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Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

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Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#61

Post by matheusmoreira »

userbinator wrote: post #25

Devil's advocate: encryption is also what's stopping users with locked-down devices (increasingly common and hard to avoid) from having freedom to run and/or modify the software they use. It's a tough situation. Encryption can be used for good or bad (and even the definition of what's "good" or "bad" encryption varies depending on who you ask). Unfortunately, I see it increasingly being used to oppress users, in the…

The same cryptography that protects us from them will also protect them from us. The key issue is who owns the keys to the machine.

We'll never be truly free until we can literally manufacture our own free chips at home just like we can make our own free software at home. There should be no big chip manufacturing company they can target with regulation or make agreements with. It's either this or eventually free computers will no longer exist. Just like the radio situation where your software has to be approved by some government agency to make sure it won't cause interference.

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#62

Post by jrnichols »

galoisscobi wrote: post #30

Wrote to Dianne Feinstein of CA about being against Earn-IT act and got a letter back about how Earn IT act would prevent child sexual abuse material online. Sigh. As disappointed as I was in the response, I'm glad that EFF makes it really easy to reach out to reps. Took me less than a minute to send out my stance against the Earn IT act to my representatives https://act.eff.org/action/stop-the-earn-it-act-to-save-ou…

I sadly cannot say that I am surprised at the reply. "won't someone think of the children?" has been a convenient political go-to for so many years now.

seeing it with Earn-IT and also the "don't say gay" bill.

everyone thinks that they are "protecting the children."

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#63

Post by roscoebeezie »

pico303 wrote: post #29

I don’t understand why folks don’t just point out any back doors in these services will be abused or hacked eventually. Do our leaders want their own personal correspondence—-to their big donors, bankers, brokers, interns, mistresses, drug dealers, coup instigators—-available to the FBI or the media too?

It’s entirely possible I don’t understand how technology works, but I don’t understand how some sort of government encryption backdoor of various protocols would work.

Software, devices, protocols etc are not just used in a single country. They are used worldwide. If a backdoor needs to be supported for a several dozen governments, each with various levels of security practices, there’s no way it stays secret for long. It’s only a matter of time before a country or state like Georgia gets it’s old poorly configured IT infrastructure hacked and the attackers now have access to some backdoor keys. How do governments revoke old keys and create new ones across all applicable devices? It’d be pretty hard to do that without going to companies and saying “fix” or “get me that” with some type of warrant or court order. That is kinda like what we have now which is mostly limited user information located in the cloud somewhere.

I think the larger issue is that there is a coordinated push to get complete government access to everything. This is happening at a time where dystopian surveillance is not only quickly becoming possible, but also profitable. The government has the right to pretty much everything legally, but the potential for misuse in situations where the government gets access everything is really high. The ability for citizens to combat that misuse is reduced the more government gets.

This is my understanding of things. Let me know how I’m wrong.

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#64

Post by matheusmoreira »

r283492 wrote: post #12

The government arguments against encryption are so ridiculous, but we need articulate explanations like this to help refute them. They remind me of things like: if you don't vote to ban driving, you must want children to die. After all, driving a leading cause of death among children.

It's gotten to the point that children or terrorists being mentioned at any point makes me automatically reject any argument.

Children in particular are the perfect political weapon. It's political suicide to challenge any claims because you end up looking like a pedophile.

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#65

Post by wmf »

xhrpost wrote: post #59

Where can I find more detailed information on how Earn-IT changes encryption law? I just skimmed the Wikipedia article but it doesn't seem to insist that this act changes encryption law. Just that "best practices" that would provide "guidance" to sites might include backdoors. I'm all for encryption rights, but if I'm going to call my congressional rep, I want to know what I'm talking about, and the FSF link really d…

The bill is written in an intentionally obtuse way so that they can say they're not banning anything; they're just giving "requirements". But the only way to meet the bill's requirements is to eliminate E2EE.

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#66

Post by [deleted] »

noone1954 wrote: post #42

Throw away account (does not do much good with modern AI and ML). But here goes. I am a US citizen (never left the country) and I always vote Republican. Down-vote away! The FBI came to my house in October 2021. Two special agents (one of which I knew from prior IT Security engagements) and a 'Threat Assessment' Police Officer from the local police department. They asked me if I was an Islamic extremist/terrorist. I…

[deleted]

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#67

Post by BLKNSLVR »

galoisscobi wrote: post #30

Wrote to Dianne Feinstein of CA about being against Earn-IT act and got a letter back about how Earn IT act would prevent child sexual abuse material online. Sigh. As disappointed as I was in the response, I'm glad that EFF makes it really easy to reach out to reps. Took me less than a minute to send out my stance against the Earn IT act to my representatives https://act.eff.org/action/stop-the-earn-it-act-to-save-ou…

This is a crtl-C ctrl-V of my own previous commentary:

I'm working on the wording of this that I intend to use in any such discussion of fake attempts at "think of the children":

Whenever a politician invokes "think of the children", ask them about their funding of Child Protection Services.

Any political action that's said to be under the umbrella of "think of the children" that doesn't provide massive amounts of additional funding into Child Protection Services (boots on the ground, education programs, etc), is hiding something, and actively working against helping children because it's distracting from the actual efforts that Child Protection Services are providing as well as spending money on entirely "something else".

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#68

Post by c1ccccc1 »

xhrpost wrote: post #59

Where can I find more detailed information on how Earn-IT changes encryption law? I just skimmed the Wikipedia article but it doesn't seem to insist that this act changes encryption law. Just that "best practices" that would provide "guidance" to sites might include backdoors. I'm all for encryption rights, but if I'm going to call my congressional rep, I want to know what I'm talking about, and the FSF link really d…

The act says that a commission will be formed, and describes how members of the commission should be chosen. The commission chooses what the exact best practices will be.

Full bill here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/353...

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#70

Post by wmf »

roscoebeezie wrote: post #63
pico303 wrote: post #29

I don’t understand why folks don’t just point out any back doors in these services will be abused or hacked eventually. Do our leaders want their own personal correspondence—-to their big donors, bankers, brokers, interns, mistresses, drug dealers, coup instigators—-available to the FBI or the media too?

It’s entirely possible I don’t understand how technology works, but I don’t understand how some sort of government encryption backdoor of various protocols would work. Software, devices, protocols etc are not just used in a single country. They are used worldwide. If a backdoor needs to be supported for a several dozen governments, each with various levels of security practices, there’s no way it stays secret for lon…

It's not really about backdoors; they just want everything to go through servers which will archive unencrypted copies of everything so that it can be subpoenaed later.
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