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I love how Republicans believe that outlawing guns won't stop criminals from having guns while at the same time believing that outlawing encryption will keep cr

I love how Republicans believe that outlawing guns won't stop criminals from having guns while at the same time believing that outlawing encryption will keep criminals from using encryption. Encryption methods are far easier to transport and spread illegally than gun are.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mucker 11y ago
Keep your generalizations to yourself. There is a wide array of Republicans who believe in limited government not cracking private security because it doesn't belong there. McCain is a nice guy but is an extreme hawk.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  It's a political party. The whole point of one is to get people behind a general platform. Even keeping in mind that two-party systems tend to be extremely factional by practical necessity, the view that the GOP is the "party of limited government" is nothing but propaganda.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Somebody please explain to me how political parties aren't the dumbest idea ever, because I'm having trouble seeing it. I find the concept of buying into political beliefs wholesale - instead of considering them on a case-by-case basis - to be plain insanity.
    - zurn 11y ago
      Some pretty big advantages: They are voting blocs that are long lived enough for reputation to work. It makes representatives much easier to follow and predict (for media and citizens). They become much more efficient in wielding power and less vulnerable to divide-and-conquer adversaries. Relatively few people can keep track of what a handful of parties did in the last couple of years, imagine how short the public memory would be if it was single representatives. <cue comments suggesting technological solutions> Also, ideas in politics are interrelated. A big core value or strategic objective will pretty naturally lead to a bunch of other related ideas. You can view this as "buying into political beliefs wholesale" but it's a pretty natural thing to happen.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        Thanks for the explanations. I don't buy them entirely, but I need to think about it more. > Also, ideas in politics are interrelated. A big core value or strategic objective will pretty naturally lead to a bunch of other related ideas. You can view this as "buying into political beliefs wholesale" but it's a pretty natural thing to happen. Ideas may be interrelated but it doesn't say anything about their validity. Whether it's natural or not, I still find it incredibly stupid. The focus on ideas seems wrong in itself. The usual discussions like whether Free Market or Government-Regulated Market are Better™ are pointless; we should be talking about whether a free-market solution or a top-down solution is better for a particular problem, like determining wages or building a power plant. I mean, the level of absurdity of buying ideas wholesale is obvious to everyone in almost every single discipline besides politics. Static vs. dynamic typing, or Lisp vs. rest of the world, or why PHP sucks are fun topics to discuss, but when push comes to shove, everyone knows that they should use the best tool for the job and get the job done. Imagine for a moment that we're tasked with writing a grep-like utility. If we were to run this project the way we run our countries, we'd have several opposing groups: - C supporters arguing for C, because everything fast and big is written in C! - Their little more progressive branch arguing for C++. - Perl supporters, saying that C is wrong because it was used by the Sov^H^H^HMicrosoft to write Windows, therefore it is evil. - Lisp supporters, saying that other languages are infringing on programmers' freedoms, and that the only rule should be the one of non-aggressive macro writing. - Fortranaries arguing we should write in Fortran because in Good Old Days everything was great and was written in Fortran. etc. Ultimately, running a country is about solving problems - some of the most important problems we ever face. Why do we accept this insanity where it matters the most?
    - WildUtah 11y ago
      Check out how many people[0] get elected to the Congress without one and you'll see that their organizational advantages outweigh their irrational issue agglomeration. [0] 2/100 senators, 0/434 congressmen
- WildUtah 11y ago
  McCain isn't a nice guy. He's always been opposed to every kind of civil rights and in favor of total central government power and total war. He introduced the campaign finance bill that forced the government to argue before the Supreme Court that it had the power to ban books with political opinions it didn't agree with, the same argument that led to the Citizens United decision. He made up a song about bombing Iran and sang it at campaign stops. (Tune of Beach Boys' Barbara Ann) That's just the start. This encryption but is of a piece with his whole career. McCain is as bad as they come.
  - Silhouette 11y ago
    Not being from the US, I probably don't know as much about McCain as many of you, but I do recall him making the news for suggesting a murder suspect should be treated as an enemy combatant, which in turn seemed to mean essentially that they were no longer entitled to things like due process. I remember feeling very cold when I read that.
  - mikestew 11y ago
    To be pedantic, that Beach Boys parody dates back to the late 70s during the hostage taking of the U. S. Embassy. (Which causes me to wonder: did his campaign properly secure the rights from the song writer, or did they do like other candidates and "steal" it?)
