10 ms·

FBI to gain expanded hacking powers as Senate effort to block fails

297 points by uptown 10y ago

JumpCrisscross 10y ago
Countdown to an FBI case where someone in their target list using HTTPS justifies wiretapping thousands...
- drvdevd 10y ago
  Right. This is where this sort of vague/overly broad rule gets us.
- rhizome 10y ago
  The NSA is already allowed to collect all foreign and domestic encrypted traffic and store it forever: https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2013/09/13/is-the-nsa-keeping-your-encrypted-traffic-forever/ https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2013/09/13/is-the-nsa-keeping-...
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    >The NSA is already allowed to collect all foreign and domestic encrypted traffic and store it forever Nope. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
    - cryoshon 10y ago
      try to enforce the passage you quoted onto them here is a tip: you will need men with guns to get anywhere
    - rhizome 10y ago
      Sure, I know the 4th Amendment, too. What's your point? Perhaps a better question: how do you establish standing to sue over the retention of your encrypted traffic? What constitutes evidence in that situation?
- tzs 10y ago
  You'll have a long wait, since this change is completely orthogonal to that. The key change is to Rule 41(b), "Authority to Issue a Warrant". It contained a list of 5 circumstances under which a magistrate just can issue a warrant. A 6th is being added: ===={ begin quote (6) a magistrate judge with authority in any district where activities related to a crime may have occurred has authority to issue a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage media and to seize or copy electronically stored information located within or outside that district if: (A) the district where the media or information is located has been concealed through technological means; or (B) in an investigation of a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(5), the media are protected computers that have been damaged without authorization and are located in five or more districts. =====} end quote There is also a change to 41(f)(1)(C), which concerns serving a warrant. The prior version read: ===={ begin quote The officer executing the warrant must give a copy of the warrant and a receipt for the property taken to the person from whom, or from whose premises, the property was taken or leave a copy of the warrant and receipt at the place where the officer took the property. =====} end quote The update adds another sentence to that: ===={ begin quote For a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage media and seize or copy electronically stored information, the officer must make reasonable efforts to serve a copy of the warrant on the person whose property was searched or whose information was seized or copied. Service may be accomplished by any means, including electronic means, reasonably calculated to reach that person. =====} end quote
  - losvedir 10y ago
    > issue a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage media and to seize or copy electronically stored information located within or outside that district if ... the district where the media or information is located has been concealed through technological means Remote access to a computer and they don't know where it is? This basically means a Tor hidden service or something like that?
coldcode 10y ago
Snooper's Charter US version. I wonder if their new found hacking powers will survive a court challenge, or will it only be used in parallel prosecutions so no court ever sees it. Guessing the latter.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  Making it difficult to prove standing is a brilliant workaround to unconstitutionality.
  - 0xcde4c3db 10y ago
    For those who only started following these issues recently, standing arguments have been used for years to dismiss lawsuits against warrantless domestic surveillance. Basically, the court says that you can't sue a government agency for illegally wiretapping you unless you had evidence that they were actually wiretapping you. Which you obviously didn't, because such programs are classified and the wiretapper isn't going to volunteer that information. But since you can't prove that your rights are being violated, you don't get to bring a lawsuit.
    - rhizome 10y ago
      And even if you do know they were wiretapping you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Haramain_Foundation#Al-Haramain_suit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Haramain_Foundation#Al-Hara...
- tzs 10y ago
  > Snooper's Charter US version. That's complete and utter nonsense. The Snooper's Charter grants the UK government many new powers, and places obligations and restrictions on ISPs. It makes substantial substantive changes to the requirements for law enforcement to justify snooping and spying in the UK. The Rule 41 change only applies to warrants seeking to access electronic documents, and makes no changes to what evidence must be presented to justify a warrant. It just changes, in two specific situations, where that evidence can be presented. These situations are: 1. If it cannot be determined where the computer containing the documents is located, and the location has been hidden by technological means, then the warrant can be issued by a judge in any district in which the crime being investigated may have taken place. Under the old rule, the warrant had to be issued by a judge in the district where the computer was located, and so if that location could not be determined then investigators were out of luck. 2. If the crime being investigated is a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and the damaged computer are in five or more districts, then the warrant can be issued in any district where the crime may have occurred. Under the old rule, it had to be issued in the district where the computer was located. This is not even remotely like the Snooper's Charter.
