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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

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, you go to jail instead for offending someone It's pretty hard to believe it. Can you point me to some example ? Is it what happened to you? Are you sure it was just an offense? In which country did it happen? > Any criticism of the EU or Brussels is far right extremism and must be ignored I was addressing the wording. Far right movements in Europe use the same slogans, they are pretty easy to spot, because they…

Italy, apologia of fascism https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apologia_del_fascismo Austria apologia of national socialism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbotsgesetz_1947 Germany’s the same Finland two years for tweeting a picture of the bible: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60111140 Baltics passed similar laws for communist symbols (so no Che shirts in Vilnus!) These are all laws against offending someone’s s…

"two years for tweeting a picture of the bible"

That's a bit of a oversimplification. What she was prosecuted (not convicted) on was definitely not a just a simple picture of the bible. Besides, that's only one of the charges. Other charges come from the times she implied homosexuality to be a genetic degeneration and later on called homosexuality a disorder.

Also, two years of jail is the maximum for that type of crime. IF she is found guilty, she will almost definitely get some relatively small fine.

It's understandable the christian folks want to paint this whole case as just "two years for tweeting a picture of a bible". But it's much more nuanced than that. Additionally the trial is still ongoing and it's very much unclear what the outcome will be. And this case is still handled in district court, I highly doubt it stays on that level. There's a lot of analysis and comments of the trials in the newspapers, but they are all in Finnish. I found this one in English that explains the case a bit better than "two years for tweeting a picture of the bible". https://yle.fi/news/3-12284380

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

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's far more effective than doing nothing. Is it though? I'd like to see the science on this.

> I'd like to see the science on this. Why would you need to? Only if you are saying no amount of voter contact has ever changed any politician's vote on absolutely anything. Is that what you're claiming? If not, then even a single letter changing a single vote by a single politician is already infinitely more than not doing anything, which won't even change a single vote by a single politician on anything. QED: No s…

I'm not making a claim, I'm asking why I should believe a claim. I see no reason to.

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

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling hate speech and attempts to reintroduce an ideology that sank a continent into war and killed millions a bland "offending someone" is so obviously bullshit that it's a marvel to me how you could write that without disintegrating into a puddle of shame. Or maybe you did -- do you, at long last, have some sense of decency left?

And you have the gall to call Orban an authoritarian.

What's more remarkable is that you have the gall to claim he's anything else.

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

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd like to see the science on this. Why would you need to? Only if you are saying no amount of voter contact has ever changed any politician's vote on absolutely anything. Is that what you're claiming? If not, then even a single letter changing a single vote by a single politician is already infinitely more than not doing anything, which won't even change a single vote by a single politician on anything. QED: No s…

I'm not making a claim, I'm asking why I should believe a claim. I see no reason to.

Yeah, but unless you claim that no politician has ever been the least influenced by his constituency, there's no reason not to.

Of bloody course writing your representative is better than not writing them: It stands at least a chance (however infinitesimal) of accomplishing something. Not doing it doesn't; by definition, it can't. That's a logical syllogism. Logical syllogisms don't need experimental confirmation.

So how could and why would one not believe that doing something is, must be, better than doing nothing? That's not "healthy skepticism", it's turning it into illogical nonsense.

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

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not making a claim, I'm asking why I should believe a claim. I see no reason to.

Yeah, but unless you claim that no politician has ever been the least influenced by his constituency, there's no reason not to. Of bloody course writing your representative is better than not writing them: It stands at least a chance (however infinitesimal) of accomplishing something. Not doing it doesn't; by definition, it can't. That's a logical syllogism. Logical syllogisms don't need experimental confirmation. So…

> Of bloody course writing your representative is better than not writing them: It stands at least a chance (however infinitesimal) of accomplishing something.

There is no guarantee that, if it accomplishes “something”, the change it induces will not have negative value. You cannot assess that the action has positive expected value without summing value across all possible outcomes weighted by probability, included negative value outcomes.

The frequent naive assumption that doing something is always better than doing nothing is how proponents of lots of counterproductive policies use real problems as leverage to get them passed.

Does alcohol produce real social harms? Was Prohibition doing something instead of nothing? Was Prohibition a net win?

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

#346

> it will let the use of encryption be evidence in lawsuits and criminal trials Is this true? Will use of encryption be evidence of guilt if this thing passes? Incredible.

I'm not sure how much this answers your question, but Congress put out a "EARN IT Act Myths and Facts" documents that contains the following text:

> MYTH: The EARN IT Act is simply an attempt to ban encryption. > FACT: The EARN IT Act does not target, limit, or create liability for encryption or privacy services. In fact, in order to ensure the EARN IT Act would not be misconstrued as limiting encryption, specific protections were included in the bill to explicitly state that a court should not consider offering encryption or privacy services as an independent basis for legal liability.

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

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but unless you claim that no politician has ever been the least influenced by his constituency, there's no reason not to. Of bloody course writing your representative is better than not writing them: It stands at least a chance (however infinitesimal) of accomplishing something. Not doing it doesn't; by definition, it can't. That's a logical syllogism. Logical syllogisms don't need experimental confirmation. So…

> Of bloody course writing your representative is better than not writing them: It stands at least a chance (however infinitesimal) of accomplishing something. There is no guarantee that, if it accomplishes “something”, the change it induces will not have negative value. You cannot assess that the action has positive expected value without summing value across all possible outcomes weighted by probability, included n…

> There is no guarantee that, if it accomplishes “something”, the change it induces will not have negative value.

So now you're arguing that constituents urging their politicians to do something is more likely to make them do the opposite?

> Does alcohol produce real social harms?

Yes.

> Was Prohibition doing something instead of nothing?

Yes.

> Was Prohibition a net win?

IMO, probably yes.

(The negatives came from anti-Prohibition.)

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

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, by forcing Apple to remove the apps from the Appstore. Apple would fight this all the way to the Supreme Court. This is IMHO a clear violation of the 1st amendment. With such a conservative Supreme Court, I doubt they would look favorably at restricting speech of a company. Besides, Apple’s App Store is available in many countries around the world; an American iPhone user could get restricted apps from i…

>Apple would fight this all the way to the Supreme Court. This is IMHO a clear violation of the 1st amendment. I'm not so sure anymore. Apple of yore is dead. They recently announced a plan to scan local files on iPhones against a government created list of hashes. Only after immense backlash did they agree to "delay" the implementation. This had no profit motive for Apple. As a company, the move served to seriously…

They recently announced a plan to scan local files on iPhones against a government created list of hashes.

This is incorrect. Only images uploaded to iCloud would be checked if they matched against multiple CSAM databases.

From the beginning, disabling iCloud Photos disabled this feature.

They painstakingly described the algorithms and encryption behind the plan.

I will remind you that Apple could had given in to the FBI’s request to create a back door to the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone a few years ago and Apple very publicly told them to pound sand.

Ironically Apple is now suing the company the FBI used to crack that iPhone: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/11/apple-sues-nso-group-...

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