Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication • Hacker News Board

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#201

Post by Sideloader » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 1:37 AM UTC

ryanmarsh wrote: post #85

microcolonel wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, assault rifles are not on the open market in the U.S. and haven't been for quite some time. U.S. armed violence has a lot more to it than the availability of weapons; statistics are easy to misinterpret as well, since they're really just the proportion of violent crimes that are committed with one particular tool. Here in Canada, we have higher instance of violence with knives, but unsurprisingly almost…

I once read that the largest standing army on the planet is in the U.S. on the opening day of deer season. Not sure if that's factually accurate but it does sound formidable. Consequently the best firearm a guerrilla fighter can own is a high powered hunting rifle with a good scope. Also, the average hunting rifle sold in the U.S. is better than the sniper rifles we recovered in Iraq. Nothing is more demoralizing to…

Are all those rifle owners regular active hunters? How many of the hunters possess military caliber marksmanship? Stalking a deer through a forest and sniping members of an invading enemy both involve shooting rifles at moving targets. Being holed up in a sniper's nest during a shooting war and taking out human targets that are aware of your presence and either shooting back directly or trying to relay your position to better placed or equipped comrades and all the while moving fast and erratically would be extremely challenging for non military trained folk, hunters and otherwise.

More significantly, which countries do you think are in a position to attack the lower 48 states? Canada and Mexico. Can't see that happening any time soon. Sadly, an American on American conflict seems far more likely than a foreign invasion, but even that would require a a civil society and social order break down of unprecedented scale.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#202

Post by tomschlick » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 2:05 AM UTC

de_Selby wrote: post #27

phkahler wrote: post #12

This debate seems like a manifestation of a problem with governments: They think they can legislate anything they want. Need access to some communications - green light for massive data collection. Some of it is encrypted - just mandate a back door. School shooting - new gun laws. Any problem activity - we'll just make it illegal. Something not getting done - we'll just mandate someone take care of it. They really do…

> School shooting - new gun laws. I agree with the sentiment of your post, but as a non-American this one jumps out at me. I don't think it fits the rest of your argument, adding more control and checks for something as dangerous as gun ownership is a good thing.. in particular, it would take a lot to convince me that private ownership of assault rifles is anything but bad news. I have read some arguments about priva…

The vast majority of gun violence in the US is gang / drug based. We have a violence problem, not specifically a gun problem. Thats due to a number of issues like poverty, lack of education, drugs, and the cycle of poorer people going in and out of prison.

Excluding suicides, the rest is what I consider the cost of our country owning guns. We will never have the utopia of zero gun violence with 300,000,000 privately owned firearms in this country and the 2nd amendment isn't changing anytime soon.

What we could reduce though are the problems I outlined first. Poverty, education, drug use, and the jail cycle. Those are harder problems than just pointing at guns though, so they don't get suggested as much.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#203

Post by snowwrestler » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 3:03 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #80

adventured wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US clearly hasn't always been aggressively expansionist. It isn't today. America has had the most powerful military on earth for 70 years, along with a large population. List all of the vast amounts of territory it has annexed using that extraordinary military power. There are endless opportunities to do so, and the US is the sole military with global projection. Some people point to military bases. Which doesn't…

You don't necessarily have to annex territory to control it, either politically or economically.

But why bother to control territory unless one gets some benefit from it? Throughout history, nations have sought more territory because most wealth came from land and its use. Annexing territory was the fastest way to grow the tax base.

Controlling territory but not extracting wealth is pointless. The U.S. doesn't extract wealth from its foreign bases; in fact it injects wealth because the bases are paid for by U.S. dollars but the downstream spending goes into the local economy.

And you might think "well the U.S. extracts the wealth through trade." But trade is mutually beneficial (unlike taxes) and the U.S. runs a foreign trade deficit anyway.

The things that the U.S. gets for its projected power are peace and stability. These are things that benefit any nation, though.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#204

Post by dominotw » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 3:06 AM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #12

This debate seems like a manifestation of a problem with governments: They think they can legislate anything they want. Need access to some communications - green light for massive data collection. Some of it is encrypted - just mandate a back door. School shooting - new gun laws. Any problem activity - we'll just make it illegal. Something not getting done - we'll just mandate someone take care of it. They really do…

There is always oppression in a democracy.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#205

Post by rdsnsca » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 3:16 AM UTC

Canada wrote: post #91

jakeogh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Universal background check" is code for registration: http://cqrcengage.com/azcdl/UBC Hand your rifle to a friend in Washington state? That's a (unconstitutional) felony.

This is how it is in Canada, and it sucks. Some rifles are classified as unrestricted don't have to be registered, while other rifles which accept the exact same rounds and magazines are classified restricted. Licenses must be obtained to even move them, let alone lend, give, or sell to someone else. At least advances in manufacturing technology will make this nonsense impractical eventually.

It worse than you think :

I have a friend who is a machinist. He made himself a fully working replica of a 3 pounder black powder cannon (shoots it at festive and the like).

