Slashdot Mirror
Obama Administration Argues For Backdoors In Personal Electronics
mi writes Attorney General Eric Holder called it is "worrisome" that tech companies are providing default encryption on consumer electronics, adding that locking authorities out of being able to access the contents of devices puts children at risk. “It is fully possible to permit law enforcement to do its job while still adequately protecting personal privacy,” Holder said at a conference on child sexual abuse, according to a text of his prepared remarks. “When a child is in danger, law enforcement needs to be able to take every legally available step to quickly find and protect the child and to stop those that abuse children. It is worrisome to see companies thwarting our ability to do so.”
Any sort of securista ploy to invade private property like this that starts with "think of the children" should be automatically subject to Reductio ad Hitlerum.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
Virtue. Honesty. Clarity.
It's all about control. Once the Federal government gets its nose in your business it never leaves.
think of the children!
The excused used by dictators since the dawn of time to rob you of your liberty.
Wow, that's good stuff right there.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
No matter how many times I read that, I can't seem to find the clause that says "Except when..."
-- This sig is only a test. If this were a real sig it would say something witty. --
And they get away with it. It's disgusting.
"Won't somebody please think of the children!?"
Who remembers the failed Clipper chip pushed during the Clinton administration and advocated by VP Gore?
Who remembers why it failed?
Those who fail to understand history are doomed to repeat it....even if they have to force it down our throats.
The government has been engaged in an ongoing assault on personal privacy and abuse of the "rule of law" ... and they have the gall to react with surprise when their citizenry seeks to defend themselves.
But did he manage to deliver the "think about the children line" with a straight face? 'Cause that's like the all time best argument for when you've got nothin' else. Or you're asking someone to do something that fails the basic sniff test of, "Is this reasonable?"
Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for the Two Minutes Hate.
Holder, please investigate why is the NSA putting so many children at risk. But conducting extra-legal (and arguably extra-constitutional) collection of data for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with child abductions, they're driving the adoption default encryption across the US and across the world, making data unavaliable to police and emergency responders in critical situations. Won't the good folks at the NSA please think of the children?
Before the digital age how did the police ever mange to protect the children?
The spooks will use terrorists and jihadists and the police will cite drugs and paedophiles. Yet another attempt the public into giving up their rights happily. The sad thing is that it usually works.
Whenever I hear "for the children", I immediately know the person involved is using the 'children' to short-circuit the discussion that should take place over the proposal, and believes that if the discussion took place, the proposal would be rejected.
As if any crime becomes less serious if it is commited against an adult. Using the biological urge to protect the young of the species to achieve your goals is just despicable.
I think it's worrisome that my government thinks it should have the ability to get into every single aspect of my life with minimal obstruction because "someone", "somewhere", is doing something they shouldn't be. I am thinking of the children. I'm thinking that unless people stand up to this kind of shit "the children" are going to grow up in a world where they have absolutely no privacy and think it's perfectly acceptable for that to be the case.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
People are starting to get wise to the "buzzword" games that law enforcement has been playing for a long time. Is he really suggesting that they create backdoors in consumers products "just in case" a child is in danger?
If you they want to gather evidence against someone, apparently they are going to have to go back to the old fashioned way...Actually doing some detective work.
Criminal is criminal. It doesn't matter what position they hold in the government.
Backdoors, privacy laws, etc. etc. etc. are all about reacting to problems that have already happened. I wish people would recognize that we have a fundamental "spiritual" problem (not religious) which is that we need to learn to care about others. Any society that focuses on individual satisfaction and freedom is going to loose the balance with good social behaviour. "Save the children" is all about reaction to a society that fundamentally values the individual freedom too highly and over and above societal health. I think of this as spiritual because it is about our fundamental beliefs and feelings. Wouldn't it be much better if we could effectively educate everyone so that we all cared about each other? Our education systems focus on individual accomplishment and have only minimal support for service, teamwork and other activities and attitudes that would help educate us on supporting each other. In other words, preventing perversion through education.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
When I buy a device, It is I who gets to decide if the device is an open diary for all to see, or an extension of my private thoughts.
Get a warrant you filthy pricks.
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
Oh, please, couldn't think of anything better to say? So you just fell back on the completely irrelevant "blame Obama" cliche? You know that FBI Director Comer, the guy that started this BS a couple of days ago is a Republican, right?? The only thing I blame Obama for is appointing Republicans, as cover, to defense, security and law enforcement posts.
