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Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

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Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#71

Post by farias0 »

fsflover wrote: post #33
sdoering wrote: post #3

I strongly believe we have lost the war for privacy and security (against state level actors) already. Once the net adopted the platform model, we were screwed. Platforms are as easy to regulate, as for example the telephone companies were back in the days. They were easily forced to comply with wiretapping demands of the government. The moment a central platform controlled (most of) our communication and was able to…

> I strongly believe we have lost the war for privacy and security (against state level actors) already. Once the net adopted the platform model, we were screwed. This is very pessimistic. People still can understand the dangers (and are understanding) and switch to decentralized platforms, which by the way are actively being developed: https://joinmastodon.org .

Do you really see most people leaving the likes of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter? I don't think they care about privacy enough to stop doing what's easy and fun

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#72

Post by alias_neo »

zaarn wrote: post #60
tokamak-teapot wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And will just be banned and blocked

Well, if a mastodon instance admin decides to ban you, that's their personal decision. You can go to another instance. If another user blocks you, that's on them but you have no right to push your messages into another user's home system. If all else fails, you can host your own. It's ultimate free speech as intended and as someone who hosts a mastodon instance, it's a system that works pretty good, there is no notic…

I think you may have misunderstood the commenter. They seem to have been saying that Mastodon will simply by banned/blocked as a tool/platform by law.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#73

Post by toyg »

zaarn wrote: post #60
tokamak-teapot wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And will just be banned and blocked

Well, if a mastodon instance admin decides to ban you, that's their personal decision. You can go to another instance. If another user blocks you, that's on them but you have no right to push your messages into another user's home system. If all else fails, you can host your own. It's ultimate free speech as intended and as someone who hosts a mastodon instance, it's a system that works pretty good, there is no notic…

I think tokamak meant they will be banned by law, which sadly I can see happening - it effectively happened already with napster and bittorrent in some jurisdictions.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#74

Post by raxxorrax »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #24
Jon_Lowtek wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How was it solved before modern communication tech made it possible to automatically record, transcribe and search peoples private communication?

The key problem is not automation, it's access. It's simple to read a letter. It's not difficult to eavesdrop on a phone copper wire. But it's impossible to intercept communications encrypted end-to-end, or encrypted at rest, considering the strength of the algorithms freely available today.

We currently are in the middle of prosecuting a whistleblower that made clear that intelligence agencies maliciously abused this kind of access without any indication that this access providing a boon for security aside from perhaps letting some people interested in control sleep at night.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#75

Post by ghastmaster »

dmos62 wrote: post #65
ghastmaster wrote: post #50

> The EARN IT Act cynically uses crimes against children as an excuse to hand control of online privacy and speech over to state legislatures I like the idea of federal legislature ceding power to state legislatures. Additionally, it looks like encryption is offered more protections in this bill, Considering federal laws preempt state, especially with regard to telecommunications, I do not see what the risks are with…

I won't challenge the bill directly, but I'll point out that putting "crimes against children" front and center smells of misdirection, so it begs the question of what's really the bill's goal (though that could be just bad campaigning). Also, Edward Snowden spoke out against this bill. That's hearsay, but personally I've a fair amount of trust in his assessments.

The meat of the bill is that it establishes a commission (yes yet another, unpaid though!) that will establish and forward best practices to AG Barr concerning child sexual exploitation online. It is possible that one of the recommendations might be establishing a backdoor. In the future that recommendation would then be used to argue for legislation.

Snowden is great, but do your own research.

Edit: I usually trust Snowden as well. I could be missing something in this bill. EFF did not provide specifics. Hopefully someone here can.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#76

Post by mytailorisrich »

t-writescode wrote: post #35
mytailorisrich wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, no. That's the issue! If you only have peer-to-peer encryption with communications still passing through servers unencrypted then, sure, you can get a warrant to force disclosure. With end to end encryption, however you can show up with a warrant all you want it makes no difference because they physically cannot hand you clear-text communications. Same for encryption at rest. The strength of the encryption algo…

A very real problem with "backdoors" and wiretapping in the digital age is that, in the past, wiretapping was for future communications and between two specific individuals. That is not how E2E encryption breaking will be used. For E2E encryption breaking, they won't ask for "future conversations between A and B for the next 2 weeks" they will say "give me all historical communication from this person between all of…

SMS texts and call logs are already accessible, for example. Letters kept have always been accessible.

The fact that they may be accessed by law enforcement agencies in specific circumstances does not mean that they are not private.

If you are seeking absolute privacy for all time, i.e. absolute secrecy, the only option now and since writing was invented is to leave no trace: either communicate face to face discreetly or hand deliver letters and destroy them after reading.

What has changed recently is that we are effectively communicating in writing for virtually everything (even a voice call is affectively "in writing" as it's data stored on a medium) and that the cost of storing those writings has dropped to zero. In addition, and that's the issue, encryption has reached a stage where what I suggested (to hand deliver letters and to destroy them after reading) has become 'easy' and cheap for all communications if you want to, which creates big problems for law enforcement and security agencies.

I think this is a legitimate issue. The level of the debate, for example in this thread, is low and not helpful because, at least in some tech circles, people refuse to acknowledge real world issues and there is an extreme and utopian view than anything less than absolute secrecy is absolutely unacceptable.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#78

Post by toyg »

choppaface wrote: post #16

Wrote Feinstein and got a reply (?!) that EARN-IT is “misunderstood” and that she won’t stop supporting it womp womp. Why does this bill have any bi-partisan support?? Would expect there would at least be some large special interests funding an opposition... big companies rely on encryption to keep secrets.

> big companies rely on encryption to keep secrets.

A lot of big companies have old and crusty leaders / owners, who do not understand the terms of this problem.

I wouldn't be surprised to see this bill pass and then get nerfed in a few years, once big corporations actually experience the operational cost and lobby to have it rolled back / made it optional for them.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#79

Post by StavrosK »

jariel wrote: post #54
StavrosK wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China sidesteps this issue completely by using home-grown platforms like WeChat of course. How is that different from what the US does? It seems to me an error to think that US companies are somehow the default, and any other country using its own services is sidestepping the issue.

"How is that different from what the US does?" ? They are quite different. Facebook is a social network. On occasion, with a warrant approved by an independent Judiciary, an agency may request on a case by case basis, information relating to a specific concern for which there are specific indications warranting a search - much like the search of your car or home. WeChat is a control, censorship and surveillance netwo…

"How is having a popular domestic social network in China different form having a popular domestic social network in the US?"

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#80

Post by xiphias2 »

farias0 wrote: post #71
fsflover wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I strongly believe we have lost the war for privacy and security (against state level actors) already. Once the net adopted the platform model, we were screwed. This is very pessimistic. People still can understand the dangers (and are understanding) and switch to decentralized platforms, which by the way are actively being developed: https://joinmastodon.org .

Do you really see most people leaving the likes of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter? I don't think they care about privacy enough to stop doing what's easy and fun

For talking about their personal life? Not really. But when talking about money or politics, I see more people going to telegram.

Even the fact that this bill is proposed proves that government lost some of the control that it had over private conversations.

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