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Key senators have voted for the anti-encryption EARN IT act

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Re: Key senators have voted for the anti-encryption EARN IT act

#231

Post by rmbyrro »

i5heu wrote: post #193

I guess this is the end of "sending customer data to the us". Quite impressive how fast the US-politics can burn billions in $, endanger the technological lead and build a massive opportunity for Europe! I, as a European could not be happier about this, from a economic standpoint. Hope you guys over there are not drifting to a surveillance dystopian.

I'm not American nor European.

The US tech industry is lightyears ahead of European counterparts because of factors other than meeting market demands for privacy.

I don't think this is going to fundamentally change anything.

Re: Key senators have voted for the anti-encryption EARN IT act

#232

Post by the_other »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #222
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fragility of the American exceptionalism. What if we don't want FAANGs in Europe? What if it's harder for FAANGs to develop in Europe because they can't be as aggressive and careless as american corps are? Personally I don't want Europe to allow huge monopolistic corps to take over our economy. Why would we want Google, the search engine that provides ads and spies on you instead of providing good results? Why wo…

> We don't want ....[x, y, z] Then why are those US tech companies so successful in the EU with no viable local competitors, if nobody wants them?

I want to start an Apple competitor. I have a plan; it's interesting, fun and deep. But I lack skills (I'm a FED, not an OS or hardware engineer, and I've not done funding rounds and I only have cheap suits). If I exist, there's likely similar-minded folk out there.

(UK here; not quite Europe any more; not my fault or choice)

Re: Key senators have voted for the anti-encryption EARN IT act

#233

Post by guerrilla »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #156
yoyohello13 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like our opinions matter. I learned from net neutrality that my representatives will do whatever they want to do, without regard for the peoples wishes.

If enough people write in it can have an effect. It can provide political ammunition for those who are already supportive of your position. It may sway representatives who haven't made up their minds and want to get relected. It probably won't change the minds of those who are already fully committed to the other position. Your one letter won't make much difference. Many letters can sway opinion to some extent. I als…

> If enough people write in it can have an effect.

How do you know?

Re: Key senators have voted for the anti-encryption EARN IT act

#234

Post by neycoda »

rascul wrote: post #218
i5heu wrote: post #193

I guess this is the end of "sending customer data to the us". Quite impressive how fast the US-politics can burn billions in $, endanger the technological lead and build a massive opportunity for Europe! I, as a European could not be happier about this, from a economic standpoint. Hope you guys over there are not drifting to a surveillance dystopian.

The bill hasn't passed yet. It went through a committee, but it has not passed in either the House or the Senate. There's still plenty of opportunity for this bill to get voted out. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/s3538

It's creeping forward. It seems Republicans are a captive audience, Corporate Democrats are on their way, and Progressives and Libertarians are about the only ones pushing against it.

Re: Key senators have voted for the anti-encryption EARN IT act

#235

Post by spywaregorilla »

the_other wrote: post #232
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't want ....[x, y, z] Then why are those US tech companies so successful in the EU with no viable local competitors, if nobody wants them?

I want to start an Apple competitor. I have a plan; it's interesting, fun and deep. But I lack skills (I'm a FED, not an OS or hardware engineer, and I've not done funding rounds and I only have cheap suits). If I exist, there's likely similar-minded folk out there. (UK here; not quite Europe any more; not my fault or choice)

Do you really have a plan if you lack the requisite skills?

Re: Key senators have voted for the anti-encryption EARN IT act

#236

Post by csunbird »

onikolas7 wrote: post #124

In my mind "Think of the children" is synonymous with "ulterior motive". After reading the comments here, I am adding CSAM to the list of synonyms.

Banning encryption because of some people use it to transfer abusive images is literally throwing baby out with the bathwater. Why not ban sending snail mail as well, as it can be used to send abusive images too?

