines can understand too. People are always wanting to regulate…

Code qua written expression is speech. The government can't ban, for example, the publication of encryption code. But that doesn't mean the government loses the ability to regulate the operation of a product just because the operation is implemented using code rather than electronic circuits.

As to your printing press hypothetical, I don't think it applies. Say the back door is something like "must keep the decryption key around in case a warrant comes in." That doesn't entail any modification to the "speech" coming out of the device, does it? So how does it restrict speech?

Re: Don't Panic: Seeking Points of Agreement on the “Going Dark” Debate

#69

Post by tptacek »

Zigurd wrote: post #33
rayiner wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I oppose things like encryption backdoors, I think it's disingenuous to say this is a "fake crisis." The 4th amendment has always required balancing security and privacy--that's why the distinction between "unreasonable searches" and reasonable ones appears right there in the text. And society has always balanced those two interests with a simple mechanism: the police can only search with a warrant, but once th…

Warrants have never enabled truly limitless powers of search. Aerial search, blood tests, etc are new inventions, and nothing says that technology always favors the searcher. "Unprecedented" just means "get used to it."

Interesting. What limitations on search warrants are you thinking of when you say that? What are some examples of things investigators wanted to search, or perhaps could search pursuant to a warrant, that were later found to be so beyond the pale that no warrant could authorize them?

Re: Don't Panic: Seeking Points of Agreement on the “Going Dark” Debate

#70

Post by marcosdumay »

milesokeefe wrote: post #51
batz wrote: post #46

It's not just about tech. The real issue is that government is running up against scaling limits. Arguably, a government can only rule over how people relate within boundaries it can defend and control. Previously the boundaries were physical geographies, and then regulated channels (mail, PSTN, etc). Now, we have a kind of fractal boundary of peer-to-peer connections that provide tremendous freedom to organize and t…

Is graffiti not illegal?

Don't know about your place, but here it's only illegal if done against the will of the wall's owner.
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