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An even worse anti-encryption bill than EARN IT

cyberlaw.stanford.edu

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Re: An even worse anti-encryption bill than EARN IT

#41

Post by raxxorrax »

rakoo wrote: post #38
gentleman11 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The further we get from wwii, and the Cold War to some extent, the harder it is to remind the public how scary it is to live without freedoms. How do we remind them? Could China and Russia act as cautionary tales that voters would respond to? Putin jailing and murdering his political opposition, Chinese concentration camps for muslims - why do so many people assume it can’t happen here? Nazi germany wasnt some backwa…

Even you have forgotten that it's already happening in the US: you only need to look at the horrendous human conditions and the industrialization of the prison and justice system, which targets minorities for the pettiest offenses to be able to fill the prisons and make profits for their owners. Or look at the concentration camps at the border, where migrants are treated worse than we would treat any animal. Or look…

You will always find that one social media post that will prolong any sentence.

Re: An even worse anti-encryption bill than EARN IT

#42

Post by raxxorrax »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #40
mamon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Germans didn’t like what happened - there were countless assassination attempts against hitler, but it was just eventually too late. That myth has to die - there was no real opposition against Hitler for as long as he was successful. He was probably the most popular political leader of all the time. German people did not have a problem with his hatred against Jews, on the contrary, that's what gave him his populari…

> He was probably the most popular political leader of all the time. Worth noting that their first major win was in response to the stock market crash, but his popularity really only soared after they took power and imposed censorship. Free speech not such a virtue in Nazi Germany. Much easier to be popular when nobody is allowed to say anything against you.

People hat Nazi spies within their own homes that made sure nobodY said anything wrong. Have a diary about such a couple. They made 200 people careful about what to say. Of course free speech was pretty much non-existent.

Re: An even worse anti-encryption bill than EARN IT

#43

Post by noodlesUK »

What’s the situation when two (ostensibly friendly) superpowers, the US and EU, have totally mutually incompatible laws regarding something totally transnational? I’m not asking rhetorically, I’m asking legally, what is a company to do if they want to do business in both locations?

Re: An even worse anti-encryption bill than EARN IT

#44

Post by nikitaga »

austincheney wrote: post #27
EGreg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The web browsers and operating systems are our trusted computing base. If those have backdoors all else is moot.

These anti encryption policies are almost always about online services though. Government is generally not so concerned with encryption in the OS because people rarely encrypt their data at rest and even when they do it is still stored data at rest that can be brute forced in time. If you are using a web browser for a typical online service any backdoor is less concerning than simply going straight to the service pro…

The article says that this bill applies to operating systems just as well. It's doesn't matter what's typical or reasonable, the hostile actors pushing this and the EARN IT act don't care.

Let's skip the denial stage. This is not a technical problem, it's a political problem and needs political solutions. Whatever technical solution you come up with will simply be made illegal if anyone but the nerdy 0.0001% will end up using it.

We are rushing full speed towards a police state. We have to stop.

Re: An even worse anti-encryption bill than EARN IT

#45

Post by ngold »

pensatoio wrote: post #17

These bills terrify me. A lot of stuff happens in politics that’s frustrating, and much of it doesn’t catch my attention. There’s something about the pure ignorance that goes into breaking encryption that I can’t comprehend. I can understand when bills come through and the extreme differences in opinion are the result of different interpretations of facts and truth, but when it comes to encryption, there is no safe p…

It's very simple. The powers that be just want to break encryption, but only for law enforcement use.

Simple.

Uggg.

Re: An even worse anti-encryption bill than EARN IT

#46

Post by Mirioron »

noodlesUK wrote: post #43

What’s the situation when two (ostensibly friendly) superpowers, the US and EU, have totally mutually incompatible laws regarding something totally transnational? I’m not asking rhetorically, I’m asking legally, what is a company to do if they want to do business in both locations?

My guess is that they have to compartmentalize the operation. Essentially, it'll have to be like region-locking in video games, where you make different changes to the product for each region.

Re: An even worse anti-encryption bill than EARN IT

#47

Post by Fradow »

Being in the EU, I really wonder how this is going to play out if this bill comes to pass.

