36 ms·

Earn-IT threatens encryption and therefore user freedom

990 points by lelf 5y ago

car_analogy 5y ago
Have our rights deteriorated so much, that so many words must be expended to justify not wanting to live in a panopticon?
ddaalluu2 5y ago
How would you ever secure a server without encryption? How would "they" (corrupt politicians) ever hide their corruption without encryption. Oh no wait it's of course not them who are abusing it, ever. It's only "them" as in the others that are criminals. It's not like they are not humans, no they are of course better humans who never error, who never steal, who are always honest and straightforward. Never mind NSA and the likes still recording every little data fragment we transmit. That's fair and just, because they're the good guys. They would of course never spy into my sex video chat with my girlfriend. It's the age of struggle of the rulers vs the oppressed. Ideally it wouldn't be like this, but ultimately that's what it is. Less privacy is never the better option. I wonder how we can ... change ... I know: end to end encryption and encryption in general should be a basic human right in the information age. It opens the bigger question, do we need to be ruled at all. I say yes we need rules but do we need oppression, censorship and removal of privacy? Isn't that what all the western propagandists accuse Russia/Putin of, correctly I might add?
spacexsucks 5y ago
Fund EFF, FSF amd ACLU
savant_penguin 5y ago
Every time one of those moronic bills show up I wonder if they know they are making the entire US banking system and online marketplaces vulnerable to Chinese and Russian hacking. And what is that for? Some false promise of security? People who commit real crimes will just use illegal tools and would rather be prosecuted for """illegal use of real encryption""" than for whatever they are doing Meanwhile people who actually need it for legitimate reasons are endangered by this law
escapedmoose 5y ago
I wrote to my representatives on both political sides, and all insisted that it “won’t affect encryption.” Either I don’t understand enough about EARN-IT, or they don’t understand enough about encryption, because that doesn’t make much sense from what I’ve read.
progforlyfe 5y ago
The fact that this kind of idiocy even makes its way to law makers frightens me greatly (whether it passes or not). We're going to be in a world of hurt
charcircuit 5y ago
>Are you "hiding" when you lock the door of your home every day, just because the government is not permitted to enter it without a warrant If this is your reason then I would say you are trying to hide. >Is it "hiding" to seal the envelope of the card you're sending your Valentine? Yes, the point is to keep it a surprise. >helps protect queer youth from intolerant violence (at home and abroad, as in Ghana). E2EE doesn't prevent a parent from taking their phone and seeing their messages. These kids aren't communicating to their friends over their parent's IRC server. Most parents aren't technical and wouldn't even know how to MITM even an unencrypted messaging app. >helping victims out of these relationships by enabling them to contact friends for help Again most people don't know how to MITM this traffic. Especially if you are using mobile data. Even in regard to whistleblowers they only need anonymity. They want to do the opposite of hiding their messages. They want the opposite. For as many people as possible to see their messages.
- happytoexplain 5y ago
  They are comparing to the word "hide" in the context authorities use it, e.g. "nothing to hide". They are not drawing comparisons using the word generically, and they make this explicit. Your two assertions seem to ignore this (i.e. it seems like you're "playing word games").
  - charcircuit 5y ago
    At least with locking your door because you are afraid the government is going to break in to your house without a warrant is the same. If someone is doing this either they have done something illegal, e.g. "have something to hide", or they are have a mental issue where they have problems with trust and are overly paranoid.
    - _bfhp 5y ago
      What is an example of a right that you think people should have (by law), which constrains the government in some way?
gjsman-1000 5y ago
I don’t feel the FSF’s statement benefits the movement against this bill as much as the EFF or ACLU or Fight for the Future statements. The FSF is stuck in the 80s on everything - whether it be dealing with Stallman or specifying acceptable ways to load firmware, and has failed to accomplish almost anything since GPLv3 in 2006. And after recent events, I’d almost consider dismissing them from involvement in the movement.
- mjevans 5y ago
  EFF https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/02/its-back-senators-want-earn-it-bill-scan-all-online-messages https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/02/its-back-senators-want... ACLU https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-afp-comment-earn-it-act-reintroduction https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-afp-comment-earn-it...
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  I don't think you understand or appreciate the work that FSF does and the comment about Stallman is irrelevant in this regards. I don't see you advocating for MIT to be closed down.
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    Since 2006, what have they accomplished? Bug fixes, sure. They managed to alienate a bunch of people from gcc, which was fun. Their anti-DRM campaign is over a decade old and is running on fumes with no accomplishments. This is the same organization that when Windows 8 came out, they protested outside Microsoft stores and handed out copies of GNU Trisquel - an OS with only FOSS code back in 2012, which to this day runs on very few systems and likely caused everyone who got copies to look on open source as a buggy flop and actively undermined the cause. I could go on.
    - encryptluks2 5y ago
      Yes, we should all give up and just adopt Microsoft Linux cause clearly whatever company is able to buy adoption is the best choice.
r283492 5y ago
The government arguments against encryption are so ridiculous, but we need articulate explanations like this to help refute them. They remind me of things like: if you don't vote to ban driving, you must want children to die. After all, driving a leading cause of death among children.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  It's gotten to the point that children or terrorists being mentioned at any point makes me automatically reject any argument. Children in particular are the perfect political weapon. It's political suicide to challenge any claims because you end up looking like a pedophile.
vitiral 5y ago
I feel like they missed the primary point which is that E2E encryption is the primary thing protecting everyone from hackers/criminals/other-governments. Without it the criminals WILL have access to your systems and data and then you can basically say goodbye to anything being valuable at all. Locking your door at night is a poor metaphor. A criminal can literally infiltrate and search through every unsecured computer connected to the internet in a matter of minutes and using almost no resources and with little risk. This drastically diverges from physical assets. Making encryption illegal will ensure that only criminals use it, thus making only criminals safe online.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  That and I think it is pretty safe to say that the reasons most constitutions specifically prohibit governments to access these kind of private correspondance are quite obvious too.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
  I am starting to wonder if this bill is why CNN published an article on FB allowing some violence posts, but not others riling up people like me, who likes rules applied consistently and without favoritism.
- boredumb 5y ago
  "Making encryption illegal will ensure that only criminals use it, thus making only criminals safe online." Uptown NYC has a tragically similar problem with fire arms.
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    "Making dealing drugs illegal will ensure that only criminals can profit off dealing drugs, thus making only criminals rich." We can play this game all day with many forms of abolition for any good or service that has a relatively inelastic demand and/or is impossible to effectively enforce.
    - CrazyPyroLinux 5y ago
2143 5y ago
I'm not even a US/UK/EU citizen. Is there any way I can contribute? Or do I just sit and watch the world burn as policymakers elsewhere indirectly make policies that might inadvertently affect people far far away as well?
