Burr-Feinstein Anti-Encryption Bill Is Officially Released (techcrunch.com) 314
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein released the official version of their anti-encryption bill today after a draft appeared online last week. The bill, titled the Compliance with Court Orders Act 2016, would require tech firms to decrypt customers' data at a court's request. The bill is not expected to get anywhere in the Senate. President Obama has also indicated that he will not support the bill, Reuters reports. The bill requires legislation requires communications services to backdoor their encryption in order to provide "intelligible information or data, or appropriate technical assistance to obtain such information or data." Sen. Feinstein stated, "The bill we have drafted would simply provide that, if a court of law issues an order to render technical assistance or provide decrypted data, the company or individual would be required to do so. Today, terrorists and criminals are increasingly using encryption to foil law enforcement efforts, even in the face of a court order. We need strong encryption to protect personal data, but we also need to know when terrorists are plotting to kill Americans."
Uh huh... (Score:5, Informative)
In the US, just over 3,000 people have died of terrorist attacks. In 21 years. How many millions die from car crashes alone each year? Are we going to start improving our public transit? No, of course not, because that's not the sexy ratings our senators here want.
The really sad part isthat these are people who voted in, they are not dictators or such. A majority of people are actually stupid enough to vote for such idiots, and it makes me wonder where our future is headed. Given the rather extreme views that have become fashionable over the last year, I don't think it's too far off we'll soon be looking at the level of control shown in Russia today. I sure hope it was worth losing our privacy, safety, and fundamental values to save us from those "evil terrorists", who haven't played a role in 99.999% of the population. Might I point out, that's not an exaggeration.
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In the US, just over 3,000 people have died of terrorist attacks. In 21 years. How many millions die from car crashes alone each year?
Posting because that crashes number is so far off... in most years, somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000 to 30,000 people die in car crashes in the U.S. Still a hell of a lot more than terrorists kill, and you have a good point. Many more Americans will be killed by mundane items in their daily lives, like, say, hamburgers, than ever will be by terrorists.
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Not just stupid people (Score:3)
The really sad part isthat these are people who voted in, they are not dictators or such. A majority of people are actually stupid enough to vote for such idiots, and it makes me wonder where our future is headed. Given the rather extreme views that have become fashionable over the last year, I don't think it's too far off we'll soon be looking at the level of control shown in Russia today. I sure hope it was worth losing our privacy, safety, and fundamental values to save us from those "evil terrorists", who haven't played a role in 99.999% of the population. Might I point out, that's not an exaggeration.
It's not just stupid people. It's also people who don't understand the issues because they have never studied encryption or computer security. Smart people and policy-makers.
Re:Not just stupid people (Score:4, Insightful)
Then there are also the power-mad people. These people might understand how encryption works, but they don't care because they see something that isn't under their control. They can't tolerate this so they come up with a reason why having this not under their control is bad ("terrorism") and then hammer the American public and politicians with this reason. It doesn't matter if the reason isn't true (terrorists have been using clear text communication) or if their reason wouldn't be fixed by passing US laws (terrorists would use strong encryption that's already available). The thing that matters to them is getting this thing under their control - even by a little bit. Then, they can expand their control until all non-backdoored strong encryption is banned.
Re:Uh huh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Heck, we know more people die every year:
- in backyard swimming pools
- from bee stings
- from peanut allergies
than from terrorism.
But of course, we also know this isn't about preventing terrorism.
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Heck, we know more people die every year:
- in backyard swimming pools
- from bee stings
- from peanut allergies
Thank you very much! Here is my revised plan on how to deal with Dianne Feinstein:
Shame on you, California, for you dishing up this monstrosity upon the world!
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You should test Cruz, Trump and a lot of other politicians also...
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Ummm well be careful there (Score:2)
Because while car crash deaths are still a real big killer, the IS has made MASSIVE strides in reducing them, and that has been done in no small part by legislation of new safety features. Deaths both in terms of absolute numbers and deaths per 100 million miles driven have been dropping consistently since around 1970.
Not agreeing with this bullshit encryption bill, just that your example may not be showing what you want it to show.
