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Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

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Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#181

Post by nixpulvis »

JudgeWapner wrote: post #178
nixpulvis wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, but then doesn't the problem boil down to proving that a random value is in fact an encrypted secret? You arrest me, scan my file system and find something named "plan.txt" which is just a bunch of gibberish... what do you do? EDIT: I'll argue that the "main problem" is that as long as real encryption schemes exist, this is impractical to enforce.

In theory, yes that's a big part of the problem. In practice, however, once the gov charges you, you're effectively guilty-until-proven-innocent because your court-appointed public defender is likely not going to be trained or equipped to provide a logical defense, much less hire an expert witness in computer forensics. Plus the gov will approach you with a plea "deal" : you can plead guilty to one charge of illegal…

Exactly, thanks for spelling it all out. Back to your original point then. Banning specific types of property is one thing, but this isn't that. It's banning all forms of property, and as you say, whitelisting acceptable ones. This seems extremely dubious, and unconstitutional (just guessing).

As someone who likes to be free to use the computers I own, this scares the shit out of me.

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#182

Post by phkahler »

bredren wrote: post #150
ianai wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a good reference for more info on parallel construction?

Look at news stories of unusually large narcotics busts attributed to a random leo pulling over a car for a traffic violation.

Those cases suggest to many people that the end justifies the means.

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#183

Post by MrLeap »

thetrumanshow wrote: post #180
mandevil wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being physical objects, gun distribution is much much more difficult than encryption distribution.

Ok, I believe we are in the middle of arguing OP's point about how the pro-gun people are wrong when using the argument "only the criminals will own them", and how the pro-encryption people are right when using the same argument about encryption. And, I think what you're adding here is that I've got an error in my statement that both parties will happily build their own firearms/encryption because the physical gun is…

My point wasn't that "pro-gun people" are wrong.

The argument is a tautology, it can't be wrong! If guns ownership is a crime, then owning a gun makes you a criminal.

The tautology is compatible with the hypothesis that if guns were confiscated and illegal, eventually there would be a decrease in the amount of people getting shot. Probably an increase for a while as confiscation attempts resulted in agents getting in gun battles with people who don't want to surrender their property.

Whether the loss in life and liberty is worth the outcome is a matter of personal taste.

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#184

Post by salawat »

braythwayt wrote: post #157
cortesoft wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally get what you are saying, but it is quite the rabbit hole if we determine that 'we can't have any illegal number... everyone should be able to share any number with anyone else' That basically means we have to entirely get rid of copyright, since all data (books, movies, software, corporate secrets, state secrets, etc) are just very large numbers. Do we believe that there should be no restriction on the shar…

We don’t need to use copyright as an example. Words are just data. Are there illegal combinations of words to exchange? The law says, YES. Some speech is absolutely illegal, including making credible death threats, conspiring to break other laws, or disclosing certain state secrets to foreign powers. Very few people argue that since words are easily available to everyone, that it is futile to make some combinations o…

Words are not illegal per se.

Words uttered in a situational context that renders them of immediate harm are illegal. I can say "Fire!" in a theater while giving a lecture or putting on a show. I cannot knowingly claim the theatre is on fire when it isn't to cause a panic.

Point is, it is not the Word or content that is illegal. It is the union of word and context that is illegal.

Subtle difference, but it's the only thing that keeps that type of law from getting absurd and out of hand very quickly.

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#185

Post by JudgeWapner »

youareostriches wrote: post #32
rplst8 wrote: post #2

Did he basically just announce a false flag? "Obviously, the Department would like to engage with the private sector in exploring solutions that will provide lawful access. While we remain open to a cooperative approach, the time to achieve that may be limited. Key countries, including important allies, have been moving toward legislative and regulatory solutions. I think it is prudent to anticipate that a major inci…

It’s really quite incredible how these subversions of our privacy (even including blatant disregard for the constitution) are rarely questioned when it comes to preventing terrorism, but when it comes to mass shootings that have actually killed far more people in the US, those guns are sacred objects. But notice how the label of “terrorist” is uniquely applied to the ethnic “other”, and now consider the first real gu…

It's not incredible at all if you understand that all the power in the world is ultimately derived from people with guns.

