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The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

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Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#101

Post by mannerheim »

sneak wrote: post #65
cies wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you shout really loud yr a democracy. Basically saying you have no control is saying that the US is no democracy.

The US does not have equal protection under the law, and the laws are enforced arbitrarily to carry out the will of the military and the ownership class. The thing you reference is just a cover story. It's plain as day to anyone paying attention who runs that country. There is no party you can vote for that will stop the perpetual war or perpetual ubiquitous surveillance, despite a vast majority of people in the coun…

Is there a vast majority against surveillance?

> A majority of voters say they are satisfied with the authority given to U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor Americans suspected of committing a crime, according to a poll released Thursday.

> Fifty-one percent of respondents in a recent Hill-HarrisX survey said the intelligence community has the "right amount of power" in determining who should be subject to government surveillance.

https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/433071-pol...

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#102

Post by arminiusreturns »

colinmhayes wrote: post #97
mannerheim wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's complicated. There's no specific law in the US regarding key disclosure, but you can be punished for e.g. contempt of court, maybe spoliation. In theory, the Fifth Amendment should protect individuals from self-incrimination, but courts have ruled that forcing people to disclose keys is not that. See In re Boucher for a case where Fifth Amendment protections were not upheld and US v. Doe for a case where they we…

The Boucher case is special because the ruling held that Boucher had waived fifth amendment rights for the computer by showing some of it to law enforcement. If you exercise your fifth from the start I do not believe you can be compelled to provide the state with passwords, although they can use your biometric data.

Do you happen to know the case regarding the biometric data?

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#103

Post by r3trohack3r »

voldacar wrote: post #94
laurent92 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to make it strategic to hide our communications. The day the CIA decides that [place any enemy] has routers all over the place in US territory and that their spying is bad, they will mandate the use of Tor instead of discouraging it. We don’t need to be at war, but we need a capable enemy.

Tor is not an end-all solution. Hidden services can be trivially unmasked (for an actor like the CIA/NSA) with traffic correlation attacks

Targeted surveillance is different than mass surveillance, different threat models call for different tools.

https://everytwoyears.org/2020/07/13/tactical-privacy.html

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#104

Post by ios14 »

justaman wrote: post #42

When the FBI is hurting bad for talent to secure the interests of the US, why on earth would I sign up when this is their stance on encryption?

Paradox. They need more talent to build more secure mousetraps. Large portions of the talent pool are sidelined on political and/or technology-first ideology.

Requirements don't change, talent is lacking: backdoors that compromise encryption become the proposed bandaid. We are all worse off as a result.

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#105

Post by jrsj »

sodality2 wrote: post #62
jrsj wrote: post #53

Just wait until they tell us that encryption back doors are necessary to stop racism and watch as half the population claps excitedly for the total elimination of privacy in the U.S.

I don't believe that is true (and pray it isn't). I don't think the populace is that stupid. Also, unnecessarily political. I could replace "racism" with "immigration" or "socialism" just as easily, that doesn't make it true.

I don’t care if it seems political, it’s reality. This is just the most effective tool the government has for manufacturing consent at the moment.

This is the just the thing we’re already clearly willing to give up civil liberties for in another areas, primarily in freedom of speech and basic property rights. Complaining about it this seen as unacceptable — you can’t criticize or question any mainstream view put out by the media on this issue.

Identity politics is the clear and only vehicle for this kind of suppression of basic rights at the moment.

Support encryption backdoors, we need them to fight White Nationalist Terrorist Insurrectionists!

If there is some sort of PATRIOT Act 2.0 under the current administration targeted at “domestic terrorism” I absolutely guarantee you someone will at least try to put an encryption backdoor in it.

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#106

Post by fsflover »

mannerheim wrote: post #86
fsflover wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people simply have no choice unless you are willing to switch to GNU/Linux phones. Those are not 100% ready for everything yet.

Not a silver bullet unless you never let your phone talk to a cell tower - in which case it stops being a phone and starts being a miniature tablet.

At least with Librem 5 you can use the hardware kill switch whenever you need privacy.

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#107

Post by JoshTriplett »

sxqnicholas wrote: post #14

The article's title is a little misleading, but I agree with their overarching message. Law enforcement should never be given the easy way out in terms of breaking encryption. Asking for backdoors to be installed in every device is extremely lazy police work. I'm sure there are other ways of breaking encryption like the rubber-hose technique (of course with valid arrest warrant). Arguing that law enforcement should s…

> I'm sure there are other ways of breaking encryption like the rubber-hose technique (of course with valid arrest warrant).

"rubber-hose technique" refers to torture, not to something that a warrant would allow.

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#108

Post by fsflover »

grishka wrote: post #100
fsflover wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people simply have no choice unless you are willing to switch to GNU/Linux phones. Those are not 100% ready for everything yet.

It doesn't matter what your phone runs. As long as it's communicating with the network, the carrier knows its location.

Cell towers is far from the only tracking possibility.

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#109

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

Deestan wrote: post #4
cies wrote: post #3

I dont understand why the US people still trust these agencies. FBI, CIA, NSA have all shown to act against the democracy in many cases. If they could be trusted, they could be trusted with a backdoor. Since they cannot be trusted, the backdoor only makes them a more dangerous enemy of the people.

Nobody can be "trusted" with a backdoor, because it isn't really a valid concept. A backdoor is a vulnerability that doesn't care who you are or what your purpose is or who pays you. If you found the backdoor it is open to you. However hard the backdoor's security is, an insider recruited by Swedish intelligence (or Russia whatever the bogeyman du jour is) will leak the key at some point. Now all your "secure" shit c…

What about hardware backdoors where you would need physical access to the device?

Re: The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption

#110

Post by lights0123 »

colinmhayes wrote: post #97
mannerheim wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's complicated. There's no specific law in the US regarding key disclosure, but you can be punished for e.g. contempt of court, maybe spoliation. In theory, the Fifth Amendment should protect individuals from self-incrimination, but courts have ruled that forcing people to disclose keys is not that. See In re Boucher for a case where Fifth Amendment protections were not upheld and US v. Doe for a case where they we…

The Boucher case is special because the ruling held that Boucher had waived fifth amendment rights for the computer by showing some of it to law enforcement. If you exercise your fifth from the start I do not believe you can be compelled to provide the state with passwords, although they can use your biometric data.

The highest-ruling decision so far doesn't allow biometric use: https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2019-01-1...
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