7 ms·

Give Congress Time to Debate New Government Hacking Rule

SparkyMcUnicorn 10y ago
Starting Dec 1st, rule 34 will allow the FBI to "search and seize any computer around the world found to be using privacy tools like VPN or Tor." http://www.techworm.net/2016/05/tor-vpn-users-labeled-criminals-hacked-spied-fbi-new-law.html http://www.techworm.net/2016/05/tor-vpn-users-labeled-crimin...
lightbyte 10y ago
>"Neither the Senate nor the House held a hearing or a markup on the relevant committees to evaluate these changes," Coons said. >Wyden countered the defense of the rule change we often hear from law enforcement officials that letting investigators hack into computers around the world is only small, procedural tweak. Both these statements give me very little faith in what our government will do over the next 4-8 years.
- hga 10y ago
  While I doubt it will give us any joy on this issue, Trump's presidency will be a failure unless he successfully takes on the Uniparty establishment that operates, or rather not, like this. I don't think his vanity will allow him to fail without making a really serious and ongoing effort, and those who deny his effectiveness and ability are by and large those who claimed he'd never get win nomination or the election. So, my advise is don't despair quite yet. Heck, perhaps wait until 2018 to see if he doesn't run a campaign against a "Do Nothing Congress" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80th_United_States_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80th_United_States_Congress). Aside from Reince Priebus and that part of the RNC which followed Priebus, he owes the political establishment nothing.
  - vkou 10y ago
    He owes the political establishment nothing, yet his cabinet picks are all dyed-in-the-wool Republican insiders. The claim sounds incompatible with reality.
    - hga 10y ago
      He's picked 3 out of 15, it's a little early to be so confident about your opinion. Or that he'll run a Cabinet based government vs. e.g. something more in the direction of what Obama did. Or that he won't "fire fast" if they don't perform or fulfill whatever promises he made to them, as Chris Christie found out. This is, after all, the guy who won the election because he went through 3 campaign managers, not despite it. And Sessions may be a "dyed-in-the-wool Republican insider", more specifically a de jure member of the establishment, but his positions on immigration put him well outside of the de facto establishment. I'd never even heard of Wilbur Ross before he was picked, he's not a notable "dyed-in-the-wool Republican insider", in fact, being "a trustee of the Brookings Institution" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/11/24/trump-expected-to-tap-billionaire-investor-wilbur-ross-for-commerce-secretary/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/11/24/...) makes him anything but that. Heck, per Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilbur_Ross#Political_activities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilbur_Ross#Political_activiti...): Ross served under U.S. President Bill Clinton on the board of the U.S.-Russia Investment Fund, and later, under New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the Mayor's privatization advisor. In January 1998 he put $2.25 million in seed money into McCaughey Ross's campaign.[citation needed, and I add she is a Republican, but obviously of the NY variety] Although he was an early supporter of Donald J. Trump's presidential campaign, Ross in earlier years was a registered Democrat, served as an officer of the New York State Democratic Party and held fundraisers for Democratic candidates at his apartment in New York City. It is absolutely, totally, and completely wrong to claim he is a "dyed-in-the-wool Republican insider". His Education Secretary pick is a Common Core fan, that's enough for me (as in, not in a good way at all), but see my other comment about the current state of US K-12 public education. On the other hand, she seems best known for pushing private school vouchers (another bad idea, he who pays the piper picks the tune), but that's definitely not a partisan issue, plenty of Democrats are for it.
      - 10y ago
  - tw04 10y ago
    Which cabinet nomination have you heard that gives you a belief that's going to happen? Outside of his "drain the swamp" rhetoric, what specific announcement/pre-announcement has he made to back your claims? So far I've seen all of his cabinet picks going to "establishment" folks, and his supreme court nomination is supposedly going to be based solely on abortion, with no thought whatsoever given to citizen united (you know, the one thing he could actually do to start getting money back out of politics).
    - hga 10y ago