ZoeZoeBee 10y ago
Why does it take legislation by the Senate to block or delay rule changes, giving the FBI authority to remotely access computers in any jurisdiction, seems it should have required legislation to enact the changes in the first place. Unfortunately this will go unnoticed by the public until it is too late
- nickff 10y ago
  The legislative branch has delegated extensive 'policy' and 'rule-making' (arguable legislative) powers to the executive agencies, though vague statements in legislation, and broad interpretations by the courts. The same 'deference' which has allowed HHS to re-sculpt Obamacare on-the-fly is what gives the FBI, CIA, and NSA the authority to pursue these massive surveillance programs. As a result of the tacit support the courts and legislature have given the executive agencies in the past, the legislature is now required to affirmatively act to stop most executive actions. There have been some proposals to require legislation to enact any large change in executive branch rules/policy/interpretations, but there is little support for such measures, as most people do not want to rule back the administrative state, they just want the state to do different things.
siegecraft 10y ago
This is the same rule change that says if you use a VPN or TOR you can legally be hacked by the FBI, yes? I wonder if people who use work VPNs will be exempted since afaik the wording is about services that obscure your location, and most business VPNs aren't concerned with that (especially if they have split routing configured properly).
- existencebox 10y ago
  To be honest the answer seems simple. Get _EVERYONE_ on VPNs, regardless. Even if you don't really use it for much, make it connect automatically via some browser plugin and send some trash random data. As a "data scientist" the most painful thing I have to deal with is data cleaning and data quality. Add to that the difficulty of actually getting into a (hopefully broad) array of VPN providers and tracking every person yelling into the pipe will make their (FBI/NSA) lives very very difficult, and this makes me happy on a rather visceral level.
  - lettergram 10y ago
    That's actually why my group of friends all tag each others faces on Facebook as the other. Rather than not posting our faces, Facebook auto tags me as random people now (most often my wife).
    - owly 10y ago
      Why not completely abandon FB? Build your own personal free network.
      - lawnchair_larry 10y ago
        The network would have one person, challenging the definition of network.
    - petre 10y ago
      That's silly. If they have your wife, your kids, your friends, your sister's cousin's aunt, they have you.
dibeoebe 10y ago
Yet again someone will come here to give an apologia for the government, yet again people will shrug and throw up their hands, yet again people will complain yet do nothing, and next time someone points out how corrupt the government is those same people will argue that the government is good, the government can be trusted... It just goes on and on and the oppressive society will only tighten it's grip on power. What will you do? HN and HN mods are cheerleaders for the government, posts, like this one, are flagged and voted down or never appear in the first place -- oh this throw away green account, its just a troll, no one needs to water their time reading, only a loon doesn't trust the government. All the time we have threads congratulating people for working for the government, for helping Obama care not be a wreck, for modernizing the beaucratic nightmare, help the oplressive government become better and morw efficient, they obviously can be trusted. Everyone here does nothing, snd the few who speak out are silenced. You accept the tyranny before you and laugh at those who resist.
djjeoeje 10y ago
Discussion here is controlled by pro government forces, if you speak out here you've already lost. Case in point, auto dead comment: Yet again someone will come here to give an apologia for the government, yet again people will shrug and throw up their hands, yet again people will complain yet do nothing, and next time someone points out how corrupt the government is those same people will argue that the government is good, the government can be trusted... It just goes on and on and the oppressive society will only tighten it's grip on power. What will you do? HN and HN mods are cheerleaders for the government, posts, like this one, are flagged and voted down or never appear in the first place -- oh this throw away green account, its just a troll, no one needs to water their time reading, only a loon doesn't trust the government. All the time we have threads congratulating people for working for the government, for helping Obama care not be a wreck, for modernizing the beaucratic nightmare, help the oplressive government become better and morw efficient, they obviously can be trusted. Everyone here does nothing, snd the few who speak out are silenced. You accept the tyranny before you and laugh at those who resist.
- TaylorAlexander 10y ago