It's pretty clear this bill is incompatible with the GDPR, which specifically mandates using state of the art encryption when appropriate (and a backdoored encryption is certainly NOT state of the art).

The 2 laws would be fundamentally incompatible, which means we would probably see different services based on geolocation from the big companies (GDPR applies to EU residents, not citizens, so there is no overlap), but this means small players will have to choose between EU and US or take a legal risk.

From a risk perspective, the US have an exception for under 1 million users, while the EU has nothing of the sort. Which means it would, in theory, be less risky to start in the EU, expand in the US, and when you reach the 1 million users bar, separate EU from US operations (which has obviously a lot of issues, how do you handle a user moving from one place to the other, or users interacting accross boundaries?).

Let's hope this won't be the trigger to have several continental/national "internet" instances, but this is definitely going to contribute to a split.

Re: An even worse anti-encryption bill than EARN IT

#48

Post by desmondw »

pensatoio wrote: post #17

These bills terrify me. A lot of stuff happens in politics that’s frustrating, and much of it doesn’t catch my attention. There’s something about the pure ignorance that goes into breaking encryption that I can’t comprehend. I can understand when bills come through and the extreme differences in opinion are the result of different interpretations of facts and truth, but when it comes to encryption, there is no safe p…

I think ironically a bill like this passing would lead to more decentralization of services -- making their goals of monitoring information even harder.

Re: An even worse anti-encryption bill than EARN IT

#49

Post by mjburgess »

grey-area wrote: post #35
mjburgess wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascism was a political situation in 1930s italy. I think the commentor is objecting to this new, rhetorical use of the term which essentially connects any "nostalgic, authoriatrian" impulse to a 1930s-style tyranny. The left's use of "fascism" today is much like the rights use of "socialism/communism".

Just like the symbol of fasces was only used in ancient Rome and has no other meaning? Or the swastika, used in India as a symbol meaning wellbeing? Do you genuinely think symbolism and the meaning of words isn't plastic and contingent on context?

I think when people trade on the negative connotations of "fascism" and then turn around and go "oh i mean this..." they're being duplicitous and alarmist.

The antifa lot essentially define fascism as an eternal set of human psychological impulses: nostalgia, in-group preference, desire for cultural homogenity, etc.

These did not lead to Fascism, the "obviously bad thing" which they are being alarmist about. Fascism was a direct result of, and contingent upon, the mass death and poverty caused by WWI.

Words do have meaning, and it is precisely the negative connotations of fascism that are being appealed to in the accusation. Absent these connotations, almost everyone is fascist some of the time.

Re: An even worse anti-encryption bill than EARN IT

#50

Post by Hnrobert42 »

Perhaps conservatives will find compelling a comparison to the second amendment. When crypto was outlawed, only outlaws will have crypto.

The letter I sent to my senators is as follows:

I care deeply about the safety and security of my fellow Americans. I understand the challenges that strong encryption poses for law enforcement. I don’t want the terrorists and pederasts to win.

Yet, I strongly oppose Senate bill 4051, LAEDA. Consider giving a copy of your house keys the police just in case they need to come in without you knowing. Boy, I hope no one ever decides to steal all those keys at once. I hope no one guarding the keys ever develops an opioid addiction and decides to sell just a few keys. I hope China and Russia don’t get curious about what you are discussing with your colleagues and decide it would just be easiest to raid the key pantry.

Meanwhile, the real bad guys will just continue using existing, strong crypto. When crypto is outlawed, only outlaws will have crypto. As a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment, you understand that it is every person’s right to defend themselves against the evil forces in the world as well as protect against a potentially tyrannical government. Just because some criminals use guns for evil doesn’t mean we should curtail the rights of the majority who uses them for lawful defense.

Please don’t be fooled that LAED or EARNIT leave strong crypto intact until a warrant is issued. No. These acts force everyone, law abiding or not, to install a trigger lock the government can switch on remotely. Do we really trust the next administration not abuse that right? Do we really trust big business that much?

Personally, I prefer to stand my ground. I have done nothing wrong. I will not hand over my rights to defend myself.

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