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Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

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Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#181

Post by JoshTriplett »

musha68k wrote: post #158
JoshTriplett wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Authorization by court order still works fine in physical space. That's an interesting question to evaluate by analogy, though. Suppose you could , relatively easily, build a safe that nobody can enter without the combination (including the safe manufacturer). The government could serve a warrant to the person who has the combination, and you might even have to choose between opening the safe or going to jail, but…

Have you played "The Room"? I might just install it again right here on my smartphone after reading your comment - "fetishist" that I am :) With that statement of mine I was mostly trying to convey how some things shouldn't be easy . Let me try to paraphrase: I'm sure that Sherlock would find a way to open that safe without a computer doing it for him! To a certain degree I can understand the frustration of executive…

> With that statement of mine I was mostly trying to convey how some things shouldn't be easy.

I agree completely. I think attempts to paint this as a "reversal" of hundreds of years of governmental warrant procedure is ignoring that these new devices and this new data didn't exist hundreds of years ago. If we're going to put a huge amount of valuable data about our lives in one place, we'd better protect that place better than we've ever protected anything before.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#182

Post by edc117 »

teddyh wrote: post #111
jordanb wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Washington has changed Obama more than Obama changed Washington. He's spent seven years in the craziest bubble in America surrounded by people being paid millions to distort his worldview one way or another. A while back he advised some kids in College to never type anything into a computer if they want it to remain private. For him, it probably seems completely reasonable. I doubt he's touched a keyboard sin…

> It would be an amazing insight into the corrosive influence of Washington on a person's integrity. I always liked Václav Havel’s short speech from 1991 where he coined the phrase “power unto death”: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/vl/notes/havel.html

Fantastic speech, thank you very much for sharing.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#183

Post by jacquesm »

beeboop wrote: post #110
downandout wrote: post #91

In the end, they are going to introduce laws that make it illegal to implement end-to-end encryption. This sucks, but it's going to happen. France is already moving to do it [1], and in the US, John McCain and others are also calling for similar laws [2]. They will all start off saying that it will be controlled carefully etc., as Obama keeps saying, and then it will be used with reckless abandonment. What this essen…

I cannot fathom end to end encryption ever being made illegal. I tremendously doubt this will ever happen in any effective manner. At worst, they will pass from vaguely worded bill that makes it illegal in the sense that you are required to decrypt data on demand for any government agency. But since we are already seeing the trend of service providers being unable to decrypt user data, I doubt that will be much of an…

If you're not willing to revolt over it then it is definitely a possibility that end-to-end encryption will be made illegal. Non-techies simply don't care, they have 'nothing to hide' (or so they think).

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#184

Post by derefr »

pearle wrote: post #104
enraged_camel wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm giving Bernie Sanders one last chance. But if he is elected and also reneges on his promises, I will probably stop caring about politics permanently. edit: Whoops! Shouldn't have revealed I'm a Bernie supporter. Forgot that HN is a libertarian paradise!

I think people put too much importance on the role of the president with regards to domestic policy. You can't expect the president to effect change if congress opposes the president 100% of the time. Electing Bernie won't make a huge difference if the republicans still control congress.

I've always wondered what would happen if a President gave a TV-broadcast speech, telling people to write to their congressmen and demand a change of their policy on some issue.

Would that be illegal? Would it be speech? It's not like the President would be telling you who to vote for (though it might be different if the US had referendums, because the President would be telling you what to vote for); the President is simply attempting to sway your opinion, and then telling you to inform someone else of your (hopefully swayed) opinion.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#185

Post by studentrob »

cromwellian wrote: post #131

Obama has a meta-point however that proponents of the absolutist position don't seem to want to face. Democracy relies on transparency. Many of the progressives who are rallying in support of absolute right to privacy are some of the same people who constantly criticize Swiss bank accounts, Cayman island financial shenanigans. But if companies were to implement the same sorts of impenetrable encryption, on every devi…

This is not a debate about privacy vs. security.

It's about security vs. security. [1] [2] [3]

On balance, putting backdoors in phones will make us less secure, because criminals will just use other methods to communicate, and the public will be putting their data within reach of every hacker in the world through a government-imposed weakness.

The administration is unlikely to understand our privacy concerns. They do understand economic and public safety issues, and it is the facts around these issues that we must share with them. President Obama himself told President Xi last year that introducing backdoor legislation would hurt his economy [4]. Let's make Obama's argument back to him

[1] https://youtu.be/g1GgnbN9oNw?t=3h35m52s

[2] https://youtu.be/g1GgnbN9oNw?t=3h11m46s

[3] https://youtu.be/g1GgnbN9oNw?t=3h19m39s

[4] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obama-china-idUSKBN0LY...

