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

John McCain wants to outlaw encryption that the US government can't crack

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 196 posts

Re: John McCain wants to outlaw encryption that the US government can't crack

#181

Post by thetruthseeker1 »

I am not sure how this can be implemented effectively in a globalized world! Lets say we take John McCain's advice and corporations give america a back door to read encrypted data, what would other countries do? Would they make laws forcing corporations to give back-doors on the encrypted data as well? Eventually, one of these countries could sell that information to unscrupulous hackers?

Also, such a mechanism will only catch unwitting gmail like app using terrorists (assuming google co-operates with USA). I would guess vast majority of terrorists will still encrypt the data themselves without relying on underlying app to do so?

Re: John McCain wants to outlaw encryption that the US government can't crack

#182

Post by dingaling »

cs702 wrote: post #17

Evidently he doesn't realize that this is like asking for addition or subtraction to be outlawed, which is nonsensical. Like adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, encrypting is a mathematical operation that transforms numbers into other numbers.

> Like adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, encrypting is a mathematical operation that transforms numbers into other numbers.

Compressing plutonium beyond its point of criticality is a chemical & physical operation that transforms matter into energy.

But building or possessing nuclear weapons is still illegal for civilians and most countries.

i.e. they will dismiss such objections by saying it's not the principle or fundamentals they're banning but the specific application

Re: John McCain wants to outlaw encryption that the US government can't crack

#183

Post by whoopdedo »

jessaustin wrote: post #160
Gibbon1 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how cheaply the public interest gets sold out for.

Really! To me, this suggests that the fundamental problem is the enormous size of USA. If it were replaced by twenty other nations each a twentieth the size, could the parasites even afford to subvert the popular will and well-being? Divide all those bribes by 20, and you're not left with much to corrupt a reasonable person.

> twenty other nations

Why not fifty-seven?

Re: John McCain wants to outlaw encryption that the US government can't crack

#184

Post by TeMPOraL »

zurn wrote: post #180
TeMPOraL wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody please explain to me how political parties aren't the dumbest idea ever, because I'm having trouble seeing it. I find the concept of buying into political beliefs wholesale - instead of considering them on a case-by-case basis - to be plain insanity.

Some pretty big advantages: They are voting blocs that are long lived enough for reputation to work. It makes representatives much easier to follow and predict (for media and citizens). They become much more efficient in wielding power and less vulnerable to divide-and-conquer adversaries. Relatively few people can keep track of what a handful of parties did in the last couple of years, imagine how short the public m…

Thanks for the explanations. I don't buy them entirely, but I need to think about it more.

> Also, ideas in politics are interrelated. A big core value or strategic objective will pretty naturally lead to a bunch of other related ideas. You can view this as "buying into political beliefs wholesale" but it's a pretty natural thing to happen.

Ideas may be interrelated but it doesn't say anything about their validity. Whether it's natural or not, I still find it incredibly stupid. The focus on ideas seems wrong in itself. The usual discussions like whether Free Market or Government-Regulated Market are Better™ are pointless; we should be talking about whether a free-market solution or a top-down solution is better for a particular problem, like determining wages or building a power plant.

I mean, the level of absurdity of buying ideas wholesale is obvious to everyone in almost every single discipline besides politics. Static vs. dynamic typing, or Lisp vs. rest of the world, or why PHP sucks are fun topics to discuss, but when push comes to shove, everyone knows that they should use the best tool for the job and get the job done.

Imagine for a moment that we're tasked with writing a grep-like utility. If we were to run this project the way we run our countries, we'd have several opposing groups:

- C supporters arguing for C, because everything fast and big is written in C!

- Their little more progressive branch arguing for C++.

- Perl supporters, saying that C is wrong because it was used by the Sov^H^H^HMicrosoft to write Windows, therefore it is evil.

- Lisp supporters, saying that other languages are infringing on programmers' freedoms, and that the only rule should be the one of non-aggressive macro writing.

- Fortranaries arguing we should write in Fortran because in Good Old Days everything was great and was written in Fortran.

etc.

Ultimately, running a country is about solving problems - some of the most important problems we ever face. Why do we accept this insanity where it matters the most?

Re: John McCain wants to outlaw encryption that the US government can't crack

#185

Post by WildUtah »

jessaustin wrote: post #157
WildUtah wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McCain isn't a nice guy. He's always been opposed to every kind of civil rights and in favor of total central government power and total war. He introduced the campaign finance bill that forced the government to argue before the Supreme Court that it had the power to ban books with political opinions it didn't agree with, the same argument that led to the Citizens United decision. He made up a song about bombing Iran…

He introduced the campaign finance bill that forced the government to argue before the Supreme Court that it had the power to ban books with political opinions it didn't agree with, the same argument that led to the Citizens United decision. Did you oppose that bill at the time, on the grounds that it would lead to such ridiculous arguments? If you had, you would have been the only one. Most First-Amendment nose-thum…

"Did you oppose that bill at the time, on the grounds that it would lead to such ridiculous arguments? If you had, you would have been the only one."