When a child is in danger, law enforcement needs to be able to take every legally available step to quickly find and protect the child and to stop those that abuse children.
Because when a child is in danger all our rights go out the window. Next up "when a politician is n danger ...".
How many times has the problem for stopping child abuse been "we can't decrypt these files"?
It seems to me far more often it's "the child is making it up", or no the foster family isn't harming your child now shut up or lose visitation.
Maybe they should take a look at that before putting security holes in every single device for some sort of hypothetical situation.
signed The World. So how is tapping my phone going to save starving third world child soldiers mining for gold and stones. Oh yah don't don't live here...
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
They put it in there to thwart *anybody* who might be trying to listen in on private communications or steal information. This is a necessary thing in an age when information is flitting around wirelessly and when physical property containing vast amounts of personal information can be easily stolen. In other words, it's in there as much to thwart would-be criminals as it is to thwart anyone who might have legitimate reasons for access. Illegitimate or legitimate, the technology makes no distinction.
Deal with it. Get a warrant. Legally compel people to provide keys. Whatever. I don't see the justification for intentionally putting in back doors that can be discovered and abused by criminals as easily as law enforcement could use it for legitimate purposes. And never mind the implication that law enforcement or others in the government could themselves be illegally getting access.
What you're talking about is intentionally inserting flaws in a technology that is there for good reasons.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/...
That's why they always pull out pedos, kinda hard to look good arguing for encryption when they pull out the pedos.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
“When a child is in danger, law enforcement needs to be able to take every legally available step to quickly find and protect the child and to stop those that abuse children. It is worrisome to see companies thwarting our ability to do so.”
I can't recall reading/hearing any example of a situation even remotely similar to that happening, anywhere in the world. You got bullies, rapists and murderers, all abusing children everywhere, and they are stopped mostly by members of the public or close relatives. Police is always late.
Person in a position of power says something to convince large amounts of people to undermine their own best interests.
True security will happen when we have law enforcement monitoring everyone everywhere all the time. I mean we're 1/2 way there anyway, why not go the last mile and commit to absolutely zero personal privacy.
If the government hadn't been stomping all over its authority (and limits thereof), then perhaps such measures wouldn't be needed.
Holder contends that "It is fully possible to permit law enforcement to do its job while still adequately protecting personal privacy.” that may be possible in theory, but governments everywhere have demonstrated repeatedly that they can't be trusted to protect personal privacy. In other words: allowing law enforcement the ability to search through a phone's contents willy nilly, trusting them not to abuse that authority, is a nice-to-have. And because of their actions, we can't have nice things.
Whiny law enforcement being forced to actually do their job.... News at a11....
No surprise the broke out the "think of the children" straw man right away though....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"Think of the children" FUD does not trump them.
The authorities kind of had this coming to them. There were way too many stories of police cloning cellphones at random traffic stops, border crossings and similar harassment and privacy violation of innocent people. If they could have stuck to proper court orders for obtaining this data, I don't think consumers would have objected, and therefore companies wouldn't be responding with increased privacy measures.
Seems like the WH can't even get that right.
I mean, they must be, right? Where's the HTTPS for Slashdot? It's like they want Obama to read your comments.
Except, the person quoted by TFA is Eric Holder, who is as Democrat as it can possibly get...
Off-topic much?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This actually makes me think of all the other ways that we can "protect the children". I should be required to give a set of keys to my house to the authorities, so that they can get in easily to "protect the children". I shouldn't be allowed to delete anything on my computer, since that would be tampering with evidence anyway, so that they can "protect the children".
In fact, we should start implanting chips into all children so that we can find them more easily and protect them. If they want it to be removed when they are 18, we'll have a few hundred forms for them to fill out and a fee. In retrospect though, to make sure that adults don't spend too much time around children, to protect the future children we should probably leave it in.
Aren't you glad you voted for Obama, you stupid stupid sheep?
...pesky search and seizure laws for requiring court order! If this comes to pass, I'll make a killing selling thermite cases.
Will someone please think of the children?!?!?!
I think when someone says "think of the children" as an argument, we as a society need to look at the flip-side and see what has been/being taken away. Something like this only leads to less privacy, more government intrusion, and creates a slippery slope for the government to take away more rights. Sacrificing 10, 100, 1000, or 10,000 children to a criminal is better than having no personal privacy for the 313 million people in the United States, and the 7 billion people on the planet.
These guys have decided to go straight for the "it's for the children" argument.