- skoskie 5y ago
  On behalf of one of those countries, I’m sorry.
  - 2143 5y ago
    Ah don't be it's not your fault.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  There are groups that are trying to counter it that you can donate to and/or work with. The media, including social media, likes "This person from ____ is worried about how ____ will impact Americans and the rest of the world" narratives, if you feel like writing or reaching out to journalists that report on these topics.
- beej71 5y ago
  Donate to the EFF: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/congress-must-stop-graham-blumenthal-anti-security-bill https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/congress-must-stop-gra...
  - buck4roo 5y ago
    EFF really failed to connect the dots here. I don't see how, from a plain reading of the bill's text, one can argue what their letter claims. Can someone connect these dots?
  - 2143 5y ago
    I'm just worried that in the rare event that I travel to the west will somebody be like "Well, here's the foreigner who funded to sabotage what our government wanted! Go away!" and get myself banned from entering <Western-country>. Off-topic: Happy to see your reply here, Beej. I love the books you have authored :)
userbinator 5y ago
Devil's advocate: encryption is also what's stopping users with locked-down devices (increasingly common and hard to avoid) from having freedom to run and/or modify the software they use. It's a tough situation. Encryption can be used for good or bad (and even the definition of what's "good" or "bad" encryption varies depending on who you ask). Unfortunately, I see it increasingly being used to oppress users, in the form of DRM and other "security" features. Perhaps classifying encryption as munitions makes the most sense, if you support 2A rights. On the other hand, it's just maths. Maths which anyone can theoretically do. I don't know if there is a good solution to this problem.
- Sniffnoy 5y ago
  What does any of this have to do with the EARN-IT act? This all appears to be just claims about possible uses of encryption with no particular relation to the subject of the article. If these other uses of encryption you're discussing wouldn't be affected by the EARN-IT act, then they aren't relevant here.
  - userbinator 5y ago
    I'm saying that "the war on encryption" isn't all one-sided.
    - Sniffnoy 5y ago
      The article is about the EARN-IT act specifically. If your points only relate to the war on encryption in general, and not the EARN-IT act specifically, then they do not bear on the article.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  I'd imagine that companies would get licenses to use encryption in limited and restricted circumstances, such as for DRM or basic system security. The user won't be able to use strong encryption, but only backdoored or weak encryption to keep the average attacker out.
pico303 5y ago
I don’t understand why folks don’t just point out any back doors in these services will be abused or hacked eventually. Do our leaders want their own personal correspondence—-to their big donors, bankers, brokers, interns, mistresses, drug dealers, coup instigators—-available to the FBI or the media too?
- inkeddeveloper 5y ago
  At this point, they don’t care. Plenty of politicians have had criminal investigations and have had zero consequences. Hell, one man won a reelection while he was in jail. Matt Gaetz is still walking around free even.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Leaders are "special". These bans are for people like us, not for them. I'm sure everyone in the government will be using effective encryption. They just don't want the masses using it against them because then it's subversive.
- roscoebeezie 5y ago
  It’s entirely possible I don’t understand how technology works, but I don’t understand how some sort of government encryption backdoor of various protocols would work. Software, devices, protocols etc are not just used in a single country. They are used worldwide. If a backdoor needs to be supported for a several dozen governments, each with various levels of security practices, there’s no way it stays secret for long. It’s only a matter of time before a country or state like Georgia gets it’s old poorly configured IT infrastructure hacked and the attackers now have access to some backdoor keys. How do governments revoke old keys and create new ones across all applicable devices? It’d be pretty hard to do that without going to companies and saying “fix” or “get me that” with some type of warrant or court order. That is kinda like what we have now which is mostly limited user information located in the cloud somewhere. I think the larger issue is that there is a coordinated push to get complete government access to everything. This is happening at a time where dystopian surveillance is not only quickly becoming possible, but also profitable. The government has the right to pretty much everything legally, but the potential for misuse in situations where the government gets access everything is really high. The ability for citizens to combat that misuse is reduced the more government gets. This is my understanding of things. Let me know how I’m wrong.
galoisscobi 5y ago
Wrote to Dianne Feinstein of CA about being against Earn-IT act and got a letter back about how Earn IT act would prevent child sexual abuse material online. Sigh. As disappointed as I was in the response, I'm glad that EFF makes it really easy to reach out to reps. Took me less than a minute to send out my stance against the Earn IT act to my representatives https://act.eff.org/action/stop-the-earn-it-act-to-save-our-privacy https://act.eff.org/action/stop-the-earn-it-act-to-save-our-....
- ddaalluu2 5y ago
  Ah yes the old child abuse argument, because it would never happen without crypto. We only have how many 1000 years of proof otherwise. The thing is mothers really believe that. When I told a friend's wife that there should be no regulation on what people can post online she replied with "even child abuse". And I was caught unprepared. Of course I don't want children or any other people to be abused but outlawing crypto is not the solution to that problem. Of course I'm aware that you're aware.
- clsec 5y ago
  Yep, I wanted to blow my top when she sent me the same response. We really need to get rid of Feinstein!
- jimhefferon 5y ago
  Yes, I had the same experience with Patrick Leahey. Usually he is pretty reasonable, but here completely he (or his office) missed the mark.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > Wrote to Dianne Feinstein of CA about being against Earn-IT act and got a letter back about how Earn IT act would prevent child sexual abuse material online. Sigh. This is a decades-old response, along with terrorists, drug dealers, and organized crime: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp... Of course if people are willing to do one illegal activity (CP), what's to stop them from doing a second illegal activity (strong crypto) to protect themselves against detection of the first activity? We've been here before: if the US (or any other jurisdiction) limits strong crypto, it will simply be offshored: * https://wiki.debian.org/non-US https://wiki.debian.org/non-US If you're older than ~40 and were on the Internet in the 1990s, this probably isn't your first rodeo: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars
noisy_boy 5y ago
I have said this before: this is a losing battle for individuals striving to protect the freedom, if we just try to do it individually. People bringing this get paid to do this during office time (and maybe after office time too by lobbyists) so they will keep at this; my protests require me to do it by taking time out of the limited time I have left after office. Fight fire with fire, fund EFF so that we have our own well stocked army. To be clear, I'm not trivialising or belittling the impact of individual effort, just that it takes too much to be sustainable. And yes, individual and organized efforts are not mutually exclusive.
- nidble 5y ago
  Also EFF has always been among the charities available in Humble Bundle.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
  Thanks for reminding. Sent 0.026 btc to EFF.
noone1954 5y ago
