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Sort of a bummer that lawmakers don't have a better understanding of encryption in general and what it protects. They'd condemn hackers breaking into phones/acc

Sort of a bummer that lawmakers don't have a better understanding of encryption in general and what it protects. They'd condemn hackers breaking into phones/accounts and stealing important notes/pictures, but turn around and condemn the very technology preventing that from happening to _everybody_ Anybody here want to run for office and be a voice for tech rights?

Aelinsaar 11y ago
I'm not convinced that a lack of understanding isn't borne from a lack of giving a rat's ass to begin with. Why learn about something when your vote and influence are already bought and paid for?
- Domenic_S 11y ago
  > a lack of giving a rat's ass to begin with. Agreed... > your vote and influence are already bought and paid for? Overly cynical. The standard whipping boy for 'buying politicians' is Big Business, and Apple certainly qualifies as that. In fact, this is an affront to essentially every big business in the world with IP to protect.
  - undersuit 11y ago
    And all of those contractors that the NSA and the FBI work with, they are just too poor to even think about lobbying for more work in the shadow of Apple's influence. /s Big business is on both sides of this conflict.
  - gr3yh47 11y ago
    >In fact, this is an affront to essentially every big business in the world with IP to protect. it really isn't, because many of the biggest business want a greater degree of population control, and having access to all of every individuals info is a means to that end.
    - oldmanjay 11y ago
      It seems a bit of a reach to say that government is demanding the tools to build a surveillance state because of unnamed "big business" wanting population control. That seems to only happen in bad sci-fi and Internet comments.
newman314 11y ago
#feelthebern? http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-privacy-and-digital-rights/ http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-privacy-and-digital...
- beeboop 11y ago
  Both Bernie and Hillary have been vague about their stance on having encryption backdoors, almost to the point of implicitly supporting encryption backdoors but not wanting to outright say it. Bernie's message about privacy isn't necessarily incompatible with encryption backdoors, at least not through the lens of political speak and all of its half-truths. disclaimer: bernie supporter, and not a supporter of encryption backdoors
  - redahs 11y ago
    Encryption policy will ultimately be resolved by the legislature and not the president. The only presidential candidate who was on the record as explicitly against encryption backdoors was Rand Paul, but that ship has sailed: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/13/rand-paul-says-he-wont-ban-encryption-if-president/ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/13/rand-paul-sa... > “The head of the FBI came out with this recently. He says, ‘Oh, we’re going to ban encryption.’ And it’s like we want to build a backdoor into Facebook and a backdoor into Apple products,” the presidential hopeful said at the Yahoo Digital Democracy conference this week. “A backdoor means that the government can look at your stuff, look at your information, your conversations. … The problem is, is that the moment you build an opening — and I’m not an expert on coding or anything — but the moment you give a vulnerability to a code that someone can get into your source code, not only can the government, but so can your enemies, so can foreign governments.”
    - beeboop 11y ago
      The issue is that the NSA, FBI, etc are essentially controlled by the President. These groups have and will continue to have extremely creative interpretations of the law, to the point of essentially ignoring it and doing whatever the fuck they want without repercussion. Legislature can pass whatever they want, but three letter orgs will continue to have secret courts, secret laws, and secret operations that operate outside established public law.