  I thought that was just me. It has seemed like posts critical of government policy can disappear quickly, but I don't have a comprehensive feel for how posts move on HN so it was only ever a feeling. How can we collect data on the mobility of posts? I've wondered this on Facebook too. Post something about a robot I made and people love it. Post something about US weapons killing children in Yemen and no one reacts or comments. How much of that is the fact that people just don't respond well to those things and how much of that is the algorithm hiding the post for some reason? How can we monitor moderated sites like this? What are the metrics we could collect?
  - Jerry2 10y ago
    I've noticed the exact same thing. Posts critical of gov are either flagged or they drop to page 4 or 5 with 50+ upvotes in an hour. Then there are posts that get into top 10 position with only 4 upvotes in an hour. Weird. Someone is definitely pushing an agenda.
arca_vorago 10y ago
One of the most important stories of the year, on HN for 6 hours, with 11 comments and 105 points. Is everyone already afraid? I always said "I told you so" would ring hollow and have no satisfaction in it, but this is what happens when everyone forgets about our foundational principles and waves injustice away with arguments such as 234dd57d2c8db's. The constitution is the supreme law of the land, created to protect, not establish, natural rights. As such, such general warrants do not properly satisfy the constitutional requirements our country established. Actions like this, are the result of the allowed slippage, from both sides of the isle, as prescribed to them by the shadow masters. We have allowed our true foreign enemies to infiltrate and subvert our system, falsely focus our efforts on foreign boogeymen, all the while our domestic enemies run rampant (often backed, or blackmailed, by foreign ones). The true, the capable, the already somewhat successful enemies of the constitution don't wear hijabs, they wear business suits and ties. This is a turning point for America, where we either cower in fear of the coming totalitarian surveillance dystopia, or we speak up and push back. Silence now will be nothing less than acquiescence. As Hitchens said, the American revolution is the only revolution that still stands a chance.
- roscoebeezie 10y ago
  Queue John Quincy Adams: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/jqadams.htm https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/jqadams.htm
  - orly_bookz 10y ago
    I'd like to summon James Otis, Jr: "I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand and villainy on the other as this Writ of Assistance is." http://www.constitution.org/bor/otis_against_writs.htm http://www.constitution.org/bor/otis_against_writs.htm
- mzw_mzw 10y ago
  > One of the most important stories of the year, on HN for 6 hours, with 11 comments and 105 points. Is everyone already afraid? Or maybe they don't share your opinion about how important or meaningful it is.
uabstraction 10y ago
Well, this combined with the snoopers charter just motivated me to sign up for an EFF membership. It's not much, but it's something. It really feels like we're marching towards a brave new world. They can pry my copy of Applied Cryptography from my cold dead hands.
- techdragon 10y ago
  That book might one day be considered as dangerous as an unregistered firearm... Sadly.
  - unethical_ban 10y ago
    I accidentally downvoted on mobile. I'll fix later. I own many unregistered firearms. Fortunately, that is likely to remain legal for some time.
    - bobwaycott 10y ago
      FYI: you can click the "undown" link on the right after accidentally downvoting.
      - unethical_ban 10y ago
        Not on the android mobile app I have, unfortunately.
    - pjc50 10y ago
      I think it's quite likely that the US will end up with total surveillance of everything except guns. Guns don't threaten the power structure.
      - cmdrfred 10y ago
        Gun homicides are down dramatically[0], yet we hear a constant drum beat from the media about terrorists and mass shooters. Guns absolutely threaten the power structure they will be coming for them soon enough. [0]https://static.ijr.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/guns4.jpg https://static.ijr.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/guns4.jpg
thomaskcr 10y ago
Here is the actual text: https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_41 https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_41 There's nothing wrong with being against this, but this seems like a huge stretch of the words "new" and "hacking" to the point of absurdity. They are already allowed to remotely access this information based on the case that fired this off - the issue wasn't with their methodology but who issued the warrant. The entirety of what this rule changes is it defines special circumstances where it is appropriate for the judges in a district of a victim instead of the perpetrator to issue a warrant to do things that are already allowed. > Under the proposed amendment, however, investigators could not obtain a search warrant merely because a user's location is concealed through technological means. > The proposed amendment does not alter that rule, but instead provides an alternative means of satisfying Rule 41's venue provisions. The rule clearly does not change anything about what is required to get a warrant, and concealment does not lower the bar for getting a warrant. The only thing that changes under this rule is it lays out scenarios where you would not be able to suppress evidence due to improper venue just because the warrant wasn't issued in the