Re: Key senators have voted for the anti-encryption EARN IT act

#237

Post by _wldu »

labster wrote: post #91
toastercat wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked as a software developer for 8 years so far. I have yet to meet a single fellow developer who is privacy-conscious.

At my previous employer, among the 40 or so developer staff worldwide, there were only two of us who used Signal: myself (security focused backend dev) and the devops team security expert. Everyone else: just use WhatsApp so we can all communicate in the same place. Caring about privacy can be exhausting.

I believe that strong E2E encryption is critical to individual privacy, but I also believe that it doesn't really matter when most every nation state can compromise any phone at any time simply by knowing the phone number and sending a zero click SMS or MMS message to that phone.

Until laws are implemented that forbid this and/or security improves to do so, it doesn't matter how good the encryption is if it's running on a fundamentally insecure device.

Re: Key senators have voted for the anti-encryption EARN IT act

#238

Post by mcdonje »

guerrilla wrote: post #165
idontwantthis wrote: post #27

I contacted my representatives. It took 1 minute. Please do it too.

Why do people think doing so is effective? Is there any evidence for that?

It's far more effective than doing nothing. Reps keep track of constituent correspondences and tally them by sentiment. It's one of their main ways of gauging where their constituency is on issues. I guarantee boomers who type google searches into google's facebook page are calling up their reps.

Re: Key senators have voted for the anti-encryption EARN IT act

#239

Post by jimhefferon »

US folks who are interested in writing their Senators can find information at https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm?OrderBy...

FWIW, I sent the email below (largely cribbed from the EFF).

Dear :

I am a constituent. I urge you to oppose the EARN IT act, S.3538. It does not strike a reasonable balance between fighting crimes and the rights of users to privacy and encryption.

The bill empowers every state or territory to create sweeping new Internet regulations, by stripping away the legal protections for websites and apps in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. The states will be allowed to pass whatever law they want to hold private companies liable, as long as they somehow relate their new rules to online child abuse.

The bill’s sponsors have stated that EARN IT will pressure Internet companies to do widespread scanning of user messages and photos. This scanning is incompatible with strong encryption. Consequently, the act allows states to pass laws that will punish companies when they deploy end-to-end encryption, or offer other encrypted services. This includes messaging services like WhatsApp, Signal, and iMessage, as well as web hosts like Amazon Web Services.

The sponsors have falsely claimed that the act would protect children. But abusive images are already highly illegal under federal law. Any Internet platforms that knows about child sexual abuse material being distributed or received are required to take action on it, and can be severely prosecuted if they do not.

EARN IT would lead to penalties for people and companies that use encryption. The harm done by this will fall on vulnerable people. Once we allow encryption to be compromised in order to scan for one thing, authoritarian regimes will demand the same capabilities to track information shared by activists and journalists. Another example is that people subject to domestic abuse, including children, won’t have secure channels of communication to report and reach out for trusted help.

Once again, I urge you to oppose the EARN IT act.

Thank you,

Re: Key senators have voted for the anti-encryption EARN IT act

#240

Post by simion314 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #222
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fragility of the American exceptionalism. What if we don't want FAANGs in Europe? What if it's harder for FAANGs to develop in Europe because they can't be as aggressive and careless as american corps are? Personally I don't want Europe to allow huge monopolistic corps to take over our economy. Why would we want Google, the search engine that provides ads and spies on you instead of providing good results? Why wo…

> We don't want ....[x, y, z] Then why are those US tech companies so successful in the EU with no viable local competitors, if nobody wants them?

>They why are those US tech companies so successful in the EU with no viable local competitors, if nobody wants them?

US tech has too much money they burn it on shit. So any potential competitor is bought, you see some UK AI company pops up then Google buys it and 1 year later you read how Google made huge progress in AI. IMO EU needs to first fix the illegal US companies tax tricks, also fix the Apple software tax or apply a similar tax on closed platforms, "the closed platform tax" , this would mean less money for US SV devs to waste on shit ty stuff and more money for EU devs to try do something better.

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