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#186

Post by karmelapple »

jacquesm wrote: post #180
jordanb wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Washington has changed Obama more than Obama changed Washington. He's spent seven years in the craziest bubble in America surrounded by people being paid millions to distort his worldview one way or another. A while back he advised some kids in College to never type anything into a computer if they want it to remain private. For him, it probably seems completely reasonable. I doubt he's touched a keyboard sin…

> It would be an amazing insight into the corrosive influence of Washington on a person's integrity. That's going on the assumption that he had integrity in the first place and I'm no longer immune to considering the possibility that he did not and just played the voters for all it was worth. For instance: someone with integrity would have returned an un-deserved Nobel peace prize.

Really? That seems very disrespectful to the Nobel committee to me.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#187

Post by ap22213 »

pearle wrote: post #104
enraged_camel wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm giving Bernie Sanders one last chance. But if he is elected and also reneges on his promises, I will probably stop caring about politics permanently. edit: Whoops! Shouldn't have revealed I'm a Bernie supporter. Forgot that HN is a libertarian paradise!

I think people put too much importance on the role of the president with regards to domestic policy. You can't expect the president to effect change if congress opposes the president 100% of the time. Electing Bernie won't make a huge difference if the republicans still control congress.

And, the alternative of Republicans controlling all three branches of government would be good how?

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#188

Post by pdkl95 »

cromwellian wrote: post #154
mattmanser wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can still plant bugs in offices, cars, homes, etc. That's specific and targeted and proportional, but expensive and hard. There's no good reason they have to have access to electronic devices, they can install cameras and mics. It's just easier going straight to the phones and emails. But they had that power and they abused it massively, and are now suffering the backlash, and why should privacy stop given they'…

So you're in favor of the government bugging and installing cameras secretly? Because you can't really bug say, Enron's corporate office without a warrant served, and so they'd know they're being watched. The alternative is breaking and entering. So since retroactive paper trails will be devalued, the government will have to switch to preemptive collection and entrapment scenarios. I'm not sure this is better for pri…

> The alternative

There are far more investigative alternatives than few you have mentioned.

Serving warrants rarely involves "bugs", and warrants are not the only tool available. For example, a judge can order people to produce documents, enforced with the threat of contempt of court. Other witnesses can be found (with any data they bring), and simple observation of public actions can reveal a surprising amount.

> so they'd know they're being watched

So what.

The warrant requirement is intended to be a burden to law enforcement. The entire point is that a civilized and fair society that follows the rule of law prioritizes the restrictions and procedures we call "due process" above the demands and desires of law enforcement.

If letting some criminals walk free is a necessary consequence of the the rights retained by the people, then some crimes go unpunished. Anybody suggesting that we should accept punishing some small amount of innocent people as "collateral damage" is working against the foundation of a free society.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#189

Post by hawkice »

MicroBerto wrote: post #164
tajen wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Obama is the reason to vote for Trump: Obama is a demonstration that it doesn't matter who people vote for.

The good news about Trump is that he's not bought or sold. He is what he is, which from my viewpoint is better than the unknown that we currently have.

I've read this so many times I am starting to think this makes sense to the people saying it: "Trump may be [insert whatever], and [policy X] is ridiculous, and [statement Y] went over the line. But [X] won't ever happen, so I don't have to worry about it."

Don't get me wrong, using policy and public statements to judge fitness for public office isn't perfect, but it seems in this case we are substituting policy and public statement with something that has little or no relationship with executing a complex and demanding job.

Re: Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

#190

Post by cromwellian »

coldtea wrote: post #178
cromwellian wrote: post #131

Obama has a meta-point however that proponents of the absolutist position don't seem to want to face. Democracy relies on transparency. Many of the progressives who are rallying in support of absolute right to privacy are some of the same people who constantly criticize Swiss bank accounts, Cayman island financial shenanigans. But if companies were to implement the same sorts of impenetrable encryption, on every devi…

> Obama has a meta-point however that proponents of the absolutist position don't seem to want to face. Democracy relies on transparency. Many of the progressives who are rallying in support of absolute right to privacy are some of the same people who constantly criticize Swiss bank accounts, Cayman island financial shenanigans. And there's nothing preventing law enforcement to find about these by tons of other means…

"People determined to communicate without anyone hearing, e.g. to setup their tax-haven accouts-- can do it in 2000 ways."

That's pretty much the argument made against any gun regulation, because pretty much anyone who wants to commit a gun crime can find a workaround.

"including checking suspected bank transactions with a warrant"

Assuming one is not using cryptocurrency like bitcoin to store money and make transactions.

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