Slashdot Mirror
Obama Wants Broader Internet Wiretap Authority
An anonymous reader writes "The White House plans to deliver a bill to Congress next year that will require Internet-based communication services that use encryption to be capable of decrypting messages to comply with federal wiretap orders. The bill will go beyond CALEA to apply to services such as Blackberry email. Even though RIM has stated that it does not currently have an ability to decrypt messages via a master key or back door, the bill may require them to. Regarding this development, James Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology commented on the proposal, saying, 'They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function.'"
Just a few days ago they raid the anti war movement and now right before the election they want to discuss this? This is a politically stupid time to talk about broader wiretap authority!
the more they stay the same (or get worse).
At least they are trying to make it legal. I'm sure the TURRISTS won't just use standalone encryption.
Now they want to direct all the spy agencies on the new "terrorist" the American citizen. They want to bug our houses, tap our phones, point satellites and drones at us, have informants stalk us, and feed the information back to the local police so that if we break even the slightest most esoteric arcane law we get raided, arrested etc.
Replace "Obama" with "Bush" and it's "Bush Wants Broader Internet Wiretap Authority." and the reason is to help law enforcement? Privacy and civil liberties should be given up to help the police put us in jail easier? They have to do a better job justifying the unlimited surveillance powers they claim to need. There aren't that many terrorists, unless they plan on going back to the 60s and raiding all the anti war movement hippy types and Alex Jones listeners who happen to know what encryption is.
There is an FBI already. There is an NSA already. If it's a national security concern the NSA already can crack the encryption so why do we have to make it so easy that any 2 bit local cop can do it? If it's about national security I'm sure they already can crack most of it if not all of it. If it's about law enforcement then it's not worth the sacrifice. There aren't enough criminals to justify it and most criminals aren't using encryption.
The only way they can justify this that I can see is with the "It's more efficient, it saves money", unfortunately even if it does save money it doesn't offer anything to the citizen. It doesn't make us feel safer and probably doesn't actually make us safer either. For a lot of us it will make us feel less safe because whenever a person feels under the microscope they usually feel less safe.
Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is “going dark” as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone.
Of course, the New York Times article is way better than the Faux News article but my submission this morning turned into a paywall.
Bad, bad, very bad idea. Every academic says this is stupid, again from the original article:
Steven M. Bellovin, a Columbia University computer science professor, pointed to an episode in Greece: In 2005, it was discovered that hackers had taken advantage of a legally mandated wiretap function to spy on top officials’ phones, including the prime minister’s.
The government is trying to protect us by forcing us to be less secure and more vulnerable. That logic simply does not follow. I'm not against responsible internet wiretaps but this is the opposite of responsible.
My work here is dung.
The Union government (in general not the current admin) wants to squash Patriots trying to protect the Constitution from "domestic enemies" i.e. the leaders. It's really no different than how a Communist government acts.
I wonder if the central government is required to obtain a warrant first, or if they can simply demand "unencrypt that google email" without any kind of oversight by the judges. The police have that power now, in regards to searching homes, thanks to the unconstitutional Patriot Act.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
the same shit happens. Disagree with the government, you end up in jail/raided/etc. ... WTF? At least Soviet Union had a law about disagreeing with the government, so at least you'd get a day in court.
comes the USA. Good thing I have a 16 fingered head massaging machine to help calm my nerves.
The terrorists will develop their own encryption schemes so using wiretaps would be completely worthless anyway. The mafia is smart enough to outsmart this, street gangs are smart enough, terrorists are smart enough. This is to watch the civilian population like you and me.
What I don't get about all this Blackberry-encryption-fuss: if Terrorists really care about encrypting their communications, there are free tools on the interwebs that will let them do so. These tools can not in any way be breached by the government or the service provider. The fact that this is so, is also well-known.
Thus I am forced to conclude that any terrorist that understands the need for encryption, also understands the need for encryption that he himself has total control over, and thus would not be relying on RIM to secure his communications.
In conclusion: this will not prevent terrorists from communicating securely. Now, Obama, go back to your health care reform and struggling economy.
Gee, where have we heard these arguments before?
Palm trees and 8
Home of the wiretapped.
.. except for a specific and clear "antisurveillance" ideology which really only exists among small groups of idealists.
'Greenism'? Surveillance would be brilliant to monitor emails for emissions regulation avoidance. Republicans? Hey, gotta catch those crooks who threaten the property rights of honest people. Democrats? Human society can only be nice if we can detect and catch those who might harm it or escape their responsibilities to their fellow man.
So whoever you vote for: Surveillance is what you're going to get, because it is found to be useful.
It is the natural tendency of political power to expand and consolidate over time. History has confirmed this over and over again. Like a mega-corporation hungry for more control over the market, government will keep pushing to expand their revenue and power over the people, like clockwork, year after year.
There's a reason why the elite at the top of the pyramid are swimming in wealth, and it's not because they're satisfied with the amount of control they have over the populace. Government is a business, and like any business, their primary objective is profit. The difference, of course, is that government holds the special right to generate market share through coercion, rather than persuasion.