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#186

Post by mattnewton »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #151
mattnewton wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the FBI has no right to a couple sexting without a warrant is exactly why encryption is fine. When they present evidence to a judge that there is something they need in those conversations to prove a crime, and get a warrant, then it becomes evidence in a criminal investigation. IANAL or law enforcement, but I don’t see the problem with this system.

The problem is that you may not be able to decrypt it. It's like finding some footage that you drove into and out of a place where there was a murdered body during the same time that the body went missing. That's circumstantial evidence you might have moved it, and it might convince a judge to issue a warrant and have the police search your residence for evidence. But if they can't find anything it's not reasonable t…

Planting evidence, losing keys, forgetting where you buried something or being falsely accused of burying something are not new. Dealing with these gray areas is the job of the judge and jury, and it isn’t a technical problem, or a new one.

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#187

Post by glitchc »

rossng wrote: post #130
glitchc wrote: post #120

Shared secret keys may work, with one key shard in the hands of the user themselves. That way a court order may compel the user to give up the key shard, but no govt. agency or other authority can unilaterally access the device.

Then the shard _is_ the secret key. The court has no more power to compel you to give it up than any other secret key. I'm not sure what you're proposing here.

Not true. The shard alone is insufficient to unlock the secret. But to your point, the scheme could be designed in an n of m fashion. The simplest scheme is comprised of three shards: 1) You 2) Org 3) Govt. (ideally DoJ)

Any two can be used in concert to unlock the secret. You and the Org combine shards to access account. You or Org can be compelled by Govt. to reveal shard, through a warrant. The third shard is held at the DoJ, and also requires a warrant.

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#188

Post by slg »

lisper wrote: post #177
slg wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now we are just going in circles. This goes back to the first sentence of my response to you: >The problem with this line of argument is that it is a general argument against government and not specific to this issue. If your argument is that you can't trust the government, you can't trust the government regardless of whether they have a warrant or whether they are operating in the digital or physical world.

> you can't trust the government regardless of whether they have a warrant If they have a warrant, what exactly is it that you think I need to trust them about at that point?

A warrant is a check and balance designed by one arm of the government to give another arm of the government oversight into the actions of a third arm of the government. If you don't trust the government, your trust in the entire system should logically fall apart.

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#189

Post by pokeymcsnatch »

salawat wrote: post #173
QuotedForTruth wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people would, yes. Especially rudimentary single shot weapons. However, its much harder to make a reliable gun than it is to make reliable tough encryption. There are designs available for both and there always will be, illegal or not. But making a gun is manufacturing whereas using encryption would just require installing some software. Trivial.

I want to point out, that manufacturing a gun is not "non-trivial". Given blueprints, (publicly available) or a template and accurate enough measures, a lathe, and a mill, anyone can make a firearm or parts for one in their garage. Is there reading involved? Yes. But any argument you make w.r.t. The futility of illegalizing encryption is immediately portable to firearms manufacture.

I mean... manufacturing a working modern firearm in their garage is probably much more achievable to the general population than rolling out any kind of encryption software. Anyone with some basic hands-on competency can make a gun.

Re: Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Address Conference on Cyber Security

#190

Post by dewaine »

inetknght wrote: post #175
dewaine wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more of a protest, or am I not allowed to email myself numbers?

You are, up until the point where it's cost a law enforcement officer time to determine that either the numbers are intended to waste their time or that the numbers are a hidden/unbackdoored encryption. Then you're GG SOL

You literally cannot prove it either way, you can't prove it's not enciphered data, you can't prove it's not random garbage, that's the point. You can say that 'we could develop a safe backdoored system that will allow only lawful decryption in the event of emergency' in the same way you can say 'we can launch probes made of candy to distant planets that will build cities and plant potatoes for us'. It's a fantasy. The keys will leak, criminals etc will still blend into the crowd.
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