FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone • Hacker News Board

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#281

Post by coldtea » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 5:26 PM UTC

word-reader wrote: post #270

coldtea wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was at a time when wars were fought with such arms, and the police had the same. Heck, that was true for 100+ years afterwards still. Now the police even has tanks and army level guns, and the army of course has 1000x the resources, airplanes, drones, etc. And of course, at the time the states were indeed independent and fighting fiercely for that. Now (and ever after the Civil War) it's all a charade, from what…

In your reading, guns used to be able to preserve liberty, but now they're irrelevant because the state security forces can just brutally crush any resistance with their superior firepower? That's not good rhetoric, and it's not even true! Just look at the success all those tanks and airplanes and trillions of dollars had in Afghanistan, for example. I also disagree with the finer points of "guns means freedom", but…

>Just look at the success all those tanks and airplanes and trillions of dollars had in Afghanistan, for example.

Because the average law abiding, fast-food fed Joe Public is gonna fight a full on war? Or get guns, support, and people to come join "the cause" from abroad? Or have any advantage over the government forces in "knowing the area"?

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#282

Post by solidsnack9000 » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #229

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes more sense in context, take Patrick Henry's words in 1775 to understand what liberty and the preservation of constitutional rights means to Americans. "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" or Thomas Jefferson in 1787: "We have had 13. states…

That was at a time when wars were fought with such arms, and the police had the same. Heck, that was true for 100+ years afterwards still. Now the police even has tanks and army level guns, and the army of course has 1000x the resources, airplanes, drones, etc. And of course, at the time the states were indeed independent and fighting fiercely for that. Now (and ever after the Civil War) it's all a charade, from what…

Wars are still fought with such arms. It's important to remember that many of the civilians who are proponents of the 2nd Amendment were trained by the military and fought in recent wars; and understand full well what it means to prosecute a modern war.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#283

Post by coldtea » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

vageli wrote: post #275

coldtea wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there will be a one year grace period, during which there would be voluntary turn in of guns + mass confiscation. If they still wont comply after one year, mass incarceration is an option. Alternatively people could be executed on sight.

> If they still wont comply after one year, mass incarceration is an option. Alternatively people could be executed on sight. Surely this is in jest?

It will be only slightly bloodier than current mass shootings, and not upon innocent (but on people breaking the law by having guns) at that!

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#284

Post by rconti » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

whatthesmack wrote: post #224

tootie wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has vast and currently unimpeachable rights to weaponry. There is a huge swath of policy space between that and banning gun ownership. We can reduce gun ownership, trafficking and weapon deadliness a thousand different ways while not adversely impacting legitimate usage. Universal background checks, limiting purchase frequency, banning 100-round barrels, increasing liability for dealers.

The trouble with those policies (aside from 100-round barrels... I have no idea what that means, and I don’t think you do either) is that they’re often-mentioned, but people forget to ask the question, “Have these policies actually improved anything where they’ve been implemented?” Many of the recently-publicized shootings in the US have occurred in California, which has some of the most strict firearms laws in the n…

The trouble with these kinds of disingenuous replies is that nobody can take them seriously.

* You know what a 100 round drum barrel is.

* You know as well as anyone that automobiles exist, and that local laws can easily be circumvented, and hence has little bearing on how well a similar national regulation might work.

* "Significantly less if you remove big anti-gun cities from the picture". I'm sorry, but this is utterly irrelevant. Why would their regulations or lack thereof matter one bit in deciding whether the people killed by firearms in those areas "count"?

* "Murmurs of defensive firearms use instances in the millions annually" doesn't even attempt to sound evidence-based.

Pretending like you don't understand basic facts does not help your credibility. Although I suspect these talking-point replies are not meant so much to be taken seriously or responded to, but to merely decrease the signal to noise ratio in any discussion so as to drown out legitimate debate.

To take the remainder of your comment seriously:

For both good and bad reasons, people tend to take acts of violence, particularly indiscriminate ones, more seriously than, say, drug overdoses, where people, rightly or wrongly, blame the victim. Of course not all gun deaths are blameless, but neither do we want to pretend like suicides are unimportant.

Finally, we do try to take many of those other causes of death seriously. I get the argument of proportionality (we should spend 10x the effort on drug overdoses as we do on non-suicide gun deaths, I guess?), but unfortunately these stats are usually used in an attempt to say "nothing can be done".