Screw you over and break promises once we are elected. Ahh.. Hopey Changey....Hopey Changey.
Hope. Was not that the so called banner from 'Democrats' during their endless waa waa about Bush. Not much needs to be said. Gitmo? Ha. Iraq? Ha. Afganistan, Ha.
Obama is gone after 4 years, and will be hated by both sides.
We`re all equal
Hey America,
How is that Hope and Change working out for you?
Sincerely,
George Bush
how is all this "Change" working out for you?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I, like so many others, had the audacity of hope that Obama was a good man and interested in a better America... a second coming of JFK. (Yeah, I know there are people who will say JFK was the anti-christ.) But, instead of his promised removal of Bush administrations attacks on our freedoms and privacy, he persisted in it and defended it. Some people said "but this is normal! He is probably reviewing it before he makes changes!" How about now? No? Illegal wiretapping program is still running. And now he wants MORE.
So, Obama and other players in government HATE our freedom and HATE our privacy and will stop at nothing until both are gone. They make claims of defending and protecting our freedoms while they take them away. They make claims of "terrorists" hating our freedoms, yet the only ones who are attacking them are our own government. ... and still no one cares. We are all too busy trying to figure out how and why we are all getting obese and getting diabetes to concern ourselves with where the government and big business is taking our country.
When (if?) conservatives say "the government should not have that power", what they mean is "the liberals currently in government should not have that power, but it is okay for our side".
When (if?) liberals say "the government should not have that power", what they mean is "the conservatives currently in government should not have that power, but it is okay for our side".
Both conveniently forget the problem of not whether YOU will not abuse the power when asking for it, but once granted whether or not those elected AFTER you are gone will abuse the power. For those playing at home, the answer is invariably "YES".
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Because you don't work for the government, you aren't one of them, you are a threat to them and must be neutralized by any means necessary.
I have this almost certain conviction that many things attributed to Obama are not really fairly attributed to him, or portray his intentions fairly. I'm guessing a great deal of this is written for idiots.
What does the DNC-NBC say about it?
Nothing.
I'm guessing that's some regurgitated joke about MSNBC. If it is, you didn't even bother to check their front page. They seem to be running the regular AP story about it. Look, when the New York Times are the only ones willing to get off their asses and actually do some work in order to garner eyeballs, it's hard to find other sources. Even the Fox News article appears to be entirely based off the New York Times article. Even the MSNBC article (and I'm guessing AP at large) cites them:
The Times said the Obama proposal would ... The Times said that some privacy and technology advocates say the regulations would create weaknesses in the technology that hackers could more easily exploit.
My work here is dung.
If the white house and the rest of the government want to continue to litigate our freedoms away, the least they could do is show how these programs actually have caught real terrorists. Because, quite frankly if they can't even show that, they are eroding our rights away for nothing other than more control. There are several reasons why we haven't had a terrorist attack since 9/11 and none of those are thanks to the government.
A) Natural stupidity. Terrorists aren't exactly smart, remember the "times square bomber" who used as his detonation device.... firecrackers? Yeah, it takes planning to pull off an attack and quite honestly the terrorists don't have that ability.
B) Passengers in public transit. If you look like you are going to blow up or hijack a plane, the passengers will take you down. Ever since 9/11 people associate hijacking = run into a building rather than the pre-9/11 mindset of "do nothing, wind up in Cuba, get on a plane back home".
C) Terrorists aren't common. This idea that there are millions of terrorists trying to kill you all the time is laughable and has no basis in fact.
Granted, these laws are pure BS no matter how many "terrorists" they've caught, but if the government can't even show a single terrorist caught using these, and a real terrorist that could actually cause serious harm, the citizens should strike these laws down even faster.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
http://www.detnews.com/article/20100927/BIZ04/9270360/1013/NYT--U.S.-seeking-to-expand-wiretaps-on-the-internet
"Hope and change" my freckled ass.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Hey Obama, spare any change?
Oh, right, America's attention span is so low that they forgot that they were holding hands in a circle chanting all the slogans and catch-phrases spewed by his campaigners.
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
America, you'll get fooled again
As long as they have their Sunday Night Football, we won't have anything to worry about.
If a user wants unbreakable encryption, it is easy to do. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it.
Unbreakable encryption predates the modern computer by about a half century. It was invented by the US Army Signal Service for use in World War I. It is commonly called the "one time pad".
It has to be used correctly, or it becomes breakable. It also has logistics issues. The key material has to be physically transported and physically protected.
However, the technology is well known and has been for nearly a century.
Somebody ought to tell our technology-challenged public officials about it.
The endpoints should be using protocols based on the assumption that whatever services are used in between have problems. Governments, Scientologists, mafia, teh terrrists, and anyone else who wants to spy on people, can ban/pressure fooberry and gugmail but they can't effectively do much about OpenPGP.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
How is your savior and messiah looking now? Good job with your 'change!'.
The genie's out of the bottle already: with Android and a crypto package, any determined person can put together a mail client good enough for a "dark communication" (or find someone to do it... quite cheap, it's like no more than 3-4 men*days worth of work).
