Live data from Hacker News

An even worse anti-encryption bill than EARN IT

cyberlaw.stanford.edu

351–360 of 367 posts

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

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Joe Rogan recently released an episode with the comedian Andrew Schultz which I found very relevant. So many of us share common ground. It's the extremes that push us to be more extreme.

r/pcm has been a rare instance of unity, blunt kindness, and understanding in these times, and I greatly appreciate it.

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

#352

> (R-SC)...(R-AR)...(R-TN) It's funny how you can read just that and know that the bill is going to be absurdly bad. Not even just bad in the philosophical/political sense but actually just bad as in not understanding the problem space, or not even formulated clearly or coherently.

Are you saying that Rs or people from southern states are incapable of critical and analytical thinking?

As a native born floridian, the claim that southern republicans are not good at critical and analytical thinking seems true to me. Surely they're out there, but I haven't met them yet, and I've met plenty of conservative southerners.

If your voting base prefers the blood of christ over a facemask to protect from coronavirus, you probably aren't writing bills based on, uh, informed analysis of relevant data.

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

#353
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone explain why this is being heavily downvoted? Was something they said false?

This whole subthread is a giant off-topic diversion. To be comparable to the original legislative situation here, Trump would've been introduced and controlled deliberately by Clinton. So instead we just have a thread which changes the subject to an un-needed not-connected tired blame-fest.

That's not true; the GOP is the actor in both cases, and in both cases put forward an extreme thing (in one case a person, in another case, a law). The point is not to be complacent with the intention behind the extreme law, and assume it won't pass, since the analogous thing happened.

I think that's a pretty tight point, and on topic, but I would agree that most of this subthread is OT.

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

#355
post #238
post #153

As someone who typically votes conservative, this is the kind of ignorance that makes me seriously reconsider my stances. This would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and go a long way toward emulating China. No thank you! Time to double down on encryption efforts and Tor usage.

I hate to break it to you, but if this bill bothers you, then you’re best bet is to vote for the progressives. Welcome to the left wing, comrade. :-) Over the years, I’ve watched most of my conservative friends defect to the democrats as the Republican party morphed from “small (but efficient) government” to starting the War on Science and War on the Climate, not to mention all the useless wars against the Middle Eas…

> I hate to break it to you, but if this bill bothers you, then you’re best bet is to vote for the progressives.

Haha no. They both suck. It's only politically convient

> the Democratic party also veered to the right

I think you mean the left have veered radically more to the left.

> I just wish the senate wasn’t so skewed toward conservative states and against city dwellers.

As designed. Really we should go to the way it was supposed to be with the state legislatures choosing senators.

> hey simply refuse to appoint judges when there is a Democrat in the white house

The democrats will do exactly the same in the reverse situation.

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

#356

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'm very conservative and I don't like this one bit. I agree there is a good comparison to the 2nd. I think if you sat down with your average conservative, you would find that they probably either already agree or would be quick to agree that this is bad.

> Do we really trust big business that much?

In general I trust them more than the government simply because they will never have as much power as the government.

Stop trying to take my guns...and my crypto.

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

#357

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…

> But it is arrogant to assume that anyone who supports it must be ignorant of how encryption works

No it's not. Because your analogy is, excuse the term, utter bullshit. Producing a safe requires an expert. A government could actually try to force all producers to give them a second key or some backdoor. Producing an encrypted messages requires software. Government has no chance in hell to restrict the distribution of "illegal software". Everyone who supports that narrative is stupid. Period.

Government officials aren't stupid in general, though. So why do they support the fight against encryption? Because they want to read the messages of average Joe, not the messages of Don Heroin or Sheik Al Explosive. They want to know where the next BLM gathering will be, or where the documents about city council corruption leak.

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

#358
post #94

The solution to policies like this is serverless or point-to-point systems. As an application publisher you cannot be held liable or obligated towards that which you do not possess and are, by design, not capable of possessing. As an example consider copyright law and BitTorrent. BitTorrent provides a software application and protocol but not servers or services, so the BitTorrent software is never liable for the cop…

The solution is to vote out idiots who support things like this, and get the government actually working for its citizens again, not against it. That's hard, and feels damn near impossible sometimes, but it's required. You can't fix social problems with clever technological workarounds.

The problem with your solution is that the representatives we vote for don't include every combination of sides of every issue. You can vote for the best person regarding internet privacy, but they might have terrible views regarding welfare and transit. Everything is a compromise, it's so unlikely as to be labeled impossible that you'll find a representative who will vote the way you would on everything--and this is disregarding lobbying entirely.

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

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Given usage of reasonably available standards at present you will never gain access to encrypted data at rest inside the probable lifespan of our planet let alone a court case.

Using current technology in the ways we currently use it. Some of the things we take for granted were considered impossible less than a hundred years ago. Logging full packet data for later decryption is already feasible, and that's all it takes if you can watch the wires.

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

#360
This is why I donate a hundred dollars each to the ACLU and EFF every year around Christmas time. It's not much but if everyone did it they'd be able to find this stuff a lot better. Once our rights to liberty and privacy are taken by the government it's 10X as hard to get them back.
Post reply on HN