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Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

jonathanmh.com

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Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#51

Post by BinaryIdiot »

ecma wrote: post #9

This is incredibly naive bordering on puerile. To suggest that POTUS' view on this is without nuance is to miss his point. POTUS went on to cite existing warrant mechanisms and their underlying principle: "And we agree on that, because we recognize that just like all of our other rights ... that there are going to be some constraints we impose so we are safe, secure and can live in a civilized society." I'm not sugge…

> We need people advocating for the right balance, not just getting each other frustrated.

I don't understand this line of thinking regarding the big encryption debate. Yeah it sounds good if you don't know anything about encryption. "Look, he's being reasonable. Why is everyone saying he's wrong instead of striking a balance".

The problem is it's a binary problem. There is zero way to strike any type of balance here. You either encrypt communication to prevent others from accessing it or you provide a backdoor or escrow key to access the data in which case all encrypted communications are now insecure.

There isn't a middle ground there. If there is I have yet to see anyone suggest it and I can't think of a technical way to do it. Too many attack vectors when you purposefully impose multiple party keys or backdoors.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#52

Post by andrewfromx »

andrewfromx wrote: post #37
harryh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

it's that interesting, people on the LEFT want NO LIMITS on encryption but LOTS OF LIMITS on guns. Is encryption more or less dangerous than guns?

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#53

Post by wildmusings »

andrewfromx wrote: post #33
harryh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's no award for effort. Apple built a cryptosystem that doesn't work against an adversary that is Apple. "Encrypting" isn't some magical property that makes your data safe. The encryption itself is just one aspect of a whole system that must be designed to protect against certain adversaries with certain capabilities. The government would be totally allowed, for example, to tamper with your wax seals if it had a warrant to read your mail.

I lied, there is an award for effort. Wherever you have an "reasonable expectation of privacy", the government must get a warrant or your permission to exercise its search and seizure authority. That's the protection that you're entitled to by our laws.

Even the EFF is acknowledging the weakness of your argument when they try to frame it as an issue about Apple's free speech instead.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#55

Post by rubbingalcohol »

tomlongson wrote: post #42

A key promise of Obama's campaign for the presidency was to run the “most transparent” government- however the only person to really deliver on that promise was a whistleblower. Secret courts, secret domestic spying, and now calls for weakening of the digital equivalent of the safe shows that he either was not honest about transparency, or has radically changed his opinion since becoming POTUS. Maybe it's that he dec…

Speaking of transparency, Obama also secretly lobbied to kill FOIA transparency reform: https://freedom.press/blog/2016/03/new-documents-show-obama-...

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#56

Post by boomlinde »

harryh wrote: post #28
andrewfromx wrote: post #15

Earlier 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…

Encryption is a measure that prevents unauthorized parties from taking part of what is encrypted. If it fails that on such a basic level that a specific unauthorized party can trivially access it, it's not effective encryption. Whether or not it is effective, then, is just a matter of whether you agree that who ever holds the master key is authorized to access whatever it is that you encrypted.

It's still not broken in any technical sense, but if I don't want a third party to read my data and they are still able to do so, it's a stretch to call it encryption.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#57

Post by noir_lord »

arkem wrote: post #13
tehwebguy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communications are already being monitored by random government employees with no judicial review. The FISA court is already a rubber stamp. Encryption is one of the only ways to non-passively protest. Edit: Can't reply to my replies, likely because of the down votes on my parent's comment. Re: FISA, yes to both. That anecdote may be truth but I am still hung up on NSA employee looking up ex-girlfriends' emails the d…

I hear this a lot, what is the basis of considering the FISA court merely a rubber stamp? Is it the approval rate? Is it the lack of transparency? If it's the approval rate, in my experience the reason why court warrant approvals are so high is because intelligence / law enforcement are very risk adverse and will not submit requests that are likely to be rejected. Anecdotally, the officers I talked to considered it c…

In 35,000 requests, they denied 12.

Either the NSA is really accurate or something smells.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#58

Post by JoshTriplett »

mozumder wrote: post #49
JoshTriplett wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, it doesn't matter what process governments (plural) have in place to protect backdoor access mechanisms or escrowed keys. That those mechanisms exist at all means they can and will be abused by people who do not go through those mechanisms. Beyond that: > If government is monitoring your communications, then there's a pretty dammed good reason, as determined by a judge. Not even close to true. We have document…

They're monitoring meta-data, not private communications. And for private comms, they have filters that filter them out for US citizens, as the Snowden leaks show. LOL when people find out that the Snowden leaks actually show the NSA protecting privacy rights of US citizens, in a top-secret program.

Metadata has critical value. And private communications are being monitored, recorded, and searched as well. (Many people, myself included, also reject the notion that unauthorized collection and recording is fine as long as the subsequent searches and filters are authorized.)

You seem to be taking government descriptions at face value, despite documented evidence to the contrary.

Consider the possibility that the government you seem to place absolute trust in is not, in fact, perfect.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#59

Post by mozumder »

ross-life wrote: post #48
mozumder wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, good luck building your own army. My army can beat your army. As a citizen, you are expected to trust the FISA court.

> As a citizen, you are expected to trust the FISA court. This opinion is just nuts. Trust a court that you were told for years didn't even exist? A secret court? How about no. Secret courts lead to abuses: https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/jo-shaw/secret-cour...

Would you prefer if there were NO judicial oversight?

Because the only way to oversee top-secret data is with a top-secret court.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#60

Post by grandalf »

tomlongson wrote: post #42

A key promise of Obama's campaign for the presidency was to run the “most transparent” government- however the only person to really deliver on that promise was a whistleblower. Secret courts, secret domestic spying, and now calls for weakening of the digital equivalent of the safe shows that he either was not honest about transparency, or has radically changed his opinion since becoming POTUS. Maybe it's that he dec…

I think the following truth has a lot of relevance to your comment: the only way somebody gets elected president of the US is if it's a given that he or she will maintain the status quo on behalf of powerful interests.

Obama's campaign promises are as empty as those of any other politician. He's used his presidency to bring a windfall to the Halliburtons of healthcare and escalated the war on whistleblowers and the attack on privacy.

His successor will do the same.

We can hope that his supporters become appropriately disillusioned, but so much of politics is about loyalty in exchange for spoils, not ideas or accountability, so I'm not optimistic.

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