It's a stupid argument. It says that in order to protect hypothetical children from hypothetical threats, all people must give up their rights to make it easier for law enforcement to get information without cause or warrant.
And since you've already had your rights taken away, we will also use this for plenty of other things. Like parallel construction of what we charge you for, and whatever else we can think of to misuse this information for.
Fucking lying assholes and fascists.
America is pretty much screwed at this point, and unfortunately, that is affecting everyone else on the damned planet.
Obama is just as happy to create the surveillance state as Bush was. Audacity of Hope is such a fucking lie.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Time to STFU and GTFO
This is the Clipper Chip saga from the 1990's all over again. The problem is that the government (and law-enforcement) think that:
(a) only the government will have access to the back door;
(b) all governments are good;
(c) computers cannot be programmed by their users to do non/unapproved activities
Unfortunately, once you build the backdoor, you have no control over who actually walks through it. You may lock the door and naively think that only those with the key can open the lock, but locks can be picked. Personally, I would love to watch the shitstorm develop when Russian criminals hack everyone's devices using a government mandated backdoor. It will never happen again after that.
Also, how long before China and Russia demand access to the newly installed iPhone/Android backdoor for "legitimate law enforcement purposes." Not only do we, as a society, find a number of foreign law enforcement repugnant due to it's corrupt and political nature, but you're essentially handing foreign governments the keys to the kingdom for American users.
Also, just because you mandate a backdoor in my device doesn't mean I have to use the device in a manner that the backdoor can access. The classic example is voice calling. Cell phone calls can be wiretapped. Intercepting VoIP calls is a different matter, especially if the VoIP system is designed to thwart encryption.
Overall, a lot of technobabble and grandstanding by bureaucrats who want to make their own lives easier.
you are a tool of the political machine...a "useful idiot" in Marx's terms.
there is no difference between the two parties...our system is a Plutocracy.
the two party system is nothing but a circle jerk keep people distracted from understanding the true nature of it all.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
I had to deal with nearly 8 years of them screaming bloody murder when Bush was only suspected of trying to pull this crap. Now that Obama has it out in the open these people are all tight lipped. I guess cheerleading for your favorite two-party scam is more important than the moral, civil and ethical issues we were brow beat about when it was Dubya in office, huh?
If the feds had good quantum computers that could decrypt this stuff in a reasonable amount of time they wouldn't object to what Apple and Google are doing.
Unless it's a double-fakeout and they just want us to think they don't have good quantum computers.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The last bastion of desperate statists.
The most transparent administration ever wants YOU to be transparent FIRST, before its own transparency kicks in. They are dedicated to chipping away at the first, second, fourth, ninth and tenth amendments, instead of upholding them in accordance with their oath of office. That's half of the Bill of Rights that they treat as obstacles to exercising their power, instead of critical rights the people have charged them to protect.
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
Now that Holder has announced his resignation, is the Obama administration still labeled with this opinion?
you are a tool of the political machine...a "useful idiot" in Marx's terms.
Where in the works of Marx did he say "useful idiot"?
“It is fully possible to permit law enforcement to do its job while still adequately protecting personal privacy,”
Maybe it is, when law enforcement isn't brazenly violating every single principle of personal privacy for all persons without redress. You got us here, Bush and Obama administrations. You. Not us. You.
>who is as Democrat as it can possibly get..
I think you mean "Democratic."
>Somewhere in Chicago a community is missing its organizer.
Oh, I see the problem. You've internalized Republican wingnut derp. Only a wingnut would hold being a community organizer against someone.
As long as I can watch your computer, go for it.
I'm all for a 100% transparent society, but not even remotely anything less than 100% because then it is unfair regardless of how it is implemented, even if it was an AI that operated it and no single person had access to it.
Anything less than 100% transparency is abusive.
What, you think watching peoples computers is going to stop terrorism? Are you fucking STUPID?
Mesh networking is a thing you know. It is trivial to setup these days, there is literally phone apps that can set them up and they are even being used to organize protests right now in Hong Kong.
Funny how all this spying never stopped the beheading of those innocent people by IS. Funny how THEY NEVER EVEN KNEW THIS ENTITY BECAME A LARGE MOVEMENT with all of this spying.
