Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by surge » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 6:47 PM UTC

oconnore wrote: post #139

Nrsolis wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 Fir…

The radio license has more to do with not misusing finite resources (only so many radio spectrum frequencies/amplitudes available, etiquette has to be followed on HAM/amateur radio because other people are using it too, and you can't just start a radio station without having a channel reserved for your use that doesn't overlap or disrupt someone else), than free speech, else you'd need a license to run a podcast/blog.

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

#152

Post by elektromekatron » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 6:47 PM UTC

dpeck wrote: post #97

jessaustin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(It's my experience that people are more worried about their money than their dick pics.) For one thing, most people have at least some money, while the desire to photograph one's genitals (and especially, after having done so, to keep the results private) is relatively rare.

honestly, with the economy as it is today and the growth of social media based image/sexting/hookup services I'd argue the opposite is true.

They'll probably be the next generation of internet currency.

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

#153

Post by splawn » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 6:47 PM UTC

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #133

steve_b wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am not following you. Do the differences really matter in this case?

EDIT: Don't read this as snarky disagreement. Rather, Im just confused and genuinely want to understand.

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

#154

Post by tedks » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 6:48 PM UTC

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #121

bhauer wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagreement with the Constitution is certainly not new and I am not describing an increase in disagreement with the Constitution. I am describing a diminishing significance of the term "unconstitutional" as a counterargument to agendas that (strictly speaking) are in fact unconstitutional. In the country's earlier history, the constitutionality of laws was considered a more important factor to predicate their existe…

Are you saying you disagree that the Constitution is considered less relevant today than it was in the earlier history of the United States? Yes. If anything, our First Amendment rights are now more robust than they were in the past. We have almost nothing like a modern-day equivalent to Anthony Comstock. The amount of obscenities you can get away with these days is higher thanks to people like Al Goldstein, Lenny Br…

>Left-wing politics, though hardly major, are no longer subject to any real suppression beyond punditry's ignorance.

This is not really true. Left-wing political groups are still actively suppressed by police organizations on a regular basis, as well as Islamic groups (religious and secular), LGBT rights groups, and generally anyone involved in protesting. Police see protest groups as antagonists and act to disrupt them pre-emptively if possible.

The sources for this claim are broad; I would recommend looking into the leaked maryland state police spying documents (which show infiltration of non-violent activist groups), the FBI, local police, and bank conspiracies to disrupt the Occupy movement (long before any actions in the real world had been conducted by any group identifying as Occupy), and the Green Scare.

Combine this with "free speech zones," protest permits, and other before-the-fact restrictions on free assembly, and you can see very clearly how political speech outside the mainstream is suppressed in the United States.

(Interestingly, right-wing groups, white nationalism groups, and similar are not often targets of these investigations and are often protected by police during their protests. In many cases this is the result of local connections, but you have to wonder why animal activists are such a higher priority than white nationalist extremists, especially after Charleston.)

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

#155

Post by pyre » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 6:48 PM UTC

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #62

magicmu wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a spectacular quote, and really embodies the impetus of the American people to not only blame excessively when things go wrong, but to place blame in a manner which absolves all parties of any (perceived) responsibility.

I find this is done universally. Every time some shooting or similar disaster occurs, the actual perpetrator is among the last to take the blame. It's the video games, it's the music, it's the toxic culture of masculinity, it's the pharmaceutical drugs, or it's the Zionist media poisoning our children with Judeo-Bolshevist propaganda. The obsession is with the "one single cause", but more importantly the opportunity…

On the same token, there are many people discussing "other causes" while not removing blame from the perpetrator. For example, if it's easy for someone to gain access to (e.g.) nuclear weapons, it increases the damage that one bad actor can do. It's irresponsible to pretend like there will never be bad actors. Restricting access will never eliminate bad actors, but it's an attempt to limit the damage that bad actors can do.

Example of this abound. Let's take the corrupt cops. Not every cop is corrupt, and the police as an institution is (by many) considered a good thing. Corrupt cops are also responsible for their own actions.

On the other hand, corruption / bad actions on behalf of the police, while not necessarily "rewarded" is usually only met with wrist slapping. In one instance that I can recall, a police office was caught on tape offering accept sex as payment to make an arrest warrant go away. Said officer's punishment was just to get fired. How many police officers in Canada have been punished as a result of the G20 debacle or the handling of the Vancouver Olympics security? What about the trigger-happy LAPD[1]?