district you performed the crime from but instead where the crime actually occurred. I'm not dismissing the concerns of all of those writing about this - just based on the comments and scenarios being laid out in them I think technically knowledgeable people are assuming the words "new" and "hacking" are being used correctly here without even looking into what has actually changed. This also means people are completely unaware of what the government is already allowed to do apparently. If everyone here got their way and this was magically blocked right now, absolutely nothing would change about what the FBI is allowed to do - only what evidence could be challenged if they ask judge A when they should have asked judge B (and can show they couldn't figure out that they were supposed to ask judge B (that's where the technological concealment comes in)).
junto 10y ago
In a perverse way, these kind of restrictive laws starting in the US are good for the rest of the world. Let me explain. Without doubt the concentration of computer science brilliance and investment is centred in the US, specifically in Silicon Valley. These kinds of restrictions on privacy and freedom upon those individuals will drive a kick back, investment and research into secure messaging and communication systems. The encryption horse has already bolted, the proverbial stable door is wide open, and this could trigger the enabled and invested to bridle that horse for the good of mankind. That's my hope anyway.
- benevol 10y ago
  Even end-to-end encryption is of no use as soon as one has a single backdoor into your system. Again, technology alone is never the whole answer. The legal framework must be sane as well.
nullc 10y ago
"We totally weren't trying to hack that vote tallying machine... it used a VPN so we weren't sure of it's location and thought it might have been a foreign system."
mindcrime 10y ago
Time to disband the FBI. And the ATF. Whatever good they do isn't justified by the threat they represent.
throw2016 10y ago
Instead of arbritary abuse of power by a despot we are doing the same only with processes and the law but the effect is the same. Surveillance, secret courts, gag orders, harassment of activists and whisteblowers, no fly lists, militarization of the police, infiltration of dissenters and protest, and dubious relationships with terrorist sponsoring states show things are in a sinister and precarious state. Our media and human right orgs so quick to turn the spotlight on others remain strangely reticent when it comes to self reflection. There is no frenzy and hysteria and no one is raising the bogey of totalitarianism and campaigning for sanctions. Our media won't do its job and our instinctive rush to the moral high ground has lulled us in a sense of complacency. But our moral highground and soft power built over generations is now toast. Every single bit of posturing about human rights by western media, NGOs and government will be met with derision and mockery. It is propaganda. The use of surveillance both in the private and public sector is a 'gift' from our 'freedom loving' technologists. Ignore these naysayers and colloboraters, often found here. They have posed about freedom and liberty for decades only to suck up to authoritarianism given the slightest opportunity. The only thing they can do now is deny it, diminish it or wave it away making HN the single worst place to have a discussion on privacy and surveillance.
zaroth 10y ago
In the Goldman Sachs case I do recall charges being brought in certain states where CFAA laws were more favorable for the prosecution, and those charges being thrown out on appeal because they were brought in the wrong jurisdiction. I don't see how this changes that. This is a procedural change the Surpeme Court already voted in favor of. The title is clickbait from what I can tell. I'm much more concerned with recent erosion of the right to remain silent. Hacking powers are not being expanded. A loophole that has stymied investigations had been closed. Now what we do need is reasonable limits on the scope of allowable warrants to prevent dragnets. The more interesting question is whether the FBI should be allowed to use drive-by malware to infect all visitors of a site, and if so under which very well defined circumstances? What TFA missed is the reason we are worried about this rule change is that it could make dragnets easier to get seemingly valid warrants for. E.g. Even if Hidden Services are not being used, investigator claims it's not 'reasonable' to get warrants for each IP accessing a site and so just infects all visitors with malware to scan the hard drive and local network for some evidence. But that needs to be illegal for more than just the reason of not knowing what jurisdiction to get the warrant in.
bryanrasmussen 10y ago
It wasn't a Senate effort to block, it was a Democratic effort in the Senate. Otherwise the headline nonsensical - hey the whole Senate tried to block but it didn't work?
alexandercrohde 10y ago
>> especially troubling in the hands of an administration of President-elect Trump, a Republican who has "openly said he wants the power to hack his political opponents the same way Russia does." Who exactly are they quoting here, and is there a source? This is damning to trump if it's true, and damning to the authenticity of reuters if it's not.
- amdolan 10y ago
  possibly this[1]? Trump encourages Russia to "find the 30,000 emails that are missing." [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNa2B5zHfbQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNa2B5zHfbQ