      The exiling of Chris Christie from a position of responsibility in the transition team, and the termination of many (or all?) of his people on the transition team. That was very much a drain the swamp thing. So are the various bans on lobbyists/lobbying for some years after holding a position. Putting Sessions' top dog or thereabouts in operational charge of the transition team. See the next item for why this isn't an establishment pick. Nominating Sessions as AG; his position on immigration alone puts him way outside the establishment. His Education Secretary, not so much or at all, I'll admit. But I'm in the "putting your children in today's public school is child abuse" camp anyway, so.... Picking Steve Bannon as his "Karl Rove". That's very much a sign this is not going to be a business as usual administration, as you can see from the Left's and the establishment's (but I repeat myself) total freak-out over that. Citizens United ended a ban on core political speech, quite literally the government in oral arguments said it could be used to ban books, and it was specifically used to ban a movie about a candidate while she was running for office. Getting "money out of politics" is a pipe dream, but this was about silencing certain segments of the nation, and absent that decision by the Supremes it's hard to see how a civil war wouldn't have resulted sooner or later. That's the sort of thing that happens when you make it impossible for people to participate in the political process, at least, people who aren't going to surrender once that sort of thing happens. TL;DR: don't mess with the Bill of Rights. That overturning Roe v. Wade is a consideration of his picks is hardly "solely"; long ago he published an initial list of suitable candidates, they're not one dimensional. But while we're at it, you're eager to kill a core 1st Amendment political speech right while supporting a right literally conjured from the "penumbras" and "emanations" of other constitutional rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut). I don't see how there can be any meeting of minds between the two of us.
- marricks 10y ago
  Wyden is usually so good on security, depressing to see him defend this rule, is there more to what he said?
  - knd775 10y ago
    He's not defending the rule. I think you've misunderstood that quote.
  - kej 10y ago
    People supporting the rule change are calling it a minor tweak, and Wyden is saying it's "an enormous policy shift." Wyden is still on your side on this one.
    - marricks 10y ago
      Ah good! Happy I misunderstood.
BadApple1981 10y ago
More of the status quo. Just codified.
ramblenode 10y ago
The rule actually makes sense in a vacuum; tying warrants to geographical jurisdictions is a relic of a pre-internet age. The real problem is more fundamental: judge shopping. If the rule change goes ahead as planned, authorities will have an inexhaustible menu of magistrates spanning the whole country to whom they can appeal for a warrant. There needs to be 1) some randomization process for assigning warrant requests to judges, and 2) a way of factoring in any past denials for a warrant in future re-requests.
- 3pt14159 10y ago
  Mostly true. The other issue with this is that with a traditional warrant you know that they are gaining access. You might not be happy with it, they may have even busted down the door on the way in, but whatever damage was done was done once. With this they break in (potentially damaging your systems), they take your data (potentially in ways that could leak it to other parties), store it (potentially insecurely), and even though your operations are compromised you have no idea. Who is on the hook when the FBI leaks your SSH keys after they used a 0day to break into your machine and vacuum up everything on the HD? What if those keys are used to issue a software update that crashes every one of your businesses self driving cars all at once?
  - hga 10y ago
    Note also how poorly the government protects so many of its crown jewels of data. Like those OPM security clearance records. And need I mention Mr. Snowden, or Sidney Blumenthal, who didn't hold any sort of clearance, cutting and pasting NSA GAMMA material? If you can't trust the NSA, who can you trust ^_^?
  - tzs 10y ago
    Aren't those issues already present under the current rule, when a magistrate judge in the district in which the target computer resides issues a warrant to remotely break in to that computer? This rule is just dealing with who can issue a warrant, not with what can be done once a warrant is issued.
- superkuh 10y ago
tzs 10y ago
A much more useful take on this rule change than the EFF's comes from the Center for Democracy and Technology: https://cdt.org/insight/issue-brief-proposed-changes-to-rule-41/ https://cdt.org/insight/issue-brief-proposed-changes-to-rule... Unlike most groups that have written against this rule change, CDT actually proposes modifications to address their concerns that would still let the rule address the problem that it is trying to solve, which is a very real problem.

