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Congress Considers Mandatory Crypto Backdoors
disappear writes: "Wired news reports that Congress is considering restrictions on crypto software in the wake of the terrorist attack. 'Nuff said." This will be the next battle -- especially in the wake of this week's tragedies, and the the allegations that the prime suspect Osama Bin Laden is a heavy crypto user. The battle of privacy and safety is going to begin in earnest now.
MSFT will use this opportunity to get their mandatory-access-controls legislation passed as well, and then go after Free Software with the government at their backs.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
14 September 2001
WASHINGTON: The Senate and the the ACLU came to terms on a groundbreaking new law which sets to forge a compromise on personal freedoms against Congressional needs for cryptographical backdoors to protect the innocent citizens of the United States.
"The solution," said Senator Hilary Clinton, "was so simple, we should have thought of it in the first place. Why force this crypto backdoor upon law-abiding citizens? The obvious solutions was to write a new law which only applies to lawbreakers."
The new law, Senate Resolution 11241, is expected to pass overwhelmingly in the House and be signed into law as early as Monday.
"What a bunch of morons," said Rev. Jesse Jackson, speaking on behalf of the ACLU, the NAACP, Greenpeace, and the Republics of Kuhanmar, Bhuganda, and Jabooti. "Do they even realise how stupid they look?"
The new law has language heretofore unseen in the legal ranks. It clearly spells out that the law "only applies to terrorists, anarchists, and communists", leaving areas such as pornagraphy and 'warez' clearly allowed to do whatever the hell they want.
-sam
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
I for one agree totally with this. I believe ALL encryption software should have mandatory backdoors that are made known to the public. This should only be on the condition that _congress_ and all other government and military departments also have backdoors in their software and make them available to the public also.
This bill must include corporate systems such as CSS, WMA, and the digital rights management proposed in the SSSCA. This is the sort of law that will bring the USA into the 21st century. And, hopefully other countries will follow your wise lead in proposing similar laws, instead of taking advantage of the fact that they now know everything you say to each other, your corporate, military and government secrets, and the codes to your nukes.
Is congress mentally retarded or f*cking what?!?!? How do they hope to pull off such a b*ll sh*t plan? Why on earth would they think for a second that some terrorists would decide to do the legal think, and plan their attack using 'legal' crypto software?
Where do they get the MOTHER F***ING IDEA that they are the only f*cking people on the planet, and the only people who can write software. Why is this always the case in disaster movies? (no don't answer that i don't care) This is the sort of thing that gets me p*ssed off so much, that i wish to god that the hi-jackers HAD hit congress and put those dumb sh*ts out of their misery. You'd think that a government could have even the most basic understanding of technology that it and the world relies on. Please wake up to the fact that you are not the only country in the world. The laws that you make, have no effect on anyone else and just make them want to stay away from your slowly-becoming-socialist society (spelling?)
-tfga
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Whats all this talk about banning encryption? The hijackers used box cutters! Ban all box cutters and scissors and knives! THAT will stop hijackers from taking over a plane again. Course, the American public will have to get used to beards and eating steak with their teeth, but I'm sure everyone will get used to it, eventually.
The procedure most widely known has been for the two terrorists to get onto the same bus from different stops, talk quietly on the top floor, and get off at different stops.
Those doubledeckers must be outlawed!