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Crypto Restrictions Are Taking Over the World
zeke writes: "An article on SecurityFocus details how forced key escrow and other crypto restrictions have taken root around the world, in countries like France, South Africa, the Netherlands and the UK. Ironically, this leaves the United States -- the birthplace and graveyard of the Clipper Chip -- as one of the few bastions of unregulated encryption."
That's one of the reasons for which Openbsd is developed there.
There are 2 kinds of people in this world: Those who write in decimal and those who don't
If you export crypto from the US you still have to tell your government where you live.
The main way that most people use encryption is when they order something from a web site, and the traffic is encrypted to protect credit-card numbers. I've been wondering how well the various restrictive governments police this.
Consider that most users aren't even really aware that they are encrypting their internet traffic. It's done by behind-the-scene transactions between their browser and the remote web site. The user never invokes any encryption software, and never sees the keys.
Will we eventually see cases where a poor baffled user is arrested and charged with illegal encryption, when what they really did was order a pair of socks from llbean.com?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
....when you are being detained as part of the "war on terror" without trial and denied legal counsel.
But yeah there are bad encryption laws in other places like here in the UK. Its worrying.
no sig.
You have been brainwashed if you think the US is free !
Acording the US justice department, the US has 25% of the entire world's population of prisoners.
And your going to have 1 in 24 amercians spying on your friends.
The US and a lot of other western countries a quasi-dictatorships, do you really think the US government represent the will of the people. ?
Although, I would point out that any nation without an actual constitution or any viable or realistic checks on its Prime Minister can hardly be considered to be a place where you can be guaranteed your rights (as anti-terrorism legistlation passed to try to deal with teh Northern Ireland conflict can attest to).
Am I the only one who really read this, or did I not read it right.
I saw places where it said "..and the police can order you to hand over your keys" or '..such and such a company has to register with the officials', but nowhere did it say '...you can't use encryption'. (I do agree that the key escrow stuff is very bad though.)
Just like a gun, ecnryption can be used for good things (hiding my p0rn from my girlfriend), or bad (emailing terrorism plots to agents.) In this country (USA), if the police have enough evidence, they can go to a judge and get a very specific search warrant. So, if they accuse me of having illegal p0rn (instead of just the good stuff), they can search my computer till the cows come home. But if they find a terrorism plot, they can't use that information.
To follow that point, what is wrong with issuing a search warrant and demanding that I decrypt the data?? I may not like it, especially if I'm guilty or don't want to share my p0rn, but I don't see where that is any different than letting the police go through a drug dealers house looking for drugs. Ok...there is that fifth amendment thing, so maybe a law like that couldn't even be enacted in the US.
And so what if company X has to register with the government. They probably had to get a business permit anyway, and if they do anything novel they probably have patents. Not too many companies survive by being secret about their existance.
So...tell me what is all the hub, bub.....
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Then open the trunk, or give me the keys.
No, I have rights...you can't look in my trunk! NO!
____________________
Excuse me Mr. User.
Yes, Mr. NSA man.
Are there terrorist messages in your email inbox.
Ah...no Mr. NSA man.
Then un-encrypt your inbox, or give me the private key.
No, I have rights...you can't look in my inbox! NO!
________________
I'm confused. What is the difference between these two scenerios? Sheesh...they check your trunk when you cross state/country borders. Just don't do terrorist/pedo/cracker shit, and you should have nothing to fear. uh, right?
Does anyone see a quandary with Palladium, encryption and government in general?
If Palladium is implemented, as everyone expects it will, and encryption becomes standard to the operating system does this not mean that the data on the hard drive is therefore protected from intrusion by outside sources? Would this not be a boon for those looking protect their nefarious purposes from prying eyes? This creates a problem for Microsoft and computer manufacturers in general; How to provide "trustworthy computing" to the general public while resassuring the government that data can be retrieved from hard drives when needed.
If Microsoft or the Palladium hardware manufacturers build in a "backdoor" for just this purpose, then the idea of trustworthy computing is lost. Who would trust their sensitive data to a compromised system? Hence the quandary.
Since there are "no crypto restrictions in the US" my MCS professor can teach cryptography again? Last i checked such was not the case.
I really don't think most law makers are interested in spying on people (call me naive, whatever, no one has given a really good answer why they would want to at least in a Democracy). I think law makers are interested in money and votes, and if the public is crying "Save us from the evil hacker terrorists" the law makers are going to at least try to appear to be giving the public what they want. In this case in many governments its regulation of encryption.
The lawmakers don't understand the technology so if someone gives them a case where restricting encryption actually benefits the "evil hacker terrorists" by being able to spy on us because we all have weak encryption. (and yes regulation or not the terrorist's encryption will be just fine)
Its a case of playing the same game the lawmakers do, it doesn't really have to do with what the terrorists can get their hands on.
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