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      There were quite a few different parodies of that song with the "Bomb Iran" theme from different groups, and all McCain did was the "Bomb, bomb, bomb" part, which made the message clear, but didn't really specifically invoke any of the particular parodies.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    He introduced the campaign finance bill that forced the government to argue before the Supreme Court that it had the power to ban books with political opinions it didn't agree with, the same argument that led to the Citizens United decision. Did you oppose that bill at the time, on the grounds that it would lead to such ridiculous arguments? If you had, you would have been the only one. Most First-Amendment nose-thumbers loved that bill. I suspect their hearts were in the right place, just as I suspect McCain's was (then, on that topic; various statements made since have been disconcerting). It would be nice if the rich bastards didn't play the body politic like a marionette, but this isn't the way to change that. The fact that you didn't lead off with a reference to the Keating Five indicates to me that you don't actually know much about McCain or his career.
kylec 11y ago
We need to somehow classify encryption as an armament, so that it'll be protected by the second amendment.
- gnoway 11y ago
  We've done that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...
- sprawl_ 11y ago
  Yep... https://xkcd.com/504/ https://xkcd.com/504/
gnoway 11y ago
"Republicans" Rand Paul is pretty openly pro-encryption. Hillary Clinton is equivocating; I think she's probably anti-encryption. These may be exceptions that prove the rule but I think what we're really seeing is a combination of ignorance, pandering and authoritarianism across the spectrum.
- serge2k 11y ago
  >Hillary Clinton is equivocating; I think she's probably anti-encryption Damn, we need her on our side as a proven expert in computer security and privacy.
  - datashovel 11y ago
    Or maybe try and find non-establishment candidates to run (who are not out of their gourd) and vote for them :)
    - anonymfus 11y ago
      Do you humorously pretend in your comment that you don't know about Bernie Sanders?
      - datashovel 11y ago
        No, just a general comment. My only regret about Bernie is there aren't more people like him running for office. It takes a lot to have a majority in Congress and so IMO we're not close to having enough non-establishment candidates like him to have faith our government will debate civilly and act reasonably.
      - gnoway 11y ago
        Is he really non-establishment? I realize he's an Independent 'Social Democrat' or whatever, but he's been in Washington since 1991. He's pretty well established IMO.
        11y ago
dogma1138 11y ago
>Encryption methods are far easier to transport and spread illegally than gun are. I won't go that far, I would say that getting a Gun in the US or even in Europe (especially since the eastern European and Balkan states have joined (officially or unofficially Schengen) is by far easier than setting up your own secure crypto from scratch. This isn't an argument in favor of banning crypto, just a hard simple truth that the number of people that can setup a secure cryptographic system is small, the amount of people that can design them is even smaller, and a single operational mistake can ruin your entire encryption. Don't get me wrong at this moment in time it's "fairly" easy to get off the shelf (FOSS or commercial) encryption software that would prevent law enforcement from accessing the data, and it's possible to implement encryption that would also foil full state level (intelligence agencies, military intelligence etc.) actors from breaking your crypto in any given timely manner at least. But there are quite a few cutting edge attacks already on RSA, AES and other ciphers for key extraction, quite a few cryptographic systems were discovered to have horrific flaws in them, and some commercial solutions also have a backdoor/work reducer in them for lawful (and unlawful) access. That said if you currently eliminate the existing eco-system of "non-backdoored / non-broken" encryption don't expect for it to be easily revived, it will not be that hard to crush existing even FOSS crypto working groups and as time passes and agencies like the NSA can break existing encryption ciphers more easily it will only be harder and harder to build safe crypto without going into new cipher suits, and most cryptographers in the world today work for governments, or are heavily watched. So the dream of having the worlds most prominent math and computer science prodigies raising up to the challenge and building new cryptography in a dusky basement of a Berlin bar is a fairly romantic fantasy. Just look at how hard it was to get decent (for the time) encryption software when the US and most countries treated it as highly regulated commodities, and that was without an intentional crackdown on everyone who writes and distributes such software.
- andrewchambers 11y ago
  > I would say that getting a Gun in the US or even in Europe (especially since the eastern European and Balkan states have joined (officially or unofficially Schengen) is by far easier than setting up your own secure crypto from scratch. No, it is far easier to download an openbsd cd image from canada than it is to physically carry a gun.
duaneb 11y ago
This kind of insanity isn't along party lines.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
vox_mollis 11y ago
Republicans? Dianne Feinstein, who is supposed to be representing the interests of Silicon Valley, has been beating the anti-encryption drum for some time now. At least McCain's constituency doesn't include the people who are decrying this. DiFi is not only worse and earlier than McCain on this issue, but she's intentionally ignoring the people it is her job to represent. And you cry "Republicans!". Okay.
oberstein 11y ago
Liberals simultaneously believe they can outlaw guns but they can't outlaw drugs. Hypocrisy can be fun to notice in your hated enemy, but sometimes you have to dig into the details of each idea separately without analogies to similar surface level ideas.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

