241–250 of 348 posts
What I don't see in the writeup, is which senators are voting which way. I can tell from the writeup what Blumenthal thinks of it, but not any other committee participants. I really wish politicians would embrace a "we will make policies for things we can understand" motto.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Is it though? I'd like to see the science on this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it is. The person I'm responding to seems to be implying that the USG doesn't worry about HTTPS because they've broken it or otherwise extralegally subverted it. I'm saying that the USG doesn't worry about HTTPS because they have effective legal mechanisms for domestic investigations, and using extralegal means domestically is more of a headache than it's worth.
> otherwise extralegally subverted it No, read my comment again. Every one of the links shows a completely legal way to grab someone's data from any company. The whole point of my initial comment was to point out that legal system is so well primed against any privacy pushback that it's irrelevant what data is encrypted in transit. All the repositories and databases are just one NSL away. And NSLs are so easy to get…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I've had a letter I wrote to my local MP passed all the way up to central government and received a reply from them. Later, I actually met someone who mentioned a "certain letter" they had to deal with... Which turned out to be the one I'd written!
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…
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.
This is a long term international effort where irrelevant Western countries in the peripheries (that’s the EU) have nibbled away at encryption protections to make it easier for the US to do the same. It’s part of a two decades long effort by Western elites to correct their mistakes from the nineties - namely loosening the noose on information and privacy.
Australia, France, UK all have draconian laws that would cause outrage (or are outright unconstitutional) in the US. The only data protection the EU has is because fussy Eurocrats are annoyed that the US (and not them) get to syphon all of European’s data.
The US is really flawed, but I wouldn't move back to the EU for double my family’s income.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I, as a European could not be happier about this, from a economic standpoint. Please, let me play you the world's smallest violin. This trope, constantly celebrating that $CURRENT_YEAR will finally be the year of EU tech dominance over US giants, has been on repeat ever since Snowden revealed that the NSA is in bed with every major US tech company and is actively spying on EU users. And that was all the way back in…
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If enough people write in it can have an effect. How do you know?
In the UK at least, we see politicians talking about what their constituents are writing to them about. I suppose they could all be lying. I've had a letter I wrote to my local MP passed all the way up to central government and received a reply from them. Later, I actually met someone who mentioned a "certain letter" they had to deal with... Which turned out to be the one I'd written!
It is what they're known for...
> I've had a letter I wrote to my local MP passed all the way up to central government and received a reply from them. Later, I actually met someone who mentioned a "certain letter" they had to deal with... Which turned out to be the one I'd written!
I can see that as being useful to keep the urban legend alive. What I'd like to see is statistical evidence but I'm thinking that might not be available.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Only when syncing photos to iCloud is enabled and the photo is being uploaded. For now. If a "feature" like this exists, it WILL be abused like many before it.
I don't really buy this, I don't think this feature makes abuse any more likely and it's important to be loud against features that are actually abuse vs. ones that are just adjacent to something that is abuse. The difference matters, particularly when the pragmatic approach could allow encryption of images on iCloud without any actual downside given the constraints. If people act like all actions are equivalent then…
We've seen many technological features that were supposed to be only used in a very narrow use-cases be abused by governments. Contact tracing technologies (for covid-19) being the most recent victim where they are now being used by governments to track political protesters, criminals, and seemingly anyone else that catches their fancy.
I've seen this cycle play out enough time to know better. Governments never relinquish power. If client-side scanning that can report users to authorities ever becomes wide spread, governments _will_ abuse it. Democracies _will_ suffer and humanity _will_ be worse off for it.