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DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

cyberlaw.stanford.edu

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Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#171

Post by BubRoss »

hitpointdrew wrote: post #167
dkdk8283 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watching old movies from 60s/70s sometimes have scenes where the characters are worried about calls being recorded or otherwise having no privacy. The typical response is “What is this, Russia?” or something similar. Privacy is really important. I will always error on the side of privacy even if that means not everyone bad is caught.

> I will always error on the side of privacy even if that means not everyone bad is caught. Reminds me of something my dad always told me, "I'd rather see 10 guilty people walk free, than have 1 innocent person in jail."

I'm not a historian, but I don't think your dad came up with that first...

Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#172

Post by unionpivo »

dropoutcoder wrote: post #149
JoshTriplett wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leave whatever jurisdiction was attempting to force me to build something unethical, and after being safely out of that jurisdiction, disclose absolutely everything I can about the attempted coercion.

In that case you would not be forced, at least in a more extreme application of the word. Regarding ethics, my opinion is that it’s unethical to offer strong E2EE to the masses at scale, without considering the needs of LE.

As someone from ex comunist/socialist state, I am completely fine with LE not having too much power. I think them being able to break all encryption in use is way too much power. Its not if, it's when it will be abused, and how many people die for it. And LE's can do a lot more damage than all terrorist combined.

Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#174

Post by henryfjordan »

slg wrote: post #36
westmeal wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like a majority of the students had no idea what encryption was and because the authority figure (the professor) asked them whether or not it was bad they just went with it? I'm having trouble understanding why people would say mathematical functions are bad.

Encryption allows data to be locked away from the government including law enforcement and prosecutors in a way that was nearly impossible for the average citizen a few decades ago. Warrants can't break encryption like they could doors or locks. As much of life moves to the digital world and becomes encrypted, that can be a drastic change in how the justice system works. Pro-encryption people need to keep this in min…

Warrants might not be able to break encryption, but refusing to provide the passcode can land you in jail indefinitely for contempt. You could serve decades potentially.

The fear from law enforcement is absurd. They've never had the ability to read every single letter that was sent, but now that we've moved online they want to read every email? They claim they are losing access but the truth was they never had access in the first place. The only difference is before maybe they could secretly read your letters before delivering them but now they need to get your password. That only worked at a small scale though, and I'm sure the NSA can crack passwords at those same small scales (e.g. some of the high-profile iphone cracking we've seen).

Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#175

Post by [deleted] »

hurricanetc wrote: post #129

This will just push people to open source applications and peer to peer networking. Basically, devolve back to the early days of the internet with regard to person to person communications. How is the DoJ going to force Signal or even Telegram to add a back door?

[deleted]

Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#176

Post by lostcolony »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #107
slg wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encryption allows data to be locked away from the government including law enforcement and prosecutors in a way that was nearly impossible for the average citizen a few decades ago. Warrants can't break encryption like they could doors or locks. As much of life moves to the digital world and becomes encrypted, that can be a drastic change in how the justice system works. Pro-encryption people need to keep this in min…

Why can't the government serve warrants to give up their private keys? I don't really see the State's argument against encryption except in the case that they want to break encrypted information without due process.

Well, 5th amendment protections, and inability to determine whether a person even remembers the key, means that serving a warrant doesn't always work either.

But then, neither did breaking down the door and ransacking the obvious physical target pre-internet days always work. And everyone understood a suspect had no obligation to tell the feds where he hid the goods.

Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#177

Post by heartbeats »

dahfizz wrote: post #162
dmitrygr wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A computer is like an extension of your mind. for centuries, law enforcement has been unable to search your mind, by court order or otherwise. I see no reason to change that.

I've heard this argument a few times, and I don't think it passes legal muster. A computer is much more analogous to a fancy paper notebook than a part of your brain.

With how some people use smartphones, you really do start to wonder. Just try to get someone to leave their smartphone at home when they're going outside - they look at you like you're crazy.

Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#178

Post by majos »

shuckles wrote: post #4

Interesting to read in context of the fact that public sentiment surveys suggest there is no “techlash” at all.

Can you provide a pointer to such surveys? In my head the popularity of articles bashing tech companies is out of proportion to people's patronage of those same companies, but numbers would be nice.

Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#179

Post by Retric »

Karunamon wrote: post #164
solotronics wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me at least this is the thing that will push me to leave and renounce citizenship. I am sure I represent an insignificant minority to them, but I can't live somewhere without my own security on my data and cryptocurrency. Over the last few years I moved basically all my assets into Bitcoin and have left the legacy banking systems behind. With a few keystrokes they can lock you totally out of all your funds and yo…

I don't mean this to sound snippy, but where would you go? Most non-US countries I'm aware of have even worse restrictions around speech, encryption, and so forth.

New Zealand has stronger free speech protection than the US and no encryption issues. More freedom of the press and even ‘free’ heathcare for citizens or permanent residents make it a solid contender.

Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#180

Post by Mirioron »

btilly wrote: post #14

Why does this say that the DOJ has been pushing for this since 2016? They have been pushing for some variation on this since basically forever. I first became aware of it back under Clinton with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip . And the debate has been essentially the same since. Law enforcement wants to be able to break security, and promises that their super secret, super safe system will provide eve…

If the NSA can't keep its employees from abusing their spying tools to spy on their neighbors then what chance does law enforcement have?
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