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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

#271

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?

Why are competitors not viable?

Because the USA is a large protectionist market that doesn't like EU companies doing business there?

Because USA outspends EU to become dominant?

Because even with the EU wide laws, it's still more expensive to follow every local law compared to USA vs USA states?

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

#272

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…

When you say We you're not talking about the 100s of millions of users each of these companies has in the EU then?

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

#273
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people are extremely up-in-arms about something that apple already does, and that every other cloud provider do, but when they made it public everyone went crazy. now we don't have CSAM scanning, totally unencrypted and accessible iCloud Photo Library, and for what? because people want privacy. you don't own anyone else's cloud and you never will, and especially not with government intervention. while i support priva…

> i also think it's like freedom of speech, in theory it sounds great but in reality you end up with nazis walking around if you don't have the ability to deter them. I mean this in the most gentle and sincere way: This is just fascism of a different color. When you support the curtailing of freedom of speech, then you enter into a slippery slope where it's possible that new regimes can use that power against you. In…

For what's it's worse (since we disagree elsewhere in this thread) - I'm with you 100% here.

Free speech is an important principle. The way I argue it to people arguing for various forms of suppressing it is that you can't know that you'll be the one with the power to suppress speech. In a liberal (as in classical liberalism) western society it's a core value. That's why we defend the speech of others even when they say terrible things.

I think there's nuance here with private companies since their ability to moderate is an exercise of their speech, but I think Zuckerberg was generally right in his georgetown address: https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/16/mark-zuckerberg-and-f...

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

#276
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.

> Hope you guys over there are not drifting to a surveillance dystopian.

that's not a local problem but a global one. Many EU countries are well on their way into dystopia. The dystopia is an unavoidable side-effect[1] of having technology and categorizing everything in systems (and systems of systems). This argument gets attacked by "BUT everything can be used for good or bad". But Technology is not neutral.

We just pretend it's neutral because we wouldn't know who to hold accountable when dealing with cause/effect in complex systems of systems (emergence). Consider the following[2]:

> In a society such as ours, it is almost impossible for a person to be responsible. A simple example: a dam has been built somewhere, and it bursts. Who is responsible for that? Geologists worked out. They examined the terrain. Engineers drew up the construction plans. Workmen constructed it. And the politicians decided that the dam had to be in that spot. Who is responsible? No one. There is never anyone responsible. Anywhere. In the whole of our technological society the work is so fragmented and broken up into small pieces that no one is responsible. But no one is free either. Everyone has his own, specific task. And that's all he has to do.

> Just consider, for example, that atrocious excuse… It was one of the most horrible things I have ever heard. The director of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was asked at the Nuremburg trials, “But didn’t you find it horrible? All those corpses?” He replied, “What could I do? I couldn’t process all those corpses. The capacity of the ovens was too small. It caused me many problems. I had no time to think about these people. I was too busy with the technical problem of my ovens.” That is the classic example of an irresponsible person. He carries out his technical task and isn’t interested in anything else.

[1] The Technological Society, by Jacques Ellul https://archive.org/details/JacquesEllulTheTechnologicalSoci...

[2] The Betrayal by Technology, by Jacques Ellul (1993 film), 06:51: https://youtu.be/BOCtu-rXfPk?t=411

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

#277
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what he was sayin

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.

I’m the guy who said “law enforcement doesn’t seem to care about HTTPS, I wonder why.”

1. HTTPS relies heavily on DNS. It’s as secure as DNS is. Nuff said.

2. As has been said, there’s law enforcement can get the logs. Not hard.

3. The way the web currently works strongly encourages users to wear a “name tag.” It’s hard to take that name tag off. HTTPS doesn’t help with that.

HTTPS is very important, but has much narrower scope, and chaotic implementation, than most people realize.

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

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get off your high horse. 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 dracon…

> The US is really flawed, but I wouldn't move back to the EU for double my family’s income. Which of the 27(8) countries did you live in, as they are rather different?

the problem with being an immigrant, and I have seen this on myself, is that we tend to see the host country through rose colored glasses (best case). Or if we are from a poor / unprivileged background we've been put through hell by trying to survive in the new country. And in the latter case it results in (worst case) those groups becoming the most extreme defenders of whatever that country does. That gets then compounded by having to defend your old customs (from your origin society) even that origin society has meanwhile moved on.

The person who just moved to a new place is very unlikely to speak ill of their new hosts or join an activist group to fight against what is a local issue. It's generally a bad idea to poop where you eat but it's unthinkable when you consider yourself still a guest in that country. The whole thing takes generations usually.

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

#279
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.

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

me neither.

my in-laws (90+) in Japan are excited about a new DoCoMo phone and always talks about the latest features. He is not an engineer. He is also not a rare case in that country (or that continent).

My own mother back in EU and most of my family are deeply ambivalent at best, or absolutely opposing new Tech / data-driven ideas.

Europe is like the polar opposite of Asia in that sense. The US is some kind of weird middle-ground. When I returned from Asia to EU after 10 years over there I had a reverse-culture shock that lasted at least 5 years. Everything looked backward and stagnant to me. As I get older I realize I'm also becoming very critical. But age can't explain the ambivalence otherwise Japan would be the most Technology hostile society in the world.

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

#280
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the list of cosponsors, who will presumably vote for it. I don't see the list of committee members who voted for it. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/353...

I'm disappointed that Jacky Rosen (D - Nevada) is a co-sponsor. She's a former software developer and should know better. I just watched some of the Senate hearing on Log4J and she seemed reasonably together on security, open source etc. I was feeling optimistic that she could become the Senatorial analogue to Judge Alsup[1]! But if she's on board with EARN IT, scratch that idea. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/…

Alright so here's a question: what makes you think that your (presumably) armchair understanding of the bill in question is better than hers?
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