All I can say is George Orwell was a clairvoyant genius. Right now it looks like his only mistake was he did not go far enough.
Intelligence Committee Leaders Release Discussion Draft of Encryption Bill
231–240 of 275 posts
Re: Intelligence Committee Leaders Release Discussion Draft of Encryption Bill
#232> "Today, terrorists and criminals are increasingly using encryption to foil law enforcement efforts, even in the face of a court order." How can you utter that sentence and simultaneously not understand why your bill is effectively worthless for its stated purpose?
Just look at gun control arguments to see why people think outlawing activity will stop criminals.
> Just look at gun control arguments
> to see why people think outlawing
> activity will stop criminals.
Re: Intelligence Committee Leaders Release Discussion Draft of Encryption Bill
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
Respectfully, I disagree WRT SSH/TLS Section 2 (4) spells it out: communication service and software providers. That's the maker of every app on your phone, the phone manufacturer, your phone company, emails provider, retailer (they're communicating your data to their data warehouses). The summary clearly says "software manufacturers" (aside: manufacture software? facepalm ), "providers of wire...electronic...[or] re…
It would cover your use of SSH/TLS for providing a service, but they can already subpoena those keys under existing law, so it's of limited relevance in a conversation about what this bill introduces. What changes here is that if you deployed SSH/TLS using a HSM (Hardware security module), you'd need to be prepared to provide a plaintext stream upon a court order. Obviously, the alternative is to choose the non-HSM r…
> What changes here is that if you deployed SSH/TLS using a HSM (Hardware security module), you'd need to be prepared to provide a plaintext stream upon a court order. Obviously, the alternative is to choose the non-HSM route which is, and has always been, vulnerable to subpoena.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but doesn't SSH always use a Diffie-Hellman key agreement, where the keys are destroyed after their use? No subpoena has the power to recover keys destroyed in the past, even if no HSM had been used. The same applies to modern TLS using DHE or ECDHE suites, and AFAIK the current TLS 1.3 proposal allows only these suites.
They might be able to subpoena the authentication keys, but these are useless to recover the ephemeral keys of past connections (except from older TLS cipher suites which didn't use DHE/ECDHE), and even for future connections they would have to be used with an active attack.
Re: Intelligence Committee Leaders Release Discussion Draft of Encryption Bill
#234Another brick in the wall. What are we going to do a out it? Maybe Wikipedia or Google will deface their own websites, and the bill will die only to resurrect shortly after. A better solution would be for the millions of tech workers to unite and vote GOP just to send a message that we don't automatically vote for anyone or any party. If California's vote is locked for a certain party, then it is taken for granted.
Voting for GOP candidates isn't going to change anything.
Better to start up a new party with a clever nerd name--like Bitwise Party, or Breakpoint Party, or similar--and run its own candidates. The automate the hell out of political party organization. Make running for office as easy as registering a new domain name.
But that will probably never happen, because forming and operating a political party is too much like joining a union with its own PAC. And also, third parties don't count for much in the US.
Re: Intelligence Committee Leaders Release Discussion Draft of Encryption Bill
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it passes, what are the chances of it being struck down as a first amendment violation?
The first amendment does not guarantee the right to privacy. Most Americans would be surprised to know that the Constitution does not guarantee privacy at all. The closest you get is the 4th amendment which only protects against unreasonable search and seizure (without a warrant). Some argue that the 3rd amendment implies a right to privacy and was the intent of the amendment, but alas it only protects against being…
The 1A argument is that code is a form of expressive speech, and that laws that limit what kind of speech you can make are in effect prior restraints.
Re: Intelligence Committee Leaders Release Discussion Draft of Encryption Bill
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
And tell 5 friends and family to do the same. Figure out what's important to them. Do they have children? Tell them without encryption it will be possible for bad people to know their whereabouts and general day to day movements for the purpose of exploitation and abduction. Tell them to call or write the politicians to protect their children. Maybe your friends think they have nothing to hide, but when they consider…
You know, I think this is the first opportunity for "think of the children!" to be a rally in cry for something meaningful, that actually can affect a large swath of our children. An excellent point. However, its power is limited by all the times "think of the children!" has been used as the rallying cry for anti-citizen legislation. So it has to be strengthened. You're on the right track. The cliche turns into a pla…
> You know, I think this is the first opportunity for "think of the children!" to be a rally in cry for something meaningful
No it's not, because that's going to blow up in your face. This law is going to be put in place to protect the children. Bad people can't hide child porn. Bad people can't hide their plans to hurt your children. Bad people can't ... etc. Hand in hand goes 'good people' can track your children if they're kidnapped.
Think of the children always works in the favour of those trying to consolidate power.
Re: Intelligence Committee Leaders Release Discussion Draft of Encryption Bill
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am gobsmacked by the tenor of comments here. At what point will HN posters finally realize that participation in the democratic process does precisely nothing against naked power?
In 2014 Americans made over a million public comments to the FCC in support of net neutrality. The FCC sided in favor of net neutrality. [1] In 2011 Americans made over 8 million phone calls to their representatives in opposition to SOPA/PIPA. The bills were defeated. [2] [1] http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/05/inside-the-fccs-1-1-million... [2] http://www.sopastrike.com/numbers
And then CISA, arguably worse than SOPA, passes both houses in 2015 tucked in a budget bill.
[0] http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/18/10582446/congress-passes-...
Re: Intelligence Committee Leaders Release Discussion Draft of Encryption Bill
#238Instead of complaining into the echo chamber of comments, here are some things you can do to fight back: Donate to the EFF: https://supporters.eff.org/donate/button Call your Reps: http://TryVoices.com Petition the President: https://savecrypto.org/
I am gobsmacked by the tenor of comments here. At what point will HN posters finally realize that participation in the democratic process does precisely nothing against naked power?
I think you have a very valid point and seeing it downvoted instead of debated shows most of us are not bothered by that status quo. You can call your representative every time you think a legislation tries to overreach and hope your voice is heard, or instead of the symptoms you can treat the root cause. I believe the easier problem is to design a more just system which inherently advocates freedom and self regulates, while the much harder is to incentivize people to actually move away from the current one. Especially because usually the ones benefiting are the same ones holding the keys.
Re: Intelligence Committee Leaders Release Discussion Draft of Encryption Bill
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
Guns are somewhat difficult to produce. This is more akin to knife control.
Any weapon analogy is bad for our side of the argument, because weapons sound to many people like things that bad people use to do bad things. Yes, I realize that knives are used in kitchens to cut vegetables, but with the way this discussion is rightly framed as a security thing, people are not thinking about kitchens. I would prefer to see lock analogies. Here's a half baked example: This is like a law requiring al…
Any analogy is bad. The internet has no analogy in the physical world. Do not use analogies to discuss this issue.
Re: Intelligence Committee Leaders Release Discussion Draft of Encryption Bill
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
yet? She was singing this tune 20 years ago.
Sources please. I did a research on her legislation and voting record back then, expecting to find horrible things, and found her work to be thoughtful and helpful to the populous. Things have dramatically changed since then, unfortunately. It'd be fascinating to uncover what caused this marked phase change.
http://www.loc.gov/law/find/hearings/pdf/00140120273.pdf
Find Feinstein's comments. Doesn't look like anything changed.