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Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

nytimes.com

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Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#131

Post by [deleted] »

de_Selby wrote: post #27
phkahler wrote: post #12

This debate seems like a manifestation of a problem with governments: They think they can legislate anything they want. Need access to some communications - green light for massive data collection. Some of it is encrypted - just mandate a back door. School shooting - new gun laws. Any problem activity - we'll just make it illegal. Something not getting done - we'll just mandate someone take care of it. They really do…

> School shooting - new gun laws. I agree with the sentiment of your post, but as a non-American this one jumps out at me. I don't think it fits the rest of your argument, adding more control and checks for something as dangerous as gun ownership is a good thing.. in particular, it would take a lot to convince me that private ownership of assault rifles is anything but bad news. I have read some arguments about priva…

[deleted]

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#132

Post by forgottenpass »

naveen99 wrote: post #120

They already ban encryption on ham radio... :( Maybe somebody can start a pay to broadcast service using namecoin atomic name changes https://wiki.namecoin.info/?title=Atomic_Name-Trading 1. Service announces public nmc pay to address. 2. People mail them a message as a name update transaction combined with payment to that address using snailmail. 3. They broadcast if the perceived risk of broadcasting is less than t…

They already ban encryption on ham radio... :(

This bugged me too, but ham is already not general purpose. I've come to accept it as the cost of preventing a disallowed uses of the ham bands inside an impenetrable envelope of allowed use.

And besides, it's usually possible (but less fun) to set up (or use existing) radio networking links in different bands.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#133

Post by Lawtonfogle »

steve_b wrote: post #129
microcolonel wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, assault rifles are not on the open market in the U.S. and haven't been for quite some time. U.S. armed violence has a lot more to it than the availability of weapons; statistics are easy to misinterpret as well, since they're really just the proportion of violent crimes that are committed with one particular tool. Here in Canada, we have higher instance of violence with knives, but unsurprisingly almost…

I'm just going to compare murder rates between Canada and US. Murder is harder to fudge. Using data from different years. Maybe that invalidates the conclusion, but I'm guessing it holds in general. > Here in Canada, we have higher instance of violence with knives, but unsurprisingly almost the same proportion of violence with guns, despite fairly hefty controls. Firearm homicide in the US per 100k: 3.55 [1] Firearm…

>Murder is harder to fudge.

Actually it is quite easy. For evidence, see

>Firearm homicide in the US per 100k

>Proportion of homicides from firearms

That you can so easily switch between murder and homicide makes the numbers really easy to fudge to most people who don't consider the differences between the two.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#134

Post by shit_parade3 »

girmad wrote: post #99
phkahler wrote: post #12

This debate seems like a manifestation of a problem with governments: They think they can legislate anything they want. Need access to some communications - green light for massive data collection. Some of it is encrypted - just mandate a back door. School shooting - new gun laws. Any problem activity - we'll just make it illegal. Something not getting done - we'll just mandate someone take care of it. They really do…

Legislators job is to legislate, so this makes sense. Making laws IS the only tool at their disposal. Of course when you're dealing with a hammer, everything will look like a nail.

And here I naively thought that their job was to fundraise since they spend most of their time doing just that.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#135

Post by istvan__ »

_delirium wrote: post #74
istvan__ wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any proof? There are several countries in Europe with relaxed gun laws and we don't have too many shootings. While in Germany ("Gun legislation in Germany is considered among the strictest gun control in the world") we have seen some school shootings... Could you back your statement with any data? THe only thing I got proves otherwise: http://41.media.tumblr.com/4b2648afd425728c741b77cef3ed793e/...

I wonder what that would look like if you looked specifically at handgun ownership rather than overall gun ownership. In the Nordic countries (which overall have quite a lot of guns) the general assumption behind regulation has been that handguns are a problem but rifles are less of one, especially rifles in rural areas. It's a bit puzzling to me that the American debate has focused on "assault rifles", which statist…

"A gun ban is a reasonable and effective way of reducing the number of school shootings"

I just wanted to debunk this myth. As you pointed out there is more to it.

I was thinking a lot and I think any sort of gun ownership should be tied to employment and mental status. This is the easiest to filter out people like most of the mass shooters and criminal elements. I am not sure what is required in Finland to own a gun (any kind) but I am sure that it is not like here (at least in some states). There is an entire industry built on buying guns in states that anybody can get one and smuggling it to states with more strict laws. This just helps the criminals to get armed while exposing civilians to violence.

In Switzerland some of the ex-army people can keep they assault rifles and this drives down the chance of violent crime because the criminals know that there can be a trained soldier in the next house who won't hesitate to use the weapon. I try to dig up the study about this.