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at 32,675/yr in the US, I think it's still a pretty safe argumentative gambit to suggest that if we're going to be terrified, it should be of our fellow drivers rather then some IS.
Min
Re:Uh huh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Are we going to start improving our public transit? No, of course not, because that's not the sexy ratings our senators here want.
No? [wikipedia.org]
I think Feinstein is an evil hypocrite, in so many words, but California is doing more to promote public transportation than most states.
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I think more to the point is that 0 people have died in the US due to terrorists who where aided by encryption. No terrorists will ever use encryption because the benefit (easier communication) does not outweigh the cost (being arrested/killed before performing the act). If you are a terrorist or member of organized crime then you can never ever be 100% sure that NSA, FBI et al cannot spy on everything that you do and in that line of work you do need to be 100% sure.
For example here in Sweden the major orga
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> A majority of people are actually stupid enough to vote for such idiots
A majority of people don't vote.
FTFY
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This is just a rehash of the tire make the military hold a bake sale for their F16.
Terrorism spending is defense spending and that is actually a constitutional responsibility where health care spending is not. If they stopped spending on defense or terrorism, the funds would either be spent on other constitutional responsibilities or not spent at all. Likely the later due to the fact that we are borrowing the money in the first place.
I'm not opposed to health care spending but we need/should have a consti
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Re:Uh huh... (Score:5, Informative)
I beg to differ, as the Constitution specifically mentions the general welfare of the nation in the same clause as defense.
This is probably a big part of what's wrong with our country today - people who grew up not understanding the basics of the Constitution. On both "sides of the aisle", by the way.
Let's look at the Constitution. The preamble mentions the general welfare:
We the people of the United States, in order to:
1. form a more perfect union
2. establish justice
3. insure domestic tranquility
4. provide for the common defense
5. promote the general welfare
6. and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
This part isn't "law"; it's simply an introductory paragraph explaining their goals in creating the Constitution.
Article I, Section 8 specifically enumerates the powers that are granted to Congress (which creates law) from the Constitution. It's short, so I'll include the entire thing:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
The line to which you refer actually explains that Congress can collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, and then to use that money to pay for the common defense and general welfare. "General welfare" isn't "healthcare" -
Re:Uh huh... (Score:4, Insightful)
"General welfare" isn't "healthcare" - not by a long shot. It's tied to national defense, or "common defense" as they put it.
On what grounds do you base that claim? It seems like general welfare and defence are simply mentioning two separate things in that sentence, with no reason for them to be linked other than that they may both be paid for by taxation.
Re:Uh huh... (Score:5, Informative)
History. It doesn't take much to research the history of the general welfare clause. A quick Wikipedia search reveals [wikipedia.org] a lot of information. For instance, Madison, who actually wrote the U. S. Constitution, was pretty explicit in the Federalist papers that the document was to be interpreted narrowly, and even specifically points to the general welfare clause as an example. There was even a Supreme Court case that upheld the narrow interpretation. It wasn't until 1930s that a different Supreme Court basically decided they really wanted to uphold some law/ruling, and basically decided to ignore all the previous history to do so.
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And the argument was largely settled, by the early republic, when even Jefferson himself as president was unable to follow that interpretation. So, it's good that you
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If they stopped spending on defense or terrorism, the funds would either be spent on other constitutional responsibilities or not spent at all.
The US government pisses away a lot of money [washingtonpost.com] on things and would likely do just that. Granted that report is from a right wing group but at the same time there are some pretty egregious things listed there.
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Partially illogical, but not completely illogical.
But terrorist actions serves to seed distrust among the population because we don't know which fellow humans that we can trust.
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I know how many of them I can trust. None.
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TSA agent - I trust that they likely won't choke on their own tongue while I am in the security line
Is in US House or Senate - No trust at all, should probably be placed in a padded room for their own protection
Is in the state House or Senate - Very little trust but they likely don't need to be in a padded room
Random guy on the street - Probably not going to hurt me
Ass hole on the phone driving a car - I really
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Just put up a thick wall surrounding DC and you have solved a major problem.
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And fill it with water.