I was not the only one. [0][1] The AFL-CIO, the NRA, the ACLU, and Americans that care about the First Amendment were just the beginning. Right inside the Senate, current majority leader McConnell was warning the world about exactly what was wrong with the bill. McCain insisted on keeping all the worst and most totalitarian provisions; they were his favorites.

"Most First-Amendment nose-thumbers loved that bill. I suspect their hearts were in the right place, just as I suspect McCain's was"

That's the same kind of contempt for patriotic Americans McCain always exhibits. His heart is not in the right place.

"The fact that you didn't lead off with a reference to the Keating Five"

I could have worn my fingers down on that smartphone with the crimes of McCain before I got to his relatively tiny involvement in the Lincoln S&L bit. I think he was on the list mostly because they needed a Republican to round it out.

[0] https://www.aclu.org/letter/letter-senate-opposition-mccain-...

[1] https://www.nraila.org/articles/20010711/campaign-finance-re...

Re: John McCain wants to outlaw encryption that the US government can't crack

#186

Post by WildUtah »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #167
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a political party. The whole point of one is to get people behind a general platform. Even keeping in mind that two-party systems tend to be extremely factional by practical necessity, the view that the GOP is the "party of limited government" is nothing but propaganda.

Somebody please explain to me how political parties aren't the dumbest idea ever, because I'm having trouble seeing it. I find the concept of buying into political beliefs wholesale - instead of considering them on a case-by-case basis - to be plain insanity.

Check out how many people[0] get elected to the Congress without one and you'll see that their organizational advantages outweigh their irrational issue agglomeration.

[0] 2/100 senators, 0/434 congressmen

Re: John McCain wants to outlaw encryption that the US government can't crack

#187

Post by jessaustin »

WildUtah wrote: post #185
jessaustin wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He introduced the campaign finance bill that forced the government to argue before the Supreme Court that it had the power to ban books with political opinions it didn't agree with, the same argument that led to the Citizens United decision. Did you oppose that bill at the time, on the grounds that it would lead to such ridiculous arguments? If you had, you would have been the only one. Most First-Amendment nose-thum…

"Did you oppose that bill at the time, on the grounds that it would lead to such ridiculous arguments? If you had, you would have been the only one." I was not the only one. [0][1] The AFL-CIO, the NRA, the ACLU, and Americans that care about the First Amendment were just the beginning. Right inside the Senate, current majority leader McConnell was warning the world about exactly what was wrong with the bill. McCain…

My apologies, I completely misunderstood you. You're right, McCain is indefensible.

Re: John McCain wants to outlaw encryption that the US government can't crack

#188

Post by xenihn »

stvswn wrote: post #146
vonklaus wrote: post #23

This is Edward Snowden's fault. Let's look at the facts: * Edward Snowden declared war against terrorists. * Edward Snowden started indescriminently bombing villages in the middle east. * Edward Snowden created massive ill will against America, then left a huge power vacuum in the region by pulling out after, dare I say it, conducting terrorism against the native inhabitants. So, Ed, wherever you are, this is your fa…

"Indescriminately(sic) bombing?" "conducting terrorism?" I led a platoon in Iraq, and we did nothing of the sort. I'm fine with opposition to U.S. foreign policy; this is just lazy slander, and it shows a very shallow understanding of what actually happened.

it's really disappointing to me that you probably won't respond to woodman's post, and that you and countless others are incapable of taking even a moment to attempt overcoming your cognitive dissonance

Re: John McCain wants to outlaw encryption that the US government can't crack

#189

Post by DanBC »

CLIPPER CHIP & KEY ESCROW.

We had this argument in 1993. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

There's plenty of discussion from then around the problems caused by this arrangement, so it might be a good idea to find the best of it, and dust it off.

Re: John McCain wants to outlaw encryption that the US government can't crack

#190

Post by oberstein »

an_account wrote: post #4

I love how Republicans believe that outlawing guns won't stop criminals from having guns while at the same time believing that outlawing encryption will keep criminals from using encryption. Encryption methods are far easier to transport and spread illegally than gun are.

Liberals simultaneously believe they can outlaw guns but they can't outlaw drugs. Hypocrisy can be fun to notice in your hated enemy, but sometimes you have to dig into the details of each idea separately without analogies to similar surface level ideas.
Post reply on HN