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The solution to policies like this is serverless or point-to-point systems. As an application publisher you cannot be held liable or obligated towards that whic

The solution to policies like this is serverless or point-to-point systems. As an application publisher you cannot be held liable or obligated towards that which you do not possess and are, by design, not capable of possessing. As an example consider copyright law and BitTorrent. BitTorrent provides a software application and protocol but not servers or services, so the BitTorrent software is never liable for the copyright violations of content that makes use of its protocol.

EGreg 6y ago
The web browsers and operating systems are our trusted computing base. If those have backdoors all else is moot.
- austincheney 6y ago
  These anti encryption policies are almost always about online services though. Government is generally not so concerned with encryption in the OS because people rarely encrypt their data at rest and even when they do it is still stored data at rest that can be brute forced in time. If you are using a web browser for a typical online service any backdoor is less concerning than simply going straight to the service provider where all things converge. If a web browser is used in a serverless context, just for localhost user interaction, it can rely on other aspects of the OS to transmit data thereby circumventing any browser backdoor.
  - nikitaga 6y ago
    The article says that this bill applies to operating systems just as well. It's doesn't matter what's typical or reasonable, the hostile actors pushing this and the EARN IT act don't care. Let's skip the denial stage. This is not a technical problem, it's a political problem and needs political solutions. Whatever technical solution you come up with will simply be made illegal if anyone but the nerdy 0.0001% will end up using it. We are rushing full speed towards a police state. We have to stop.
    - austincheney 6y ago
      > Whatever technical solution you come up with will simply be made illegal if anyone but the nerdy 0.0001% will end up using it. But that never happened with BitTorrent. Conversely, industry gradually stopped caring about pursuits of IP violators. While this is ultimately a political problem it will only be practiced where it’s enforceable like all other political problems.
      - mratsim 6y ago
        > While this is ultimately a political problem it will only be practiced where it’s enforceable like all other political problems. Building a company in the US becomes an untenable legal and security risk as if you don't backdoor yourself you'll be liable but if you backdoor yourself and competitors or spies or journalists get the keys, I'm pretty sure you can't ask the US government to pay back the financial or PR losses (which is actually something you can do in Switzerland for privacy-related issues)
      - nikitaga 6y ago
        Nobody really uses Bittorrent to undermine the police state. They don't care about your dealings with the media industry as much. And hey, why didn't you say "but that never happened to encryption"? Because it's about to happen in the US? Because it happened in Australia already? You think a government that is seriously considering such bills will "gradually stop caring" about assaulting constitutional protections by banning effective encryption? If you haven't noticed, we're moving in the opposite direction, and not very gradually I might add.
        austincheney 6y ago
        I am not making assumptions either way.
  - michaelmrose 6y ago
    Given usage of reasonably available standards at present you will never gain access to encrypted data at rest inside the probable lifespan of our planet let alone a court case.
    - efreak 6y ago
      Using current technology in the ways we currently use it. Some of the things we take for granted were considered impossible less than a hundred years ago. Logging full packet data for later decryption is already feasible, and that's all it takes if you can watch the wires.
kelnos 6y ago
The solution is to vote out idiots who support things like this, and get the government actually working for its citizens again, not against it. That's hard, and feels damn near impossible sometimes, but it's required. You can't fix social problems with clever technological workarounds.
- mratsim 6y ago
  But clever technological workarounds might expose those idiots for what they are: Clowns trying to "regulate" things they don't understand without seeking expert advices beyond their narrow lobbyists.
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    The most "exposing" you will be able to do is to get them pushing insane laws that criminalize coherent action. AFAIK, that's done already. You won't move further by technical decisions.
- mindslight 6y ago
  Voting has gotten us to a point where half the politicians want to spread a plague, and much of the population believes them. That shouldn't even be a political issue!! Encryption is far far down the list of what is possible to meaningfully express in this system.
- carapace 6y ago
  It's not even hard, people are just complacent. Here in the USA we are literally governed by the folks who show up.
- efreak 6y ago
  The problem with your solution is that the representatives we vote for don't include every combination of sides of every issue. You can vote for the best person regarding internet privacy, but they might have terrible views regarding welfare and transit. Everything is a compromise, it's so unlikely as to be labeled impossible that you'll find a representative who will vote the way you would on everything--and this is disregarding lobbying entirely.