Secrets (Score:2)
Is in US House or Senate - No trust at all, should probably be placed in a padded room for their own protection
Is in the state House or Senate - Very little trust but they likely don't need to be in a padded room
I heard someone once say that a person runs for local or state office only because their deepest darkest secret keeps them from running for higher office. Probably some truth in that somewhere...
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Your argument is illogical. Tremendous amounts of money have been spent trying to make cars safer. Laws regulating driving and car safety are stricter than ever
And yet very little effort is put into making the roads safer, in spite of the fact that many of them are under direct government control. Things like traffic light timings would be relatively easy to change and could have a big impact on road safety.
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When are the terrorist plotting to kill Americans? (Score:4, Funny)
All the time. Seriously, that's what terrorists do. Does anybody think it's a part-time thing or whatever? "Let's see Achmed... Tomorrow we'll go fishing, then we hit the beach and next week we'll plot to kill Americans. But it must be wednesday because I have bingo on monday and a garage sale on tuesday, and the rest of the week I have to fill in for Jamal who's having a jihad on non-recyclable grocery bags."
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Sometimes they plot to kill other people as well... just sayin'.
Tobacco and sugar (Score:2)
The tobacco industry deliberately plotted to kill Amecicans in way larger proportion that the 9/11 Saudis. The food industry via sugar over intake also kills much more people than terrorists. The government kills much more Americans with unjustified wars.
Actually anything threatening the top wealthy 1% is considered as much more dangerous than when threatening the 99% rest.
Can't have both (Score:5, Insightful)
"We need strong encryption to protect personal data, but we also need to know when terrorists are plotting to kill Americans."
Can't have both, buddy.
Feinstein is senile and needs to be recalled (Score:5, Insightful)
This is pretty much the nail in the coffin.
If her prior activities that would make an Inspector General blanch weren't enough, this monstrosity is pretty much proof-positive of her loss of mental faculties.
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Maybe she's a traitor trying destroy America by wrecking it's economy. She is aiding terrorists in their efforts to destroy your way of life and prosperity.
When lying is not enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Terrorists and criminals are increasingly using encryption to foil law enforcement efforts, even in the face of a court order.
Yeah, right.
Oh, wait, the most recent terrorist attacks in Belgium were carried out using disposable one time cell phones without using encryption of any kind.
Who are those politicians are trying to fool? Why the terrorists cannot create their own encrypted applications which do not save any data whatsoever? I mean we already have Telegram, Wire and many other apps with P2P encryption and timers which pretty much guarantee no party will ever be able to restore or decrypt the content of conversations.
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I'm not sure I trust either Telegram or Signal TBH.
Signal I really want to trust, but they want my whole f'in contact book and AFAIK there is no way to just give my friends like an anon ref code or something. Feels creepy and unnessecary.
Telegram OTOH is just crazy crappy. Has anyone ever actually tried to read the API docs for mtproto? It's a damned nightmare to parse it.
I don't trust any service that wants my phone number and list of contacts.
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You can create end-to-end encrypted apps in html5 and javascript. Provided phones don't have logs of everything the user does, whatever the manufacturers do will not achieve much.
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He is hiding those nude photos he sends to his lovers and that pic of toenail fungus he sent to his sister who is a nurse and told him he wasn't going to die.
Why, does something to hide imply illegality or something ?
Woo! BFAEB! (Score:5, Funny)
Burr-Feinstein Anti-Encryption Bill
I heard they're opening for Aerosmith next month.
This bill might not be so bad (Score:5, Insightful)
The proposal itself may be awful, the likely consequences would be good. This could very well be the final push for many companies processing personal information to finally leave the US and settle in a country less hostile to privacy.
Leaving the US a huge minefield (Score:2)
Leaving the US for a privacy Shangri La sounds appealing, but where is this place?
By my estimations, it's a small number of European countries, most of which might face EU regulations which could end up being nearly as "bad" as the US for no real gain.
Most other places don't have enough privacy protections (crooked, authoritarian governments) or if they do, are too small to resist the diplomatic pressure the US could bring to bear on their privacy practices. Further, they may be small enough that the Chine
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When TTIP and TTP get finished the number of those countries will drop sharply.