Yeah, take your excuses and fuck off, monitoring computers has done nothing but increase costs for spy agencies and diverting them from actually useful intelligence by flooding them with insane levels of noise.
ahahahaha ahahhahahahaha ahahahhaha ahahahahahahahaha ahahahha /inhale.....
ahahahha ahahahahah ahahahah ahahaha haha ahahahahaha ahahhahahaahaaaaaaaa
Wow. You seriously think that Obama is a victim in all of this after everything that has been exposed under his administration? Wow. Just wow. You are the problem.
In an international free market, if US companies are seen to succumb to this pressure, open source and foreign companies will come along and sell items that (they claim( don't have the back doors. Either the US can shut up about this, or it can lose its companies...
“It is fully possible to permit law enforcement to do its job while still adequately protecting personal privacy,”
It is if we are permitted to keep our own information secret from law enforcement except when compelled to deliver it by warrant.
As if regular examples of law enforcement taking advantage of their access to data to spy on current and ex-spouses,boy/girlfriends, family, etc aren't enough of a warning to say NO to this, the fact that they wish to have the Fourth and Fifth Amendments circumvented in law should be enough to deny this.
We must say no.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Cynicism says this is nothing more than a ploy. It accomplishes two things:
1) restore govt creditibility in making people believe the govt. can no longer spy on you with newer devices
2) cause a huge economic surge in consumer purchasing of newer devices
Cynicism says they will still be able to spy on you with you believing they cannot.
You should be ashamed of the government that you elected for yourselves. You were once the beacon of freedom for the western civilisation. Not any more ( not that the last few UK ones were any better ).
The answer is simply, "NO! You cannot have a backdoor into my electronics." And if they manufacturers give in, I'm sure someone will create an open source encryption algorithm without a backdoor and you can install it on a rooted phone.
Without encryption, PEDOPHILES will be able to access CHILDREN'S DATA!
Remember, also those bast**ds will be able to USE the same BACKDOORS the law enforcement agencies intend to use.
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
... why hasn't Holder already caught all the bad guys?!? Do your job, man.
I do see why, in theory, people are concerned about their inability to prevent everyone from accessing the content on their devices. I don't necessarily agree with them, but they're entitled to their opinion. I think the issue here is that, in the case of the iPhone at least, there was a process that existed to send the device to Apple, with a warrant, to get some of the data out. Now, barring some miracle decryption technique, the data is pretty much inaccessible until the owner gives up their passcode. It's similar to companies that weasel around the email discovery process by simply saying they don't retain emails beyond 30 days or whatever. (I worked for a company whose in-house counsel interpreted the rules that way -- if we don't retain it, no one can discover it)
What I don't agree with is the characterization of the US as a totalitarian police state trampling on everyone's liberty/privacy. In a country of 300+ million people, with a mishmash of 50 state governments and a federal government, there's just no way anymore for any one group to gain any sort of foothold. Look at how dysfunctional the legislative process is now...regardless of argument, or the level of money given to Congresspeople, there's no chance of anything remotely controversial passing. I think anyone who has lived in a real police state (East Germany, the USSR, etc.) would agree that the US is still pretty open. I think the chances of someone knocking on your door and making you disappear are vanishingly low.
I think that if privacy advocates want to educate people who (admittedly, like myself) don't really see this as a problem, they need to take a different approach. The vast majority of anti-privacy arguments sound like the ramblings of a "privacy nut" who quotes the Constitution as holy scripture and hides out in his fortified mountaintop complex ready for the apocalypse. There needs to be more reasoned discussion and fewer scare tactics. Similar controversy is stirred up about gun control whenever some crazy guy kills a bunch of people...the gun nuts all come out of the woodwork and push the idea that the Stasi or KGB is lurking right around the corner as soon as any restrictions of any kind are placed on gun possession.
When the forefathers of the United States wanted to have the ability to live a independent and free life. And they fought for that right, and through that fight using violence and blood. They accomplished their goal, but the threads of that violence, and evil stayed within us. And as this country was being built, and evolved into what it is today. Those threads of evil are still present in our society because our freedom came at the price of blood. Nothing is impossible, things are only impossible until someone makes the impossible possible. We just have to open our minds, hearts, and explore new possibilities with out brains. We all have intelligence, and the ability to rise above the complications that hold us back. So lets use our intelligence and solve our problems, the knowledge and technology to solve all our problems are available. As a species we have evolved to the point to where we have the ability to do anything we can think of. At one point in our history it was thought impossible to sail across the world because people thought the world was flat. It was thought impossible that we could fly with the birds in the sky. We can regain our freedom, and leave the evil behind that has haunted us from the beginning. And we can do it this time without violence and blood. The knowledge, technology, and ability is available for us to cut the strings of evil from our past so we can move towards a better future. Each evil thread that we cut that is holding us back will make it easier for us all to move forward, and heal the wounds from that evil.