Either they are stupid enough (to even attempt to legislate PI=3) or... what the hell I'm missing from the picture?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
The list can go on. Thinking that the Democrats are for personal freedom is outdated thinking. Both major parties are led by totalitarian control freaks.
If you get rid of privacy or measures that help ensure privacy, it will be all the easier for the government to get rid of opposing voices/abuse their power. As others have said, the average person has absolutely no idea how these things work or what benefits they provide. If this continues, things are only going to get worse and worse.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
There's something missing from this entire debate -- it's things like this that will keep large business away from the cloud. One of the most important assets of a company is its confidential information, and unless a business can be certain that the information it stores on a server will remain private and confidential, there's no chance that they'll use cloud-based services.
This has the potential to drive away a lot of business from cloud services. I don't think it will affect Joe Regular on Facebook, but it might certainly turn MegaCorp Inc., and their millions of dollars, away from using cloud service.
On a related note, this bill has one fatal flaw. If I PGP encrypt my data, and don't ever share my private key, then that data remains private and uncrackable by anyone in the line of communication. So I'm not sure how useful this is for terrorism. In fact, probably not useful at all. It's probably only useful for domestic crime.
Nemilar http://www.techthrob.com - Visit Me!
The link points to Fox News. I automatically assumed it's fiction. Anyone confirm this?
What does it make me then, if I'm pretty sure this bill would be a horrible idea and shouldn't be enacted regardless of the party in power?
The government that fears guns in the hands of its citizens... should.
I am almost impressed with Fox's restraint in resisting the urge to deceive their moronic audience into believing that this is exclusively part of an Obama-gay-communist-abortionist plot against the free-thinkin' folk of Jesusland. Surely most Americans still have no idea that Dems and Repubs collectively have been seeking to control communications on the Internet for years in the name of fighting terror, of course. And of course, the law enforcement lobby is all for it.
I want to be very clear on this statement, on behalf of GNU Telephony. It is not simply that we will choose to openly and publicly defy the imposition of such an illegitimate law, but we will explicitly continue to publicly develop and distribute free software (that is software that offers the freedom to use, inspect, and modify) enabling secure peer-to-peer communication privacy through encryption directly to the public worldwide as it is needed especially in nations, such as the United States, where basic human freedoms seem most threatened.
To fully understand the nature of such surveillance and societies, imagine being among several hundred million people who each wake up each day having to prove they are not a "terrorist" by whatever arbitrary means the government has decided to both define the terms of such a crime and whatever arbitrary means they might choose to define you as such. It is a society who's very foundation is built on the idea of everyone being guilty until proven innocent. It is the imposition of an illegitimate society, and one that probably will ultimately require a revolutionary response.
David Alexander Sugar
Chief Facilitator
GNU Telephony
Bush is a Nazi and Cheney eats babies!
Wait.
[HuhI used to think the dumb fucks who wrote that shit were just retarded. Turns out shouting completely stupid things to "power" is kinda fun. Post hoc propter hoc Tourettes must be a hoot.]
Developers of software that enables peer-to-peer communication must redesign their service to allow interception.
Yeah, right. I see that one going over well. We'll either push this onto the rest of the world (hasn't playing world police gotten old?) or the rest of the world will simply develop better software.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
The United Arab Emirates, followed by their huge cousin Saudi Arabia, are shutting down Blackberry until RIM lets them spy on its data in realtime. RIM has been able to argue it doesn't have such a backdoor feature. Obama has the clout to force this Canadian company to create one. And then the Saudis and the rest of their medieval tyranny neighbors will spy on us. They don't need no steenkin' warrants. And neither does Obama, if he personally decides it's a "state secret".
--
make install -not war
Not qualified to be a politician and able to think for yourself. But, I repeat myself.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
As betterunixthanunix says above, we've already seen the abject failure of the Clipper chip in the US. In the UK they tried to pass a "key escrow" bill which would have made it illegal to send anything encrypted without lodging a copy of the key with the government first. Campaigning got this bill defeated several times, and so instead we got RIPA which means law enforcement can oblige you to hand over decryption keys (or you go straight to jail).
Huge amount of material here:
http://www.fipr.org/rip/
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
If this goes down the inevitable paths that all companies providing encryption must encrypt for a government owned private key which provides plain text, what will happen to open-source encryption technology? Furthermore, what will happen to those who contribute bugfixes.
Y'all sound like a bunch of whining terrorists to me!
First things first: the encryption horse has left the barn so long ago that all traces of the barn's foundation have turned to dust. Any reasonably competent adversary will have unbreakable encryption. The US government has helped with standards like AES, even. A large potion of the 'net traffic is already encrypted - every SSL session is encrypted at the ends of the chain, untappable once it's in the network. Changing that mechanism now into something that can be tapped will recreate the whole key escrow debates of the early nineties. The infrastructure required then was enormous, it would be exponentially harder now.