297 points by uptown 10y ago

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

Countdown to an FBI case where someone in their target list using HTTPS justifies wiretapping thousands...

drvdevd 10y ago
Right. This is where this sort of vague/overly broad rule gets us.
rhizome 10y ago
The NSA is already allowed to collect all foreign and domestic encrypted traffic and store it forever: https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2013/09/13/is-the-nsa-keeping-your-encrypted-traffic-forever/ https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2013/09/13/is-the-nsa-keeping-...
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  >The NSA is already allowed to collect all foreign and domestic encrypted traffic and store it forever Nope. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
  - cryoshon 10y ago
    try to enforce the passage you quoted onto them here is a tip: you will need men with guns to get anywhere
  - rhizome 10y ago
    Sure, I know the 4th Amendment, too. What's your point? Perhaps a better question: how do you establish standing to sue over the retention of your encrypted traffic? What constitutes evidence in that situation?
tzs 10y ago
You'll have a long wait, since this change is completely orthogonal to that. The key change is to Rule 41(b), "Authority to Issue a Warrant". It contained a list of 5 circumstances under which a magistrate just can issue a warrant. A 6th is being added: ===={ begin quote (6) a magistrate judge with authority in any district where activities related to a crime may have occurred has authority to issue a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage media and to seize or copy electronically stored information located within or outside that district if: (A) the district where the media or information is located has been concealed through technological means; or (B) in an investigation of a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(5), the media are protected computers that have been damaged without authorization and are located in five or more districts. =====} end quote There is also a change to 41(f)(1)(C), which concerns serving a warrant. The prior version read: ===={ begin quote The officer executing the warrant must give a copy of the warrant and a receipt for the property taken to the person from whom, or from whose premises, the property was taken or leave a copy of the warrant and receipt at the place where the officer took the property. =====} end quote The update adds another sentence to that: ===={ begin quote For a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage media and seize or copy electronically stored information, the officer must make reasonable efforts to serve a copy of the warrant on the person whose property was searched or whose information was seized or copied. Service may be accomplished by any means, including electronic means, reasonably calculated to reach that person. =====} end quote
- losvedir 10y ago
  > issue a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage media and to seize or copy electronically stored information located within or outside that district if ... the district where the media or information is located has been concealed through technological means Remote access to a computer and they don't know where it is? This basically means a Tor hidden service or something like that?

coldcode 10y ago

Snooper's Charter US version. I wonder if their new found hacking powers will survive a court challenge, or will it only be used in parallel prosecutions so no court ever sees it. Guessing the latter.

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
Making it difficult to prove standing is a brilliant workaround to unconstitutionality.
- 0xcde4c3db 10y ago
  For those who only started following these issues recently, standing arguments have been used for years to dismiss lawsuits against warrantless domestic surveillance. Basically, the court says that you can't sue a government agency for illegally wiretapping you unless you had evidence that they were actually wiretapping you. Which you obviously didn't, because such programs are classified and the wiretapper isn't going to volunteer that information. But since you can't prove that your rights are being violated, you don't get to bring a lawsuit.
  - rhizome 10y ago
    And even if you do know they were wiretapping you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Haramain_Foundation#Al-Haramain_suit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Haramain_Foundation#Al-Hara...
tzs 10y ago
> Snooper's Charter US version. That's complete and utter nonsense. The Snooper's Charter grants the UK government many new powers, and places obligations and restrictions on ISPs. It makes substantial substantive changes to the requirements for law enforcement to justify snooping and spying in the UK. The Rule 41 change only applies to warrants seeking to access electronic documents, and makes no changes to what evidence must be presented to justify a warrant. It just changes, in two specific situations, where that evidence can be presented. These situations are: 1. If it cannot be determined where the computer containing the documents is located, and the location has been hidden by technological means, then the warrant can be issued by a judge in any district in which the crime being investigated may have taken place. Under the old rule, the warrant had to be issued by a judge in the district where the computer was located, and so if that location could not be determined then investigators were out of luck. 2. If the crime being investigated is a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and the damaged computer are in five or more districts, then the warrant can be issued in any district where the crime may have occurred. Under the old rule, it had to be issued in the district where the computer was located. This is not even remotely like the Snooper's Charter.