EGreg 6y ago

The web browsers and operating systems are our trusted computing base. If those have backdoors all else is moot.

austincheney 6y ago
These anti encryption policies are almost always about online services though. Government is generally not so concerned with encryption in the OS because people rarely encrypt their data at rest and even when they do it is still stored data at rest that can be brute forced in time. If you are using a web browser for a typical online service any backdoor is less concerning than simply going straight to the service provider where all things converge. If a web browser is used in a serverless context, just for localhost user interaction, it can rely on other aspects of the OS to transmit data thereby circumventing any browser backdoor.
- nikitaga 6y ago
  The article says that this bill applies to operating systems just as well. It's doesn't matter what's typical or reasonable, the hostile actors pushing this and the EARN IT act don't care. Let's skip the denial stage. This is not a technical problem, it's a political problem and needs political solutions. Whatever technical solution you come up with will simply be made illegal if anyone but the nerdy 0.0001% will end up using it. We are rushing full speed towards a police state. We have to stop.
  - austincheney 6y ago
    > Whatever technical solution you come up with will simply be made illegal if anyone but the nerdy 0.0001% will end up using it. But that never happened with BitTorrent. Conversely, industry gradually stopped caring about pursuits of IP violators. While this is ultimately a political problem it will only be practiced where it’s enforceable like all other political problems.
    - mratsim 6y ago
      > While this is ultimately a political problem it will only be practiced where it’s enforceable like all other political problems. Building a company in the US becomes an untenable legal and security risk as if you don't backdoor yourself you'll be liable but if you backdoor yourself and competitors or spies or journalists get the keys, I'm pretty sure you can't ask the US government to pay back the financial or PR losses (which is actually something you can do in Switzerland for privacy-related issues)
    - nikitaga 6y ago
      Nobody really uses Bittorrent to undermine the police state. They don't care about your dealings with the media industry as much. And hey, why didn't you say "but that never happened to encryption"? Because it's about to happen in the US? Because it happened in Australia already? You think a government that is seriously considering such bills will "gradually stop caring" about assaulting constitutional protections by banning effective encryption? If you haven't noticed, we're moving in the opposite direction, and not very gradually I might add.
      - austincheney 6y ago
        I am not making assumptions either way.
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  Given usage of reasonably available standards at present you will never gain access to encrypted data at rest inside the probable lifespan of our planet let alone a court case.
  - efreak 6y ago
    Using current technology in the ways we currently use it. Some of the things we take for granted were considered impossible less than a hundred years ago. Logging full packet data for later decryption is already feasible, and that's all it takes if you can watch the wires.

kelnos 6y ago

The solution is to vote out idiots who support things like this, and get the government actually working for its citizens again, not against it. That's hard, and feels damn near impossible sometimes, but it's required. You can't fix social problems with clever technological workarounds.

mratsim 6y ago
But clever technological workarounds might expose those idiots for what they are: Clowns trying to "regulate" things they don't understand without seeking expert advices beyond their narrow lobbyists.
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  The most "exposing" you will be able to do is to get them pushing insane laws that criminalize coherent action. AFAIK, that's done already. You won't move further by technical decisions.
mindslight 6y ago
Voting has gotten us to a point where half the politicians want to spread a plague, and much of the population believes them. That shouldn't even be a political issue!! Encryption is far far down the list of what is possible to meaningfully express in this system.
carapace 6y ago
It's not even hard, people are just complacent. Here in the USA we are literally governed by the folks who show up.
efreak 6y ago
The problem with your solution is that the representatives we vote for don't include every combination of sides of every issue. You can vote for the best person regarding internet privacy, but they might have terrible views regarding welfare and transit. Everything is a compromise, it's so unlikely as to be labeled impossible that you'll find a representative who will vote the way you would on everything--and this is disregarding lobbying entirely.