While I think your point does have some merit, it's because many people are ignorant with Logic and Rhetoric. It would be better to get people to recognize an appeal to emotion logical fallacy, at least occasionally. Reassigning "think of the children" to reductio ad hitlerum would only work if the people in power maintained the same "think of the children" arguments. They already swap this out on occasion with "think of the elderly", "think of the handicapped", or any other item they believe makes a confusing enough logical fallacy that people will fall for it in mass.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
in prison for treason yet? Someone really needs to perform a citizen's arrest.
Dear Attorney General,
Please provide a list of cases where you can demonstrate that this capacity was effectively used to stop a crime in progress.
Exactly. This is pure fear mongering on the guise of "Think of the children."
Conversely, if the government can covertly install spyware on any device it wants anyway, why would the encryption matter in the first place. Wouldn't the government just falsely embrace it claiming it's good for privacy knowing full well they can subvert it.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
"oooh, Think of the children,hoooohoho"
in all my thirty something years on this planet, that is the typical go to when they want cram something evil, surrpotious, anti-democracy, anti-freedom, harmful, or otherwise impinging on your rights as a human being.
Its old, in fact it seems like a tired cliche. I could swear we've had this conversation a million times before. Being this is slashdot, its starting to draw back memories of carnivore and raptor.
Next, some politicians are going to make some noise about freedom, privacy, democracy and that jazz, later, and they are going to forget about this or pretend it never happened.
I have kids. I think of them. I have no need for these backdoors Eric Holder wants. I know what my kids do and who is with them. Please stop the "think of the children" excuses for these intrusions.
I could not care less. If I had something I really need encrypted, I would not rely on what those companies try to sell me. I might be paranoid, but I have some trust issues with huge American companies. Wonder why. I would rather do my own encryption. Now some insightful persons might say, that doing ones own encryption is almost a guarantee to get cracked. I agree. I am a software developer, but I would never try to invent my own encryption algorithm. This would be madness. But I'd try to chain several existing ones. Encrypt with several different programs. Hopefully at least one has no backdoor and/or implementation faults and cannot be cracked. I might not be able to create my own secure encryption algorithm, but a nice wrapper program to make the chaining convenient and easy to use should not be a problem.
In this "think of the children" scenario, the situation would be that a child is in danger, there is a suspect, and there is enough evidence to get a search warrant for the suspect's phone.
I wonder how many cases there have been where a child was saved from danger by searching a suspect's phone.
The spooks get various government loudmouths complain how the current adoption of better device security is only helping terrorists/drug-dealers/paedophiles/... and so please, pretty please, do not do it. The result is that those concerned about privacy & the tech-savvy crowd think ''f**k you - we now have our privacy back''.
The reality is that the NSA/GCHQ/... have the current technologies sussed/back-doored but are scared shitless that something better will be adopted. So: they convince us all that we have them on the back foot and so do not implement anything better.
Whatever the truth of the matter: we MUST continue to implement ever better security on all our devices - complacency is our enemy!
"Only about 100 missing-child reports each year fit the profile of a stereotypical abduction by a stranger or vague acquaintance." Those are the real kidnapping cases, and there's usually no identified suspect whose phone law enforcement could dump.
Whatever happened to the Land of the Free? Government backdoors into consumer devices are anything but Free. There was a time that you were presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Either you're a troll or you're a goosestepper. Which is it?
Dear Government,
We are specifically seeking privacy from law enforcement. If you obeyed the constitution or your oath of office, this wouldn't be needed. But since you don't, tough luck.
Backdoors are a threat to national security; because there is ALWAYS a risk they will be discovered by other parties or that the mechanism for their operation will prove to be exploitable.
That could leave us in a situation where an enemy, very likely even an enemy without state resources could find themselves in a position where they can disrupt/eavesdrop/other wise access just about all non-military equipment. Its terrible idea when we face threats like ISIS to deliberately weaken our information security posture. It could be economically crippling.
I am leaving out all arguments about civil liberties basic freedoms etc because the Intelligence committee types, and the FUCKING FREEDOM HATING ASSHOLES like Holder don't care about those arguments.