Starting Dec 1st, rule 34 will allow the FBI to "search and seize any computer around the world found to be using privacy tools like VPN or Tor." http://www.techworm.net/2016/05/tor-vpn-users-labeled-criminals-hacked-spied-fbi-new-law.html http://www.techworm.net/2016/05/tor-vpn-users-labeled-crimin...

lightbyte 10y ago

>"Neither the Senate nor the House held a hearing or a markup on the relevant committees to evaluate these changes," Coons said. >Wyden countered the defense of the rule change we often hear from law enforcement officials that letting investigators hack into computers around the world is only small, procedural tweak. Both these statements give me very little faith in what our government will do over the next 4-8 years.

hga 10y ago
While I doubt it will give us any joy on this issue, Trump's presidency will be a failure unless he successfully takes on the Uniparty establishment that operates, or rather not, like this. I don't think his vanity will allow him to fail without making a really serious and ongoing effort, and those who deny his effectiveness and ability are by and large those who claimed he'd never get win nomination or the election. So, my advise is don't despair quite yet. Heck, perhaps wait until 2018 to see if he doesn't run a campaign against a "Do Nothing Congress" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80th_United_States_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80th_United_States_Congress). Aside from Reince Priebus and that part of the RNC which followed Priebus, he owes the political establishment nothing.
- vkou 10y ago
  He owes the political establishment nothing, yet his cabinet picks are all dyed-in-the-wool Republican insiders. The claim sounds incompatible with reality.
  - hga 10y ago
    He's picked 3 out of 15, it's a little early to be so confident about your opinion. Or that he'll run a Cabinet based government vs. e.g. something more in the direction of what Obama did. Or that he won't "fire fast" if they don't perform or fulfill whatever promises he made to them, as Chris Christie found out. This is, after all, the guy who won the election because he went through 3 campaign managers, not despite it. And Sessions may be a "dyed-in-the-wool Republican insider", more specifically a de jure member of the establishment, but his positions on immigration put him well outside of the de facto establishment. I'd never even heard of Wilbur Ross before he was picked, he's not a notable "dyed-in-the-wool Republican insider", in fact, being "a trustee of the Brookings Institution" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/11/24/trump-expected-to-tap-billionaire-investor-wilbur-ross-for-commerce-secretary/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/11/24/...) makes him anything but that. Heck, per Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilbur_Ross#Political_activities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilbur_Ross#Political_activiti...): Ross served under U.S. President Bill Clinton on the board of the U.S.-Russia Investment Fund, and later, under New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the Mayor's privatization advisor. In January 1998 he put $2.25 million in seed money into McCaughey Ross's campaign.[citation needed, and I add she is a Republican, but obviously of the NY variety] Although he was an early supporter of Donald J. Trump's presidential campaign, Ross in earlier years was a registered Democrat, served as an officer of the New York State Democratic Party and held fundraisers for Democratic candidates at his apartment in New York City. It is absolutely, totally, and completely wrong to claim he is a "dyed-in-the-wool Republican insider". His Education Secretary pick is a Common Core fan, that's enough for me (as in, not in a good way at all), but see my other comment about the current state of US K-12 public education. On the other hand, she seems best known for pushing private school vouchers (another bad idea, he who pays the piper picks the tune), but that's definitely not a partisan issue, plenty of Democrats are for it.
    - 10y ago
- tw04 10y ago
  Which cabinet nomination have you heard that gives you a belief that's going to happen? Outside of his "drain the swamp" rhetoric, what specific announcement/pre-announcement has he made to back your claims? So far I've seen all of his cabinet picks going to "establishment" folks, and his supreme court nomination is supposedly going to be based solely on abortion, with no thought whatsoever given to citizen united (you know, the one thing he could actually do to start getting money back out of politics).
  - hga 10y ago
    The exiling of Chris Christie from a position of responsibility in the transition team, and the termination of many (or all?) of his people on the transition team. That was very much a drain the swamp thing. So are the various bans on lobbyists/lobbying for some years after holding a position. Putting Sessions' top dog or thereabouts in operational charge of the transition team. See the next item for why this isn't an establishment pick. Nominating Sessions as AG; his position on immigration alone puts him way outside the establishment. His Education Secretary, not so much or at all, I'll admit. But I'm in the "putting your children in today's public school is child abuse" camp anyway, so.... Picking Steve Bannon as his "Karl Rove". That's very much a sign this is not going to be a business as usual administration, as you can see from the Left's and the establishment's (but I repeat myself) total freak-out over that. Citizens United ended a ban on core political speech, quite literally the government in oral arguments said it could be used to ban books, and it was specifically used to ban a movie about a candidate while she was running for office. Getting "money out of politics" is a pipe dream, but this was about silencing certain segments of the nation, and absent that decision by the Supremes it's hard to see how a civil war wouldn't have resulted sooner or later. That's the sort of thing that happens when you make it impossible for people to participate in the political process, at least, people who aren't going to surrender once that sort of thing happens. TL;DR: don't mess with the Bill of Rights. That overturning Roe v. Wade is a consideration of his picks is hardly "solely"; long ago he published an initial list of suitable candidates, they're not one dimensional. But while we're at it, you're eager to kill a core 1st Amendment political speech right while supporting a right literally conjured from the "penumbras" and "emanations" of other constitutional rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut). I don't see how there can be any meeting of minds between the two of us.
marricks 10y ago
Wyden is usually so good on security, depressing to see him defend this rule, is there more to what he said?
- knd775 10y ago
  He's not defending the rule. I think you've misunderstood that quote.
- kej 10y ago
  People supporting the rule change are calling it a minor tweak, and Wyden is saying it's "an enormous policy shift." Wyden is still on your side on this one.
  - marricks 10y ago
    Ah good! Happy I misunderstood.