The only thing that makes sense is forcing large scale commercial communications companies to escrow keys, so that casual terrorists can have their communications hoovered up with everybody elses, and then analyzed by NSA in their spare cycles. This will catch a few proto-terrorists, I presume.
With this proposal I have crossed two lines, the first is questioning the governments motives, and the second now questioning their competence
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
The sad part is that people will be disappointed in Obama (as they will be disappointed in all politicians) and will vote for the other party that started all this shit in the first place.
The "shit" actually started with Obama's party, but started long before GW Bush was even born.
Study your history son, and you'll find that Franklin D. Roosevelt was the instigator of the US federal government's hardest turn and acceleration towards the path of this kind of tyranny.
I have this almost certain conviction that many things attributed to Obama are not really fairly attributed to him, or portray his intentions fairly. I'm guessing a great deal of this is written for idiots.
Next you'll be saying that G.W.Bush doesn't really have an IQ below 80, and desire nuclear holocaust.
Only anti-communist US president can make deals with communists and only democratic US president can suppress freedoms of US citizens.
Wow, this guy was modded troll?
cartago delenda est
The link is fox news, so unlikely to be true. Better fact check it with a news source first.
How's that Hope and Change going for you?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
The people who have been calling themselves conservatives have simply been liberals who disagree with certain aspects of the Democrat platform.
What does it make me then, if I'm pretty sure this bill would be a horrible idea and shouldn't be enacted regardless of the party in power?
Someone who isn't in power, and doesn't think he ever will be.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The whole point of these encryption algorithms is that they are ONE WAY, and can't be reversed.
They'd have to replace all their software with new algorithms and have master keys laying around the "shop"...
This is just a BAD IDEA...
Obama clearly does not understand Security in any real way...
The Dept. of Homeland Security is a subordinate Certificate Authority that your browser trusts. It can therefore issue itself an SSL certificate for mail.yahoo.com or mail.google.com and function as a MITM after an ISP redirects your DNS requests to the MITM server.
You Bush bashers now turn around and defend Obama for doing worse things than Bush ever did. Gotta love hypocrisy. I'll just sit back with my popcorn and enjoy this thread. /munch munch munch
Wasn't it VERY recently that a Google employee was caught reading private communications? If the service providers have the ability for the government to intercept the messages, so can people at the provider without any safeguards!
I want the ability to have secure end to end communication. I enjoy being able to share passwords with family members, and I don't think those should be interceptable by ANYONE!
... for the slashdot community. As a part of the conservative slashdotter minority, I came to this thread fully expecting to see most people coming out in Obama's defense on this, or trying to excuse it somehow, but I saw nothing of the kind. Rather than pile on, I'll just say that I admire people who consistently back principles rather than personalities.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
And get all your friends to do the same. If enough people start writing in and telling the government that they DON'T want their civil liberties violated, maybe the government will start listening. Especially if you put a couple of bits of paper with pictures of presidents on them inside the envelope...
I love how the OP gave this article a title of "Obama Wants . . ." (well, the submission used "US President wants. . ."). Not the FBI or the DOJ or the NSA, or even "Feds Want . . ." in order to be comprehensive; but Obama. As if this was some devious idea Obama had while dining on babies, rather than something the law enforcement and national security comunities have been working up for more than a half-decade. Of course he's responsible for the actions of the administration while he's president; but that's a long way from this being part of his nefarious plan for fascism. I looked for the quote from Obama or a spokesperson of his in TFA -- something, *anything* indicating this was an initiative specifically coming from him -- but couldn't find it. Nonetheless, just as the OP intended, 90% of the replies have been about Obama, rather than about the actual regulations. Way to be manipulated, folks. Given this, how unsurprising that the story link accompanying the submission was to Fox News, even though that Fox News story does absolutely nothing more than quote a story in the NYT.
And to head it off at the pass -- it shouldn't be necessary, but someone here will try it anyway -- I can't stand Obama. I think he's been terrible in a variety of ways. I just also can't stand people who are intellectually dishonest in an effort to score political points.
What was odd was this had been decided before Obama had been more than a couple of months into his term. Rather early to tell, wasn't it?
The right had already decided that he was going to change nothing, the insane bit is that Obama STILL went and tried for bipartisanship, giving away to a compromise position before even starting the negotiations.
It may have been deliberate (he's still early enough with enough ex-Republicans in positions for this to have been "the Machine" with Obama merely refusing to out these people, probably because he's scared witless about right wing media and looking like a bad guy) in which case the "No Change" charge is really deserved, but this WAS NOT possible to assert in the first few months.
He's surrounded with people who are supposedly with him but are actually just Republicans in the Democrat party and the Republicans are fillibustering EVERY candidate Obama is trying to get in. Therefore until this clears, you cannot say whether it is Obama "not changing" or whether it is the weasels currently in place and republocrats stalling the change.
nothing new here
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
But as an example, one official said, an investigation into a drug cartel earlier this year was stymied because smugglers used peer-to-peer software, which is difficult to intercept because it is not routed through a central hub. Agents eventually installed surveillance equipment in a suspect’s office, but that tactic was “risky,” the official said, and the delay “prevented the interception of pertinent communications.”
