4 ms·

Is it just me or does the timing of this story seem a little fishy considering the EARN IT act that US Senators are trying to push through? https://foundation.

Is it just me or does the timing of this story seem a little fishy considering the EARN IT act that US Senators are trying to push through? https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/campaigns/oppose-earn-it-act/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/campaigns/oppose-earn-it-a...

rollulus 6y ago
I'd say the contrary: isn't this a prime example of how law enforcement can work around encryption without weakening encryption in general by law?
- soulofmischief 6y ago
  It's a shaky argument, because ideally these systems would be so secure that they wouldn't be able to have done what they did. They relied on human error and that seems like a bad excuse to penetrate a system.
  - moomin 6y ago
    Yes, but I'm not sure we should be giving up real rights to imagined threats. In practice, what encryption systems do is make it sufficiently inconvenient to steam open our letters that the authorities only do it with motivation. The only real case for some of these proposed laws is "we don't want to employ specialists in this field" not "these systems are uncrackable".
    - red_admiral 6y ago
      Or: we want the full firehose of data, and then we want to employ Machine Learning specialists. ML is apparently magic.
    - treis 6y ago
      The motivation driving these laws is E2E encryption that if implemented correctly are uncrackable. Today, pretty much everything is encrypted but since the provider has the keys they can access the messages. E2E encryption shifts the keys to the user which means that the provider has no access to the content of the message. They are theoretically uncrackable without the user's secret and when it's Apple, Google, Facebook, et.al. implementing the system and not some 2 bit criminal operation it will be uncrackable in practice.
      - moomin 6y ago
        To quote Monty Python "This isn't an argument, this is just contradiction!"
        treis 6y ago
        I don't know what this means.
        moomin 6y ago
        First off, you definitely should watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ But the point is the post just literally contradicted the previous post. There's not a lot of places to go from there.
  - spzb 6y ago
    I'm sure that if a bunch of criminals found a way to make a perfectly secure mobile phone they wouldn't be too bothered with a law that says they're not allowed to do that.
  - gspr 6y ago
    But doesn't that also mean one can plausible defend strong crypto by saying "look how easily police broke into this system's weak crypto, how would you feel if criminals could break into your bank this easily?"
  - nopeNopeNooope 6y ago
    They had the fact they'd broken the system leak to the criminals before they finished their operation. Seems like they can't be trusted with proper secrets, doesn't it?
dylkil 6y ago
exactly my thoughts too
donkeyd 6y ago
Why would the Dutch and French police time the release of this information with a US law proposal?
- draugadrotten 6y ago
  Because that's how global politics and alliances work, sometimes.
  - donkeyd 6y ago
    Sure. Because Trump hasn't completely messed up any form of allegiance the Europe had to the US.
    - h0h0h0h0111 6y ago
      Ultimately Trump is just one (albeit powerful) dude - I imagine intelligence and other agencies have built up relationships over a much longer period
      - donkeyd 6y ago
        Yes, they probably have, relationships based on trust. Using information for political gain is not the type of stuff that allows that trust to continue existing. So for US politicians to both know and abuse this, someone in the US intelligence community would have had to be willing to lose a lot of trust on the EU side by both sharing the intelligence and allowing it to be used for political gain and forcing the EU side to become their political puppet. That doesn't seem reasonable to me, but who knows. If that's what happened though, the US can forget any trust in the near future.
- jacobush 6y ago
  No particular reason I guess, but stranger connections have been made when the US leans on other countries. Sweden violated its constitution and had dawn raids and confiscation of servers performed to satisfy the RIAA.
SmokeyHamster 6y ago
I realize Mozilla has an axe to grind, and perhaps rightly so, but they undermine their argument by not linking to the actual text of the Act. That page is just saying, "Act bad! Signup here to protest!" If the bill is really so bad, then they shouldn't be afraid to let people see for themselves what's in it.

rollulus 6y ago

I'd say the contrary: isn't this a prime example of how law enforcement can work around encryption without weakening encryption in general by law?

soulofmischief 6y ago
It's a shaky argument, because ideally these systems would be so secure that they wouldn't be able to have done what they did. They relied on human error and that seems like a bad excuse to penetrate a system.
- moomin 6y ago
  Yes, but I'm not sure we should be giving up real rights to imagined threats. In practice, what encryption systems do is make it sufficiently inconvenient to steam open our letters that the authorities only do it with motivation. The only real case for some of these proposed laws is "we don't want to employ specialists in this field" not "these systems are uncrackable".
  - red_admiral 6y ago
    Or: we want the full firehose of data, and then we want to employ Machine Learning specialists. ML is apparently magic.
  - treis 6y ago
    The motivation driving these laws is E2E encryption that if implemented correctly are uncrackable. Today, pretty much everything is encrypted but since the provider has the keys they can access the messages. E2E encryption shifts the keys to the user which means that the provider has no access to the content of the message. They are theoretically uncrackable without the user's secret and when it's Apple, Google, Facebook, et.al. implementing the system and not some 2 bit criminal operation it will be uncrackable in practice.
    - moomin 6y ago
      To quote Monty Python "This isn't an argument, this is just contradiction!"
      - treis 6y ago
        I don't know what this means.
        moomin 6y ago
        First off, you definitely should watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ But the point is the post just literally contradicted the previous post. There's not a lot of places to go from there.
- spzb 6y ago
  I'm sure that if a bunch of criminals found a way to make a perfectly secure mobile phone they wouldn't be too bothered with a law that says they're not allowed to do that.
- gspr 6y ago
  But doesn't that also mean one can plausible defend strong crypto by saying "look how easily police broke into this system's weak crypto, how would you feel if criminals could break into your bank this easily?"
- nopeNopeNooope 6y ago
  They had the fact they'd broken the system leak to the criminals before they finished their operation. Seems like they can't be trusted with proper secrets, doesn't it?

dylkil 6y ago

exactly my thoughts too

donkeyd 6y ago

Why would the Dutch and French police time the release of this information with a US law proposal?

draugadrotten 6y ago
Because that's how global politics and alliances work, sometimes.
- donkeyd 6y ago
  Sure. Because Trump hasn't completely messed up any form of allegiance the Europe had to the US.
  - h0h0h0h0111 6y ago
    Ultimately Trump is just one (albeit powerful) dude - I imagine intelligence and other agencies have built up relationships over a much longer period
    - donkeyd 6y ago
      Yes, they probably have, relationships based on trust. Using information for political gain is not the type of stuff that allows that trust to continue existing. So for US politicians to both know and abuse this, someone in the US intelligence community would have had to be willing to lose a lot of trust on the EU side by both sharing the intelligence and allowing it to be used for political gain and forcing the EU side to become their political puppet. That doesn't seem reasonable to me, but who knows. If that's what happened though, the US can forget any trust in the near future.
jacobush 6y ago
No particular reason I guess, but stranger connections have been made when the US leans on other countries. Sweden violated its constitution and had dawn raids and confiscation of servers performed to satisfy the RIAA.

SmokeyHamster 6y ago

I realize Mozilla has an axe to grind, and perhaps rightly so, but they undermine their argument by not linking to the actual text of the Act. That page is just saying, "Act bad! Signup here to protest!" If the bill is really so bad, then they shouldn't be afraid to let people see for themselves what's in it.