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FBI director Comey backs new Feinstein push for decrypt bill

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Re: FBI director Comey backs new Feinstein push for decrypt bill

#201

Post by lern_too_spel »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #144
lern_too_spel wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judges absolutely can force work and do it all the time. See the discovery process Uber is going through now. For an example more relevant to the Apple case, look at the Lavabit court orders. The idea that writing software not intended for public release is compelled speech under the standard of Wooley v. Maynard is laughable. Nobody except a few gullible tech bloggers (are there any other kind?) took that argument s…

> Judges absolutely can force work and do it all the time. See the discovery process Uber is going through now. For an example more relevant to the Apple case, look at the Lavabit court orders. Discovery is different. Laws already require you to retain various records for later discovery. That's just general "shuffle stuff around" work that doesn't really require much effort. What the FBI was asking for was custom so…

> The distinction wasn't public versus private release.

As I said, that distinction matters for Apple's spurious "compelled speech" argument.

Re: FBI director Comey backs new Feinstein push for decrypt bill

#202

Post by dev247 »

grandalf wrote: post #64
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Members of our government are so indoctrinated about stopping "terrorism" that they have lost all sense of perspective. In this case, it might be better to assume malice rather than incompetence. In the 1950's it was s/terrorist/communist/, but it was a remarkably effective political tool. We might be in the same situation. But this time, our fates are all linked. Once shipping backdoors becomes mainstream, it might…

> We should try to think of some concrete steps to resist this. It feels like we have to try, since there's so much at stake. Great point. One idea I had recently is to start an organization in the same spirit as Open AI called OpenSurveillance that builds and releases all sorts of useful tools for thwarting surveillance efforts or acting as an adversary to an entity with pervasive surveillance power (generally speak…

A similar project spawned recently on Security without borders' chat (https://chat.securitywithoutborders.org/)

Re: FBI director Comey backs new Feinstein push for decrypt bill

#203

Post by ComodoHacker »

grandalf wrote: post #180
ComodoHacker wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>acting as an adversary to an entity with pervasive surveillance power (generally speaking, corrupt regimes around the world) >a user-friendly rootkit installer for easy installation >a program that trains a fleet of drones to follow a person all day, causes vehicle engine failure, etc. I'm afraid corrupt regimes would be the ones who benefit the most from such tools.

> I'm afraid corrupt regimes would be the ones who benefit the most from such tools. They already do. But since the tools are under the radar there is not all that much pressure on technology firms to follow best practices. For example, why don't we have fully auditable filesystems?

What do you mean by "fully auditable filesystem"?

Re: FBI director Comey backs new Feinstein push for decrypt bill

#204

Post by BinaryIdiot »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #191
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Judges absolutely can force work and do it all the time. See the discovery process Uber is going through now. For an example more relevant to the Apple case, look at the Lavabit court orders. Discovery is different. Laws already require you to retain various records for later discovery. That's just general "shuffle stuff around" work that doesn't really require much effort. What the FBI was asking for was custom so…

> What the FBI was asking for was custom software development to be done to circumvent existing software and hardware functions. Which is exactly what was requested in the Lavabit case, to the letter. I used the discovery example to show that courts compel work all the time, which you originally claimed they could not do.

> Which is exactly what was requested in the Lavabit case, to the letter.

What you're saying is not true. If you take a look at what happened in the unsealed documents regarding Lavabit [1] the FBI wanted a copy of the SSL private key. That's it. The owner of Lavabit offered to do some coding so they could target the meta data of a single person but it was rejected so he ultimately shut his service down.

> I used the discovery example to show that courts compel work all the time, which you originally claimed they could not do.

Discovery is seeking data that already exists and is reasonably accessible. You can't use discovery to force someone to write software the doesn't exist to provide additional functionality to a product. The FBI had to resort to using the All Writs Act in order to attempt to do this and backed down before it could go through and set a precedent. I'd suggest taking a look at how electronic discovery [2] works.