Throw away account (does not do much good with modern AI and ML). But here goes. I am a US citizen (never left the country) and I always vote Republican. Down-vote away! The FBI came to my house in October 2021. Two special agents (one of which I knew from prior IT Security engagements) and a 'Threat Assessment' Police Officer from the local police department. They asked me if I was an Islamic extremist/terrorist. I am not. I am not religious at all. I am an IT security practitioner and amateur cryptographer. I once used Tor for remote network security assessments and to maintain my privacy. I ran Tor hidden services (as experiments) and posted code showing best practices on how to do this without revealing the clear-net IP address. I no longer do this. I believe that is one reason I was targeted. I have written one-time pad software and other cryptographic tools that may be used to evade IP/Cellular network meta-data analysis and tracking. I believe this is another reason I was targeted. The agents told me that I was considered a threat and an extremist because someone had used my home network to search for Islamic extremist videos. I have not done this. And, to my knowledge, none of my family members have done this either. I am not sure why this happened. I may never know. But I do know that true end to end encryption is critical to maintaining our security and privacy (assuming end devices are not compromised already). That is a big assumption IMPO. Now, I also encourage people to not use Tor. I feel it is backed-doored and mostly controlled by Nation State actors to identify 'interesting' subjects via meta-data analysis alone. That's my story. I hope you all do well.
- mint2 5y ago
  Why was your political affiliation relevant to that story? Peppering that non-sequitur in might mean you’re more focused on politics as teams than is warranted or justified.
- ttybird2 5y ago
  Is this you? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29399051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29399051
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mjevans 5y ago
xhrpost 5y ago
Where can I find more detailed information on how Earn-IT changes encryption law? I just skimmed the Wikipedia article but it doesn't seem to insist that this act changes encryption law. Just that "best practices" that would provide "guidance" to sites might include backdoors. I'm all for encryption rights, but if I'm going to call my congressional rep, I want to know what I'm talking about, and the FSF link really doesn't explain what's going on.
- wmf 5y ago
  The bill is written in an intentionally obtuse way so that they can say they're not banning anything; they're just giving "requirements". But the only way to meet the bill's requirements is to eliminate E2EE.
  - buck4roo 5y ago
    This comment is written in an intentionally "hand wavey" way so that they can say nothing substantive about the proposed bill text, but maintain an air of alarmism.
- c1ccccc1 5y ago
  The act says that a commission will be formed, and describes how members of the commission should be chosen. The commission chooses what the exact best practices will be. Full bill here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/3538 https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/353...
ghoward 5y ago
I've written my senators, and I encourage everyone to do the same. Also, I have a website that you can point politicians to: https://everyoneneedsencryption.gavinhoward.com/ https://everyoneneedsencryption.gavinhoward.com/ . Suggestions welcome on how to improve that site.
olliej 5y ago
It's even better when you say: hey remember those videos of Russian police stopping people and demanding that they get to search peoples messages? If EARN IT had passed then the Russian government could just remotely search everyone's message history. The arguments about "only legal" access fail miserably. (This is before we consider the copious examples of illegal searches by the US government)
mattl 5y ago
akomtu 5y ago
I've just read Orwell's 1984 (finally). There is an episode there: "Winston covered his face with his hands. 'Smith! Prisoner 6079!' yelled the telescreen, 'Uncover your face! No faces covered in the cells!" The Big Brother wants to see expressions on your face at all times, and encryption lets you cover it when you have ungood thoughts.
IncRnd 5y ago
This particular article (not the subject) looked suspicious to me, since I didn't see it contain a link to the EARN-IT bill. I respect that it was created by the FSF, but they really should link to the bill's text. The bill's text is here. [1] I don't think it does anything that is stated in the article. It's stated purpose is to create a commission that will create recommendations that nobody will have to follow. It actually says that. Then, in Section 5, (7)(A) it explicitly says that it won't affect end-to-end encryption - it says that companies won't need to stop using E2EE and there won't be any liability created for using E2EE. In general, I am against regulation, but this bill doesn't do what the article claims it will do. Yes, it is absolutely politicking, but it doesn't seem to do much of anything outside of wasting time and resources. [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/3538/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/353...
- alibero 5y ago
  The part of the bill that mentions E2EE (Section 5) is an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934, namely the famous Section 230 which contains: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." So the EARN-IT act would seem to me to modify Section 230 to not apply in cases of child sexual exploitation law, importantly "any charge in a criminal prosecution brought against a provider of an interactive computer service under State law regarding the advertisement, promotion, presentation, distribution, or solicitation of child sexual abuse material". However despite this amendment, using E2EE would not "serve as an independent basis for liability of a provider", whatever that means. This seems more notable to me than the whole "creating a committee to create best practices" sections but I could be misreading or misinterpreting the bill honestly, I'm no expert.
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    In this case, your quote is only one third of the content. You are not quoting the first sentence or the last part, which is why the quote doesn't make sense. Your quote should read the following, where I've italicized the two parts you left out, "NO EFFECT ON CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION LAW.—Nothing in this section (other than subsection (c)(2)(A)) shall be construed to impair or limit— any charge in a criminal prosecution brought against a provider of an interactive computer service under State law regarding the advertisement, promotion, presentation, distribution, or solicitation of child sexual abuse material, as defined in section 2256(8) of title 18, United States Code;"
jinseokim 5y ago
Look Russia and see what happens. They are actively monitoring and censoring 140M citizens. Fortunately Russians are using Signal/Telegram[1] to avoid those censorship. This is not a tradeoff between just privacy and child safety. This is the matter of freedom and democracy. [1]: I would say Telegram is available option for privacy but Telegram has pretty much possibility to be attacked than Signal...
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
Why don't those congresspersons start with setting up public web cameras in their offices and allow public access to all their emails and conversation recordings?
sycren 5y ago
Could it be suggested that banning end-to-end encryption may put citizens, businesses,institutions & infrastructure at risk from hostile nations (Russia in this instance), who may seek this as a potential attack vector? Therefore we position EARN-IT as a national security threat over individual privacy.
laerus 5y ago
Lawmakers losing touch with reality day by day. Technology has left these old crooks in the last century and they can't cope with things they don't even understand.
- DethNinja 5y ago
  Have you ever considered the following possibility: Perhaps Lawmakers belong a different class than you and that they are fully aware of what they are doing. Perhaps they actually want to rule over you by removing your rights one by one.
qwerty456127 5y ago
It's not even necessary to emphasize on user freedom. The safety aspect is more important to emphasize. Unencrypted or weakly encrypted communication is a severe threat to every (even very lawful and perfectly conventional) user safety and even national security. Limiting encryption is a gravely mistake for any nation in the modern word context. Only incompetent or malevolent policymakers can lobby it. Sure, universal right for strong encryption has its downsides but the opposite is not possible to afford anymore.
asimpletune 5y ago