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It's not Big Brother (Score:5, Insightful)
Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein are neither the oppressive arm of Government nor are they idiots.
They are, however, profoundly ignorant of how things work in the real (non-Beltway) world. They are of the same ilk that cannot understand that email kept on a small private server (small target) with a staff that gives a damn is quite likely a lot more secure than on a "secured government server."
They must be thinking, "the company will provide a back door and keep it secret." What a great concept. Unfortunately that idea belongs to a world where it took a whole government and a bevy of codebreakers to crack a simple substitution code - the Enigma codes. Today, a single hacker can put together thousands of cpu core resources to attack any system. If there exists a back door, if there is any way into an encrypted system, some 14 year old in Romania or Great Britian (or China!) will find it. Consider the fact that the FBI hired such to go after in iPad, and the thing was compromised in short order.
And lest we think that this is a good thing, so that governments can go after terrorists, let me pose a question on a personal level: "How big is your bank account? Would you mind if you woke up some morning and found it empty?"
There are thousands of terror targets and probably tens of thousands of would-be terrorists. There are quite literally billions of targets in the private sector. It won't make the even news for very long if Mr. Smith gets cleaned out, but to Mr. Smith it may seem pretty terrible.
And there is a worse side: Let's say that the government requires back doors everywhere. Does that mean that terrorists are going to give up and throw up their hands figuratively? Hell, no. Any competent programmer can come up with an encryption scheme not known to the government, perhaps with vulnerabiilities which are also unknown to the government. The good guys (Us!) have opened our bank accounts to the script kiddies, and the bad guys will go right on using strong encryption. The government will be right back where they are now, having to hire a hacker to break that encryption.
We will have given up the keys to our doors without putting a small dent in terrorism.
Not a good choice, imo.
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Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein are neither the oppressive arm of Government nor are they idiots.
False. They are part of the oppressive arm of government. We would usually say "hand", though.
They are, however, profoundly ignorant of how things work in the real (non-Beltway) world.
No, no they are not. Feinstein in particular is simply a hypocrite, which she proves every time she opens her face.
They are of the same ilk that cannot understand that email kept on a small private server (small target) with a staff that gives a damn is quite likely a lot more secure than on a "secured government server."
If you're talking about Clinton, though, that's not what happened. What happened was that she had a small private server which she used to facilitate illegal, insecure communications; she had her staff go through the email and determine what was classified, which is itself a breach of the law for both
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There is no oppressive arm of government, all governments becomes oppressive given time, it's in the bone and marrow of all of them.
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There is no oppressive arm of government, all governments becomes oppressive given time, it's in the bone and marrow of all of them.
I couldn't agree more, that's why something like bioregionalism is needed. Local government aligned upon natural boundaries which produce natural confluence of interest. Minimal government at all levels. Citizen involvement. You will never have no government, so the best thing you can do is make sure you get as little government as possible while still getting your needs met.
Both wings belong to the same bird
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Herp Derp. Found the Randian moron
All you have found is your own asshole, and inserted your head into it. But I guess that's why you didn't log in, coward. Internet bravery is the most hilarious kind of bravery.
Re:It's not Big Brother (Score:4, Insightful)
And there is a worse side: Let's say that the government requires back doors everywhere. Does that mean that terrorists are going to give up and throw up their hands figuratively? Hell, no. Any competent programmer can come up with an encryption scheme not known to the government, perhaps with vulnerabiilities which are also unknown to the government.
Please... the number of programmers that could come up with good cryptographic primitives is 0.1% or less. You're much better off just using AES for symmetric, RSA for asymmetric and DHE for key exchange with forward secrecy that tons of crypto analysists have spent years on and not come up with anything of significance. The flaws are usually all implementation and backdoors, not the building blocks themselves.
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I would guess that the number is likely higher than 0.1% but that would require training and learning about them. I mean how many people here know what S-boxes [wikipedia.org], P-boxes [wikipedia.org], MDS Matrix [wikipedia.org], Pseudo Hadamard transform [wikipedia.org], Feistel n [wikipedia.org]
Anyone at all can do a one time pad (Score:2)
And a one-time pad is unbreakable by any means except obtaining the one time pad if it is not misused.