Please don't use downvoting for disagreement it is not supposed to be used for that. If you disagree reply and show the points where you disagree with me.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#136

Post by douche »

homunculus wrote: post #105
wl wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An assault rifle is a select-fire (having the option of more than one shot per trigger pull) rifle shooting an intermediate cartridge. An AR-15 is not an assault rifle because it isn't a select-fire. The M16, which the AR-15 is based on, is an select-fire weapon and is thus is an assault rifle. The main difference between an AR-15 and a hunting rifle is that the hunting rifle tends to use a more powerful cartridge. T…

I'm not trying to be obtuse but don't most hunting rifles still work on a bolt action model thus requiring an operator to chamber a round manually whereas the AR-15, and rifles like it, 'automatically' chambers the next round in a fraction of a second.

Hunting rifles range all over the place. Deer rifles range from semi-automatic, to pump-action, lever-action, bolt-action, break-action single shot, and others I'm probably not familiar with. Semi-auto rifles are not a new development- there are a huge number of M1 carbines and M1 Garant rifles in private hands dating from WW2, and there were Browning and Remington semi-auto hunting rifle models earlier than that.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#137

Post by chc »

bencollier49 wrote: post #126
sixbrx wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably right, but the American case may be the only case the author felt qualified to comment on.

G.K. Chesterton was British.

But the author of that comment about Americans was not G.K. Chesterton.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#138

Post by ChuckMcM »

phkahler wrote: post #12

This debate seems like a manifestation of a problem with governments: They think they can legislate anything they want. Need access to some communications - green light for massive data collection. Some of it is encrypted - just mandate a back door. School shooting - new gun laws. Any problem activity - we'll just make it illegal. Something not getting done - we'll just mandate someone take care of it. They really do…

I agree with that problem statement, but it arises I suspect from the desire to do something rather than nothing. After all, if your a politician and someone you care about comes to you with a problem, the last thing you want to say is "Well there really isn't anything I can do about that."

Often banishment by mandate is conceptually easier to grasp than actually fixing the problem. Take any complex problem, for example hand guns and gun violence, you can try to fix the inanimate thing "guns" or the actual thing "gun violence" but often "gun violence" is really just "violence", rooted in a lifetime of hurts and little access to support, but "gun" is something you can ban from the market. Easy to walk up to someone and say "you have a gun, that is banned." into the jailhouse you go, it is much harder to walk up to say "you have unresolved anger management issues with an inability to control those impulses with respect to your fellow humans, into the sanitarium you go."

The latter case fixes the problem and the former case fixes one of the symptoms. We all know that angry people without regard for human life don't need a gun to kill people, they can do that with cars, or baseball bats, or rocks for that matter. But it is easier as a politician to try to patch over the symptom because sometimes you can make that happen.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#139

Post by oconnore »

Nrsolis wrote: post #92
oconnore wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I wish we would stop pushing for assault weapons bans and instead push for a similar sort of safety and usage training, psychological and temperament screening, waiting period, and background checks that a police officer might go through before they are presented with a gun and a badge (that may even be an opportunity to re-think the sort of training we give our police!). It would be costly, but that sort of li…

"Psychological and temperament[sic] screening?" Unless you have a foolproof method of determining criminal behavior a-priori OR you're fromthe department of pre-crime, how exactly do you expect this to work in practice? I think many people have a fundamental misunderstanding of the enumerated rights of the amended Constitution. I don't need permission to exercise any of those rights and they AREN'T granted by the gov…

> Unless you have a foolproof method of determining criminal behavior a-priori

I don't need one, and never claimed to have one. A method does not need to be foolproof in order to be effective.

The existing procedure for screening police officers, though it has some flaws, works remarkably well overall. Thus, I suspect that a similar procedure, applied to average citizens, would also be effective.

> I don't need a First Amendment license. Why would I need a Second Amendment license?

When your free speech impacts others in your community, you often do. For example, amateur radio licensing is required to broadcast your free speech, and you may need permission from a zoning board to make a large religious display in your yard. Here is Scalia from DC v. Heller, a landmark case in the right to bare arms:

> nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms

It seems to me that a reasonable condition and qualification for the purchase of a weapon is to be of a stable mind, and have the proven ability to operate it safely and accurately.

The license would not restrict any law abiding citizen from going through the qualification process, and the cost would be subsidized, so how exactly are your rights being infringed?

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#140

Post by misnome »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #77
de_Selby wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> School shooting - new gun laws. I agree with the sentiment of your post, but as a non-American this one jumps out at me. I don't think it fits the rest of your argument, adding more control and checks for something as dangerous as gun ownership is a good thing.. in particular, it would take a lot to convince me that private ownership of assault rifles is anything but bad news. I have read some arguments about priva…

It doesn't matter whether you "buy" the arguments about why gun ownership is necessary. It's a guaranteed right codified in our country's founding document, end of discussion.

I think you mean an "Amendment" e.g. a "Change" to your countries founding document, subject to interpretation that pretty much throws out the first half. If you are going by the founding document, then you wouldn't have the rights anyway (and a hell of a lot less in general)

And if amendments are permanent, well, then prohibition should still be in force.

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