ZoeZoeBee 10y ago

Why does it take legislation by the Senate to block or delay rule changes, giving the FBI authority to remotely access computers in any jurisdiction, seems it should have required legislation to enact the changes in the first place. Unfortunately this will go unnoticed by the public until it is too late

nickff 10y ago
The legislative branch has delegated extensive 'policy' and 'rule-making' (arguable legislative) powers to the executive agencies, though vague statements in legislation, and broad interpretations by the courts. The same 'deference' which has allowed HHS to re-sculpt Obamacare on-the-fly is what gives the FBI, CIA, and NSA the authority to pursue these massive surveillance programs. As a result of the tacit support the courts and legislature have given the executive agencies in the past, the legislature is now required to affirmatively act to stop most executive actions. There have been some proposals to require legislation to enact any large change in executive branch rules/policy/interpretations, but there is little support for such measures, as most people do not want to rule back the administrative state, they just want the state to do different things.

siegecraft 10y ago

This is the same rule change that says if you use a VPN or TOR you can legally be hacked by the FBI, yes? I wonder if people who use work VPNs will be exempted since afaik the wording is about services that obscure your location, and most business VPNs aren't concerned with that (especially if they have split routing configured properly).

existencebox 10y ago
To be honest the answer seems simple. Get _EVERYONE_ on VPNs, regardless. Even if you don't really use it for much, make it connect automatically via some browser plugin and send some trash random data. As a "data scientist" the most painful thing I have to deal with is data cleaning and data quality. Add to that the difficulty of actually getting into a (hopefully broad) array of VPN providers and tracking every person yelling into the pipe will make their (FBI/NSA) lives very very difficult, and this makes me happy on a rather visceral level.
- lettergram 10y ago
  That's actually why my group of friends all tag each others faces on Facebook as the other. Rather than not posting our faces, Facebook auto tags me as random people now (most often my wife).
  - owly 10y ago
    Why not completely abandon FB? Build your own personal free network.
    - lawnchair_larry 10y ago
      The network would have one person, challenging the definition of network.
  - petre 10y ago
    That's silly. If they have your wife, your kids, your friends, your sister's cousin's aunt, they have you.

dibeoebe 10y ago

Yet again someone will come here to give an apologia for the government, yet again people will shrug and throw up their hands, yet again people will complain yet do nothing, and next time someone points out how corrupt the government is those same people will argue that the government is good, the government can be trusted... It just goes on and on and the oppressive society will only tighten it's grip on power. What will you do? HN and HN mods are cheerleaders for the government, posts, like this one, are flagged and voted down or never appear in the first place -- oh this throw away green account, its just a troll, no one needs to water their time reading, only a loon doesn't trust the government. All the time we have threads congratulating people for working for the government, for helping Obama care not be a wreck, for modernizing the beaucratic nightmare, help the oplressive government become better and morw efficient, they obviously can be trusted. Everyone here does nothing, snd the few who speak out are silenced. You accept the tyranny before you and laugh at those who resist.

djjeoeje 10y ago

Discussion here is controlled by pro government forces, if you speak out here you've already lost. Case in point, auto dead comment: Yet again someone will come here to give an apologia for the government, yet again people will shrug and throw up their hands, yet again people will complain yet do nothing, and next time someone points out how corrupt the government is those same people will argue that the government is good, the government can be trusted... It just goes on and on and the oppressive society will only tighten it's grip on power. What will you do? HN and HN mods are cheerleaders for the government, posts, like this one, are flagged and voted down or never appear in the first place -- oh this throw away green account, its just a troll, no one needs to water their time reading, only a loon doesn't trust the government. All the time we have threads congratulating people for working for the government, for helping Obama care not be a wreck, for modernizing the beaucratic nightmare, help the oplressive government become better and morw efficient, they obviously can be trusted. Everyone here does nothing, snd the few who speak out are silenced. You accept the tyranny before you and laugh at those who resist.

