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FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

thehill.com

131–140 of 417 posts

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#131
Why is this even an FBI case? What exactly makes this an FBI case? Why we want this to be an FBI case?

I don't know much about American law. I was under impression that things are reserved to states unless important reason for them to be handled on federal level.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking of mass shooting 2019/247, not mass shooting 2019/248. (Yes, we're up to more than one a day on average now) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_th...

This list gives me shivers...is the USA a scary, uncivilized country?

Yes, and it always has been. The murder rate per capita in the US has consistently been 5-10x higher than in Europe for the entire 20th century. Long before gun control, social safety nets, the drug war, or any other difference you might want to blame. The US is a low cohesion, high violence society.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would characterize the home invaders as the "perpetrators" in that particular story and exclude them from the injury count, consistent with the language of that definition. From the article: Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group that tracks shootings and their characteristics in the United States, defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people, excluding the perpetrators, are shot in…

Yes, they use the official definition of the term "mass shooting", as it was adopted after 2013 by the US congress, which defines it as a shooting with 3 or more victims. Moreover, they mention in the very first paragraph that the definition is controversial and problematic, and they mention all alternative official definitions (e.g. before 2013) explicitly in the following paragraphs. You probably have another defin…

> they use the official definition of the term "mass shooting", as it was adopted after 2013 by the US congress, which defines it as a shooting with 3 or more victims.

Is this your citation for the 2013 US Congress definition? (because I don't think it says what you seem to think it says).

https://www.congress.gov/112/plaws/publ265/PLAW-112publ265.p...

If not, please provide your citation so that I can read it and respond intelligently.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#135

Okay, good. I'm glad that we've now tested out the security of our devices and found that they are secure enough to vex government entities.

Some government entities.

As with all strategic information, they could still possess the ability to backdoor / crack this phone but deem that ability a strategic asset. Only using it in private or when the stakes are much higher than an already committed crime.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#136
post #52

Is the American government position “Guns don’t kill people, encryption kills people”, or am I just combining the personal opinions of a bunch of unrelated people who work for the government?

Relating the two is provocative. And it just caused me to wonder whether part of difficulty of advocating for privacy might now be that privacy rights advocacy will get blurred with gun rights advocacy, in the minds of people already people fatigued by, and skeptical of, the latter.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#137

We (HN commenters) all know that the demonization of encryption is bullshit. What we need to do is to figure out how to communicate that effectively to the public.

Maybe instead of calling it encryption, we should call it “privacy.“

Better yet, "protection from criminals" who will exploit any such circumventions.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking of mass shooting 2019/247, not mass shooting 2019/248. (Yes, we're up to more than one a day on average now) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_th...

This list gives me shivers...is the USA a scary, uncivilized country?

Violent crime in the USA is at rates about 50% of what it was 30 years ago. The USA is actually a much more civilized country than it’s been for a long time! We just hear more about the problems thanks to the ease of communication nowadays.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/03/5-facts-abo...

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#139
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn’t just detective work, it is personnel with the skills to identify and pursue likely evidence. Digital forensics is way outside typical leo training and believe it or not you can make a lot more money in the private sector with IT training. Local, state and federal case loads get backlogged behind, leaving the highest priority cases to get staffed.

What stops LEO from contracting with a digital forensic company or consultancy?

Cost and scalability. LEA and agencies cannot use these resources enmass, and yet they want the results of such.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#140
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really does seem to be that is the position. There are a lot of backwards nutjobs in the government right now, blaming other backwards nutjobs, while the rest of us sane people are trying to duct tape society together. Guns don't kill people, encryption doesn't kill people, backwards nutjobs kill people. Politics in America, currently, can entirely be summed up as the Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme.

More like guns either kill people or look pretty on a wall; encryption not only can't kill people, it also prevents people from stealing. Even a nutjob armed with the latest encryption, still needs a gun to kill people.

Or a truck, or a pressure cooker, or a knife. But yes, a gun works, too.
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