Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Civil Liberties Groups Speak Out Against CISPA in Lead Up to Hearings

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 113 posts

Re: Civil Liberties Groups Speak Out Against CISPA in Lead Up to Hearings

#61

Post by nitrogen »

rayiner wrote: post #29
dubfan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The special interests behind legislation like CISPA have professional lobbyists and millions of dollars to pay them. If you're a private citizen and want a law passed at the federal level, you need to have a cute and young white child who died due to something your law legislates against. Otherwise you don't stand a chance of being heard.

That's a bullshit excuse. If you can't raise a few million dollars for your cause, it's probably because nobody gives a shit about your cause. You think we got clean air, clean water, etc, legislation passed because Sierra Club and Earth Justice are rolling in money? No, it's because they have a cause that people care about and passionate volunteers that dedicate their lives to fighting for it. It's not the system's…

It's not the system's fault that people don't understand nor care about stuff like CISPA.

Actually, it is. The "system" (or, more accurately, the emergent collective behaviors of well-moneyed groups acting in their self interest) tells the masses what to care about, and thanks to being brought up by the "system", they eat it up. Thanks to the direction of the "system", we still have political debates about the age of the Earth, evolution, and other emotionally loaded issues that have no actual bearing on matters that have a substantial impact on the future of the planet.

Re: Civil Liberties Groups Speak Out Against CISPA in Lead Up to Hearings

#62

Post by tptacek »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #48
snowwrestler wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Primarily the barrier from government to company was that much of the valuable info was classified. The Obama executive order on cybersecurity created a mechanism to bypass this barrier that is similar to what was in CISPA. So why pass CISPA now? To remove the barrier in the other direction, from company to government. Right now there are interpretations of certain federal laws that say that companies cannot share th…

>In an ideal world you would have a virtuous cycle, where one company stops a threat, sends the critical threat info the government, which shares it with every other company--all basically in real time. But why does the government need the information at all? Why not have a private consortium of companies who share threat information under NDA (or, for that matter, just allow it to be published), and craft appropriat…

CISPA allows exactly that to happen! Any "Cyber security provider" can collect and share information (on a voluntary, opt-in basis) under the act. Moreover, the largest repository of threat information --- netflow traces, botnet identification, &c --- is housed inside the USG, which is prevented from sharing that information. That's the other problem CISPA solves.

Did you read the bill? I'm not asking in an accusatory way; I'm wondering where you got your information from, so I can read it too.

Re: Civil Liberties Groups Speak Out Against CISPA in Lead Up to Hearings

#63

Post by nitrogen »

rayiner wrote: post #44
dubfan wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've also got politicians who would love to go to their constituents during campaign season and tell them "Look, I supported clean air!" Contrast this to opposing civil liberties restrictions, which can very easily and effectively be spun by political opponents as leaving America open to terror attacks. Even with the PATRIOT Act, something much more substantial than CISPA, political opposition has been limited to…

> They've also got politicians who would love to go to their constituents during campaign season and tell them "Look, I supported clean air!" Because there are people who actually care about clean air. > Contrast this to opposing civil liberties restrictions, which can very easily and effectively be spun by political opponents as leaving America open to terror attacks. Supporting environmental legislation is very eas…

The RIAA/MPAA/News Corp/Disney/etc. own the means of communication to the masses. This is changing with the Internet, which is why they are so opposed to Internet-friendly legislation.

Re: Civil Liberties Groups Speak Out Against CISPA in Lead Up to Hearings

#64

Post by nitrogen »

mindslight wrote: post #40
ori_b wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better: Start forming a coalition of private individuals and companies , and use that group to hire lobbyists. The game is broken, but you can't win if you refuse to play.

You can certainly enjoy your life a lot more if you take your ball, go home, and play with your computer. Who knows, computers may even turn out to be popular in a decade's time.

I've come to the conclusion that mainstreaming a technology results in the technology conforming to the mainstream, rather than the mainstream adopting the interests of the early adopters of the technology.

Re: Civil Liberties Groups Speak Out Against CISPA in Lead Up to Hearings

#65

Post by nitrogen »

tptacek wrote: post #57
Torgo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you're saying, but when legislation is proposed I look at what it very easily could enable, not just what it's written to be for. When I look at what's being proposed I see that the government is using its sovereign power to trade away my right to civil suit against a company in event of a data loss, in exchange to that company for it handing over private information (that very well can include cust…

You are not allowed to make arguments that are directly rebutted by the facts. There were drafts of CISPA that were published in which the assets protected by the bill (which defines attacks in terms of the familiar C.I.A. triad) included "IP", which would have included things like the source code to operating system drivers. But the bill that got voted on included a series of amendments, all published, that neutered…

CISPA is simply not about the interests of rightsholders.

The commenter to which you are replying did not make that assertion. The mention of IP was an attempt to identify the source of the confusion between cybersecurity and IP rights, not about CISPA specifically. Here's what the parent comment actually claimed:

When I look at what's being proposed I see that the government is using its sovereign power to trade away my right to civil suit against a company in event of a data loss, in exchange to that company for it handing over private information (that very well can include customer information) without a warrant. In big broad, abstract ways this is to my benefit if it improves "cyber security" but it also removes some specific rights I have....

