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Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

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Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#2
> No, David. If I were in the job now, I would have simply told the FBI to call Fort Meade, the headquarters of the National Security Agency, and NSA would have solved this problem for them. They're not as interested in solving the problem as they are in getting a legal precedent.

That's quite the quote, especially given his history of employment.

The weirdest thing about this whole cell-phone saga to me is that the perps are dead, did not appear to be part of some organized group and that very little could be done to them that hasn't been done already based on evidence found on the phone.

Then there is the bit that a lot of the information that is on the phone is also already in the log files of the carriers. It's as if that phone somehow magically is going to yield an entirely new class of information that may not even exist in the first place.

To me it has been evident from day one that this is not about this phone or the data that's on it but just about the legal precedent, getting it in black-and-white from the former head of counter terrorism is quite an indictment of his successors.

Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#3
Other governments are definitely going to force manufacturers to make their phones unlockable or not for sale in their country.

China, Russia, Saudia Arabia, all forced Blackberry to turn over their encryption keys long ago.

US politicians should set an example and say we are NOT going to be like China and Russia and other repressive regimes and that when people's lives are literally on their phones, they have a reasonable right to privacy and protection from search and seizure, you know like in our constitution but ignored everyday.

Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#4
>PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: If, technologically, it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system where the encryption is so strong that there's no key - there's no door at all - then how do we apprehend the child pornographer? How do we solve or disrupt a terrorist plot?

It's so disappointing to me to hear a quote like that from the President.

Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#5
post #4

>PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: If, technologically, it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system where the encryption is so strong that there's no key - there's no door at all - then how do we apprehend the child pornographer? How do we solve or disrupt a terrorist plot? It's so disappointing to me to hear a quote like that from the President.

What if the terrorist or pedo has things in his mind, that means all people's minds should be monitored at all times... Otherwise there is a chance that they might think thoughts to do evil things and then they might carry them out. I uhh want to emphasize that we should think of the uhh children.

Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#7
post #6

>We could put ankle bracelets on everybody so we'd know where everyone was all the time. How does everyone carrying phones not already make this the case?

It's a choice. Duh. Don't have a phone so they can't monitor you while you are not at home.

Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#8
post #2

> No, David. If I were in the job now, I would have simply told the FBI to call Fort Meade, the headquarters of the National Security Agency, and NSA would have solved this problem for them. They're not as interested in solving the problem as they are in getting a legal precedent. That's quite the quote, especially given his history of employment. The weirdest thing about this whole cell-phone saga to me is that the…

> the perps are dead, did not appear to be part of some organized group

A reasonable reason for inquiry here is to actually try to make sure if they were part of some organized group. "Appear not to be" is not quite enough.

This is a valid reason to investigate even if they are dead. How did they get radicalized, etc.

Not that it is a good enough reason to enforce breaking of encryption in the way proposed, but in a murder inquiry, privacy of the perps has to give way.

Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#9
Sometime I wonder if the FBI and other security agencies lost perspectives or they know something that we don't.

Time and time again, their argumentation are not particularly persuasive.

I don't doubt the existence of terrorists, but it seems that they are more boogeymen rather than an actual threats.

And when it came down to it, the power of terrorists is to inspire fear, rather than kill people. They can change us because we felt the need to change.

Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#10
post #4

>PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: If, technologically, it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system where the encryption is so strong that there's no key - there's no door at all - then how do we apprehend the child pornographer? How do we solve or disrupt a terrorist plot? It's so disappointing to me to hear a quote like that from the President.

Its fine though, because if you make something illegal then criminals won't use it.
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