BadApple1981 10y ago

More of the status quo. Just codified.

ramblenode 10y ago

The rule actually makes sense in a vacuum; tying warrants to geographical jurisdictions is a relic of a pre-internet age. The real problem is more fundamental: judge shopping. If the rule change goes ahead as planned, authorities will have an inexhaustible menu of magistrates spanning the whole country to whom they can appeal for a warrant. There needs to be 1) some randomization process for assigning warrant requests to judges, and 2) a way of factoring in any past denials for a warrant in future re-requests.

3pt14159 10y ago
Mostly true. The other issue with this is that with a traditional warrant you know that they are gaining access. You might not be happy with it, they may have even busted down the door on the way in, but whatever damage was done was done once. With this they break in (potentially damaging your systems), they take your data (potentially in ways that could leak it to other parties), store it (potentially insecurely), and even though your operations are compromised you have no idea. Who is on the hook when the FBI leaks your SSH keys after they used a 0day to break into your machine and vacuum up everything on the HD? What if those keys are used to issue a software update that crashes every one of your businesses self driving cars all at once?
- hga 10y ago
  Note also how poorly the government protects so many of its crown jewels of data. Like those OPM security clearance records. And need I mention Mr. Snowden, or Sidney Blumenthal, who didn't hold any sort of clearance, cutting and pasting NSA GAMMA material? If you can't trust the NSA, who can you trust ^_^?
- tzs 10y ago
  Aren't those issues already present under the current rule, when a magistrate judge in the district in which the target computer resides issues a warrant to remotely break in to that computer? This rule is just dealing with who can issue a warrant, not with what can be done once a warrant is issued.
superkuh 10y ago

tzs 10y ago

A much more useful take on this rule change than the EFF's comes from the Center for Democracy and Technology: https://cdt.org/insight/issue-brief-proposed-changes-to-rule-41/ https://cdt.org/insight/issue-brief-proposed-changes-to-rule... Unlike most groups that have written against this rule change, CDT actually proposes modifications to address their concerns that would still let the rule address the problem that it is trying to solve, which is a very real problem.