mucker 11y ago

Keep your generalizations to yourself. There is a wide array of Republicans who believe in limited government not cracking private security because it doesn't belong there. McCain is a nice guy but is an extreme hawk.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
It's a political party. The whole point of one is to get people behind a general platform. Even keeping in mind that two-party systems tend to be extremely factional by practical necessity, the view that the GOP is the "party of limited government" is nothing but propaganda.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Somebody please explain to me how political parties aren't the dumbest idea ever, because I'm having trouble seeing it. I find the concept of buying into political beliefs wholesale - instead of considering them on a case-by-case basis - to be plain insanity.
  - zurn 11y ago
    Some pretty big advantages: They are voting blocs that are long lived enough for reputation to work. It makes representatives much easier to follow and predict (for media and citizens). They become much more efficient in wielding power and less vulnerable to divide-and-conquer adversaries. Relatively few people can keep track of what a handful of parties did in the last couple of years, imagine how short the public memory would be if it was single representatives. <cue comments suggesting technological solutions> Also, ideas in politics are interrelated. A big core value or strategic objective will pretty naturally lead to a bunch of other related ideas. You can view this as "buying into political beliefs wholesale" but it's a pretty natural thing to happen.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      Thanks for the explanations. I don't buy them entirely, but I need to think about it more. > Also, ideas in politics are interrelated. A big core value or strategic objective will pretty naturally lead to a bunch of other related ideas. You can view this as "buying into political beliefs wholesale" but it's a pretty natural thing to happen. Ideas may be interrelated but it doesn't say anything about their validity. Whether it's natural or not, I still find it incredibly stupid. The focus on ideas seems wrong in itself. The usual discussions like whether Free Market or Government-Regulated Market are Better™ are pointless; we should be talking about whether a free-market solution or a top-down solution is better for a particular problem, like determining wages or building a power plant. I mean, the level of absurdity of buying ideas wholesale is obvious to everyone in almost every single discipline besides politics. Static vs. dynamic typing, or Lisp vs. rest of the world, or why PHP sucks are fun topics to discuss, but when push comes to shove, everyone knows that they should use the best tool for the job and get the job done. Imagine for a moment that we're tasked with writing a grep-like utility. If we were to run this project the way we run our countries, we'd have several opposing groups: - C supporters arguing for C, because everything fast and big is written in C! - Their little more progressive branch arguing for C++. - Perl supporters, saying that C is wrong because it was used by the Sov^H^H^HMicrosoft to write Windows, therefore it is evil. - Lisp supporters, saying that other languages are infringing on programmers' freedoms, and that the only rule should be the one of non-aggressive macro writing. - Fortranaries arguing we should write in Fortran because in Good Old Days everything was great and was written in Fortran. etc. Ultimately, running a country is about solving problems - some of the most important problems we ever face. Why do we accept this insanity where it matters the most?
  - WildUtah 11y ago
    Check out how many people[0] get elected to the Congress without one and you'll see that their organizational advantages outweigh their irrational issue agglomeration. [0] 2/100 senators, 0/434 congressmen
WildUtah 11y ago
McCain isn't a nice guy. He's always been opposed to every kind of civil rights and in favor of total central government power and total war. He introduced the campaign finance bill that forced the government to argue before the Supreme Court that it had the power to ban books with political opinions it didn't agree with, the same argument that led to the Citizens United decision. He made up a song about bombing Iran and sang it at campaign stops. (Tune of Beach Boys' Barbara Ann) That's just the start. This encryption but is of a piece with his whole career. McCain is as bad as they come.
- Silhouette 11y ago
  Not being from the US, I probably don't know as much about McCain as many of you, but I do recall him making the news for suggesting a murder suspect should be treated as an enemy combatant, which in turn seemed to mean essentially that they were no longer entitled to things like due process. I remember feeling very cold when I read that.
- mikestew 11y ago
  To be pedantic, that Beach Boys parody dates back to the late 70s during the hostage taking of the U. S. Embassy. (Which causes me to wonder: did his campaign properly secure the rights from the song writer, or did they do like other candidates and "steal" it?)
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    There were quite a few different parodies of that song with the "Bomb Iran" theme from different groups, and all McCain did was the "Bomb, bomb, bomb" part, which made the message clear, but didn't really specifically invoke any of the particular parodies.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  He introduced the campaign finance bill that forced the government to argue before the Supreme Court that it had the power to ban books with political opinions it didn't agree with, the same argument that led to the Citizens United decision. Did you oppose that bill at the time, on the grounds that it would lead to such ridiculous arguments? If you had, you would have been the only one. Most First-Amendment nose-thumbers loved that bill. I suspect their hearts were in the right place, just as I suspect McCain's was (then, on that topic; various statements made since have been disconcerting). It would be nice if the rich bastards didn't play the body politic like a marionette, but this isn't the way to change that. The fact that you didn't lead off with a reference to the Keating Five indicates to me that you don't actually know much about McCain or his career.

