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Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#121

Post by pyronik19 »

remram wrote: post #113
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do stats for a living, and while I think it's good to back up claims with data when possible, inductive reasoning is still a validate tool for understanding the world. The logic is that active, dedicated terrorist groups already know: "They literally get a drone strike for having called a known terrorist or for going to a wedding other terrorists with cell phones go to." The reasoning that knowing this information…

You assume that every terrorist (or most terrorists) acts rationally and has the knowledge you know. That is a huge assumption for your reasoning to work. I think terrorists make mistakes (or take risks), and I'm not convinced that we catch all of those either.

In the context of droning terrorist, I think the anthropic principle applies. The ones who don't act rationally or have that knowledge are dead.

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#122

Post by watwut »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #58
JoeSmithson wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actual terrorists(like 9/11 type, well funded) know better than to even touch anything digital for comms Shit like this is said all the time on HN with absolutely nothing to substantiate it.

I do stats for a living, and while I think it's good to back up claims with data when possible, inductive reasoning is still a validate tool for understanding the world. The logic is that active, dedicated terrorist groups already know: "They literally get a drone strike for having called a known terrorist or for going to a wedding other terrorists with cell phones go to." The reasoning that knowing this information…

Plenty of people are dumb. Including the ones who decide to join terrorist organization.

Actual terrorists were found because of using cell phones or internet.

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#124

Post by watwut »

bsanr2 wrote: post #116
isoskeles wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are school shooters not terrorists? They are not. Terrorism is supposed to be a political tool. Whereas school shooters are often just deranged or troubled people lashing out.

The prototypical school shooters (the Columbine duo) filled their notebooks with misogynistic, white supremacist screeds. If you ever thought it strange the hysteria over video game violence and Satanism that emerged from that attack, it's because your instincts were correct. The media was reticent to cover what was really driving their violence because the conversation would have been uncomfortable for the sizable p…

> To that point, even high-profile black and brown mass shooters tend not to be gangbangers or whatever, but men with military or law enforcement backgrounds.

Inst that simply because men with military or law enforcement backgrounds are more violent in general?

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#125

Post by watwut »

_8j50 wrote: post #61
isoskeles wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are school shooters not terrorists? They are not. Terrorism is supposed to be a political tool. Whereas school shooters are often just deranged or troubled people lashing out.

In most school shootings,they are not diagnosed with any mental illness. By that logic jihadist terrorists are sociopathic and mentally ill as well. You are right about their lack of interest in affecting change in governmental politics but they are many times (not always) trying to affect change in social politics. They prepare well ahead of time,plan out their actions and advertise their gripe against society.

Are you sure about that? Because when I read about school shootings, they were being done by individuals who were displaying plenty of red flags and signs they are not ok mentally.

I cant recall one who would act like normal person and multiple disturbed ones.

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#126

Post by streb-lo »

hedora wrote: post #109
hansthehorse wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But political candidates are not exempted. That leaves a huge area for abuse.

They’re voting on an amendment to exempt candidates for federal office from warrantless surveillance. It is expected to pass. That way, the executive branch can tamper with state and local elections with impunity. The supreme court just heard oral arguments in a case where Trump’s lawyers argued he was allowed to shoot people for no reason in public. (Really. This is not hyperbole.) Presumably the next step is to (pe…

I think your last point is a bit of a leap, but I agree we have seen constant undermining of the institutions built to make the United States a free country during this administration.

What I find most interesting is the complete hijacking of a large portion of the conspiracy crowd such that this is all permissible to them, as long as it keeps the Other out of the power structure.

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#127

Post by mindslight »

komali2 wrote: post #99
mindslight wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then you're committing fraud or whatever. Once again, law abiding people bear the burden while bogeyman-with-beard just gives a false number. One of the general difficulties with the government threat actor is that law abiding people have to thread the needle of both technical protection and legal requirements.

> So then you're committing fraud or whatever. But how would they ever catch you?

Determine who you actually are based on the location pattern of the sim card, which they'll end up doing at automated scale since it's so easy to record a fake ID. Prosecution for just that seems unlikely, but rather selective enforcement.

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#128

Post by mindslight »

socks wrote: post #91
mindslight wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then you're committing fraud or whatever. Once again, law abiding people bear the burden while bogeyman-with-beard just gives a false number. One of the general difficulties with the government threat actor is that law abiding people have to thread the needle of both technical protection and legal requirements.

Quoting your own true passport number is not fraud. Fraud would be supplying a fake passport number / fake passport / doctored photocopy.

I was responding to the implication that you could just give a fake number.

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#129

Post by varjag »

bhauer wrote: post #81

I am absolutely no fan of Bernie Sanders. I disagree with him on a majority of policy matters. However, this popular media framing, which blames the failure of this amendment on Bernie Sanders, is unhinged. It's not just this Register article; you'll see the same sniping at Sanders specifically in most articles that carry a negative opinion on the PATRIOT Act. Being absent for the vote is shameful, sure. But how abou…

It failed by one vote. If he did his damn job and showed up it could turn out different.

Re: Patriot Act amendment needing a warrant for browsing history fails

#130

Post by quit32 »

quit32 wrote: post #28
woofcat wrote: post #2

I'm curious at how the article implies that DoH is going do anything. I'd imagine CloudFlare, etc. would comply with FBI requests just as much as your local ISP. Factor in co-operation from CDN's and really that covers a vast array of data that the US Government could access.

For one cloudflare is a lot more reputable than most US ISPs. Cloudflare explicitly says "We committed to never writing the querying IP addresses to disk and wiping all logs within 24 hours." https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-1111/ If gov tried to force CF to change that they would likely put up a huge public legal fight to prevent it whereas ATT / Verizon and Comcast would bend over backwards to secretly comply…

Also worth noting that cloud flare is a large driving force behind encrypted SNI which is the last nail in the coffin for putting ISPs in the dark when your average consumer is browsing the net. https://blog.cloudflare.com/encrypted-sni/

Basically when you connect over https using TLS 1.2 to a site that is hosted on a shared server or behind a load balancer, your browser must tell it in clear text which host name it is trying to connect to. Encrypted SNI in TLS 1.3 also encrypts this info such that if you are also using DoH or DNS over TLS to encrypt DNS query then the ISP can only see the IP of server you connect to which is often going to be a huge cloud provider's load balancer that might serve hundreds or more different sites throughout the day / at the same time.

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