There's a reason behind this issue and it's concerning law enforcement. Unless you guys believe we should allow all drugs to enter the United States freely.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
This was a trial balloon. By law enforcement freaks. To see if they can get away with the "We're just trying to maintain the capabilities we've always had" argument. Most American politics is about seeing who can establish the "common sense" received "wisdom" - however ultimately nonsensical it is. That people within the administration play these games too - every political player does - does not mean that Obama is committed to their path. If we push back well enough against this, and keep it from working as "common sense" that the feds should be able to tap everything as if it were an old copper wire, we'll be fine.
Gitmo is sad, a true broken promise. But it's still there because the proponents of it sold as "common sense" that if we brought the prisoners to America, and gave them Constitutional protections (see, the proponents only "believe in the Constitution" when it's convenient), then somehow they'd escape from their prisons and blow us all up. This is absolute idiocy. But a majority of people, including Harry Reid, bought it. Obama's not that stupid, and he's a reasonably good teacher, but he can't make the American public suddenly smart - not this public, not today. It takes years of education.
And that's why I support the FEMA re-education camps!
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
See subject line above, because both parties (what a joke) are run by the SAME backers! Take a look at any major campaign contributions given either candidate in most any race, & especially look at the contributions they're given... you'll probably note that the "big money" that REALLY RUNS THINGS "hedges their bets" & backs BOTH candidates from either side, democrat OR republican. Take a peek at any major multinational corporation or bank's political campaign contributions for evidences of what I am saying. Then again also, of course, is the fact that sometimes both candidates belong to the SAME "secret hand bullshit" group also (Kerry & Bush = Skull & Bones). Don't kid yourselves people: The ENTIRE "dual party" system went belly up a LONG TIME AGO. It's just there for an illusion to keep the masses pacified!
they all want to extend that power. It makes me think that the Federal government itself is party-agnostic. It has the goal of all bureaucracies, to continually expand its power. You want to wrap-up increased censorship in "think of the children"? Fine. You want to wrap up increased censorship in "hate-speech"? Fine. It's all the same to the Federal government. It just needs to market the expansion of its powers in the right way to the party that happens to be in "power" and when that party loses the power still stays with the Federal government.
The difference between Republicans and Democrats is who pays the bills. Conservative/Liberal differences are actually in beliefs on who should hold the power, the government vs the people. The way both sides throw around the terms however they see fit doesn't help for casual understanding. Right now I will vote for anyone with actual conservative beliefs and actions, but my ballot is always sadly lacking. Too bad you can't vote "none of the above." and have a random person selected from the population if the choice wins. Call it the political lottery.
By law, the US government publishes a report each year on all lawful wiretaps, Federal and state. Here is an excerpt from the latest report: "Public Law 106-197 amended 18 U.S.C. 2519(2)(b) to require that reporting should refect the number of wiretap applications granted for which encryption was encountered and whether such encryption prevented law enforcement officials from obtaining the plain text of communications intercepted pursuant to the court orders. In 2009, one instance was reported of encryption encountered during a state wiretap; however, this did not prevent officials from obtaining the plain text of the communications." In other words, there was just one lawful wiretap last year where communications were encrypted and even that did not stymie law enforcement. The proposed law is not about aiding law enforcement, it's about perfecting the surveillance society, where all communications are filtered for suspicious content.
If this law is to pass then openssh will need a backdoor. OpenSSH is a opensource project, therefore any backdoor that is put in will be known by anyone who looks at the code.
This is the greatest threat to the Linux security model as all open source security transfur protocals will now be illegal or insecure in the US.
Ranting is only going to let the ignorant and corrupt define the modern way wiretaps are implemented.
Wiretaps and spying LEGALLY are part of the law enforcement process for centuries. Its considered fair game and has been. Going against this is another issue and only makes you look like a nutcase.
Instead, geeks should be CONSTRUCTIVE on how to implement the needs of law enforcement so we increase accountability and minimize abuse. You know darn well there ARE totalitarian control freaks in government but just painting every issue as theirs removes you from the legitimate debates.
The law NEEDS wiretaps. I saw this coming decades ago. They need a means to backdoor into stuff like they've always been able to do before. Its so bad now that even legal wiretaps on phones are ineffective when the process is slower than the criminals ability to buy another disposable phone. (one solution would be to make wiretaps PERSON based instead of phone number based; which means they still have to work to find what your new number is but this seems like a fair compromise to having a national registry... although in the past your identity was registered to a phone number.)
They couldn't usually get into your Diary under the 5th etc. Your computer and files should be thought of like that - its just electronic forms of existing concepts. HOWEVER, because its new and technical issues always come up when you actually have to do something in the real world-- policies need adjusting and so do laws.
We geeks should be there making sure the ignorant are informed and the corrupt are not the only ones with a voice on how to implement OLD methods on new technology. We should not be ranting against the whole methodology itself and removing our constructive influence. We get enough stupid technology laws as it is and its up to us to prevent that-- these arrogant lawyers can't be left alone thinking they understand everything they need to know about computers technology or internet "tubes".