And the civil liability immunity agreement (as I understand it) in CISPA will effectively act as a giant gift that only a sovereign power can grant, we'll offer you protection from being sued if you just hand over business data without a warrant.

Nothing about rightsholders in there.

Re: Civil Liberties Groups Speak Out Against CISPA in Lead Up to Hearings

#66

Post by lawnchair_larry »

tptacek wrote: post #53
nlh wrote: post #5

One of the biggest (and most frustrating) problems with the legislative process is that the people who really want this to go through KNOW that we - "the masses" - eventually start to suffer from "protest exhaustion". They can propose a bill - we can rally our troops and get on TV and black out Wikipedia and do 100 interviews and maybe - just maybe - we can kill it. The first time. And maybe the second time. And mayb…

You are especially likely to become numb to calls to arms when they are in fact cries of "wolf". SOPA was a genuinely invasive bill and a clear power grab by the content industry. It created a new special second-class "tainted" designation for content sites that refused to play ball with rightsholders and gave rightsholders new means to prosecute their rights outside of civil courts. It was understandable and --- eve…

If you truly don't understand why many are opposed to it, you should read the EFF FAQ page.

It doesn't matter what the objectives are, or whether or not the intention is to protect rights holders. It matters what the law actually allows as written. That's what we take issue with.

And yes, I have read the entire thing.

Re: Civil Liberties Groups Speak Out Against CISPA in Lead Up to Hearings

#67

Post by nitrogen »

tptacek wrote: post #56
Wingman4l7 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not necessarily the letter of the law that people are worried about, it's the overreach that would result once it's on the books.

The USG is actively prevented by current regulations from setting up a clearinghouse that would collect netflow signatures, botnet identification, and traffic captures of exploit code and then sharing that information with companies like Google and Facebook. Private companies can and do share (heavily scrubbed) electronic signature information, but must go through contortions to do so, and incur huge legal costs to d…

How do your last two paragraphs follow from the first three? How does having large companies share threat data help your small startup mitigate a DDoS?

There is an actual problem with online security attacks right now, and hysteria over any USG intervention with the Internet at all is helping perpetuate it.

This sounds an awful lot like, "We must do something. This is something, therefore we must do this."

Re: Civil Liberties Groups Speak Out Against CISPA in Lead Up to Hearings

#68

Post by tptacek »

nitrogen wrote: post #65
tptacek wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not allowed to make arguments that are directly rebutted by the facts. There were drafts of CISPA that were published in which the assets protected by the bill (which defines attacks in terms of the familiar C.I.A. triad) included "IP", which would have included things like the source code to operating system drivers. But the bill that got voted on included a series of amendments, all published, that neutered…

CISPA is simply not about the interests of rightsholders. The commenter to which you are replying did not make that assertion. The mention of IP was an attempt to identify the source of the confusion between cybersecurity and IP rights, not about CISPA specifically. Here's what the parent comment actually claimed: When I look at what's being proposed I see that the government is using its sovereign power to trade awa…

The bill is clearly not about rightsholders, so it is intellectually dishonest to suggest that there is a legitimate concern about power grabs by rightsholders in it. "I watch C-SPAN religiously and they're always talking about IP rights" is not a substitute for reading the bill.

Re: Civil Liberties Groups Speak Out Against CISPA in Lead Up to Hearings

#69

Post by tptacek »

nitrogen wrote: post #67
tptacek wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USG is actively prevented by current regulations from setting up a clearinghouse that would collect netflow signatures, botnet identification, and traffic captures of exploit code and then sharing that information with companies like Google and Facebook. Private companies can and do share (heavily scrubbed) electronic signature information, but must go through contortions to do so, and incur huge legal costs to d…

How do your last two paragraphs follow from the first three? How does having large companies share threat data help your small startup mitigate a DDoS? There is an actual problem with online security attacks right now, and hysteria over any USG intervention with the Internet at all is helping perpetuate it. This sounds an awful lot like, "We must do something. This is something, therefore we must do this."

ISPs propagate flow-based snapshots of attacks to populate filters and redirect traffic to scrubbing centers, but they do so discreetly in part because of concerns about how well their data --- which is used exclusively to generate filters --- has been anonymized.

Re: Civil Liberties Groups Speak Out Against CISPA in Lead Up to Hearings

#70

Post by tptacek »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #66
tptacek wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are especially likely to become numb to calls to arms when they are in fact cries of "wolf". SOPA was a genuinely invasive bill and a clear power grab by the content industry. It created a new special second-class "tainted" designation for content sites that refused to play ball with rightsholders and gave rightsholders new means to prosecute their rights outside of civil courts. It was understandable and --- eve…

If you truly don't understand why many are opposed to it, you should read the EFF FAQ page. It doesn't matter what the objectives are, or whether or not the intention is to protect rights holders. It matters what the law actually allows as written. That's what we take issue with. And yes, I have read the entire thing.

We've both read the law! We can actually have an interesting discussion! Even if we both know we're not going to convince each other.

What does the law as written allow to have happen that you object to?

Post reply on HN