Banning encryption is basically banning certain maths. In a way, it's an affront on free speech, because it is explicitly saying speech must be done in a way that can always be eavesdropped. An analogy I use to explain to people who don't have a technical background is, "Imagine if we made it law that every pen ever made was required to be chained to a special clipboard that makes a carbon copy of whatever the pen writes." Even when explained like that, it's clear how such a system could be bypassed and would only harm innocent users, but even worse is just how ridiculous it all seems, since this would all be because we can't subpoena a pen. Hopefully it's made clear that despite the subpoena being lawful, it simply doesn't make sense, and attaching this fictitious clipboard doesn't really help make it make more sense, since it seems even more ridiculous once it's made clear that you can't subpoena a pen. It's no difference than saying you can't subpoena math, and that's OK. I hope as we progress technologically, every day users will understand encryption to the point where they can form their own analogies as to what a ban on encryption would even imply.
- morebortplates 5y ago
  >Banning encryption is basically banning certain maths. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number
- anonporridge 5y ago
  Another analogy I like, is that it's akin to banning people from inventing new languages that nobody else understands. It's like adults banning a form of piglatin their kids made up just because they can't decipher what the kids are saying to each other. Cryptography is just a special kind of speech/language that is theoretically impossible to understand without the consensual invitation of the speakers.
- DarkCrusader2 5y ago
  Similar analogy would be, anything you say to anyone should be recorded, which can be subpoenaed. EDIT: What happens when I send someone an email in a made-up language which only we both know?
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
How many protests are in the form of e.g. bank and payment information? I mean if the argument for breaking encryption is terrorists, then the argument against it would be criminals stealing your banking info.
zivkovicp 5y ago
Just enjoy what little online freedom you have while it's here. It doesn't matter if this bill passes or not, the fact that 99% of the general population just don't think about or care about this sort of thing means that we will eventually lose this war. Politicians also don't know a damn thing about it, but the incentives are very strong for them to insert more gov. into everyone's life, so that is what will inevitably happen. Sorry about being the party pooper, especially on a Friday, so just enjoy your PGP, E2E encryption, Tor, Btc, etc. while you still can (the more you do, the better our chances of keeping them for longer).
loup-vaillant 5y ago
I keep thinking that if encryption was an actual weapon, and keys actual ammunitions¹, they would be much easier to defend than they actually are. Funny that: cryptography is relatively harmless, making it all the more immoral to restrict it. But that same harmlessness make it that much harder to defend. I mean, just try to take away nukes from a nuclear capable nation, or guns from a Texan village. Maybe you can, but the costs of doing so tend to give pause. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...
nonrandomstring 5y ago
The difference between hackers and our enemies is that we value reason, logic and consistency whereas the political classes deal in emotion, and expedient affect (truth and consistency are irrelevant). Trump and Putin use the same play-book, and other leaders are learning from them [1] Many comments here declare voting as irrelevant and ineffectual. This leaves a sense of learned helplessness in challenging dangerous political forces. But hackers seem to be overlooking important ideas that we should know better about. Voting may not work on the individual level, but it works at scale, and we are really good at scaling things. Emotion is a much more powerful tool than reason, and influence is really just social engineering at scale. We are good at social engineering. Modern propaganda is as much technical craft as a creative one. We are great at both. The British Saatchi campaign is a flop, almost a laughable example of how disconnected from people they really are. What makes information war interesting is that highly polished short documentaries and video clips are not expensive or difficult to produce. The EFF already tried their hand with "The Corruptibles", which I think was very promising. The EFF are wasting their time writing blog posts that preach to the choir and only a handful of regular readers will see. I know because that's what I do, and as a writer I am realising that I speak almost entirely to those whose minds don't need changing. What's needed is a fight with the politicians on their own ground with funny, viral, highly emotive, slickly produced influence materials that show how ridiculous any attack on E2E technologies really is at this time in history. I think the EFF could better use their resources this way. [1] read about Vladislav Surkov and the tactics of discombobulation.
ultim8k 5y ago
I will still use strong open source encryption. I don't give a crap about laws other than the laws of physics. For me, I don't need a law to tell me how to be a good and ethical person. I know it already.
alfiedotwtf 5y ago
How is the banning encryption NOT a First Amendment issue like it used to be in the 90s? I can't see a US court preventing free speech, so why prevent someone digital free speech?
StreamBright 5y ago
Step1: Ban naming legislation. The number 1 reason why people go along with these is naming. Patriot Act, Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies, etc.
Archelaos 5y ago
How serious should we really take such initiatives? Since the 1990s, the topic has popped up regularly, but apparently by people with little technical expertise or economic imagination. Regardless of how less these people value free speech, any state with a market economy, i.e. in which economic activities are based on the initiatives of its citizens, must protect the secrecy of communications between its citizens simply for economic reasons. Otherwise, the country's economy would be fundamentally exposed to foreign powers, putting national security at the highest risk: financial transactions could be more easily manipulated, trade secretes more easily stolen, etc.
usrbinbash 5y ago
Everytime someone invokes an argument how taking something away by law prevents some form of crime, my answer is a simple fact: Criminals, by definition, don't follow the law. Now, in some cases, that isn't a problem: Guns are an obvious example, because they take resources and knowledge to manufacture, and are physical objects that can be tracked. Taking these away by law works. But encryption isn't a physical object or something that needs to be manufactured. It's math and algorithms. It can be copied infinitely. So, if the law takes that away, law abiding people will no longer have access to the benefits, while criminals will just ... well, as criminals by definition do, ignore the law, and still use encryption.
- shabier 5y ago
  Spot on. Criminals will not be affected by these new laws. Perhaps this one is just a precursor of another law
- rhn_mk1 5y ago
  That's oversimplifying it. Banning encryption is a form of censorship (because words don't need to be manufactured), and censorship, as far, as I can tell, does have an effect. For example, criminals who abuse children to produce pornography aren't going to follow laws against having child pornography. Does it follow that laws against the posession of child pornography have no effect in curbing abuse? I think they do. Being seen with child pornography is a huge red flag indicating that you might be an abuser. Plus, the demand is lower. I see no reason this couldn't apply to encryption too.
  - usrbinbash 5y ago
    Difference: There are perfectly legal reasons to generate encrypted traffic; All payment processing (ATMs, credit cards, online shops) generate encrypted traffic. Sending legal documents, technical data, company internals, contracts, etc. generated encrypted traffic. Sending sensible personal information like medical, indurance or financial records generates encrypted traffic. Most of these cannot be sent unencrypted, without breaking fundamental processes in our society. And there simply is no reliable way to differentiate between encryption used for legal or illegal reasons.
nathias 5y ago
I have a feeling in 10 years I will be a criminal in the whole anglosphere.

990 points by lelf 5y ago

Have our rights deteriorated so much, that so many words must be expended to justify not wanting to live in a panopticon?

ddaalluu2 5y ago

How would you ever secure a server without encryption? How would "they" (corrupt politicians) ever hide their corruption without encryption. Oh no wait it's of course not them who are abusing it, ever. It's only "them" as in the others that are criminals. It's not like they are not humans, no they are of course better humans who never error, who never steal, who are always honest and straightforward. Never mind NSA and the likes still recording every little data fragment we transmit. That's fair and just, because they're the good guys. They would of course never spy into my sex video chat with my girlfriend. It's the age of struggle of the rulers vs the oppressed. Ideally it wouldn't be like this, but ultimately that's what it is. Less privacy is never the better option. I wonder how we can ... change ... I know: end to end encryption and encryption in general should be a basic human right in the information age. It opens the bigger question, do we need to be ruled at all. I say yes we need rules but do we need oppression, censorship and removal of privacy? Isn't that what all the western propagandists accuse Russia/Putin of, correctly I might add?

spacexsucks 5y ago

Fund EFF, FSF amd ACLU

savant_penguin 5y ago

Every time one of those moronic bills show up I wonder if they know they are making the entire US banking system and online marketplaces vulnerable to Chinese and Russian hacking. And what is that for? Some false promise of security? People who commit real crimes will just use illegal tools and would rather be prosecuted for """illegal use of real encryption""" than for whatever they are doing Meanwhile people who actually need it for legitimate reasons are endangered by this law

escapedmoose 5y ago

I wrote to my representatives on both political sides, and all insisted that it “won’t affect encryption.” Either I don’t understand enough about EARN-IT, or they don’t understand enough about encryption, because that doesn’t make much sense from what I’ve read.

progforlyfe 5y ago

The fact that this kind of idiocy even makes its way to law makers frightens me greatly (whether it passes or not). We're going to be in a world of hurt

charcircuit 5y ago

>Are you "hiding" when you lock the door of your home every day, just because the government is not permitted to enter it without a warrant If this is your reason then I would say you are trying to hide. >Is it "hiding" to seal the envelope of the card you're sending your Valentine? Yes, the point is to keep it a surprise. >helps protect queer youth from intolerant violence (at home and abroad, as in Ghana). E2EE doesn't prevent a parent from taking their phone and seeing their messages. These kids aren't communicating to their friends over their parent's IRC server. Most parents aren't technical and wouldn't even know how to MITM even an unencrypted messaging app. >helping victims out of these relationships by enabling them to contact friends for help Again most people don't know how to MITM this traffic. Especially if you are using mobile data. Even in regard to whistleblowers they only need anonymity. They want to do the opposite of hiding their messages. They want the opposite. For as many people as possible to see their messages.

happytoexplain 5y ago
They are comparing to the word "hide" in the context authorities use it, e.g. "nothing to hide". They are not drawing comparisons using the word generically, and they make this explicit. Your two assertions seem to ignore this (i.e. it seems like you're "playing word games").
- charcircuit 5y ago
  At least with locking your door because you are afraid the government is going to break in to your house without a warrant is the same. If someone is doing this either they have done something illegal, e.g. "have something to hide", or they are have a mental issue where they have problems with trust and are overly paranoid.
  - _bfhp 5y ago
    What is an example of a right that you think people should have (by law), which constrains the government in some way?

gjsman-1000 5y ago

I don’t feel the FSF’s statement benefits the movement against this bill as much as the EFF or ACLU or Fight for the Future statements. The FSF is stuck in the 80s on everything - whether it be dealing with Stallman or specifying acceptable ways to load firmware, and has failed to accomplish almost anything since GPLv3 in 2006. And after recent events, I’d almost consider dismissing them from involvement in the movement.

mjevans 5y ago
EFF https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/02/its-back-senators-want-earn-it-bill-scan-all-online-messages https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/02/its-back-senators-want... ACLU https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-afp-comment-earn-it-act-reintroduction https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-afp-comment-earn-it...
encryptluks2 5y ago
I don't think you understand or appreciate the work that FSF does and the comment about Stallman is irrelevant in this regards. I don't see you advocating for MIT to be closed down.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Since 2006, what have they accomplished? Bug fixes, sure. They managed to alienate a bunch of people from gcc, which was fun. Their anti-DRM campaign is over a decade old and is running on fumes with no accomplishments. This is the same organization that when Windows 8 came out, they protested outside Microsoft stores and handed out copies of GNU Trisquel - an OS with only FOSS code back in 2012, which to this day runs on very few systems and likely caused everyone who got copies to look on open source as a buggy flop and actively undermined the cause. I could go on.
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    Yes, we should all give up and just adopt Microsoft Linux cause clearly whatever company is able to buy adoption is the best choice.

r283492 5y ago

The government arguments against encryption are so ridiculous, but we need articulate explanations like this to help refute them. They remind me of things like: if you don't vote to ban driving, you must want children to die. After all, driving a leading cause of death among children.

matheusmoreira 5y ago
It's gotten to the point that children or terrorists being mentioned at any point makes me automatically reject any argument. Children in particular are the perfect political weapon. It's political suicide to challenge any claims because you end up looking like a pedophile.

vitiral 5y ago

I feel like they missed the primary point which is that E2E encryption is the primary thing protecting everyone from hackers/criminals/other-governments. Without it the criminals WILL have access to your systems and data and then you can basically say goodbye to anything being valuable at all. Locking your door at night is a poor metaphor. A criminal can literally infiltrate and search through every unsecured computer connected to the internet in a matter of minutes and using almost no resources and with little risk. This drastically diverges from physical assets. Making encryption illegal will ensure that only criminals use it, thus making only criminals safe online.

raxxorrax 5y ago
That and I think it is pretty safe to say that the reasons most constitutions specifically prohibit governments to access these kind of private correspondance are quite obvious too.
A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
I am starting to wonder if this bill is why CNN published an article on FB allowing some violence posts, but not others riling up people like me, who likes rules applied consistently and without favoritism.
boredumb 5y ago
"Making encryption illegal will ensure that only criminals use it, thus making only criminals safe online." Uptown NYC has a tragically similar problem with fire arms.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  "Making dealing drugs illegal will ensure that only criminals can profit off dealing drugs, thus making only criminals rich." We can play this game all day with many forms of abolition for any good or service that has a relatively inelastic demand and/or is impossible to effectively enforce.
  - CrazyPyroLinux 5y ago

2143 5y ago

I'm not even a US/UK/EU citizen. Is there any way I can contribute? Or do I just sit and watch the world burn as policymakers elsewhere indirectly make policies that might inadvertently affect people far far away as well?

skoskie 5y ago
On behalf of one of those countries, I’m sorry.
- 2143 5y ago
  Ah don't be it's not your fault.
heavyset_go 5y ago
There are groups that are trying to counter it that you can donate to and/or work with. The media, including social media, likes "This person from ____ is worried about how ____ will impact Americans and the rest of the world" narratives, if you feel like writing or reaching out to journalists that report on these topics.
beej71 5y ago
Donate to the EFF: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/congress-must-stop-graham-blumenthal-anti-security-bill https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/congress-must-stop-gra...
- buck4roo 5y ago
  EFF really failed to connect the dots here. I don't see how, from a plain reading of the bill's text, one can argue what their letter claims. Can someone connect these dots?
- 2143 5y ago
  I'm just worried that in the rare event that I travel to the west will somebody be like "Well, here's the foreigner who funded to sabotage what our government wanted! Go away!" and get myself banned from entering <Western-country>. Off-topic: Happy to see your reply here, Beej. I love the books you have authored :)

userbinator 5y ago

Devil's advocate: encryption is also what's stopping users with locked-down devices (increasingly common and hard to avoid) from having freedom to run and/or modify the software they use. It's a tough situation. Encryption can be used for good or bad (and even the definition of what's "good" or "bad" encryption varies depending on who you ask). Unfortunately, I see it increasingly being used to oppress users, in the form of DRM and other "security" features. Perhaps classifying encryption as munitions makes the most sense, if you support 2A rights. On the other hand, it's just maths. Maths which anyone can theoretically do. I don't know if there is a good solution to this problem.

Sniffnoy 5y ago
What does any of this have to do with the EARN-IT act? This all appears to be just claims about possible uses of encryption with no particular relation to the subject of the article. If these other uses of encryption you're discussing wouldn't be affected by the EARN-IT act, then they aren't relevant here.
- userbinator 5y ago
  I'm saying that "the war on encryption" isn't all one-sided.
  - Sniffnoy 5y ago
    The article is about the EARN-IT act specifically. If your points only relate to the war on encryption in general, and not the EARN-IT act specifically, then they do not bear on the article.
deleted 5y ago
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heavyset_go 5y ago
I'd imagine that companies would get licenses to use encryption in limited and restricted circumstances, such as for DRM or basic system security. The user won't be able to use strong encryption, but only backdoored or weak encryption to keep the average attacker out.

pico303 5y ago

I don’t understand why folks don’t just point out any back doors in these services will be abused or hacked eventually. Do our leaders want their own personal correspondence—-to their big donors, bankers, brokers, interns, mistresses, drug dealers, coup instigators—-available to the FBI or the media too?

inkeddeveloper 5y ago
At this point, they don’t care. Plenty of politicians have had criminal investigations and have had zero consequences. Hell, one man won a reelection while he was in jail. Matt Gaetz is still walking around free even.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
Leaders are "special". These bans are for people like us, not for them. I'm sure everyone in the government will be using effective encryption. They just don't want the masses using it against them because then it's subversive.
roscoebeezie 5y ago
It’s entirely possible I don’t understand how technology works, but I don’t understand how some sort of government encryption backdoor of various protocols would work. Software, devices, protocols etc are not just used in a single country. They are used worldwide. If a backdoor needs to be supported for a several dozen governments, each with various levels of security practices, there’s no way it stays secret for long. It’s only a matter of time before a country or state like Georgia gets it’s old poorly configured IT infrastructure hacked and the attackers now have access to some backdoor keys. How do governments revoke old keys and create new ones across all applicable devices? It’d be pretty hard to do that without going to companies and saying “fix” or “get me that” with some type of warrant or court order. That is kinda like what we have now which is mostly limited user information located in the cloud somewhere. I think the larger issue is that there is a coordinated push to get complete government access to everything. This is happening at a time where dystopian surveillance is not only quickly becoming possible, but also profitable. The government has the right to pretty much everything legally, but the potential for misuse in situations where the government gets access everything is really high. The ability for citizens to combat that misuse is reduced the more government gets. This is my understanding of things. Let me know how I’m wrong.

galoisscobi 5y ago

Wrote to Dianne Feinstein of CA about being against Earn-IT act and got a letter back about how Earn IT act would prevent child sexual abuse material online. Sigh. As disappointed as I was in the response, I'm glad that EFF makes it really easy to reach out to reps. Took me less than a minute to send out my stance against the Earn IT act to my representatives https://act.eff.org/action/stop-the-earn-it-act-to-save-our-privacy https://act.eff.org/action/stop-the-earn-it-act-to-save-our-....

ddaalluu2 5y ago
Ah yes the old child abuse argument, because it would never happen without crypto. We only have how many 1000 years of proof otherwise. The thing is mothers really believe that. When I told a friend's wife that there should be no regulation on what people can post online she replied with "even child abuse". And I was caught unprepared. Of course I don't want children or any other people to be abused but outlawing crypto is not the solution to that problem. Of course I'm aware that you're aware.
clsec 5y ago
Yep, I wanted to blow my top when she sent me the same response. We really need to get rid of Feinstein!
jimhefferon 5y ago
Yes, I had the same experience with Patrick Leahey. Usually he is pretty reasonable, but here completely he (or his office) missed the mark.
throw0101a 5y ago
> Wrote to Dianne Feinstein of CA about being against Earn-IT act and got a letter back about how Earn IT act would prevent child sexual abuse material online. Sigh. This is a decades-old response, along with terrorists, drug dealers, and organized crime: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp... Of course if people are willing to do one illegal activity (CP), what's to stop them from doing a second illegal activity (strong crypto) to protect themselves against detection of the first activity? We've been here before: if the US (or any other jurisdiction) limits strong crypto, it will simply be offshored: * https://wiki.debian.org/non-US https://wiki.debian.org/non-US If you're older than ~40 and were on the Internet in the 1990s, this probably isn't your first rodeo: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars

noisy_boy 5y ago

I have said this before: this is a losing battle for individuals striving to protect the freedom, if we just try to do it individually. People bringing this get paid to do this during office time (and maybe after office time too by lobbyists) so they will keep at this; my protests require me to do it by taking time out of the limited time I have left after office. Fight fire with fire, fund EFF so that we have our own well stocked army. To be clear, I'm not trivialising or belittling the impact of individual effort, just that it takes too much to be sustainable. And yes, individual and organized efforts are not mutually exclusive.

nidble 5y ago
Also EFF has always been among the charities available in Humble Bundle.
deleted 5y ago
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EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
Thanks for reminding. Sent 0.026 btc to EFF.

noone1954 5y ago

Throw away account (does not do much good with modern AI and ML). But here goes. I am a US citizen (never left the country) and I always vote Republican. Down-vote away! The FBI came to my house in October 2021. Two special agents (one of which I knew from prior IT Security engagements) and a 'Threat Assessment' Police Officer from the local police department. They asked me if I was an Islamic extremist/terrorist. I am not. I am not religious at all. I am an IT security practitioner and amateur cryptographer. I once used Tor for remote network security assessments and to maintain my privacy. I ran Tor hidden services (as experiments) and posted code showing best practices on how to do this without revealing the clear-net IP address. I no longer do this. I believe that is one reason I was targeted. I have written one-time pad software and other cryptographic tools that may be used to evade IP/Cellular network meta-data analysis and tracking. I believe this is another reason I was targeted. The agents told me that I was considered a threat and an extremist because someone had used my home network to search for Islamic extremist videos. I have not done this. And, to my knowledge, none of my family members have done this either. I am not sure why this happened. I may never know. But I do know that true end to end encryption is critical to maintaining our security and privacy (assuming end devices are not compromised already). That is a big assumption IMPO. Now, I also encourage people to not use Tor. I feel it is backed-doored and mostly controlled by Nation State actors to identify 'interesting' subjects via meta-data analysis alone. That's my story. I hope you all do well.

mint2 5y ago
Why was your political affiliation relevant to that story? Peppering that non-sequitur in might mean you’re more focused on politics as teams than is warranted or justified.
ttybird2 5y ago
Is this you? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29399051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29399051
deleted 5y ago
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mjevans 5y ago

xhrpost 5y ago

Where can I find more detailed information on how Earn-IT changes encryption law? I just skimmed the Wikipedia article but it doesn't seem to insist that this act changes encryption law. Just that "best practices" that would provide "guidance" to sites might include backdoors. I'm all for encryption rights, but if I'm going to call my congressional rep, I want to know what I'm talking about, and the FSF link really doesn't explain what's going on.

wmf 5y ago
The bill is written in an intentionally obtuse way so that they can say they're not banning anything; they're just giving "requirements". But the only way to meet the bill's requirements is to eliminate E2EE.
- buck4roo 5y ago
  This comment is written in an intentionally "hand wavey" way so that they can say nothing substantive about the proposed bill text, but maintain an air of alarmism.
c1ccccc1 5y ago
The act says that a commission will be formed, and describes how members of the commission should be chosen. The commission chooses what the exact best practices will be. Full bill here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/3538 https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/353...

ghoward 5y ago

I've written my senators, and I encourage everyone to do the same. Also, I have a website that you can point politicians to: https://everyoneneedsencryption.gavinhoward.com/ https://everyoneneedsencryption.gavinhoward.com/ . Suggestions welcome on how to improve that site.

olliej 5y ago

It's even better when you say: hey remember those videos of Russian police stopping people and demanding that they get to search peoples messages? If EARN IT had passed then the Russian government could just remotely search everyone's message history. The arguments about "only legal" access fail miserably. (This is before we consider the copious examples of illegal searches by the US government)

mattl 5y ago

akomtu 5y ago

I've just read Orwell's 1984 (finally). There is an episode there: "Winston covered his face with his hands. 'Smith! Prisoner 6079!' yelled the telescreen, 'Uncover your face! No faces covered in the cells!" The Big Brother wants to see expressions on your face at all times, and encryption lets you cover it when you have ungood thoughts.

IncRnd 5y ago

This particular article (not the subject) looked suspicious to me, since I didn't see it contain a link to the EARN-IT bill. I respect that it was created by the FSF, but they really should link to the bill's text. The bill's text is here. [1] I don't think it does anything that is stated in the article. It's stated purpose is to create a commission that will create recommendations that nobody will have to follow. It actually says that. Then, in Section 5, (7)(A) it explicitly says that it won't affect end-to-end encryption - it says that companies won't need to stop using E2EE and there won't be any liability created for using E2EE. In general, I am against regulation, but this bill doesn't do what the article claims it will do. Yes, it is absolutely politicking, but it doesn't seem to do much of anything outside of wasting time and resources. [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/3538/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/353...

alibero 5y ago
The part of the bill that mentions E2EE (Section 5) is an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934, namely the famous Section 230 which contains: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." So the EARN-IT act would seem to me to modify Section 230 to not apply in cases of child sexual exploitation law, importantly "any charge in a criminal prosecution brought against a provider of an interactive computer service under State law regarding the advertisement, promotion, presentation, distribution, or solicitation of child sexual abuse material". However despite this amendment, using E2EE would not "serve as an independent basis for liability of a provider", whatever that means. This seems more notable to me than the whole "creating a committee to create best practices" sections but I could be misreading or misinterpreting the bill honestly, I'm no expert.
- IncRnd 5y ago
  In this case, your quote is only one third of the content. You are not quoting the first sentence or the last part, which is why the quote doesn't make sense. Your quote should read the following, where I've italicized the two parts you left out, "NO EFFECT ON CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION LAW.—Nothing in this section (other than subsection (c)(2)(A)) shall be construed to impair or limit— any charge in a criminal prosecution brought against a provider of an interactive computer service under State law regarding the advertisement, promotion, presentation, distribution, or solicitation of child sexual abuse material, as defined in section 2256(8) of title 18, United States Code;"

jinseokim 5y ago

Look Russia and see what happens. They are actively monitoring and censoring 140M citizens. Fortunately Russians are using Signal/Telegram[1] to avoid those censorship. This is not a tradeoff between just privacy and child safety. This is the matter of freedom and democracy. [1]: I would say Telegram is available option for privacy but Telegram has pretty much possibility to be attacked than Signal...

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago

Why don't those congresspersons start with setting up public web cameras in their offices and allow public access to all their emails and conversation recordings?

sycren 5y ago

Could it be suggested that banning end-to-end encryption may put citizens, businesses,institutions & infrastructure at risk from hostile nations (Russia in this instance), who may seek this as a potential attack vector? Therefore we position EARN-IT as a national security threat over individual privacy.

laerus 5y ago

Lawmakers losing touch with reality day by day. Technology has left these old crooks in the last century and they can't cope with things they don't even understand.

DethNinja 5y ago
Have you ever considered the following possibility: Perhaps Lawmakers belong a different class than you and that they are fully aware of what they are doing. Perhaps they actually want to rule over you by removing your rights one by one.

qwerty456127 5y ago

It's not even necessary to emphasize on user freedom. The safety aspect is more important to emphasize. Unencrypted or weakly encrypted communication is a severe threat to every (even very lawful and perfectly conventional) user safety and even national security. Limiting encryption is a gravely mistake for any nation in the modern word context. Only incompetent or malevolent policymakers can lobby it. Sure, universal right for strong encryption has its downsides but the opposite is not possible to afford anymore.

asimpletune 5y ago

Banning encryption is basically banning certain maths. In a way, it's an affront on free speech, because it is explicitly saying speech must be done in a way that can always be eavesdropped. An analogy I use to explain to people who don't have a technical background is, "Imagine if we made it law that every pen ever made was required to be chained to a special clipboard that makes a carbon copy of whatever the pen writes." Even when explained like that, it's clear how such a system could be bypassed and would only harm innocent users, but even worse is just how ridiculous it all seems, since this would all be because we can't subpoena a pen. Hopefully it's made clear that despite the subpoena being lawful, it simply doesn't make sense, and attaching this fictitious clipboard doesn't really help make it make more sense, since it seems even more ridiculous once it's made clear that you can't subpoena a pen. It's no difference than saying you can't subpoena math, and that's OK. I hope as we progress technologically, every day users will understand encryption to the point where they can form their own analogies as to what a ban on encryption would even imply.

morebortplates 5y ago
>Banning encryption is basically banning certain maths. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number
anonporridge 5y ago
Another analogy I like, is that it's akin to banning people from inventing new languages that nobody else understands. It's like adults banning a form of piglatin their kids made up just because they can't decipher what the kids are saying to each other. Cryptography is just a special kind of speech/language that is theoretically impossible to understand without the consensual invitation of the speakers.
DarkCrusader2 5y ago
Similar analogy would be, anything you say to anyone should be recorded, which can be subpoenaed. EDIT: What happens when I send someone an email in a made-up language which only we both know?

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

How many protests are in the form of e.g. bank and payment information? I mean if the argument for breaking encryption is terrorists, then the argument against it would be criminals stealing your banking info.

zivkovicp 5y ago

Just enjoy what little online freedom you have while it's here. It doesn't matter if this bill passes or not, the fact that 99% of the general population just don't think about or care about this sort of thing means that we will eventually lose this war. Politicians also don't know a damn thing about it, but the incentives are very strong for them to insert more gov. into everyone's life, so that is what will inevitably happen. Sorry about being the party pooper, especially on a Friday, so just enjoy your PGP, E2E encryption, Tor, Btc, etc. while you still can (the more you do, the better our chances of keeping them for longer).

loup-vaillant 5y ago

I keep thinking that if encryption was an actual weapon, and keys actual ammunitions¹, they would be much easier to defend than they actually are. Funny that: cryptography is relatively harmless, making it all the more immoral to restrict it. But that same harmlessness make it that much harder to defend. I mean, just try to take away nukes from a nuclear capable nation, or guns from a Texan village. Maybe you can, but the costs of doing so tend to give pause. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...

nonrandomstring 5y ago

The difference between hackers and our enemies is that we value reason, logic and consistency whereas the political classes deal in emotion, and expedient affect (truth and consistency are irrelevant). Trump and Putin use the same play-book, and other leaders are learning from them [1] Many comments here declare voting as irrelevant and ineffectual. This leaves a sense of learned helplessness in challenging dangerous political forces. But hackers seem to be overlooking important ideas that we should know better about. Voting may not work on the individual level, but it works at scale, and we are really good at scaling things. Emotion is a much more powerful tool than reason, and influence is really just social engineering at scale. We are good at social engineering. Modern propaganda is as much technical craft as a creative one. We are great at both. The British Saatchi campaign is a flop, almost a laughable example of how disconnected from people they really are. What makes information war interesting is that highly polished short documentaries and video clips are not expensive or difficult to produce. The EFF already tried their hand with "The Corruptibles", which I think was very promising. The EFF are wasting their time writing blog posts that preach to the choir and only a handful of regular readers will see. I know because that's what I do, and as a writer I am realising that I speak almost entirely to those whose minds don't need changing. What's needed is a fight with the politicians on their own ground with funny, viral, highly emotive, slickly produced influence materials that show how ridiculous any attack on E2E technologies really is at this time in history. I think the EFF could better use their resources this way. [1] read about Vladislav Surkov and the tactics of discombobulation.

ultim8k 5y ago

I will still use strong open source encryption. I don't give a crap about laws other than the laws of physics. For me, I don't need a law to tell me how to be a good and ethical person. I know it already.

alfiedotwtf 5y ago

How is the banning encryption NOT a First Amendment issue like it used to be in the 90s? I can't see a US court preventing free speech, so why prevent someone digital free speech?

StreamBright 5y ago

Step1: Ban naming legislation. The number 1 reason why people go along with these is naming. Patriot Act, Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies, etc.

Archelaos 5y ago

How serious should we really take such initiatives? Since the 1990s, the topic has popped up regularly, but apparently by people with little technical expertise or economic imagination. Regardless of how less these people value free speech, any state with a market economy, i.e. in which economic activities are based on the initiatives of its citizens, must protect the secrecy of communications between its citizens simply for economic reasons. Otherwise, the country's economy would be fundamentally exposed to foreign powers, putting national security at the highest risk: financial transactions could be more easily manipulated, trade secretes more easily stolen, etc.

usrbinbash 5y ago

Everytime someone invokes an argument how taking something away by law prevents some form of crime, my answer is a simple fact: Criminals, by definition, don't follow the law. Now, in some cases, that isn't a problem: Guns are an obvious example, because they take resources and knowledge to manufacture, and are physical objects that can be tracked. Taking these away by law works. But encryption isn't a physical object or something that needs to be manufactured. It's math and algorithms. It can be copied infinitely. So, if the law takes that away, law abiding people will no longer have access to the benefits, while criminals will just ... well, as criminals by definition do, ignore the law, and still use encryption.

shabier 5y ago
Spot on. Criminals will not be affected by these new laws. Perhaps this one is just a precursor of another law
rhn_mk1 5y ago
That's oversimplifying it. Banning encryption is a form of censorship (because words don't need to be manufactured), and censorship, as far, as I can tell, does have an effect. For example, criminals who abuse children to produce pornography aren't going to follow laws against having child pornography. Does it follow that laws against the posession of child pornography have no effect in curbing abuse? I think they do. Being seen with child pornography is a huge red flag indicating that you might be an abuser. Plus, the demand is lower. I see no reason this couldn't apply to encryption too.
- usrbinbash 5y ago
  Difference: There are perfectly legal reasons to generate encrypted traffic; All payment processing (ATMs, credit cards, online shops) generate encrypted traffic. Sending legal documents, technical data, company internals, contracts, etc. generated encrypted traffic. Sending sensible personal information like medical, indurance or financial records generates encrypted traffic. Most of these cannot be sent unencrypted, without breaking fundamental processes in our society. And there simply is no reliable way to differentiate between encryption used for legal or illegal reasons.

nathias 5y ago

I have a feeling in 10 years I will be a criminal in the whole anglosphere.