Unbreakable encryption is within the technical reach of practically anyone.
It's not even hard. Exchange of the one time pad is inconvenient.
--PM
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It must be nice to live in your naive little lalaland where the government means well, but just doesn't get how the magic boxes work. And where a basement email server run by "a guy" is more secure than hardened, robust, and security designed industrial email systems. No, make no mistake, these are hardcore totalitarians and they know it. They have been installed to do a job, and that is destroy a society based on liberty and freedom. Thanks to people who think they "mean well", they're getting away with
Re:It's Big Brother (Score:2)
They must be thinking, "the company will provide a back door and keep it secret." What a great concept. Unfortunately that idea belongs to a world where it took a whole government and a bevy of codebreakers to crack a simple substitution code - the Enigma codes.
It's not about that. If you read the discussion draft of the proposed bill you will find the salient part is Sec. 2.4 which puts the onus of data decryption onto the service provider. There is nothing about how to implement it, just that if you encrypt it, it better be intelligible when we ask for it. There is a discussion about privacy of the individual, but it's secondary to access by the state. I uncertain if a judicial order is the same as a warrant for telecommunications intercepts however I still don
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Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein are neither the oppressive arm of Government nor are they idiots.
But then you spend the rest of your post describing how oppressive and idiotic their ideas are.
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I wish the bill would pass (Score:2)
What ? I never said I carred for the US tech sector. I am seeing this from the perspective of somebody in another country tech sector withshing that US politician get what they want : give us all non US firm a lot of jobs.
A point in there somewhere. (Score:5, Insightful)
We do - but we cannot have both.
Choose wisely.
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if they kill encryption (Score:2)
Does it even need to be repeated? (Score:3)
You can't put the encryption genie back in the bottle. You look really dumb when you tell people you can.
I seriously just laugh every time I see this kind of foolish uneducated thinking. Don't senators have technical advisers that tell them: IT CAN'T BE DONE.
It's not even really a difficult concept to grasp, in my opinion.
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Don't senators have technical advisers
No. They have people that tell them what they want to hear and people who manage their statements so that it panders to just the right set of donors and not offend others.
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You very much can. You just have to convince people that encrypted communications are a complex, high-cost investment provided by a large company, not something they can take personal responsibility for. Your Cellphone needs slipjack because you couldn't handle pre-encrypting your own e-mail; therefor you are helpless if the Government hacks Slipjack.
obama says he does not support it (Score:2)
Alternate name (Score:5, Insightful)
we also need to know when terrorists are plotting (Score:2)
Wouldn't it just be simpler to pass a law requiring all terrorists to report what they are going to do 24 or 48 hours before they do it?
If Feinstein's name is on it, 100% it's a bad idea (Score:3)
Just adopt the George Costanza approach with her.
Impeach the idiots (Score:2)
The government cannot require or prohibit any specific design or operating system for any covered entity to use in complying with a court order.
I.e. nothing is out-of-bounds when complying? That seems to conflict with this:
No one is above the law. Court order recipients must comply with the rule of law.
But what if providing the data requires breaking existing laws? I'll be the first to admit I don't know legalese, but this sure is confusing.
At least the title is descriptive. . . (Score:2)
and not Orwellian, like, say, the PATRIOT act.
Questions to ask (Score:2)
Terrorists and criminals are increasingly using encryption to foil law enforcement efforts, even in the face of a court order.
Given that the majority of terrorist leadership structure (technocal and non-technical) isn't domestic, and they are completely capable of writing their own encryption apps, and hosting the services outside the US,
1. How does the bill reach those users and servers Answer: It doesn't
2. How does the bill enhance/protect/maintain security of users. Answer: It doesn't
3. How does the bill
Dianne Feinstein...where have I heard that name? (Score:2)
On May 12, 2011, Feinstein cosponsored PIPA. [wikipedia.org]
I think this person needs to lose an election.