mc32 11y ago
It's only a dichotomy if you see it from the angle where data is sacrosanct and its beset on all sides by evil trying to do it in. The better way to approach this issue, long term, is from a legal point of view with an interim state where encryption holds us over. That is the law decides who may or may not own or access a certain type of data with penalties upon tort or criminality. And we develop civil protocols for days governance between people and between people and governments. Like trademark. You could have it so trademark, i.e. authentication, is protected by mathematics, or you can have it protected legally. Personally I don't believe the answer to data theft or surveillance is more mathematics in the form of encryption, but sensible laws regulating data its, use and access with penalties for transgressing. Obviously this would require international cooperation and would be a long way off and in the interim we'd need encryption to protect against unauthorized access until we reach that state of data governance. But ultimately the answer is not "make everything s black hole". We don't protect against thieves by building impenetrable houses, we rely on legal instruments to dissuade burglary.
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  Thieves can't traditionally steal your stuff on a mass scale without you ever knowing about it and then cost effectively use it to economically and psychologically manipulate entire populations. Once someone has your data, you don't know what they're doing with it and neither does the government. Which means they have to be prevented from getting it in the first place, which means encryption and laws that encourage and facilitate encryption.
  - mc32 11y ago
    Then the problem is putting so much meaning to data. Why should my ID (or SSN) have so much value? Why should my medical records have so much value? Medical records have value mainly because it can lead to discrimination, so the solution to that is remove the value of discrimination (job, medical care costs, etc.) based on medical conditions.
    - ethbro 11y ago
donkeyd 11y ago
It might help if one of them gets their personal information leaked because they used unencrypted technology in their private lives. I do suspect this won't have any significant influence since they think the government will prevent the escrow from being hacked. Part of me hopes that there will be a significant data leak from whatever the NSA has stored. Maybe they'd realize that single point of failure sucks.
- digikata 11y ago
  There has been a significant leak of NSA data - that was Snowden. There have been significant leaks of the personal data of most (all?) applicants and holders of security clearances from OPM servers. So government is incapable of setting up systems to secure themselves. If backdoor access is required, it destroys the incentive for private industry to develop improved technology for privacy (is the argument that our technology is better going to sell when a back door is always available for access?). If better private technology were available then the government breaches would have been less likely. If better private technology were available then more commercial breaches would be stopped. We should be careful when the FBI is advocating a capability to help investigate events which occur vanishingly rarely (and for which they have many other tools and avenues) vs the integrity of infrastructure which affects a wide swath of public security. When one looks at the entire balance, requiring a backdoor has a high chance that it would lock us into much less secure state of affairs than if everyone is free to pursue and apply the best privacy/encryption measures possible.
- cvwright 11y ago
  > It might help if one of them gets their personal information leaked because they used unencrypted technology in their private lives This has already happened. An attacker going by the name Guccifer spent several years going around punking high ranking officials and ex-officials. Remember those goofy paintings of GW Bush's that hit the news a few years ago? Those were stolen and posted by Guccifer.