TaylorAlexander 10y ago
I thought that was just me. It has seemed like posts critical of government policy can disappear quickly, but I don't have a comprehensive feel for how posts move on HN so it was only ever a feeling. How can we collect data on the mobility of posts? I've wondered this on Facebook too. Post something about a robot I made and people love it. Post something about US weapons killing children in Yemen and no one reacts or comments. How much of that is the fact that people just don't respond well to those things and how much of that is the algorithm hiding the post for some reason? How can we monitor moderated sites like this? What are the metrics we could collect?
- Jerry2 10y ago
  I've noticed the exact same thing. Posts critical of gov are either flagged or they drop to page 4 or 5 with 50+ upvotes in an hour. Then there are posts that get into top 10 position with only 4 upvotes in an hour. Weird. Someone is definitely pushing an agenda.

arca_vorago 10y ago

One of the most important stories of the year, on HN for 6 hours, with 11 comments and 105 points. Is everyone already afraid? I always said "I told you so" would ring hollow and have no satisfaction in it, but this is what happens when everyone forgets about our foundational principles and waves injustice away with arguments such as 234dd57d2c8db's. The constitution is the supreme law of the land, created to protect, not establish, natural rights. As such, such general warrants do not properly satisfy the constitutional requirements our country established. Actions like this, are the result of the allowed slippage, from both sides of the isle, as prescribed to them by the shadow masters. We have allowed our true foreign enemies to infiltrate and subvert our system, falsely focus our efforts on foreign boogeymen, all the while our domestic enemies run rampant (often backed, or blackmailed, by foreign ones). The true, the capable, the already somewhat successful enemies of the constitution don't wear hijabs, they wear business suits and ties. This is a turning point for America, where we either cower in fear of the coming totalitarian surveillance dystopia, or we speak up and push back. Silence now will be nothing less than acquiescence. As Hitchens said, the American revolution is the only revolution that still stands a chance.

roscoebeezie 10y ago
Queue John Quincy Adams: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/jqadams.htm https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/jqadams.htm
- orly_bookz 10y ago
  I'd like to summon James Otis, Jr: "I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand and villainy on the other as this Writ of Assistance is." http://www.constitution.org/bor/otis_against_writs.htm http://www.constitution.org/bor/otis_against_writs.htm
mzw_mzw 10y ago
> One of the most important stories of the year, on HN for 6 hours, with 11 comments and 105 points. Is everyone already afraid? Or maybe they don't share your opinion about how important or meaningful it is.

uabstraction 10y ago

Well, this combined with the snoopers charter just motivated me to sign up for an EFF membership. It's not much, but it's something. It really feels like we're marching towards a brave new world. They can pry my copy of Applied Cryptography from my cold dead hands.

techdragon 10y ago
That book might one day be considered as dangerous as an unregistered firearm... Sadly.
- unethical_ban 10y ago
  I accidentally downvoted on mobile. I'll fix later. I own many unregistered firearms. Fortunately, that is likely to remain legal for some time.
  - bobwaycott 10y ago
    FYI: you can click the "undown" link on the right after accidentally downvoting.
    - unethical_ban 10y ago
      Not on the android mobile app I have, unfortunately.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    I think it's quite likely that the US will end up with total surveillance of everything except guns. Guns don't threaten the power structure.
    - cmdrfred 10y ago
      Gun homicides are down dramatically[0], yet we hear a constant drum beat from the media about terrorists and mass shooters. Guns absolutely threaten the power structure they will be coming for them soon enough. [0]https://static.ijr.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/guns4.jpg https://static.ijr.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/guns4.jpg

thomaskcr 10y ago

Here is the actual text: https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_41 https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_41 There's nothing wrong with being against this, but this seems like a huge stretch of the words "new" and "hacking" to the point of absurdity. They are already allowed to remotely access this information based on the case that fired this off - the issue wasn't with their methodology but who issued the warrant. The entirety of what this rule changes is it defines special circumstances where it is appropriate for the judges in a district of a victim instead of the perpetrator to issue a warrant to do things that are already allowed. > Under the proposed amendment, however, investigators could not obtain a search warrant merely because a user's location is concealed through technological means. > The proposed amendment does not alter that rule, but instead provides an alternative means of satisfying Rule 41's venue provisions. The rule clearly does not change anything about what is required to get a warrant, and concealment does not lower the bar for getting a warrant. The only thing that changes under this rule is it lays out scenarios where you would not be able to suppress evidence due to improper venue just because the warrant wasn't issued in the district you performed the crime from but instead where the crime actually occurred. I'm not dismissing the concerns of all of those writing about this - just based on the comments and scenarios being laid out in them I think technically knowledgeable people are assuming the words "new" and "hacking" are being used correctly here without even looking into what has actually changed. This also means people are completely unaware of what the government is already allowed to do apparently. If everyone here got their way and this was magically blocked right now, absolutely nothing would change about what the FBI is allowed to do - only what evidence could be challenged if they ask judge A when they should have asked judge B (and can show they couldn't figure out that they were supposed to ask judge B (that's where the technological concealment comes in)).