As the cannon ball it shoots travels at less than 500 fps, it is classified as a pellet gun and doesn't have to be registered.

We are in eastern Canada.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#206

Post by Sideloader » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 3:30 AM UTC

happyscrappy wrote: post #7

gnu8 wrote: post #2

The headline belies the utter ridiculousness of the idea. Why would the United States and United Kingdom be singled out to have backdoor access to all communications? To hang onto the tattered remnants of their empires while keeping their own people in line despite their declining political legitimacy.

Maybe you think that China is ascendant, but the fact remains that the West is closely aligned and utterly dominant.

Yes, the West is still dominant but geopolitical and economic power is shifting South and East and Western influence and power is waning. China and the U.S. both know that at the moment each nation is dependent on the other and the collapse of one would have serious repercussions for the global economy.

Hence we get scenarios where China is claiming islands a thousand miles off its coast as domestic territory and while the US Air Force flies overhead and Obama tut-tuts the whole thing is a boundary pushing exercise (no pun intended) and China continues to do what it wants, within reason. China knows that shooting civilians as in Tiananmen Square in 1989 makes for very unflattering optics and jeopardizes the Western trade and investment it needs.

Every day articles and blog posts announces the imminent demise of US and Western power or China's impending economic collapse. It's possible of course but for the moment not very probable. But it is clear that the West is no longer *utterly dominant.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#207

Post by Sideloader » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 3:37 AM UTC

istvan__ wrote: post #135

_delirium wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what that would look like if you looked specifically at handgun ownership rather than overall gun ownership. In the Nordic countries (which overall have quite a lot of guns) the general assumption behind regulation has been that handguns are a problem but rifles are less of one, especially rifles in rural areas. It's a bit puzzling to me that the American debate has focused on "assault rifles", which statist…

"A gun ban is a reasonable and effective way of reducing the number of school shootings" I just wanted to debunk this myth. As you pointed out there is more to it. I was thinking a lot and I think any sort of gun ownership should be tied to employment and mental status. This is the easiest to filter out people like most of the mass shooters and criminal elements. I am not sure what is required in Finland to own a gun…

Downvoting a post because you don't agree with the argument is silly. I wonder how many downvoters think they are pro-free speech even as they demonstrate their hypocrisy.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#208

Post by graycat » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 3:41 AM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #185

graycat wrote: post #149

They can "oppose" all they want. That's why we have PGP, in open source. And that's why in the US we have: "Amendment IV "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and t…

Your first part is why I always find these talks silly. Encryption (at least the kind they are talking about) is just math - all the laws in the world aren't going to change the math. You can't legislate away the knowledge of that math; even if you force Apple or Google to insert your backdoor into THEIR implementation of the crypto, that doesn't mean that a 'terrorist' couldn't just use their own implementation of t…

Fully correct. I have

Bruce Schneier, Applied Cryptography, Second Edition: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C, ISBN 0-471-11709-9, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1996.

That material's not going away.

And, in addition, I have some nicely short, not difficult to read, source code. About all the math needed for PGP is in an elementary number theory book -- I have several sufficient references.

> That cat is out of the bag; you can't legislate it back in.

Did you mean "The toothpaste is out of the tube"? -- supposedly the phrase used in the Nixon Watergate scandal!

When Zimmerman made PGP public, he also gave what I thought was a good description of the issues with the bottom line, whatever the pros and cons, net in plenty of cases it's important for individuals to have access to strong encryption.

Yes, no doubt there's no shortage of people in government who don't like PGP. I'll send some people in government some toothpaste and an empty tube and let them try their hand!

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#209

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 4:27 AM UTC

Sideloader wrote: post #207

istvan__ wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A gun ban is a reasonable and effective way of reducing the number of school shootings" I just wanted to debunk this myth. As you pointed out there is more to it. I was thinking a lot and I think any sort of gun ownership should be tied to employment and mental status. This is the easiest to filter out people like most of the mass shooters and criminal elements. I am not sure what is required in Finland to own a gun…

Downvoting a post because you don't agree with the argument is silly. I wonder how many downvoters think they are pro-free speech even as they demonstrate their hypocrisy.

[deleted]

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#210

Post by nitrogen » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 4:35 AM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #130

nitrogen wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the problems is that we can't figure out a better system of using humans to govern humans. There are a lot of things we can improve, though. First past the post voting systems mathematically guarantee polarized two-party systems aligned on emotionally charged but relatively inconsequential issues. So we should switch to approval voting. Having the same person purport to represent our interests in everything fr…

It's like you're describing the separation of governance by domain. For instance, instead of having a mayor for a city, we'd have a mayor of telecommunications or technology, along with a mayor of transportation, a mayor of housing and civil engineering, and a mayor of commerce. These problems pop up with my example: * You still need someone to centralize the execution; people are going to want a hierarchy and to hav…

I'm thinking more of the legislature, but yes, this is the idea.