Also the HN discussion around the Apple vs FBI case was rather interesting and is full of good information [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_discovery

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11116801

Re: FBI director Comey backs new Feinstein push for decrypt bill

#205

Post by BinaryIdiot »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #201
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Judges absolutely can force work and do it all the time. See the discovery process Uber is going through now. For an example more relevant to the Apple case, look at the Lavabit court orders. Discovery is different. Laws already require you to retain various records for later discovery. That's just general "shuffle stuff around" work that doesn't really require much effort. What the FBI was asking for was custom so…

> The distinction wasn't public versus private release. As I said, that distinction matters for Apple's spurious "compelled speech" argument.

> As I said, that distinction matters for Apple's spurious "compelled speech" argument.

It does not. Just because a government orders you to do something privately doesn't mean it isn't compelled speech. Regardless, see my reply to your other comment.

Re: FBI director Comey backs new Feinstein push for decrypt bill

#206

Post by hyperdunc »

aswanson wrote: post #190
hyperdunc wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a lightning bolt is a much more random occurance. It doesn't have agency, an agenda or a trajectory within society. A lightning bolt isn't looking to instigate more lightning bolts. In 10 years time the death stats for lightning bolts will be similar and for road accidents will probably have declined. Which way do you think the terrorists stats will go?

Given the trends and the fact that it's a low probability event, I'd expect it to stay about where it is, about one death per year, or about as much as a chance as I have of getting killed by a piece of furniture: http://uk.businessinsider.com/death-risk-statistics-terroris... http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-terrorism-statistics-every-...

Terrorism is less likely to remain a low-probability event because it contains the intention of death spurred by a toxic ideology that wishes to spread.

The comparisons given are accidents and happen through negligence or plain bad luck.

Re: FBI director Comey backs new Feinstein push for decrypt bill

#207

Post by ionised »

ponyfleisch wrote: post #122
grandalf wrote: post #30

From his perspective as the head of the FBI whose job it is to achieve outcomes within the law, of course Comey advocates encryption backdoors. He would likely also advocate allowing the FBI to suspend the bill of rights for any suspect during the duration of an investigation, and he'd quite likely prefer that the FBI be legally allowed to torture suspects if extreme techniques were viewed as likely to result in usef…

> Nobody would reasonably argue that extreme surveillance measures, patriot act, etc., is necessary to stop the vast majority of crimes from occurring, so why is it so easy for seemingly serious/intelligent people to think this nonsense is reasonable? This depends on what kind of crime you talk about. And is "the vast majority of crimes" actually prevented from occurring? How do you get numbers for this? Calling peop…

> Provably wrong.

So prove it.

Re: FBI director Comey backs new Feinstein push for decrypt bill

#208

Post by C4K3 »

Sacho wrote: post #162
C4K3 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrorism can happen to anybody, that's the logic behind the asymmetry. "Regular" people see gang violence as something that can never happen to them.

You could aggressively curtail civil liberties in order to crack down on drunken driving, which kills more people than 9/11 each year, and can happen to pretty much anybody.

Good counterpoint, I don't have an answer for you, you'd need somebody who supports curtailing civil liberties in order to combat terrorism to give an answer to that.

Re: FBI director Comey backs new Feinstein push for decrypt bill

#209

Post by cryptarch »

gumby wrote: post #200
cryptarch wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I first got the impression you meant something like "the Red Menace", but I take it you meant: Engineered paranoia is still very real and a danger to our societies because of its reality-distorting effects that can result in violent overreactions. Did I get that right?

Yes, that is precisely what I meant.

Thank you!

Re: FBI director Comey backs new Feinstein push for decrypt bill

#210

Post by aswanson »

hyperdunc wrote: post #206
aswanson wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the trends and the fact that it's a low probability event, I'd expect it to stay about where it is, about one death per year, or about as much as a chance as I have of getting killed by a piece of furniture: http://uk.businessinsider.com/death-risk-statistics-terroris... http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-terrorism-statistics-every-...

Terrorism is less likely to remain a low-probability event because it contains the intention of death spurred by a toxic ideology that wishes to spread. The comparisons given are accidents and happen through negligence or plain bad luck.

If your premise is true that it will grow because it wishes to spread, then why has it empirically remained constant? Why isnt it more successful every year as it pushes growth?
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