When you rant against the corrupt only you marginalize yourself from the middle even though you may be bringing them out into view. (so somebody has to do it-- but not enough are ignoring them and doing actual battle against them.)
---
The two parties are organized differently so they function differently. The control freaks are not out in the open (except a few like Cheney) nor are they a few old men in a room somewhere.
Both are like good cop / bad cop and are working for a powerful minority which is not centralized and is so well entrenched in our system that we won't be willing to change enough of the system in order to eliminate them. (in which case, they are still powerful but no longer everlasting... however, they won't be idle while they are undermined.) You could kill the top of a crime syndicate and a new members would fill the gap. You have to break the organization and then a new organization fills the void-- you only can stop the cycle by fixing the environment in which they thrive. This is extremely difficult to do; often it involves the public having to change themselves. Ultimately, it comes down to YOU contributing a little to the problem and not being willing to take enough responsibility.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Just playing devil's advocate here, but I'll get modded down anyway. Reading these comments, I tried replacing the word "Terrorist" with "People Who Trade in Kiddie Porn" and I find myself pulled a little to the center on this matter. The administration is setting up standards for companies to provide data to aid in criminal probes... with the same regulations applying to their requests for information as apply to wiretaps.
We have to find a middle way on this issue. I don't want law enforcement to be helpless against child sexual predators simply because those scumbags can simply hop on a P2P network and trade all they want. At the same time, there are some pretty imposing technical issues here. Who gets cited for an open-source project that isn't in compliance? How do we force the Executive branch to comply with the legal standards for requesting data? Bush was guilty of illegal wiretaps against Americans, but there were no legal repurcussions from those violations.
I think that's the real issue here. Law enforcement needs the tools to bust the bad guys, but the people need a legal recourse for ensuring law enforcement doesn't abuse that power. We currently don't have the latter, and that's where our outrage needs to be directed.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
This proposal can only work if encryption is outlawed for private citizens. Basically the E-quivalent of scrapping the 2nd amendment. So how about doing something against it? Most obviously: Start encrypting everything you can. Install the HTTPS-Everywhere plugin for Firefox, make some keys for GPG even if you use them for clear-text signing, encrypt your Instant Messages, encrypt your hard drive etc.pp.. Then do the same for all your relatives and friends (make it easy for them).
Why? Not because (most likely) your stuff is that important. No. It's to send a clear signal to everyone you communicate with: Hey, I value your privacy, I value mine. And Gentlemen don't read other Gentlemen's mail! So Gentlemen....get to work.
that you Americans realized that it's not the Russians or Chinese who are your enemies. Your own politicians are your real enemies.
The $5 wrench they buy to beat you over the head with till you agree to give them your password/build in a backdoor.
Yes. Ron Paul is a nut.
Government and lay people seem willfully ignorant of the fact that genuinely secure encryption methods exist and are in the hands of anyone who wants them. Some of these methods are provably unbreakable if used properly, and others are so close to being unbreakable as to make it not worth trying. I don't understand why the "bad guys" wouldn't simply use one of these methods to communicate, or why governments believe they will be able to eavesdrop in the first place. This isn't 1944, in terms of cryptography, you know.
Who'd have thunk it -- more war, more spending, more spying on citizens.
Always have a way out. If the heat is around the corner, you have 10 seconds to drop everything and go. Always have an out is all I am saying. I have mine. Do you have one?
Even Australia wouldn't dare to pass something this stupid.
What the hell obama. At least research what you're trying to pass before sending it to congress. This would cripple everything.
Why can't I vote for a candidate in the US that isn't a complete dipshit? its a lose-lose situation no matter how I vote for.
He hasn't changed a thing since he got in and persists on continuing the failures of the bush administration.
Look, I'm pretty upset by this, but want to figure something out: is it really Obama, sitting at the desk, stroking the white cat, saying "those pesky citizens with their encryption. Put a stop to it!"? It seems to me that a "presidential administration" is some weird variation on a big company, with hundreds of employees, with varying degrees of power, along with their own biases, etc.
I'm not going to let anyone off the hook, it's Obama's name on the door and he's ultimately responsible for whatever his administration does, but I sometimes wonder how much a president actually knows about every thing that goes on; if a bill came out proposing that all vehicles purchased by the Forestry Service must be Fords, that would (rightly) upset the Chevy-n-Dodge group, but why would a president, any president, worry about something seemingly so trivial?
I argue that encryption is just as much a trivial issue; the genie is so far out of the bottle that the whole thing sounds utterly ridiculous; if anything, it sounds more like an out-of-touch FBI manager (TFA only quotes an FBI person) who read a little too deeply into an article written in the in-flight magazine and convinced some middle manager in the administration that "teh terrorists are using the inter-tubes!"
Besides, aren't politicians citizens as well? If the law applies to everyone, it applies to them as well.
Sounds like 1984 to me. How do you balance the rights or the individual vs. the authority of a governing body?