kylec 11y ago

We need to somehow classify encryption as an armament, so that it'll be protected by the second amendment.

gnoway 11y ago
We've done that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...
sprawl_ 11y ago
Yep... https://xkcd.com/504/ https://xkcd.com/504/

gnoway 11y ago

"Republicans" Rand Paul is pretty openly pro-encryption. Hillary Clinton is equivocating; I think she's probably anti-encryption. These may be exceptions that prove the rule but I think what we're really seeing is a combination of ignorance, pandering and authoritarianism across the spectrum.

serge2k 11y ago
>Hillary Clinton is equivocating; I think she's probably anti-encryption Damn, we need her on our side as a proven expert in computer security and privacy.
- datashovel 11y ago
  Or maybe try and find non-establishment candidates to run (who are not out of their gourd) and vote for them :)
  - anonymfus 11y ago
    Do you humorously pretend in your comment that you don't know about Bernie Sanders?
    - datashovel 11y ago
      No, just a general comment. My only regret about Bernie is there aren't more people like him running for office. It takes a lot to have a majority in Congress and so IMO we're not close to having enough non-establishment candidates like him to have faith our government will debate civilly and act reasonably.
    - gnoway 11y ago
      Is he really non-establishment? I realize he's an Independent 'Social Democrat' or whatever, but he's been in Washington since 1991. He's pretty well established IMO.
      - 11y ago

dogma1138 11y ago

>Encryption methods are far easier to transport and spread illegally than gun are. I won't go that far, I would say that getting a Gun in the US or even in Europe (especially since the eastern European and Balkan states have joined (officially or unofficially Schengen) is by far easier than setting up your own secure crypto from scratch. This isn't an argument in favor of banning crypto, just a hard simple truth that the number of people that can setup a secure cryptographic system is small, the amount of people that can design them is even smaller, and a single operational mistake can ruin your entire encryption. Don't get me wrong at this moment in time it's "fairly" easy to get off the shelf (FOSS or commercial) encryption software that would prevent law enforcement from accessing the data, and it's possible to implement encryption that would also foil full state level (intelligence agencies, military intelligence etc.) actors from breaking your crypto in any given timely manner at least. But there are quite a few cutting edge attacks already on RSA, AES and other ciphers for key extraction, quite a few cryptographic systems were discovered to have horrific flaws in them, and some commercial solutions also have a backdoor/work reducer in them for lawful (and unlawful) access. That said if you currently eliminate the existing eco-system of "non-backdoored / non-broken" encryption don't expect for it to be easily revived, it will not be that hard to crush existing even FOSS crypto working groups and as time passes and agencies like the NSA can break existing encryption ciphers more easily it will only be harder and harder to build safe crypto without going into new cipher suits, and most cryptographers in the world today work for governments, or are heavily watched. So the dream of having the worlds most prominent math and computer science prodigies raising up to the challenge and building new cryptography in a dusky basement of a Berlin bar is a fairly romantic fantasy. Just look at how hard it was to get decent (for the time) encryption software when the US and most countries treated it as highly regulated commodities, and that was without an intentional crackdown on everyone who writes and distributes such software.

andrewchambers 11y ago
> I would say that getting a Gun in the US or even in Europe (especially since the eastern European and Balkan states have joined (officially or unofficially Schengen) is by far easier than setting up your own secure crypto from scratch. No, it is far easier to download an openbsd cd image from canada than it is to physically carry a gun.

duaneb 11y ago

This kind of insanity isn't along party lines.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

vox_mollis 11y ago

Republicans? Dianne Feinstein, who is supposed to be representing the interests of Silicon Valley, has been beating the anti-encryption drum for some time now. At least McCain's constituency doesn't include the people who are decrying this. DiFi is not only worse and earlier than McCain on this issue, but she's intentionally ignoring the people it is her job to represent. And you cry "Republicans!". Okay.

oberstein 11y ago

Liberals simultaneously believe they can outlaw guns but they can't outlaw drugs. Hypocrisy can be fun to notice in your hated enemy, but sometimes you have to dig into the details of each idea separately without analogies to similar surface level ideas.