FBI Wants It to Be Impractical to Deploy Strong Encryption Without Key Escrow • Hacker News Board

Re: FBI Wants It to Be Impractical to Deploy Strong Encryption Without Key Escrow

#181

Post by beeboop » Thu, Mar 17, 2016, 1:38 AM UTC

rurban wrote: post #175

beeboop wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that the NSA, FBI, etc are essentially controlled by the President. These groups have and will continue to have extremely creative interpretations of the law, to the point of essentially ignoring it and doing whatever the fuck they want without repercussion. Legislature can pass whatever they want, but three letter orgs will continue to have secret courts, secret laws, and secret operations that operate…

The first sentence is a very naive point of view. Most people argue that it is the other way round. People who worked there.

The directors for these agencies are appointed by the President. He hand picks them, and has the ability to fire them with adequate cause, of which there is recent precedent. I am not sure how you can argue they are not controlled by the President, unless you want to try some sort of secret-blackmail theory.

However, it isn't surprising that the FBI or similar agencies are full of egocentric people who believe they hold the power in the relationship. It seems to attract these types of people, really.

Re: FBI Wants It to Be Impractical to Deploy Strong Encryption Without Key Escrow

#182

Post by likeatlas » Thu, Mar 17, 2016, 1:55 AM UTC

chatmasta wrote: post #99

The FBI can whine about this all they want. I hope that the lawmakers interpret it as the FBI spitting in their face, because that's exactly what's happening. We have had this debate already -- in the 1990s -- and this was the result: "A telecommunications carrier shall not be responsible for decrypting, or ensuring the government’s ability to decrypt, any communication encrypted by a subscriber or customer, unless t…

Maybe there is space in the market for a business to commoditize offshore incorporation.

Like https://stripe.com/atlas except outside the US.

Re: FBI Wants It to Be Impractical to Deploy Strong Encryption Without Key Escrow

#183

Post by Tepix » Thu, Mar 17, 2016, 9:49 AM UTC

ex3ndr wrote: post #123

Tepix wrote: post #24

If all US crypto is backdoored, the rest of the world and the criminals will use non-US crypto. The FBI also wants to infiltrate communities of human rights activists. There are many reasons not to overly trust them.

Our Project (actor.im) already started to adopt russian encryption.

Open source encryption should do the trick, if a backdoor gets added, just fork it.

Re: FBI Wants It to Be Impractical to Deploy Strong Encryption Without Key Escrow

#184

Post by Sacho » Thu, Mar 17, 2016, 9:51 AM UTC

graycat wrote: post #167

tjgq wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then they will outlaw the possession of said standard C software, as well as of computer hardware that does not comply with government-mandated eavesdropping. And then they will pass laws that force you to give up the encryption key to that Base64 data or face imprisonment. Even if the Base64 data is just a sequence of completely random bits - because who would keep sequences of random bits around, unless they're…

> And then they will pass laws that force you to give up the encryption key to that Base64 data or face imprisonment. IMNAL, but my understanding is that such a law would run into rock solid, granite hard, iron clad parts of a little issue called the US Constitution. E.g., if the cops ask you a question, then you don't have to answer. The person's lawyer can just tell the cops that "My client has no idea what that ba…

> IMNAL, but my understanding is that such a law would run into rock solid, granite hard, iron clad parts of a little issue called the US Constitution. E.g., if the cops ask you a question, then you don't have to answer. The person's lawyer can just tell the cops that "My client has no idea what that base 64 gibberish is."

"And here our intelligence network shows proof that your client has talked about this base64 gibberish in the past with other people, so let's add perjury to your charges".

But your point is valid, you have a right to not incriminate yourself in the US. The case with Apple, however, is that a third party you've trusted is being asked to breach that trust. The 5th does not apply at all.

Not to worry, however, as long as you don't communicate with anyone, you're safe. The moment you do communicate with someone though, you'd have to put your trust in them. And then the FBI could demand, from them, the conversations you've had. And then the 5th has no value.