Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

fsf.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 209 posts

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#101

Post by IncRnd »

alibero wrote: post #94
IncRnd wrote: post #81

This particular article (not the subject) looked suspicious to me, since I didn't see it contain a link to the EARN-IT bill. I respect that it was created by the FSF, but they really should link to the bill's text. The bill's text is here. [1] I don't think it does anything that is stated in the article. It's stated purpose is to create a commission that will create recommendations that nobody will have to follow. It…

The part of the bill that mentions E2EE (Section 5) is an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934, namely the famous Section 230 which contains: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." So the EARN-IT act would seem to me to modify Section 230 to not apply in cases of child sexual expl…

In this case, your quote is only one third of the content. You are not quoting the first sentence or the last part, which is why the quote doesn't make sense.

Your quote should read the following, where I've italicized the two parts you left out, "NO EFFECT ON CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION LAW.—Nothing in this section (other than subsection (c)(2)(A)) shall be construed to impair or limit— any charge in a criminal prosecution brought against a provider of an interactive computer service under State law regarding the advertisement, promotion, presentation, distribution, or solicitation of child sexual abuse material, as defined in section 2256(8) of title 18, United States Code;"

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#103

Post by quinnjh »

Buttons840 wrote: post #95
rz2k wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this isn't the point of your post, but what does your party affiliation mean in this context? I have known people from both parties who believed their party affiliation was central to their anti-authoritarian stance, and people from both parties who thought that their preferred form of good government would control people. Do you think your party loyalty made you a more likely target, or should have made you a…

Why do you go out of your way to protect medical information? If the government cared enough to get your medical information illegally, couldn't they just get it from your doctors? And if they did decide you were an "enemy", what good would knowing your medical information do?

Poster maybe isnt trying to hide health info from state level actors, rather limiting the layers of collections identifying them as "possible customer for __ treatments"

..hopefully they posted from tor and arent about to get a ton of popups now about "do you have foxtail in your ears"

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#104

Post by ShroudedNight »

thrtythreeforty wrote: post #80
matheusmoreira wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do politicians even read these letters?

They almost certainly do not. However they do count them (well, maybe the intern counts them, but they are counted). And if the counts get big enough, they do start paying attention.

> And if the counts get big enough, they do start paying attention.

This is a while back, now, but I vaguely remember a Reddit AMA by people working for US federal politicians where they indicated that "big enough" is often as few as two for the right type of correspondence (bespoke letters and / or letters to the editors of voter-relevant newspapers, especially if the politician get specifically called out)

Things may well have changed in the interim, but given how often engagement begins and ends at signing on to a form letter, I wouldn't be surprised if this was still the case today.

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#105

Post by LMYahooTFY »

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…

Did they ever present you with evidence of anything? From what I've heard it's quite possible to identify Tor traffic if you're determined enough. Perhaps they were pressuring you because they thought you were running a relay/node?

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#106

Post by Sniffnoy »

userbinator wrote: post #57
Sniffnoy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does any of this have to do with the EARN-IT act? This all appears to be just claims about possible uses of encryption with no particular relation to the subject of the article. If these other uses of encryption you're discussing wouldn't be affected by the EARN-IT act, then they aren't relevant here.

I'm saying that "the war on encryption" isn't all one-sided.

The article is about the EARN-IT act specifically. If your points only relate to the war on encryption in general, and not the EARN-IT act specifically, then they do not bear on the article.

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#107

Post by inter_netuser »

heavyset_go wrote: post #48
parineum wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Locking your door at night is a poor metaphor. It is a poor metaphor because locks prevent invasion not enable privacy. Banning encryption is such an attack on privacy that it's closer to banning clothes and easing concerns by making looking at naked people illegal. Encryption is the fundamental unit of network privacy.

If you want to stick with the house metaphor, then curtains, blinds, fences and doors would fit the comparison.

Just ban walls in washrooms.

You have nothing to hide there, do you, citizen?

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#108

Post by inter_netuser »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #86
adastra22 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Replacing criminals and state overreach with foreign adversaries may be more salient. For you and me, certainly. For the members of Congress you need to convince of this? They ARE the state. Outside of a few ideological libertarians, protecting the people from the state is not on their agenda.

> For the members of Congress you need to convince of this? They ARE the state We agree in a limited sense. (There are lots of politicians who genuinely believe in curtailing state power.) Arguments about state overreach won’t convince a power-hungry vote chaser. Talk about foreign adversaries will.

What's lots, and how much does it cost to change their opinion?

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#109

Post by [deleted] »

olliej wrote: post #73
adastra22 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Replacing criminals and state overreach with foreign adversaries may be more salient. For you and me, certainly. For the members of Congress you need to convince of this? They ARE the state. Outside of a few ideological libertarians, protecting the people from the state is not on their agenda.

Those would be the same ones demanding christian based laws?

[deleted]

Re: Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

#110

Post by roenxi »

vitiral wrote: post #20

I feel like they missed the primary point which is that E2E encryption is the primary thing protecting everyone from hackers/criminals/other-governments. Without it the criminals WILL have access to your systems and data and then you can basically say goodbye to anything being valuable at all. Locking your door at night is a poor metaphor. A criminal can literally infiltrate and search through every unsecured compute…

The FSF isn't the EFF. The FSF is supposed to advocate why the stupid law is an affront to user freedom and the EFF is meant to be advocating why the stupid law makes people vulnerable to criminals.

The FSF has a complicated and niche advocacy position, they should stay focused. If they don't advocate software user freedom, nobody will. In this case, there are already lots of people against encryption restrictions.

Post reply on HN