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Oppose the Earn IT Act

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Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#461

Post by jay_kyburz »

krebs_liebhaber wrote: post #454
jay_kyburz wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this misses the point. When people say "nothing to hide" they mean nothing to hide _from Law Enforcement_. I think the only counter argument is to demonstrate how close many of our western democracies are to becoming fascist dictatorships. We need privacy because if ever laws are passed that we don't agree with, we need to be able to break them until we can have the law changed. For example, if it was against…

> I think the only counter argument is to demonstrate how close many of our western democracies are to becoming fascist dictatorships. What bizarro alternate reality do you live in where this is the case?

I don't know, but its scary here. Police march the streets firing rubber bullets into crowds. A leader who makes repeated and sustained attacks to discredit the media with the deliberate intention of having a population with no trusted or reliable sources of information. Foreign interference in elections.

Oh yeah, and laws that ban encryption.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#462

Post by phendrenad2 »

kinghajj wrote: post #265
markkanof wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I initially thought you couldn't possibly be right about this, but what you stated does seem to be the case. After skimming through the full text, the main point of this seems to be about setting up a committee that will come up with "best practices" that online service providers can follow to reduce/eliminate the exploitation of children on their platform. Can someone explain how this "creates a threat to strong enc…

If they determine that "best practice" no longer includes secure end-to-end encryption that a service provider can't decrypt independently of the user, they'll use that as political leverage. "See, our self-selected panel of experts said that this isn't a best practice, yet Apple and Facebook are still doing it anyway!"

I suspect that Apple and Facebook will control said committee. They just need to donate more money to the campaign funds of people lucky enough to be on that committee.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#463

Post by snicky »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #386
snicky wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah? And what if there are no other cars on the highway?

Killing yourself is still a cost to society. People have to come out and scrape you off the road, put all your bits in a box and bury you.

I guess we also need some thought police to penalize suicidal thinking too...

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#464

Post by dyslexit »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #5
blintz wrote: post #3

I cannot believe that the one thing we have bipartisan consensus on is destroying strong encryption. I guess I’m biased since this is essentially my whole livelihood, but this is crazy, right?

Well, nsa mass surveillance and legalized torture were never repelled by any side. In fact, the patriot act has been prolongued 5 times, no matter the administration, and is still in effect. As a european, I don't see any party that actually have american people's interest in mind. Fighting for either seems so futile from here. Of course, we have similar problems as well so I'm not going to pretend I have a solution.

Torture was heavily repelled by Democrats, and was only "legalized" in that John McCain intentionally put in loop holes into his own bill that allowed the CIA to continue it because Bush threatened to veto the bill otherwise. Those loop holes were later closed under Obama both by legislation and an executive order. This was very much a partisan issue.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#465

Post by lowwave »

dragonwriter wrote: post #359
tricolon wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't the counterargument be "but only the government would have access, and we can trust the government"?

The counter-counter-argument is the whole history of both individual (against policy) and official (by policy) abuse of surveillance in the history of government. Every expansion of monitoring must weigh the specific expected benefits against the very real cost of expanding both of those abuse surfaces.

Just check out the Stasi in Germany. Power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#466

Post by peroporque »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #456
bananasbandanas wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems they are cherry-picking their cases somewhat. This graphic [1] shows a comparison of European countries with Germany pretty much in the middle. [1] https://de.statista.com/infografik/16765/todesfaelle-auf-aut...

I can't read that one, but I did read a few newspaper articles on the topic and it sounds like there is a lot of debate around the issue. I can imagine its almost impossible to take into consideration all various factors like road conditions, and local cultural issues, and quality of cars and everything. I'd also like to know how much the spend building and maintaining the unrestricted stretches of road, I would imag…

Many Autobahnen here do have a speed limit. Or too much traffic to drive fast. Those that don't do not have potholes.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#467

Post by nakatanimasaki »

pdonis wrote: post #412
whatshisface wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That argument doesn't work because some people are so conformist that every detail about their personal lives would be considered 100% unobjectionable to anyone they know or work for. (This is impossible when you know or work for diverse groups, but inside of a monoculture it's possible.)

Then just change the question to "Cool, can I take a look at your bank account details?"

"Yes, but only if I can look at yours. I have nothing to hide, but I don't want to be the only one who's isolated and exposed to the public".

"I have nothing to hide" implies that everyone should be open to investigation.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#468

Post by raxxorrax »

ekianjo wrote: post #327
whatshisface wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That argument doesn't work because some people are so conformist that every detail about their personal lives would be considered 100% unobjectionable to anyone they know or work for. (This is impossible when you know or work for diverse groups, but inside of a monoculture it's possible.)

> some people are so conformist that every detail about their personal lives would be considered 100% unobjectionable In this time and age, I find that highly doubtful.

Heh, never looked at this from that angle. At least some more people might have gotten an idea for why privacy is indeed important.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#469

Post by cja »

mr_toad wrote: post #347
tricolon wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't the counterargument be "but only the government would have access, and we can trust the government"?

I work for the government. Mind if I riffle through your contacts? Is it ok to DM any cute people I find?

Why do cute people need special protection?

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#470

Post by Tainnor »

JAlexoid wrote: post #422
jay_kyburz wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a good analogy because if you speed on the highway you are putting other peoples lives at risk, and doing it in public. I think we probably should have a satellite tracking every car and issuing a ticket as soon as a car speeds.

That's complete BS. Speeds have not been updated to match the technical characteristics of modern cars. There's a reason why Germany doesn't even have a speed limit - the limit itself is pointless. They only fine you for dangerous driving.

This is just misinformation. Of course, in most places, Germany has speed limits. For example, the speed limit within cities is generally 50km/h, around schools and in residentials areas it's 30km/h and outside of towns, it's usually somewhere between 60 and 100km/h. The only exception to this are highways where, in fact, 70% of the time, there is no general speed limit. Even so, specific sections will always have speed limits (e.g. around a construction site), and additionally, there are strict rules for how to behave on the highway (in particular, it's absolutely 100% forbidden to pass a car on the right and you generally have to drive as far to the right as possible unless you want to pass a slower vehicle).
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