Aelinsaar 11y ago

I'm not convinced that a lack of understanding isn't borne from a lack of giving a rat's ass to begin with. Why learn about something when your vote and influence are already bought and paid for?

Domenic_S 11y ago
> a lack of giving a rat's ass to begin with. Agreed... > your vote and influence are already bought and paid for? Overly cynical. The standard whipping boy for 'buying politicians' is Big Business, and Apple certainly qualifies as that. In fact, this is an affront to essentially every big business in the world with IP to protect.
- undersuit 11y ago
  And all of those contractors that the NSA and the FBI work with, they are just too poor to even think about lobbying for more work in the shadow of Apple's influence. /s Big business is on both sides of this conflict.
- gr3yh47 11y ago
  >In fact, this is an affront to essentially every big business in the world with IP to protect. it really isn't, because many of the biggest business want a greater degree of population control, and having access to all of every individuals info is a means to that end.
  - oldmanjay 11y ago
    It seems a bit of a reach to say that government is demanding the tools to build a surveillance state because of unnamed "big business" wanting population control. That seems to only happen in bad sci-fi and Internet comments.

newman314 11y ago

#feelthebern? http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-privacy-and-digital-rights/ http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-privacy-and-digital...

beeboop 11y ago
Both Bernie and Hillary have been vague about their stance on having encryption backdoors, almost to the point of implicitly supporting encryption backdoors but not wanting to outright say it. Bernie's message about privacy isn't necessarily incompatible with encryption backdoors, at least not through the lens of political speak and all of its half-truths. disclaimer: bernie supporter, and not a supporter of encryption backdoors
- redahs 11y ago
  Encryption policy will ultimately be resolved by the legislature and not the president. The only presidential candidate who was on the record as explicitly against encryption backdoors was Rand Paul, but that ship has sailed: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/13/rand-paul-says-he-wont-ban-encryption-if-president/ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/13/rand-paul-sa... > “The head of the FBI came out with this recently. He says, ‘Oh, we’re going to ban encryption.’ And it’s like we want to build a backdoor into Facebook and a backdoor into Apple products,” the presidential hopeful said at the Yahoo Digital Democracy conference this week. “A backdoor means that the government can look at your stuff, look at your information, your conversations. … The problem is, is that the moment you build an opening — and I’m not an expert on coding or anything — but the moment you give a vulnerability to a code that someone can get into your source code, not only can the government, but so can your enemies, so can foreign governments.”
  - beeboop 11y ago
    The issue is that the NSA, FBI, etc are essentially controlled by the President. These groups have and will continue to have extremely creative interpretations of the law, to the point of essentially ignoring it and doing whatever the fuck they want without repercussion. Legislature can pass whatever they want, but three letter orgs will continue to have secret courts, secret laws, and secret operations that operate outside established public law.

mc32 11y ago

It's only a dichotomy if you see it from the angle where data is sacrosanct and its beset on all sides by evil trying to do it in. The better way to approach this issue, long term, is from a legal point of view with an interim state where encryption holds us over. That is the law decides who may or may not own or access a certain type of data with penalties upon tort or criminality. And we develop civil protocols for days governance between people and between people and governments. Like trademark. You could have it so trademark, i.e. authentication, is protected by mathematics, or you can have it protected legally. Personally I don't believe the answer to data theft or surveillance is more mathematics in the form of encryption, but sensible laws regulating data its, use and access with penalties for transgressing. Obviously this would require international cooperation and would be a long way off and in the interim we'd need encryption to protect against unauthorized access until we reach that state of data governance. But ultimately the answer is not "make everything s black hole". We don't protect against thieves by building impenetrable houses, we rely on legal instruments to dissuade burglary.

AnthonyMouse 11y ago
Thieves can't traditionally steal your stuff on a mass scale without you ever knowing about it and then cost effectively use it to economically and psychologically manipulate entire populations. Once someone has your data, you don't know what they're doing with it and neither does the government. Which means they have to be prevented from getting it in the first place, which means encryption and laws that encourage and facilitate encryption.
- mc32 11y ago
  Then the problem is putting so much meaning to data. Why should my ID (or SSN) have so much value? Why should my medical records have so much value? Medical records have value mainly because it can lead to discrimination, so the solution to that is remove the value of discrimination (job, medical care costs, etc.) based on medical conditions.
  - ethbro 11y ago

donkeyd 11y ago

It might help if one of them gets their personal information leaked because they used unencrypted technology in their private lives. I do suspect this won't have any significant influence since they think the government will prevent the escrow from being hacked. Part of me hopes that there will be a significant data leak from whatever the NSA has stored. Maybe they'd realize that single point of failure sucks.

digikata 11y ago
There has been a significant leak of NSA data - that was Snowden. There have been significant leaks of the personal data of most (all?) applicants and holders of security clearances from OPM servers. So government is incapable of setting up systems to secure themselves. If backdoor access is required, it destroys the incentive for private industry to develop improved technology for privacy (is the argument that our technology is better going to sell when a back door is always available for access?). If better private technology were available then the government breaches would have been less likely. If better private technology were available then more commercial breaches would be stopped. We should be careful when the FBI is advocating a capability to help investigate events which occur vanishingly rarely (and for which they have many other tools and avenues) vs the integrity of infrastructure which affects a wide swath of public security. When one looks at the entire balance, requiring a backdoor has a high chance that it would lock us into much less secure state of affairs than if everyone is free to pursue and apply the best privacy/encryption measures possible.
cvwright 11y ago
> It might help if one of them gets their personal information leaked because they used unencrypted technology in their private lives This has already happened. An attacker going by the name Guccifer spent several years going around punking high ranking officials and ex-officials. Remember those goofy paintings of GW Bush's that hit the news a few years ago? Those were stolen and posted by Guccifer.