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

justice.gov

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

#31

Post by gumby »

The most concerning part to me is that this speech now prioritizes the interests of individuals (he calls "consumers") below that of large corporations and governments.

A country is made of people. In some ways we of course act as "consumers" but that is not the beginning and end of what it means to be human. The government's needs are not endogenous; the government's justification for doing certain things is ultimately because people will be better off for it (otherwise it's simply "might makes right)". In addition, corporations, at the end of the day, get certain protections (and additional requirements as well) as they are they are machines to help people achieve various ends (e.g. providing goods, providing jobs, providing an opportunity to create wealth); they are not primary actors in themselves.

BTW my observation is not a comment on the specific politics of the past few years; past AsG and FBI heads have given similar talks and inherently will desire to achieve their job's objectives with the minimum of barriers. This scary formulation just shows how the terms of discussion have shifted.

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

#32

Post by youareostriches »

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 gun control legislation — the Mulford Act:

https://www.history.com/news/black-panthers-gun-control-nra-...

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

#33

Post by deogeo »

Even without encryption back-doors, people are under unprecedented levels of surveillance, and it's only getting more pervasive.

So I find it very hard to believe the job of law-enforcement is getting harder, not easier, just because we have some tiny scrap of privacy left.

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

#34

Post by javagram »

ngngngng wrote: post #30
phkahler wrote: post #20

He claims encryption is "warrant proof" which is not true. You can have a court order someone to open the lock. They want the ability to dig through people's stuff without them knowing. That's what it's really about.

Sure, but I can just refuse to decrypt my data. They can just break physical locks.

Refusing to decrypt is itself a crime (contempt of court?), so the government can jail you for years that way.

Edit: this doesn’t help in cases like terrorism where the owner of the device has already been killed of course.

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

#35

Post by daxorid »

ngngngng wrote: post #30
phkahler wrote: post #20

He claims encryption is "warrant proof" which is not true. You can have a court order someone to open the lock. They want the ability to dig through people's stuff without them knowing. That's what it's really about.

Sure, but I can just refuse to decrypt my data. They can just break physical locks.

It's increasingly difficult to do this without incurring contempt from our bootlicking judiciary.

You're gambling on the temperament of your judge if you do this.

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

#36

Post by slg »

ngngngng wrote: post #30
phkahler wrote: post #20

He claims encryption is "warrant proof" which is not true. You can have a court order someone to open the lock. They want the ability to dig through people's stuff without them knowing. That's what it's really about.

Sure, but I can just refuse to decrypt my data. They can just break physical locks.

This is what a lot of people in our community seemingly refuse to recognize. For all intents and purposes, encryption is a unbreakable lock that can serve to perfectly hide valuable criminal evidence. Such a thing wasn't possible when our laws were written and has never before been possible in the physical world. Its existence has potential to be a huge shift in how we enforce the law. Regardless of our views on encryption, we need to have a conversation about that shift. Refusing to have that discussion is likely a quicker path to things like government enforced backdoors than if we engaged with government and law enforcement on possible alternatives.

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

#37

Post by core-questions »

slg wrote: post #36
ngngngng wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I can just refuse to decrypt my data. They can just break physical locks.

This is what a lot of people in our community seemingly refuse to recognize. For all intents and purposes, encryption is a unbreakable lock that can serve to perfectly hide valuable criminal evidence. Such a thing wasn't possible when our laws were written and has never before been possible in the physical world. Its existence has potential to be a huge shift in how we enforce the law. Regardless of our views on encr…

The problem is that there's no way for the government to actually enforce this 100% - sure, on the average person, but we have to assume that someone engaged in espionage / terrorism / etc. is going to take additional precautions. The threat doesn't go away by doing this.

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

#38

Post by lisper »

javagram wrote: post #34
ngngngng wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I can just refuse to decrypt my data. They can just break physical locks.

Refusing to decrypt is itself a crime (contempt of court?), so the government can jail you for years that way. Edit: this doesn’t help in cases like terrorism where the owner of the device has already been killed of course.

This situation also has an analogy in the physical world: if the owner of the key is dead or otherwise non-coercible, that's effectively the same as a physical document being destroyed.

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

#39

Post by mbrumlow »

javagram wrote: post #34
ngngngng wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I can just refuse to decrypt my data. They can just break physical locks.

Refusing to decrypt is itself a crime (contempt of court?), so the government can jail you for years that way. Edit: this doesn’t help in cases like terrorism where the owner of the device has already been killed of course.

I am not sure you can be compelled to remember something you forgot. And nobody can tell you if you remember or not, or if you will ever remember again.

So no, some judge may try to hold you in contempt of court, and it may work for a while, but at some point -- if you have a good lawyer it will turn in to a civil rights issue.

Also, you could plead the 5th as well.

NOTE: I am not a lawyer, and these are just my opinions on this matter.

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

#40

Post by turk73 »

smacktoward wrote: post #7
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…

I'm no fan of Bill Barr, but I don't read this that way, no. It reads to me more like he's saying that from a planning perspective it's better to figure the worst thing that could happen and have a plan already developed that could handle that, rather than being caught by surprise and then having law and policy made in a mad, panicked rush. (In other words, let's not do with cybersecurity policy what we did with coun…

The more I see of Barr, the less impressed I am. He's a tool.

Strong crypto may be humanity line in the sand. If you value any kind of freedom at all, any ability to push back against the machine, this is your hill to die on.

One can always use pedos and terrorists to justify anything governments wish to do.

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