Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#161

Post by rsync » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

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…

"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."

Perhaps - and most fall into this category.

However, you do have the ability to form a (simple, cheap) SCorp/LLC in the US jurisdiction of your choice and provision your own mail/dns/vpn/etc. by that corporate entity.

So now a corporate entity is the provider, and you are the customer, and notices/subpoenas/takedowns/requests will be seen by you and you will take action on them.

At the very least, you can self-provide your own VPN this way if you don't want to run your own mail services.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#162

Post by koheripbal » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 2:20 PM UTC

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

Why do "most people" need to do this?

The questions isn't "What do 90% of people do?". The question is whether or not those of us that care about privacy have the ability to be private.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#163

Post by Shorel » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 2:20 PM UTC

nix23 wrote: post #25

What i don't get, yes you can force Facebook to implement Backdoors, but how would you do that with a opensource project like Matrix or even the full opensource Android?

The most interesting and important parts of the smartphone stack are closed source.

The parts that control doing calls, connecting to cells, etc.

They are called "Radio" firmware.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#164

Post by kmeisthax » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 2:21 PM UTC

dontcarethrow2 wrote: post #152

Jon_Lowtek wrote: post #144

Back in late medieval europa most postal services had a back room, called cabinet noir where letters where carefully opened, read and resealed to check them for signs of treason against the crown or cross. These were often abused for what we today would call economic espionage. For these reasons many rich people employed private couriers who traveled to their business partners in person to hand over messages. Those w…

>A society that mistrusts its own citizens to a point where all those that whisper to each other are called criminals, dealers, traitors or terrorists is rotten at its core. I mean you said it yourself, dealers. This is why I believe EARN IT will even be celebrated. Generations who accept a war on drugs as sane, did we ever think these people will produce offspring who can think for themselves? The ones who somehow d…

The only people who support this shit are people who haven't thought through all the second-order consequences. They're very few in number - most people generally dislike surveillance, but don't fight against it nearly as hard as they theoretically could. Economic incentives are working their magic here. For example, much of the NSA's spying programs are legal specifically because AT&T made everyone surrender metadata for advertising purposes as a condition of telephone service back in the 50s. AT&T had monopoly power, so the only choices available were to sign over your metadata or live like Richard Stallman. Furthermore, any indication that your phone call records were being bought and sold was hidden in the fine print of long, non-negotiable contractual agreements.

The problem isn't "undesirables" (MISS ME with that shit), it's lies by omission and economic power brought to bear against people's rational expectations of privacy.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#165

Post by koheripbal » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 2:21 PM UTC

nuker wrote: post #160

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 You are mistaken counselor (c) The Descendants. These three easy things improve your privacy by 10x: - Incognito / Private browsing by default. Clears cookies used by trackers and platforms. Staying logged in is bad. Login, do your thing and close the tab. No Chrome, it has its own Id. - VPN. Hides your browsing history from ISP and your IP address fr…

Avoidance of social media should be in this list.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#166

Post by defnotashton2 » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 2:21 PM UTC

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.

The distinction between the parties is little more than an illusion.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#167

Post by geranim0 » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

upofadown wrote: post #110

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…

You don't seem to understand that this is not about us, but about the average joe who will never learn about PGP.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#168

Post by nuker » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 2:24 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #165

nuker wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I strongly believe we have lost the war for privacy and security You are mistaken counselor (c) The Descendants. These three easy things improve your privacy by 10x: - Incognito / Private browsing by default. Clears cookies used by trackers and platforms. Staying logged in is bad. Login, do your thing and close the tab. No Chrome, it has its own Id. - VPN. Hides your browsing history from ISP and your IP address fr…

Avoidance of social media should be in this list.

No, it is too harsh. These rules will work for most people. In social media, never share your address book and don't give your phone number, which is very powerful identifier. Unique email is good too.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#169

Post by coldtea » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 2:27 PM UTC

ghastmaster wrote: post #75

dmos62 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>The meat of the bill is that it establishes a commission (yes yet another, unpaid though!)

"Unpaid" here just means paid in other means, exchaging political favors, getting hired by the benefitted companies, etc.

Of course the same goes for paid commissions...

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#170

Post by LatteLazy » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 2:28 PM UTC

nix23 wrote: post #88

LatteLazy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only important to break thinks like matrix if you want to catch dedicated criminals. If you're just trying to sway elections and blackmail people then Facebook (WhatsApp) , Gmail, etc more than covers what you need. Plus if you really really want to know what's happening there, call the NSA. They'll send a few chaps to join the matrix dev community. Or they'll use other tools to access the machines in question.…

>Plus if you really really want to know what's happening there, call the NSA Not sure if they give me any information as a Swiss citizen :-) >They'll send a few chaps to join the matrix dev community That's probably more on the James Bond side of reality >Or they'll use other tools to access the machines in question Yes that's what they probably will do, but that is targeting and not a Backdoor/break encryption by la…

We know from Snowden that the NSA actively and covertly submitted code to open source projects including Android\Linux:

https://www.androidauthority.com/nsa-android-code-239118/

They're also involved in the Coreboot alternative BIOS project:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nsa-contributes-low-level-...

One of the key revelations from Snowden was that all that stuff that seemed far fetched or paranoid to us, wasn't just happening, it was routine and much more advanced stuff was also going on.

It's also much easier to target Matrix etc when you don't have to target all of Facebook because you have a backdoor there. Reducing the NSAs workload by 99% makes the other 1% much easier because they have 100 times the resources to spend on it.

You should also consider as a swiss citizen that US law is increasingly world law. If you sit in Switzerland and contribute to a project banned by US law, they may well have you extradited to spend the rest of your life in a US prison. They're doing that to Assange right now. They've done it to others as well. Locking up foreigners is quite in-style in the US at the moment... I haven't read the bill, so I don't know what the criminal sanctions are for failing to provide backdoors...

Best of luck