This won't help because you can just have two+ separate keys for the data. One being the real data, and the other being the decoy which encrypts unimportant data from the stream.
First fact, This story is from fakes news, the propaganda wing of the republican party.
Second fact, We already know that the !right neo-con republicans will happily resort to any lie or misinformation that they think will give them some political advantage.
In light of all that and the timing of this "amazing revelation" I don't think I need to say any more.
Even before being elected President, Obama voted to give AT&T a free pass on willingly breaking the wiretap laws when asked to by the NSA. I still voted for him, but it was just to keep McCain and his lunatic running mate out of the White House; I already knew Obama already stood only for the accquistion of power and nothing else. Chicago, all the way through.
While the Bush Administration certainly pushed for major increases in intrusiveness, it wasn't new with them either - Louis Freeh from the FBI were pushing this kind of thing under the Clinton Administration as well, and presumably the Bush 41 and Reagan administrations. The civilian surveillance enthusiasts aren't just up in the political structure of the Executive Branch - they're down at the operational levels in the FBI and NSA, and of course the kinds of people that get picked to run the FBI are part of that. The NSA wanted to prevent Communists from having eavesdropping-resistant conversations, but they've long since figured out that there aren't really any significant Commies around any more. On other other hand, the FBI is heavily into eavesdropping, primarily for the Drug War, secondarily for Gambling(!), and also for other crimes which make up a high fraction of their rhetoric but only a few percent of their actual reported wiretap approvals.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Again I ask "How is that 'Hope N Change' working out for you?"
Four years ago this would have unleashed yet another tiresome pile of comments about "Bush" and "The Republicans". I see curious silence, and even a reversal of position, on the part of the current president's fans...
Eh? *I* still think of Eisenhower as modern, though the first president I actually remember watching on TV was Kennedy, and that was mostly when he got shot. And while LBJ, Nixon, and Ford all had some hair on top, they had the receding hairline thing in a big way.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
That's way too believable for them not to do something like that.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
But yes, the Surveillance State folks have been active under both Democratic and Republican Administrations. They were highly visible under Bill Clinton, when Louis Freeh was heading the FBI and trying to run the Crypto Wars, using Commie spies as an excuse but the Drug War as the major actual user. And big big kudos to the couple of guys at Netscape who put SSL into the browser, and to everybody who told the Clinton Administration that online commerce needed it, and to the Clinton folks who understood that the Internet technology boom was what was making their economic management look good so they shouldn't let the FBI mess with it. And a big Boo Hiss to the apparatchiks who put all the surveillance stuff back into the Patriot Act as soon as the Bush Administration had an excuse to do it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I'm getting real tired of China and Pakistan insisting that all encryption be breakable to allow government spying. The US companies should stop doing business there and...Hmm? What's that?
WHAT!?!? it's WHO!?!? No WAY, OUR government?? in the USA!?!?
Oh. Shit.
We're boned.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Is that they want to go after application layer security as well according to the NYTimes article (They want it to include "Developers of software that enables peer-to-peer communication must redesign their service to allow interception."). If that is the case, then this is a direct assault on the right to privacy for all US citizens. Even worse is that it is being touted as a way to catch the bad guys instead of a means to obtain the right to spy on the general population. Any self respecting bad guy will use application layer encryption (i.e. PGP etc.) that works independent of the transport encryption. Do you really think bad guys are going to use software that plays by the rules this law creates?
If this law also goes after application layer security - in other words, it tries to make it illegal to make/use software to enforce your own privacy - then this is a HUGE problem and we all need to act to help inform those around us who don't understand the repercussions of such a law. Right now we have the right to make/use software that protects our privacy. Do you want to live in a country that has removed this right in the name of protecting its citizenry from the evil doers?
The telephone = a common form of communication
The internet = another common form of communication
Why should this form of communication not be held to the precedent that is already set in place by current telephony wiretapping laws? Obviously taping/storing/archiving captured messages over the Internet would be hard to get around not doing.
Just playing the devil's advocate here :)
Who can legally monitor phone conversations?
Federal law enforcement officials may tap telephone lines only after showing "probable cause" of unlawful activity and obtaining a court order. This unlawful activity must involve certain specified violations. The court order must limit the surveillance to communications related to the unlawful activity and to a specific period of time, usually 30 days. (Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 USC 2516)
Can digital telephone communications be monitored?
In 1994 Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Digital Telephony Act (18 USC 2510-2522). The Act's purpose is to provide law enforcement officials with assurance that they will be able to "tap" or have access to the content of any communications incorporating new digital technology. These digital transmissions include both voice communications transmitted in digital format as well as transmissions of text and data between computers using a modem.
Is it legal to tape record telephone calls?
Federal law allows recording of phone calls and other electronic communications with the consent of at least one party to the call. A majority of the states and territories have adopted laws based on the federal standard. But 12 states, including California, require the consent of all parties to the call under most circumstances. These are are California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington. For a state-by-state guide to taping laws, including a discussion of federal law and references to caselaw, see the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press guide, www.rcfp.org/taping/.
