It happens because Facebook's design is fundamentally flawed for the security.
U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger
41–50 of 109 posts
Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it? You kind of lost me. Isn't the actual issue math?
It's this: https://xkcd.com/538/
This actually feels more like what I would expect police work to be like given the situation.
They most certainly do not have cause to demand access to swaths of comms no matter whose comms they're after and most assuredly when that access actually entails enabling access to all of the comms.
I posit there is no authority that should be able to demand this as a matter of the right to human existence. Law, order, society and government should not have ultimate authority on private communications no matter what the tech is capable of. We, as humans in a modern world, can speak and if desired do so in private. This is our right as individuals and if encryption helps us accomplish and enforce that right then so be it.
If they have probable cause then they need to beat feet or beat heads but either way they need to get to work. And by work I do not mean trying to impose a different reality than the one that we currently have - where math is fact, compute is cheap and source is open.
What's it going to be? 100 go free or six lines from everyone?
Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue is laws. A country that's going to mandate backdoors/access to such communications, are going to outlaw communication methods they can't backdoor. Say Apple makes a federated end-to-end encrypted messenger app, the government will still go to Apple and say "let us read all the messages, otherwise you can't sell your devices". THAT is the problem, and it can't be solved by more technology and shouting "BLOCK…
Laws are an issue and enforceability is an issue. If a largish group of users could create end-to-end encryption not with a single company but with "readily available materials", then stopping it could be harder. So it's a combination of state dictate and the practical ability of users to defy that. This isn't saying I'm optimistic, I'm rather pessimistic on any ability of a wide home-grown encrypted-messaging milieu…
And who would use that system, if it were so closely associated with status as a federal criminal?
You're forgetting that the average user doesn't care enough to sacrifice ease of use for greater political benefit.
Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger
#44I think it has become abundantly clear that a fully peer to peer, encryption required (non-optional), no single central server infrastructure solution is the answer. No points to tap. No point in tapping the data. If they want to capture conversations it's time to go back to the proper old ways of actually spying on high-value targets.
Or at least something like iMessage, end-to-end encrypted.
The article is about the question if the government can force companies to backdoor their end-to-end encrypted apps, so that's not a solution.
Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue is laws. A country that's going to mandate backdoors/access to such communications, are going to outlaw communication methods they can't backdoor. Say Apple makes a federated end-to-end encrypted messenger app, the government will still go to Apple and say "let us read all the messages, otherwise you can't sell your devices". THAT is the problem, and it can't be solved by more technology and shouting "BLOCK…
Laws are an issue and enforceability is an issue. If a largish group of users could create end-to-end encryption not with a single company but with "readily available materials", then stopping it could be harder. So it's a combination of state dictate and the practical ability of users to defy that. This isn't saying I'm optimistic, I'm rather pessimistic on any ability of a wide home-grown encrypted-messaging milieu…
Possession of encryption software could be treated the same as possession of drugs. On the next stop and search you would only had to handover your phone. If police password will not work it will be confiscated. If encryption software is found you go in the dock. It is the future. Society accepted ridiculous laws to jail people for having a plant, they'll accept jailing for programs. Only terrorists, thieves and adulterers encrypt their messages ;-)
Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Laws are an issue and enforceability is an issue. If a largish group of users could create end-to-end encryption not with a single company but with "readily available materials", then stopping it could be harder. So it's a combination of state dictate and the practical ability of users to defy that. This isn't saying I'm optimistic, I'm rather pessimistic on any ability of a wide home-grown encrypted-messaging milieu…
And who would use that system, if it were so closely associated with status as a federal criminal? You're forgetting that the average user doesn't care enough to sacrifice ease of use for greater political benefit.
There's a difference between running a Tor exit node and encrypting a personal conversation.
At least in the US, if a US citizen is part of a potentially incriminating conversation, the government's going to have a hard time forcing a court to force the citizen to decrypt the conversation.
Lawyers, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like a conversation wouldn't be subject to the vagaries of "combination to a safe"-production loopholes.
Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger
#47I think it has become abundantly clear that a fully peer to peer, encryption required (non-optional), no single central server infrastructure solution is the answer. No points to tap. No point in tapping the data. If they want to capture conversations it's time to go back to the proper old ways of actually spying on high-value targets.
Moving away from a centralized infrastructure and having fully P2P doesn't necessarily mean there's no points to tap, does it? It's just mildly more difficult than a subpoena to Facebook asking for all messages.
I believe it's substantially more difficult, legally. CALEA for data-in-transit and judicial interpetations for data-at-rest mean it isn't as strictly protected as personally-controlled data.
So it's definitely covered by a different legal regime, to set aside the technical bits.
Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger
#48Wut? Go to Github and cobble a MitM proxy.
Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
> At what point does the technical community stop trying to technically interfere with the efforts of law enforcement, and start trying to change the laws that make law enforcement behave this way? Law enforcement and government are addicted to power to an unhealthy degree. Convincing people to voluntarily give up power is rarely successful. You seem to believe majority support is enough to make something happen. It…
The Public Option has 75% popular support. Medicare-For-All has 59% popular support. [HR] Yet we have neither. Brexit was decided on an embarrassingly close vote: 51.9% So we have two seemingly popular things that haven't happened and one that has happened but was not so popular (but it turns out that it was more popular than was suspected by anyone beforehand). I'm afraid that is politics. If it helps, I am not a fa…
> There is no conspiracy and I don't think that it is fair to accuse your police and government of being arseholes (to put words in your mouth!) Sometimes we simply have to accept that our personal will does not always dovetail with that of the majority - that is how democracy works. To be fair though, there is also nothing wrong with getting a good rant in on HN.
You've clearly never dealt with either in the US for a protracted period of time.
Yes, they very much are. Their response to them breaking the law and/or making a mistake is "Fuck off, sue us."
> If you feel really strongly about healthcare, why not emigrate to the UK? Our NHS is bloody amazing and only costs: https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance/how-much-you-pay - roughly 12% of your salary. There is a lower band and an upper band so it is not 12% of everything you earn and it also covers unemployment payments and other things.
A) You are moving the goal posts from the original discussion.
B) I was born here. I'm not leaving just because I don't win every battle.
> Brexit was decided on an embarrassingly close vote: 51.9%
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/10/russian-influe...
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/britains-russia...
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/top-brexit-back...
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-43336351
> The four most recent readings - taken by BMG Research and Survation between November and January - have, on average, once the 8% who said "don't know" are left to one side, put Remain on 52% and Leave on 48%.
Now that it isn't being influenced by an outside party, it is no longer narrowly winning.
To be honest, I don't think people should cry they have a mandate from the people with less than a 55% majority.
Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn’t this what Slack is?
Slack literally stands for Searchable Log of All Content and Knowledge. It’s incredibly useful and transformative for what it is. It’s about the furthest thing possible from private.
OK, this is all news to me. I have to go delete a bunch of stuff.