Society has some blame if they impart a message to would-be perpetrators that the consequences of bad behaviour are not very severe.

[1] http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/02/lapd-officers-who-sh...

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

#156

Post by pyre » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 6:54 PM UTC

sixbrx wrote: post #119

stevehawk wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Limiting your statement to the American populace is a bit ignorant. This is a universal reaction by people, not just those born west of the Atlantic Ocean.

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

Seconded. Many times in online discussions people will make sweeping statements about "all" people. This always elicits a response from someone about how that doesn't happen in "my" culture/country/whatever (or how that only happens in America / only applies to Americans).

In this case, the person scoped their statement to (presumably) the society that they are most familiar with, yet this still managed to elicit a response that the scope was not broad enough!

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

#157

Post by ubernostrum » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 6:58 PM UTC

bhauer wrote: post #128

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying you disagree that the Constitution is considered less relevant today than it was in the earlier history of the United States? Yes. If anything, our First Amendment rights are now more robust than they were in the past. We have almost nothing like a modern-day equivalent to Anthony Comstock. The amount of obscenities you can get away with these days is higher thanks to people like Al Goldstein, Lenny Br…

Very well. I tentatively stand corrected on the historical significance of unconstitutionality as an effective means to stop unconstitutional government behavior. Nevertheless, and perhaps in part because the Constitution has in fact been routinely steamrolled in the past, it seems that bringing it up as a counterargument to any law today is just short of pointless.

Part of the issue is that the very first people to steamroll the Constitution were... well, some of the very people we're supposed to look to as having known exactly what the Constitution meant. The Alien and Sedition Acts, for example, became law in 1798, and were passed and supported by some of the people who just a decade earlier had been expounding "the original meaning" of the Constitution to people in an attempt to get it ratified.

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

#158

Post by marcosdumay » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 6:59 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #35

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…

I think this comes down to the difference between banning things that nobody really wants (lead in paint) versus things that people really want (drugs, alcohol). In America, guns are in the second category. Politicians think encryption is in the first category. Edit: given how this discussion is going, I think we're back to the idea that encryption should be classified as a weapon in the US and subject to second amen…

> I think we're back to the idea that encryption should be classified as a weapon in the US and subject to second amendment protection

I never understood that position. Based on the argument that encryption is a mechanism for speech, why not classify it as speech?

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

#159

Post by pyre » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 7:03 PM UTC

jakeogh wrote: post #86

wl wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because all of the proposals from legislators to make background checks mandatory for all purchases involve de facto registries doesn't mean that it's impossible to implement it without registries.

Maybe that's technically true, honestly I doubt it, once you give information to the gov, it keeps it. Legal or not. Evil-doers care not about whatever law anyway, it's just a burden and an obvious infringement on the people's right to keep and bear arms. What's next? Background checks for 3D printers? Maybe some DRM to keep us safe?

> Evil-doers

Are these people that just have the "evil bit" flipped to true? Tossing around the word "evil" just seems like you're asking for a politicized "debate."

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

#160

Post by Nrsolis » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

oconnore wrote: post #139

Nrsolis wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 Fir…

I don't even know where to begin with this.

Your understanding of basic civil liberties is so fundamentally flawed that I can't even understand how you arrived at those conclusions.

> The existing procedure for screening police officers, though it has some flaws, works remarkably well overall.

I don't have a constitutional right to be a police officer. I would also argue with your characterization of "works remarkably well overall". You're making an assertion with no supporting facts but since we're going to play that game. There are close to 300 MILLION legally owned firearms in the United States today. Contrary to popular belief, we do not have a rampant gun violence problem with legally owned firearms. So I'd argue that the existing regime works pretty damn well for civilian ownership.

Now compare that record with the record of accidental police shootings (not unarmed suspect shot; think...I didn't hit the right person or/shot killed a person even given my training) and let me know which looks worse to you.

> When your free speech impacts others in your community, you often do.

NO. YOU DON'T. That's PRECISELY the point. The impact of my speech on my community is EXPRESSLY protected by the Bill of Rights. Political speech is given the HIGHEST level of protection. That's why racists can march down main street and call for all minorities to be expelled from the USA. It's why someone can picket a legal business and complain about its actions.

> 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?

Would you like an example of how this infringes rights?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_tax_(United_States)