junto 10y ago

In a perverse way, these kind of restrictive laws starting in the US are good for the rest of the world. Let me explain. Without doubt the concentration of computer science brilliance and investment is centred in the US, specifically in Silicon Valley. These kinds of restrictions on privacy and freedom upon those individuals will drive a kick back, investment and research into secure messaging and communication systems. The encryption horse has already bolted, the proverbial stable door is wide open, and this could trigger the enabled and invested to bridle that horse for the good of mankind. That's my hope anyway.

benevol 10y ago
Even end-to-end encryption is of no use as soon as one has a single backdoor into your system. Again, technology alone is never the whole answer. The legal framework must be sane as well.

nullc 10y ago

"We totally weren't trying to hack that vote tallying machine... it used a VPN so we weren't sure of it's location and thought it might have been a foreign system."

mindcrime 10y ago

Time to disband the FBI. And the ATF. Whatever good they do isn't justified by the threat they represent.

throw2016 10y ago

Instead of arbritary abuse of power by a despot we are doing the same only with processes and the law but the effect is the same. Surveillance, secret courts, gag orders, harassment of activists and whisteblowers, no fly lists, militarization of the police, infiltration of dissenters and protest, and dubious relationships with terrorist sponsoring states show things are in a sinister and precarious state. Our media and human right orgs so quick to turn the spotlight on others remain strangely reticent when it comes to self reflection. There is no frenzy and hysteria and no one is raising the bogey of totalitarianism and campaigning for sanctions. Our media won't do its job and our instinctive rush to the moral high ground has lulled us in a sense of complacency. But our moral highground and soft power built over generations is now toast. Every single bit of posturing about human rights by western media, NGOs and government will be met with derision and mockery. It is propaganda. The use of surveillance both in the private and public sector is a 'gift' from our 'freedom loving' technologists. Ignore these naysayers and colloboraters, often found here. They have posed about freedom and liberty for decades only to suck up to authoritarianism given the slightest opportunity. The only thing they can do now is deny it, diminish it or wave it away making HN the single worst place to have a discussion on privacy and surveillance.

zaroth 10y ago

In the Goldman Sachs case I do recall charges being brought in certain states where CFAA laws were more favorable for the prosecution, and those charges being thrown out on appeal because they were brought in the wrong jurisdiction. I don't see how this changes that. This is a procedural change the Surpeme Court already voted in favor of. The title is clickbait from what I can tell. I'm much more concerned with recent erosion of the right to remain silent. Hacking powers are not being expanded. A loophole that has stymied investigations had been closed. Now what we do need is reasonable limits on the scope of allowable warrants to prevent dragnets. The more interesting question is whether the FBI should be allowed to use drive-by malware to infect all visitors of a site, and if so under which very well defined circumstances? What TFA missed is the reason we are worried about this rule change is that it could make dragnets easier to get seemingly valid warrants for. E.g. Even if Hidden Services are not being used, investigator claims it's not 'reasonable' to get warrants for each IP accessing a site and so just infects all visitors with malware to scan the hard drive and local network for some evidence. But that needs to be illegal for more than just the reason of not knowing what jurisdiction to get the warrant in.

bryanrasmussen 10y ago

It wasn't a Senate effort to block, it was a Democratic effort in the Senate. Otherwise the headline nonsensical - hey the whole Senate tried to block but it didn't work?

alexandercrohde 10y ago

>> especially troubling in the hands of an administration of President-elect Trump, a Republican who has "openly said he wants the power to hack his political opponents the same way Russia does." Who exactly are they quoting here, and is there a source? This is damning to trump if it's true, and damning to the authenticity of reuters if it's not.

amdolan 10y ago
possibly this[1]? Trump encourages Russia to "find the 30,000 emails that are missing." [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNa2B5zHfbQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNa2B5zHfbQ