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Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

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Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#311

Post by mulmen »

NateEag wrote: post #309
mulmen wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they ever needed the ability to tap phones or read mail. Capabilities that were repeatedly abused, just like internet surveillance. Where will I commit this crime? Somewhere in meatspace or it doesn't matter. Cops can work backward from there.

I'm pretty confident you can commit crimes that matter without physical presence. Most people don't approve of making millions from insider trading, for example. Or of cryptolocking beloved photo collections and holding them ransom for bitcoin.

You don't need to tap phones to catch and prosecute insider trading.

You can't stop cryptolocking by tapping a phone or by banning encryption.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#313

Post by georgebarnett »

Thorentis wrote: post #286
intricatedetail wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone should be able to read private politician's correspondence and what they are up to. We should also know their bank accounts and their location at all times. Why should government know those things about us but we can't know that about them? That's a modern slavery.

Everybody should be able to read the private correspondence of politicians? That's absurd. Politicians are (believe it or not) people too, and have families, and relationships, and private lives. We should absolutely be able to read all their work related material, but private things should stay private.

Why should private things stay private, only for politicians?

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#314

Post by nobody9999 »

Angeo34 wrote: post #256

I can only repeat myself. If you are US based privacy is a literal oxymoron for you. Not saying that's not the case anywhere else but it's especially bad for US and it's biggest allies (Saudi Arabia and Israel). Again go ahead give me all the down it's.

>but it's especially bad for US and it's biggest allies (Saudi Arabia and Israel).

I'd say that the UK, Canada, Germany, France and the rest of NATO[0] are the US' biggest allies.

Followed by countries like Japan, South Korea, Australia and even Mexico that are much more important as allies to the US than either of those places.

Saudi Arabia and Israel are just incidental players for the US. Saudi Arabia for the oil (The Saudi state oil company is now called Saudi Aramco, but used to be called Arabian-American Oil Company[1]), the military bases, and the arms sales. Israel mostly for the arms sales and to placate many (but certainly not all) Jewish folk in the US.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO

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

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#315

Post by nobody9999 »

michae2 wrote: post #231

I have been wondering if there is a way to satisfy law enforcement without breaking encryption or adding backdoors. An idea: what if platforms allowed law enforcement (with a warrant) to conduct rainbow table attacks against encrypted content of a specific user? In other words, what if platforms allowed law enforcement to determine whether a specific known object (e.g. a known photo or video) was sent / stored by a u…

>I have been wondering if there is a way to satisfy law enforcement without breaking encryption or adding backdoors

I'd say "how about having law enforcement do, you know, police work to catch the bad guys?"

Police can already get warrants for just about anything -- as long as they can convince a judge they have probable cause[0] -- without too much of a hassle already.

Giving them keys to unlock everything is the wrong way to go about it.

Get enough evidence to convince a judge (not that hard) and you can get a warrant.

However, that doesn't mean anyone, even criminals, should be forced to make it easy for them.

Law enforcement obviously has way too much time on their hands, with the amount of lobbying they do to increase their ability to chip away at civil liberties and privacy.

Crazy thought: maybe they should use those resources to do real police work instead.

[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/probable_cause

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#316

Post by andrei_says_ »

SkyBelow wrote: post #157
nojvek wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two parts. 1) Yes, you can build better encryption and privacy preserving technology. That is a technology and adoption problem. 2) There is so much you can do once the law says you can’t encrypt certain kinds of things and if you do, the state will be after you. That is a social problem. Our elected leaders aren’t serving us. Not mutually exclusive. We have to do both. Build better tech, educate others and…

3) People are willing to sacrifice freedoms to protect kids, likely a result of not understanding the complexities of such a nightmarish problem and how much freedom will have to be sacrificed and how little protection will be gained at great cost. Why? Because our society does not allow us to perform cost benefit analysis on a child's well being despite reality giving us no such relief as removing the need for such.

4) real freedoms for imaginary kids.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#317

Post by nobody9999 »

greenie_beans wrote: post #289
Rebelgecko wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It already passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously

i didn't know that. what does that mean for the fate of this bill? doesn't that just mean that the senate must consider it? does the commerce committee have anything to do with it? since they oversee commerce and basically the internet (at least from what little i know...)

>i didn't know that. what does that mean for the fate of this bill?

IIUC, for this particular bill[0], the next step in the Senate is to debate it on the floor and then vote on it.

The companion House bill[1] has been introduced, but has not gone through committee or been voted upon.

The Senate would need to pass the bill. Then, separately, the House would need to pass their bill.

Then, the House and Senate would reconcile their two bills, and the resulting compromise bill would once again need be voted upon and passed by each chamber.

Assuming that happens, the President would need to sign it before it becomes law.

Most Americans (I hope) could tell you that. The links below detail the various actions taken by each chamber, as well as the sponsors and text of the bills.

[0] https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/339...

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/8454

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#318

Post by nobody9999 »

aijrlaiwe wrote: post #266
skee0083 wrote: post #258

The earn it bill is already unenforceable. open source crypto already exists and is available everywhere. so yea. good luck stopping people from using it.

This means anyone implementing and using effective crypto will be flagged for closer monitoring. A jury is made up of twelve people who aren't smart enough to get out of jury duty. It won't be hard for a prosecutor to convince them that going out of your way to use encryption is proof of possessing child pornography. Or terrorist stuff. Or drug stuff. Or whatever else people are terrified of at the time.

>A jury is made up of twelve people who aren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.

You're assuming that every citizen is either ignorant or disdainful of their responsibilities as citizens.

That's sad. I've never tried to get out of jury duty, because I see that as part of my responsibility to my community.

That said, in the half-dozen or so times I've been called, I have yet to be selected for a jury.

But I'll do the same next time, because it's the right thing to do.

I'd add that if I were involved in a trial, I certainly wouldn't want someone who would prefer to shirk their responsibilities as a citizen on my jury, that's for sure.

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#319

Post by nobody9999 »

indymike wrote: post #111
CryptoPunk wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perusing /r/politics, all I see is astroturfing, and it garners tens of thousands of upvotes. The age of true democratic participation is over. Politicians have no need to care about the ordinary constituent to win elections. They just need to win over the elite, and know how to deliver their scripts.

Actually, reality is counterintuitive. Being in congress is a terrible job where you do not even have time to read 1/2 of the bills you are going to vote on this week. So you count on others to help you. Mostly this is staffers, interns and lobbyists because those are the people who show up and help. If you as a citizen want to make change, then all you have to do is show up, in person and have a friendly conversatio…

For more information about how to interact and influence your government (it is, after all, made up of us, at least in the US -- and in other places too, but I'm American so I focus on that), check out Take Back Your Government[0] by Robert Heinlein.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_Back_Your_Government

Re: Stop the Earn IT Bill Before It Breaks Encryption

#320

Post by triceratops »

t-writescode wrote: post #20
anonymfus wrote: post #2

There is a clear need for an opposite law which will make backdoors illegal. Who could fight for it?

It's really easy. You just have to say that the backdoors are a method to stop [very big bad] from happening and that without it, you're supporting [very big bad]. The thing we have to come as a society is willing to accept that sometimes [very big bad] will happen, but a lack of back doors is more important.

Backdoors are a method to allow predators to spy on children online. If you support backdoors, you're supporting predation on children.
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