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On May 12, 2011, Feinstein cosponsored PIPA. [wikipedia.org]
I think this person needs to lose an election.
Me too, but why do you think that the morons who elected her will grow a brain cell before the next election.
The word Feinstein (Score:2)
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Need a maximum Cost/Benefit Analysis. (Score:2)
Different government agencies use different price per human life saved methodologies. Most agencies, such as the car regulation, pollution, etc. regulate only if the cost is less than $10 million per life saved. The EPA sets it at 7.4 million. Some agencies won't even require safety regulations if the cost exceeds $2 million.
Terrorism based agencies are a radical shift. When terrorism is involved, the idiots are willing to spend up to $180 million to save a single life. (https://www.schneier.com/blog/a
How to make money if Burr-Feinstein passes (Score:3)
Last night I figured out how to extort money out of big tech companies if the Feinstein-Burr bill becomes law. It requires that any company which has provided encryption technology render technical assistance in order to provide unencrypted versions of information in response to court orders.
So, here's what you do:
1) Choose a company which provides any existing encryption products which don't have backdoor and will host data for you in some form. Good choices might be Apple, Google, or Microsoft. For Microsoft you can use their BitLocker product to encrypt things. For Apple or Google, you can just use OpenSSL's command line to do the encrypting. There are likely some other companies that would work, but those are the first which come to mind.
2) Find a co-conspirator who is willing to sue you.
3) Create some key piece of information which is relevant to the potential court case.
4) Choose an amount of money which is quite large, but is within the potential budget of the company.
5) Do some calculations like this spread sheet does: https://docs.google.com//1hsvO2RBXWYxMMMCaDx5CASPy2l/edit (although I'm not sure these numbers are correct because I'm not sure they account for the efficiency of doing this with GPUs instead of CPUs) to figure out how long the key will have to be to be in order to cost the target amount of money. Assuming their figures are correct, then 86 bits would be the correct answer.
6) Choose an encryption function which uses more bits than that. So let's go with 128-bit AES for this example.
7) Encrypt the key piece of information with it.
8) Make a second file which contains notes about what algorithm is used and contains all but your target number of bits of the key. So in this case, 128-86 yields 42, so we put the first 42 bits of the key in the file.
9) On the storage provided by your target company, store the encrypted data and the unencrypted second file.
10) Ensure that all other copies of the data and the key have been completely and utterly destroyed, but keep references to its existence.
11) Proceed with the lawsuit and have your co-conspirator find out about the file in discovery.
12) Have them obtain a court order requiring the target company render technical assistance. Now, to comply with the court order, they must spend approximately $10 million dollars to brute force the remaining bits of the key.
13) Offer to have talks about settling the lawsuit, but only if the company is also involved in those talks.
14) Hint that this could all go away for a much smaller amount, like only $100,000 especially if the target company were willing to pay.
15) Once they pay up, drop the lawsuit thus vacating the court order.
Obligatory CGP Gray (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Complete waste of time (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact of the matter is that democracy in the United States is completely broken. And most people are profoundly deluded. They get up and go to work each day in a state of delusion about what is going on in their community and their state and country, as long as there is enough crap to distract them. As the saying goes: Keep them doped on religion, sex, and tv. Only perhaps science and self-righteous PC liberalism is the new religion, and video games and other things compete with tv.
It sickens me to see the anti-Trump sentiment being vocalized especially by deluded idiots who have no solution whatsoever for the serious problems occurring other than to continue being deluded. Zuckerberg had the audacity to criticize immigration policy as he lives in a $10 million home, has private security, flies around the world and stays in 5 star hotels. Yeah, try living in the neighborhoods which are being destroyed by the hell that America is becoming and then proffer that self-righteous tripe. But its never the blood of the "humanitarians" that is spilled, is it?
Re: Complete waste of time (Score:5, Insightful)
Feinstein is appalling but not more appalling than the idiots in the state of California - who supposedly are so intelligent and cutting-edge - who elected her and have kept her in office.
Yep. Feinstein gets votes on two bases; her vagina, and being anti-gun. There's literally no other reason to vote for her, because everything she does is harmful. She's being supported by superannuated spoiled children who want a nanny state.