The Pentagon just bought up the entire 9500-book print run of a retired military officer's book, so they can destroy it to protect alleged secrets. The publisher will be allowed to do more printings with some parts censored.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
According to everything I've read, this is *not* an attempt to achieve "broader Internet wiretap authority" but rather to force providers to put systems in place so that they can easily and quickly comply with *existing* authority.
Will that be before or after the White House is forced to put systems in place so that they can easily and quickly comply with existing authority (44 U.S.C. 2201–2207 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Records_Act)? The existing authority that both the Bush II and Obama administrations want to ignore http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/report_card_presidential_records/ outright let alone make it easier and quicker for the White House to comply with.
Fox News is a POLITICAL organization!!! It is not a credible news source. I think that was his point. They have proven this repeatedly. They contributed money to the Republican party. Their "news" is HIGHLY biased. They don't present facts. They present their OPINION, and then they "assume" you understand that it is opinion. Those last two sentences are a paraphrased quote from Fox News. Their behavior excludes them from being considered a valid News source. Why Americans still consider Fox News a valid news source is beyond me. Did you happen to notice where they cut off the article? They made it seem as if the entire issue is about violation of American rights and freedoms. When you read it from New York Times the articles is balanced and reasonable, presenting both sides of the argument.
I've been writing in Bozo the Clown for years. I use it whenever I cannot bring my self to vote for the choice(s) offered. He's probably received 100's of votes over the years from me alone.
Who will guard the guards?
What could possibly go wrong?
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
This sort of thing should be obvious: Barack Obama is not the entire US Government, by himself, nor even the entire Federal executive branch. He is the most influential elected official, but he acts under all sorts of constraints, legal and political. I didn't vote for Obama -- I voted for Cynthia McKinney, actually -- but he's the first US president for whom I have some limited respect. I'm dismayed by his policies, but I don't think that he's entirely to blame for it all.
Most importantly, the president is used, metonymically, as the representative of the entire US government. He's the "head of state," which is ultimately a feudal concept in which a particular person is the personification of the nation. When the president is praised or blamed for every action of the Federal government, the real forces and processes in play aren't properly examined.
It may be the case that Obama, personally, doesn't have any particular interest in encryption, and that this policy was crafted by some undersecretary and duly presented as Obama's policy.
I do not see this relativism where liberals and conservatives are equally bad when it comes to protecting liberty. It seems to be something conservatives are saying to feel better about voting for republicans.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
It's not so much just about the cipher you use but also about your computers ability to generate random numbers. A backdoor or exploit in the random number generator and all the keys will be predictable.
Terrorists don't hate our FREEDOMS, they hate our BOMBING.
Government hates our FREEDOMS, but really like BOMBING.
-- It seems to be a "win/win" for both agendas to bomb something and reduce freedom while we go off and bomb countries NOT attacking us.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
A libertarian (which is another way of saying the same thing as chill and TheRaven64).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
How would this be enforced on FOSS? What's to stop me from removing this from the code and recompiling (like I would even have to do that).
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Why? Because a few government officials decided that they want big brother like privileges over us meager citizens. The government hasn't even established a way to protect it's citizens from identity theft, and now they want to make it easier for our SSN, CC numbers, and even private information to intercepted and decoded. This is a sure way to destroy any electronic shopping, causing multiple businesses to be shut down over night. If they in act this, I will personally begin development encryption tools that can't be broken with current technology (licensed algorithms or not) and paste them anonymously in every corner of the internet i can get them too, and i hope that any other programmers with even a decent knowledge of encryption will do the same. And as soon as possible i will leave this country and seriously consider renouncing my citizenship. At this rate I'm embarrassed with the stupidity of this nation.
I think a new requirement should be issued for any government position, they must be educated (and in a useable field, Eg: economy, business, language, socialism, math, physics or engineering) and to become president you should be required to have a doctorate, and have proven their ability in the field. On top of all that i believe government officials should be held accountable for decisions they make. Eg, if they waste billions they should be fined billions, and if they needlessly cost lives their own life should be on the line. and should be reviewed by not by corporations but instead by the people who they represent. Currently, government officials get paid far more than the average citizen, and they are accountable for far less. Ask any engineer who has to design something, what would happen if their design should fail, it won't just be brushed off as a failed plan, they will loose their job and will be sued for losses, this often forces failed engineers to leave the country so that they don't loose everything. I have never heard of a government official who has lost so much, but i have heard of many failed government plans.
-- anon
Haven't we been through this before? I think back then it was called... "Data Encryption Standard (DES)". Then there was that alternative where they had backdoors to all encryption schemes, something about an ESCROW key store?
And Google and others are pushing cloud computing as the way of the future whilst protection of private data continues to degrade. Does this convergence not upset anyone else?
Why is it that various Posters can make jokes about "Faux News" and get +5 insightful, but Other posters who make jokes about "DNC-NBC" get modded -1 troll?
Censorship much?
Bias much?
Apparently one thing is allowed (humor about FOX) but the other thing (humor about MSNBC) is not allowed. Way to suppress people's liberty.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall