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"US Senator says AT&T, Verizon blocking release of Salt Typhoon security assessment reports" A US senator is using it for political grandstanding. She is an in

"US Senator says AT&T, Verizon blocking release of Salt Typhoon security assessment reports" A US senator is using it for political grandstanding. She is an ineffective twit with no power and no principles, no right under law to receive what she demanded, and she made sure to run to the press with it "see! look, I'm a principled, powerful senator holding those evil corporations feet to the fire!" The problem is that the vulnerability exploited by salt typhoon is a systemic flaw implemented at the demand of Cantwell and other of our legislative morons. You cannot have an "only the good guys" backdoor. That doesn't work. People are bad, and stupid, and fallible. You can't make policy or exceptions that depend on people being good, and smart, and infallible. She's using the inevitable consequence of a system she helped create for her own political benefit. She voted for the backdoor back in 94 against the strenuous and principled objections by people who actually know what they're talking about. Bobblehead talking points should not serve as the basis for technical policy and governance, but here we are.

Spivak 8mo ago
You can tell this whole thing will be a nothingburger on the government side because the only thing she can actually do is pull in some CEOs to (not) answer questions and receive a congressional tsk tsk.
- plagiarist 8mo ago
  The country is such a dumpster fire. Fucking congressional hearings. The best case scenario is a little video clip that legislators can use to campaign with. Each election period they have to take a break from eroding citizens' rights catering to lobbyists. The video clips help them pretend they were doing something other than insider trading while in the seat.
- observationist 8mo ago
  It's not even a strongly worded letter, lol. Senators and congress people should have to wear shock collars, and on majority polling get hourly "feedback" from their constituency, and for senators, weekly national feedback. The convention of states project seems like it might be the only way out - there's a shot at implementing term limits, clearing up some of the money in politics issues, no risk of a runaway convention, etc, and we can bypass the people deliberately fouling up the system.
charcircuit 8mo ago
>You cannot have an "only the good guys" backdoor. So what? If I store a document in a private Google doc. I know that technically a Google employee could read it if they really wanted to, but the policies, security, and culture in place make it have a 0% of happening. It's possible to design proper access systems where random people are not able to come in and utilize that access.
- observationist 8mo ago
  So you think there's no Google employees with privileged access gooning on private images, stalking, selling access, disrupting individuals, etc? Schmidt notoriously had a backdoor, and I'd be far more shocked if executives did not have backdoor access and know all the workarounds and conditions in which they have unaccountable, admin visibility into any data they might want to access. These are human beings, not diligent, intrepid champions of moral clarity with pristine principles.
  - happyopossum 8mo ago
    Google employees with access? Yes. Google employees without audited and multiple levels of approval? No. I can tell you there are not. Any Eng at Google can read the entire codebase for gdrive, if there were backdoors it would become public knowledge very quickly.
  - the-rc 8mo ago
    What's this notorious backdoor?
- bigyabai 8mo ago
  > It's possible to design proper access systems where random people are not able to come in and utilize that access. How quickly "Hacker" News forgets Snowden.
- wang_li 8mo ago
  >I know that technically a Google employee could read it if they really wanted to, but the policies, security, and culture in place make it have a 0% of happening. We know it's non-zero as they have already had occasions when it has happened that Google employees used their access to stalk teenagers.
oasisbob 8mo ago
> The problem is that the vulnerability exploited by salt typhoon is a systemic flaw implemented at the demand of Cantwell and other of our legislative morons. Assuming you're talking about CALEA, I find it hard to blame Cantwell personally given that she first joined the House in 1993, and CALEA was passed in 1994. She wasn't in much of a position to "demand" anything against the headwinds of a bipartisan bill passed in both chambers by a voice vote.
- jtbayly 8mo ago
  The point remains that she's pretending the problem is AT&T, when really it is the US government's demand for a backdoor. This should be trumpeted as an example of why we cannot mandate encryption backdoors in chat, unless we want everybody to have access to every encrypted message we send.

Spivak 8mo ago

You can tell this whole thing will be a nothingburger on the government side because the only thing she can actually do is pull in some CEOs to (not) answer questions and receive a congressional tsk tsk.

plagiarist 8mo ago
The country is such a dumpster fire. Fucking congressional hearings. The best case scenario is a little video clip that legislators can use to campaign with. Each election period they have to take a break from eroding citizens' rights catering to lobbyists. The video clips help them pretend they were doing something other than insider trading while in the seat.
observationist 8mo ago
It's not even a strongly worded letter, lol. Senators and congress people should have to wear shock collars, and on majority polling get hourly "feedback" from their constituency, and for senators, weekly national feedback. The convention of states project seems like it might be the only way out - there's a shot at implementing term limits, clearing up some of the money in politics issues, no risk of a runaway convention, etc, and we can bypass the people deliberately fouling up the system.

charcircuit 8mo ago

>You cannot have an "only the good guys" backdoor. So what? If I store a document in a private Google doc. I know that technically a Google employee could read it if they really wanted to, but the policies, security, and culture in place make it have a 0% of happening. It's possible to design proper access systems where random people are not able to come in and utilize that access.

observationist 8mo ago
So you think there's no Google employees with privileged access gooning on private images, stalking, selling access, disrupting individuals, etc? Schmidt notoriously had a backdoor, and I'd be far more shocked if executives did not have backdoor access and know all the workarounds and conditions in which they have unaccountable, admin visibility into any data they might want to access. These are human beings, not diligent, intrepid champions of moral clarity with pristine principles.
- happyopossum 8mo ago
  Google employees with access? Yes. Google employees without audited and multiple levels of approval? No. I can tell you there are not. Any Eng at Google can read the entire codebase for gdrive, if there were backdoors it would become public knowledge very quickly.
- the-rc 8mo ago
  What's this notorious backdoor?
bigyabai 8mo ago
> It's possible to design proper access systems where random people are not able to come in and utilize that access. How quickly "Hacker" News forgets Snowden.
wang_li 8mo ago
>I know that technically a Google employee could read it if they really wanted to, but the policies, security, and culture in place make it have a 0% of happening. We know it's non-zero as they have already had occasions when it has happened that Google employees used their access to stalk teenagers.

oasisbob 8mo ago

> The problem is that the vulnerability exploited by salt typhoon is a systemic flaw implemented at the demand of Cantwell and other of our legislative morons. Assuming you're talking about CALEA, I find it hard to blame Cantwell personally given that she first joined the House in 1993, and CALEA was passed in 1994. She wasn't in much of a position to "demand" anything against the headwinds of a bipartisan bill passed in both chambers by a voice vote.

jtbayly 8mo ago
The point remains that she's pretending the problem is AT&T, when really it is the US government's demand for a backdoor. This should be trumpeted as an example of why we cannot mandate encryption backdoors in chat, unless we want everybody to have access to every encrypted message we send.