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Plead 5th amendment. Or "I'm just transporting this USB stick".
Re: Complete waste of time (Score:3, Insightful)
Then the mere existence of GPG on your machine will be enough to send you to jail. It's that simple, really. Make a few high-profile examples and the populace will get the message. As for those die-hard cryptonerds... I bet Feinstein would love to see them all in jail away from computers, where they won't bother anyone anymore. Make no mistake: those in power are not the made of the same stuff we are. They are royalty, we are small folk. If they have to destroy thousands of us to reach their goals, they wil
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Make a few high-profile examples and the populace will get the message.
I don't necessarily disagree with your premise, but as a counter to this particular point... it didn't work with piracy, so why with encryption?
Re: Complete waste of time (Score:4, Insightful)
...very few encrypt compared to that.
Very few people buy things online? I think the more accurate view is that very few people realize how important strong encryption is to what they already do.
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Make no mistake here: sending a bunch of drug users to prison did not stop drugs.
They know it doesn't stop drugs. They just don't care.
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Dude, this is already going to happen with all this "smart cars" revolution.
Re:Campaign contributions (Score:5, Interesting)
How selfless of them, they write the opposing politicians' meal ticket!
I'm sure they'll return the favour on some other braindead "policy issue"
(*) In comparison to the leaked draft copy, they removed the limitation to certain investigations (drugs, terror, kiddiefiddling...) so as to have some wriggle-room in the following bargaining process.
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Exactly, any decent terrorist/crook will use strong encryption software he obtained from elsewhere. So, despite all the backdoors installed by corporations in their products/servies, the govt. still won't be able to read his files or his communications. The only thing this bill will accomplish is giving backdoors to govt to spy on law-abiding people.
It is time to defeat traitors such as Feinstein (Score:5, Interesting)
If we Americans still believe in Freedom ...
If we Americans still believe in Liberty ...
We should start a definite push in dealing traitors such as Feinstein a decisive blow
They should no longer be allowed to weaken our Constitution
They should no longer be allowed to undermine the spirit laid down by the founder of this great republic
Shame on Feinstein !
Shame on traitors who hate Freedom and Liberty !
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She's not a traitor... .she is just an incredibly Low IQ person that has some serious sociopath tendencies.
Why the hell Californians keep electing her I'll never understand.
Re:It is time to defeat traitors such as Feinstein (Score:5, Insightful)
She's not a traitor... .she is just an incredibly Low IQ person that has some serious sociopath tendencies.
Why the hell Californians keep electing her I'll never understand.
There's this notion that members of Congress, despite passing legislation for the federal government, are supposed to do what's best for their own state instead of what's best for the country as a whole. There's also the issue that influence in Congress, particularly via committee membership and leadership, is based entirely on seniority. Combine these two and you have the problem that replacing Feinstein would lower California's importance in Congress, even if her replacement is clearly better.
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Why are you calling out Feinstein but not Burr? They are both asshats.
Let me guess; you're a Republican.
Way to take a stand in the most partisan, half-assed way imaginable.
More likely because the senior Senator from the Silicon Valley state should know better.
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Why are you calling out Feinstein but not Burr? They are both asshats.
Sure, but as a Republican, Burr is supposed to be an ignorant authoritarian asshat. That is the whole point of the GOP. There is a libertarian wing to the Republican party, but they are only around 10%.
But Feinstein is different. She is just as much of an asshat as Burr on social authoritarianism, but also has all the economic authoritarianism of the Democratic Party. If you took the absolute worst of American Politics, and blended them into a Frankenstein chimera, you would get Dianne Feinstein. She
Re:It is time to defeat traitors such as Feinstein (Score:4, Insightful)
But Feinstein is different. She is just as much of an asshat as Burr on social authoritarianism, but also has all the economic authoritarianism of the Democratic Party. If you took the absolute worst of American Politics, and blended them into a Frankenstein chimera, you would get Dianne Feinstein. She has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Is ideological consistency a redeeming quality? She isn't an authoritarian only when it's convenient or when it matches her religious dogma. She's a True Authoritarian.