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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

#101

Post by Nasrudith »

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…

That is just plain wrong. Even a distribuited model would have the same problems because they would be "platforms" to regulate. The truth is that they cannot win although they will demonstrate a mierdas touch and turn everything they touch to shit because what they are insane and demand the literally impossible. The "leadership" should probably be put in an insane asylum as a danger to self and others with no understanding of objective reality.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#102

Post by Nasrudith »

ghastmaster wrote: post #91
brushfoot wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's the reason for the EFF's warning?

Sadly, they did not point to any specific parts of the bill that would support their claims.

The "best practices by a committee they control" requirement which is carte blanche. They could easily set it to considering "key escrow" or "master key" backdoors.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#103

Post by WanderPanda »

xiphias2 wrote: post #80
farias0 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I like Telegram, but I‘m not sure it is the prime candidate for privacy / secure communication. Hopefully Matrix gains traction. Element is getting better but is still full of bugs...

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#104

Post by izzytcp »

All of you smart arses out here and there, we know it, we know. We know, VPNs and other stuff in between are not so secure and not private. Stop saying it, don't you have some other piece of knowledge to be proud of? for god's sake. Tor and Signal are better than Public Cloud, Chrome & SMS if you're looking for privacy. Don't you have common sense?

- HTTPS is more secure and private than HTTP

- Signal is more secure and private than SMS/Skype/Messenger

- Tor/Browser is more secure and private than Cloud/Chrome

- FileVault, BitLocker and LUKS are more secure and private than RAW unencrypted disk data

- 2FA and Hashing is better than raw Passwords

- List goes on and on.

All you have to do is: get out of your desperate situation where "everything's controlled", because it's not true, at least not everything. We don't have the best security and privacy but we have some of it AND we need to fight to keep and expand it.

Now go on and tell me how smart you are and how you see things different and generalize stuff again in replies. Or you can just shut up and stand up to contribute and improve it.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#105

Post by mcv »

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…

Then we should abandon those big platforms and move to millions of self-hosted personal mini-platforms. That way, you control your data, and you control who you share it with.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#106

Post by NateEag »

gspr wrote: post #67
mulmen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I strongly believe apathy will be the death of freedom. This is a needlessly negative outlook. Click the link, support the EFF. Educate your friends and family. Defeatism is not a compelling philosophy.

Exactly. I see this defeatism all the time regarding climate change too. It's OK to feel defeated. But why the hell would you spend energy to spread that defeatism?!

If you have been defeated, acknowledging it is crucial.

It's hard to make progress while denying the actual nature of the situation.

Not saying that's necessarily true in either of these situations, just that it's not a waste of energy to spread depressing truths.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#107

Post by mcv »

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 fin it very unlikely to see distributed social networks like Mastodon or Diaspora completely banned. In the US, this should be protected under the first amendment, in many other countries, it's protected under similar laws. And many countries don't care as much about violating their citizens' privacy as the US does.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#108

Post by indymike »

metadatabad wrote: post #89

I remember someone from here posting about how the user contacted Feinstein and got the most boilerplate response possible. They honestly do not care about the citizens at this point.

If you want them to care, stop by their offices and have a really rational talk with their staffers and the representative. If you can explain things with stories (for example, where a backdoor was used to crack ___ resulting in very personal damage to ____), you will change minds. Get 20-30 tech leaders to go meet with Feinstein and discuss how this will affect them. If she won't budge at that point, then maybe y'all need to vote for someone else. Encryption is easy to explain: if the good guys can use the backdoor, the bad guys will use the backdoor, to. The cops don't get keys to your car, safe, or home for the exact same reason.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#109

Post by Jon_Lowtek »

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.

The key problem is that massive intrusion into the privacy of correspondence, posts and telecommunications is a telltale sign of totalitarianism. A democracy by nature has not only no need to access every ones correspondence, it is strictly forbidden.

I find it horrifying how many Americans lack the basic understanding of what they are facing here. The STASI reserved for itself the right to read every letter and before them it was the GESTAPO who argued that, for the protection of national security ("Schutz von Volk und Staat"), all communication must be accessible by the secret police.

The american people have no idea what devil they are summoning.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#110

Post by upofadown »

PGP was specifically created to combat this sort of legal threat. It is proof that encryption is ultimately controlled by individuals. The identity management is completely decentralization and it works over pretty much any medium.

It seems that the world has somehow forgotten the lesson. People can only see the centralized systems and don't realize that the problem they are trying to solve is not solvable in general. Encryption is unstoppable.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

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