No, something CAN be done. We can and should do better to prevent easily-preventable deaths -- whether or not the victim shares some blame in the death.

If we can save a few hundred or a few thousand lives, is that not a worthy goal? We are on a perennial march to make automobiles incrementally safer, but we haven't insisted that everyone climb into bubble-wrapped cocoons. Our regulators walk a line that sometimes errs to far this way or that way, we fight about it online, we argue with our representatives about it, but overall, progress is being made and lives are being saved.

I'd like to do the same here.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#285

Post by andrerm » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #63

We (HN commenters) all know that the demonization of encryption is bullshit. What we need to do is to figure out how to communicate that effectively to the public.

We can't expect layman and ordinary people to understand the real consequences and implications of the misinformation and misleading from government and corporations involved in surveillance.

We on HN and every one that really understand the matter will need to keep fight for ourselves and others.

But I believe trying to find a answer to your question a great exercise that contributes very much. I just don't have a good answer.

Maybe something like, they cant even keep our PII safe... what di you think will happened with our key

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#286

Post by solidsnack9000 » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 5:35 PM UTC

samsonradu wrote: post #111

kabdib wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is politically more feasible to ban encryption in the US than it is to ban guns (or even significantly restrict them). Wait, I'm wrong. Even essentially insignificant changes to gun laws at the federal level are harder than banning crypto.

Can you please elaborate on why guns are so sacred in the US? Is it for cultural/historical reasons?

Roughly 30% of the population owns guns, and has everyday experience with people owning assault rifles who aren't a harm to anyone. The gun culture is the locus of a lot of important values in the US -- service to the country, acceptance of danger, self control, precise and accountable behaviour -- and gun owners are overall more law abiding than the general population. Gun owners haven't done anything wrong and don't see why they need to be punished.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#287

Post by rayiner » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

Causality1 wrote: post #245

rayiner wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Requiring manufacturers to include back doors to be used only pursuant to a valid warrant would not be a “search.” (There might be a commerce clause issue, though.) Many types of surveillance typically does not involve a search (because it relies on data that either can be gleaned from public activity or through cooperating third parties).

I would consider that a first amendment violation on the basis of code being speech and a backdoor being compelled speech.

Code can have elements of speech, but it’s primarily functional, and that functionality can be regulated. A building can be art, but that doesn’t mean building codes can’t be used to e.g. require parking accommodations.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#288

Post by solidsnack9000 » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #120

samsonradu wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please elaborate on why guns are so sacred in the US? Is it for cultural/historical reasons?

The country was founded after an ~8.5 year long Revolutionary War from a colonial owner with a large, well-funded, well-equipped, occupying army. The founders (aka the treasonous colonists) had a general "the people are individually and collectively supreme to the federal government" attitude (no doubt significantly in reaction to the monarchy that ruled over them immediately prior) and wrote the following text into…

The right to bear arms is also part of the 1689 English Bill of Rights. It is a really old right, dating back to the 900s in various forms on the British Isles.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#289

Post by ineedasername » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 5:37 PM UTC

whatthesmack wrote: post #232

ineedasername wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but your low gun violence didn't just happen. People used to have guns, they liked their guns, but there were shootings. People including politicians realized they could do something about it. Some gun owners hated that, but shootings all but stopped. You're really the example that all "guns don't kill people" arguers hate having to try and explain away.

They didn’t “all but stop”. They’ve continued [1]. Why keep repeating The Australia Lie that anti-gun people love touting? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Austral...

Because it's true. Whatever bad things have happened since, their per capital gun death and murder rate have dropped.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#290

Post by whamlastxmas » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

johnnyapol wrote: post #189

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is, however, harder to automate If Apple does not give you the tools to decrypt messages on their phones, doesn't that make it "impossible" to automate, where automate is defined as any version of "decrypting the data on the phone"?

One thing to keep in mind is that really only two things Apple can do. The first is to release a modified and signed version of iOS to LE agencies that has any timeouts removed to allow them to try to bruteforce the passcode locks. If a user uses a significantly long password instead of a passcode, this becomes way less effective. The second thing is to log iMessage data on the server-side (since it has to be decrypt…

My understanding is the passcode and timeout behavior is on dedicated hardware that's tied to the OS level encryption. It's not possible (or maybe just not feasible) to replace or update this hardware.