Would like to see more detailed logic in the original post. For e.g. why specifically the parallel between physical world and digital is flawed.
alright, will write a follow up
Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones
31–40 of 337 posts
Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones
#32Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
but there is no "balance" when somethig is binary. You either have encryption or you don't.
That's wrong. The government isn't saying that no one should be able to encrypt data. They just thing that, in some cases, it should be done in such a way that certain data can be read by use of a centralized master key. This, of course, presents certain problems. What if that master key leaks? But it's not binary. Data secured this way is absolutely safer than not encrypting something at all. "Is it safe enough?" is…
no way man. either I have the right to use technology to make something encrypted (my definition of encrypted is cannot be broken) or I don't.
Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you don't trust judicial review, then there's no hope left for you to function in a normal society filled with other people. This is an extreme statement and a false dichotomy. I think there's plenty of room between "completely trust government" and "unfit for society". If I'm uncomfortable with the potential for abuse of monitoring (which has already happened plenty of times), that means what exactly? I should…
Right, which is why we have Judicial review of communications monitoring, since we don't trust the executive branch (a political entity) with that power alone.
So you're suggesting that the sole legitimate check on governmental power is the government itself? And that anyone outside the government attempting to challenge abuses of power is by definition unfit for society?
Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing is being missed other than the premise that you can only create a back door that just compromises your privacy and security to the FBI/NSA. A backdoor available to the US Govt, is a backdoor available for everyone.
This is more fundamental than any "back door". The question here is: do you place any trust in government? If not, then you really can't function in a normal society. Good luck building your own army. And my army can beat your army.
I don't know why you were downvoted. Your comment is spot on, let me just finish the sentence - "if you don't trust government, then you can't function in a society and therefore government eliminates you".
Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones
#36I think a lot of libertarians miss the fact that many of the communications monitoring aspects that the administration is proposing includes authorization by court order. It's not like your communications are being monitored by random government employees at will for no reason. There's a specific safeguard here for personal privacy, and that's through a court order. If government is monitoring your communications, th…
Authorization by court order still works fine in physical space.
We are talking about introducing back-doors to what essentially already is an extension to our brains. If you understand computers, you know that analogies between the "real world" and our abstract world of modern information systems usually don't hold well.
Please try to think through all the subtleties, you clearly don't have to be labeled "libertarian" to foresee a death-by-a-thousand-cuts of our civil liberties (as with democracy, the US still sets global trends btw).
Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
but there is no "balance" when somethig is binary. You either have encryption or you don't.
That's wrong. The government isn't saying that no one should be able to encrypt data. They just thing that, in some cases, it should be done in such a way that certain data can be read by use of a centralized master key. This, of course, presents certain problems. What if that master key leaks? But it's not binary. Data secured this way is absolutely safer than not encrypting something at all. "Is it safe enough?" is…
wow, when you put it that way it's like saying "either I have the right to own a gun or I do not." So I guess if people except limits on gun ownership they should accept limits on encryption cuz it's just as dangerous?
Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones
#38Obama, our manipulating word artisan of a president yet again attempting to use strong language (i.e "fetishizing") to polarize our view.
Interesting choice too - there's clearly a demographic who go to the Folsom Street Fair who definitely don't have negative connotations to "fetishizing", and I suspect any porn site operator could give you some numbers that some people would not believe about the number of people for whom fetishes are a real thing.
I wonder if Obama and his speechwriters have research about how many people (and from which demographics) that phrase is going to be read in which ways? (I wonder if they've worked out that they've already lost the tech crowd on this issue, and there's a statistically significant crossover between the tech crowd and the people for whom fetishes are considered a positive thing?)
Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's not like your communications are being monitored by random government employees at will for no reason. There's a specific safeguard here for personal privacy, and that's through a court order. That argument had weight pre-Snowden. It carries no water now.
You mean the Snowden revelations that show filters that filtered out communications of US citizens without a court order?
A. The Snowden revelations show the US has spent years being dishonest about their programs. You'd be silly at this point if you think there is not a huge database of American communications too.
B. "Filtered". Do you really believe that? Considering it's coming from the same government that also uses the words "enhanced interrogation"?
C. The US seems to consider the rest of the world people with no rights at all. People understand spying on other countries, not spying on every other single person in the world with a phone and/or an internet connection.
D. Your reasoning is faulty:
> If government is monitoring your communications, then there's a pretty dammed good reason, as determined by a judge.
Just because an "authority" says/does something does not mean it is right. It should be expected to explain its reasoning, openly and transparently. Then I can trust it. The current programs do not do that and have no intention of doing that.
E. Random US government employees are literally reading your communications.
Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones
#40One strong point that comes out is reference to the transitory nature of governments, just because you trust yours now (!), does not mean you can trust future incarnations, don't give this kind of power to an unknown.
Case in point - pre-ww2 governments collecting data about their citizens(religion, sexuality, race, political affiliation) which was then used to actually murder people by the Nazis. Just because the current government doesn't use the data in a malicious way doesn't mean the next one won't.