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An even worse anti-encryption bill than EARN IT

cyberlaw.stanford.edu

301–310 of 367 posts

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

#301

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 405…

I think most conservatives believe that the government has too much power, should not be engaged in mass surveillance and especially not suborning people rights just to make life easier for law enforcement.

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

#302

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…

r/pcm?

r/PoliticalCompassMemes, a subreddit that's been gaining popularity recently. (I only discovered it oh, maybe 2-3 months ago? Wouldn't be surprised if the quarantine had a big impact.)

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

#303

Contrary to what some people are implying, support for mandatory decryption is not evidence of technological illiteracy. From the perspective of these lawmakers, encrypted storage is like a safe. You have the right to store records in a safe to keep them away from prying eyes, but law enforcement has the right to order you to unlock that safe if they have a warrant. You have the same right to store those same records…

With the safe analogy, I swear there's precedent that, if the security is a physical key, then a court can compel the owner to produce it. But if the safe uses a combination, the court cannot compel its divulgence, since that would violate the fifth amendment protections against being forced to testify against oneself. Encryption "keys", and the passwords from which they are commonly derived, are much more akin to combinations than to physical keys.

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

#304

Contrary to what some people are implying, support for mandatory decryption is not evidence of technological illiteracy. From the perspective of these lawmakers, encrypted storage is like a safe. You have the right to store records in a safe to keep them away from prying eyes, but law enforcement has the right to order you to unlock that safe if they have a warrant. You have the same right to store those same records…

With the safe analogy, I swear there's precedent that, if the security is a physical key , then a court can compel the owner to produce it. But if the safe uses a combination , the court cannot compel its divulgence, since that would violate the fifth amendment protections against being forced to testify against oneself. Encryption "keys", and the passwords from which they are commonly derived, are much more akin to…

I think there might be a circuit split on this issue, but IMO merely divulging a combination or encryption key is not "testimonial" (and therefore not a 5th Amendment violation) except insofar as it admits knowledge of the combination or key itself. But if police can establish separately that you know it, then the "foregone conclusion" exception applies.

If you can point to specific precedent that would be helpful.

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

#305

Please stop voting dumbasses in the US, it affects everyone living in countries who have commercial agreements with then

Unfortunately only dumbasses vote. Smart people won't vote away their souvereignty to others who are then going to make far reaching decisions about their life. Basically it's choosing to become a slave.

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

#306
post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From some light research, it looks like 120,000 Japanese-Americans were put in these camps for 2-3 years and 1,862 died. In the country at large, if I'm reading this [1] right, 1,459,000 people died outside of the camps in the US, which had a population of 136,700,000. That's a ~1% base death rate per year, which would account for ~2/3 of these deaths in a year. This could be investigated further; was the average len…

That's true. If you count the Alaskan camps [1] you get another 118 American citizens who died in U.S. government camps, which would put us at 1980 dead - leaving us 20 short of thousands. I stand corrected. [1] - https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/02/21/516277507...

I had not heard of the Aleutian internment, and it is clear that the evacuation was mismanaged and the people were mistreated. It's honestly horrific. They were on the front, so it doesn't read as much like racism, but it could have and should have been handled orders of magnitude better.

I'm not pedantically quibbling over whether it was 1980 or 2000 who died. I'm saying that if you took a random sample of 120,000 people at the beginning of 1943 and checked back at the end, 1,300-1,400 would have died. That leave hundreds, not thousands, who died in internment that wouldn't have died otherwise. These are arguable numbers, as I stated above, but they have more substance than I think you're implying.

Additionally, the US invested considerable resources into keeping these people alive. There were on-site hospitals, and not like the ones in Auschwitz where people were held until they died. These camps shouldn't have existed, but they were completely different animals from death camps and are not just a step away.

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

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Whatever technical solution you come up with will simply be made illegal if anyone but the nerdy 0.0001% will end up using it. But that never happened with BitTorrent. Conversely, industry gradually stopped caring about pursuits of IP violators. While this is ultimately a political problem it will only be practiced where it’s enforceable like all other political problems.

Nobody really uses Bittorrent to undermine the police state. They don't care about your dealings with the media industry as much.

And hey, why didn't you say "but that never happened to encryption"? Because it's about to happen in the US? Because it happened in Australia already?

You think a government that is seriously considering such bills will "gradually stop caring" about assaulting constitutional protections by banning effective encryption? If you haven't noticed, we're moving in the opposite direction, and not very gradually I might add.

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

#308

Computer criminals (especially the commercial variety) and foreign intelligence agents must be drooling right about now. If something like this becomes law, it's only a matter of time until a mass-breach gives, e.g., China or Russia the dirty laundry of thousands of politicians and business leaders in one fell swoop. I don't think I need to spell out what that would mean for what's left of democracy in the USA. I'm c…

Despite the circlejerk - It’s all theatre and nothing more and it will never happen, at least not in any way that most people here are concerned about.

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

#309
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But now? How can we hold a higher ground than China when our own police forces use the very same tactics against our own protesters? How can we accuse the other side of building concentration camps when we have our own? It's called having protestors in the first place. China wouldn't let you hear about it, or all you get is distorted information, which means you don't know what's going on in their society.

You don't think China has protestors? They protest on a scale not seen in the US, with 2010 having 180,000 "mass incidents".

They aren't allowed, is the point. You can be disappeared for speaking against Xi. Any comparison is a false one.

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

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the same as any unrecorded conversation is inaccessible by warrant after it happens. Law enforcement doesn't need omniscience, but we do need freedom to associate and privacy in a democracy.

I didn't say they do. Encryption is still a different idea from warrantless searches though.

But the beauty of E2E is that indeed it forces law enforcement to cough up a warrant.
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