It comes down to this while backdoor the whole world might prevent a tiny number of crimes against children it puts the entire American way of life at risk. We had this conversation before in the 90's with Skipjack and our society made the right choice back then, for whatever reasons wrong or right. It was only 20 some years ago, the world has not changed that much; this is not the time to re-evaluate this.
Holder is bad rubbish and its good a thing he will soon be gone.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Scenario 1:
Child communicates with friends over an encrypted channel. He or she gets interrupted and lured away by a bad actor breaking that encryption. Then the bad actor encrypts his communications. That encryption then thwarts the government's attempts to find the child despite the government already suspecting he's abducting children.
Scenario 2:
Child communicates with friends in plaintext. Bad actor interjects himself and lures the child away. He then rapes the child, kills the child, and desecrates the child's body. Then his communications even though they are plaintext never get intercepted because he's never been considered a suspect. Bad actor moves on to another child and then another until he's investigated.
Think of the children, indeed.
Old Testament allows men to have female children as brides.
Deuteronomy 22 28-29 in hebrew
"If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy."
- Philip R. Zimmermann
Giving authorities total access to children's personal private electronics PUTS OUR CHILDREN AT RISK.
And I'm not yet even talking about the sudden and easy career change for pedophiles who want to track more victims...
...and I'd get in trouble for this, I suppose in this case 'Think of the children' would not work as excuse?
Another line of lets hide behind the kids Bolshoi trying to gain public support for things the ignorant masses know nothing about. But of course the majority are mindless drones and sit by/encourage the dissolving liberties America once had.
CALEA requires a law-enforcement backdoor into any communications gear.
Cellphones are communications gear, as are many other "consumer devices" that happen to have an internet connection.
What am I missing?
What a load of crap! Fact is that the vast, vast majority of people with mobile phones are not children but law abiding adults that are protected by the constitution from unlawful search and seizure. Not to mention the guarantee of freedom of movement.
Think about children - let's banish safe harbour for Predators - remove encryption from very secret party member devices ...
He is stating that the concept of a right to privacy puts children at risk. So obviously there is no need for privacy in the united states. I bet he would like to do away with the 4th amendment altogether. I voted for Obama(who appointed this POS) because in my mind he represented the best option for protecting civil liberties. I must say I am seriously disappointed. Can we please get a "none of the above" option added to the ballot and if more people vote for "none of the above" we start the process all over again?
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
> “It is fully possible to permit law enforcement to do its job while still adequately protecting personal privacy,"
Yeah, there probably is. If adequate security is applied to the backdoor method and it takes a court order for it to be used. Ok, yeah.
Ok NO.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Now most right wingers would consider me a liberal, but I will say that this will make American companies and products worthless in the marketplace. We continue to shoot ourselves in the feet with such bold anti-consumer and business laws. As a developer, I am already seriously debating ditching mobile technologies due to the rampant abuse of data and location (metadata) by law enforcement and three letter agencies.
Don't even get me started on the Internet of Things. The more of this stuff that is out there, the less I want to use it because I do not trust the government or police to do so responsibly. With no oversight or legal ramifications, there is no chance I will 'just trust them'.
And even if we absolutely COULD trust the police and government, the existence of a backdoor would be found and exploited by others who would misuse it.
What about the privacy of the people planning to overthrow the government when it is no longer following the constitution?
Why not? the leftists blamed bush in the same manner when obama was first running for office. both are only tangential targets as both are just figure heads anyway.
I just finished drafting the following email. Perhaps it will serve as a helpful template for those of you who want to send a message to your own representatives. Honorable Mr. , Dear sir, I recently read that speaking through the Attorney General the Obama administration is asking for new back doors in American electronics. The justification given is, in short, the protection of children. Further impingement against my own and my childrens' privacy is not only distasteful, it's criminal. The forth amendment may allow "reasonable" searches but the definition of "reasonable" has already been stretched to the breaking point. My primary hope for my children is not their safety, but their freedom. As your constituent it is my deep desire to see that you uphold the constitution: Every letter and every jot. Please reject any bill that further infringes upon the 4th, or any, amendment to the constitution. In particular in this case, please stand against further attempts to spy on Americans' electronic communications. sincerely and with all faith,
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
... can't have their 'cattle' talking about their 'owners' with impunity, can we...
With Jews we lose.
Is anyone out there actually stupid enough to believe this? Anyone?
(Crickets)
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
He means Democrat. As in Democrat Party. Not Democratic, as in one man, one vote.
Not even remotely the same thing.
Assholes like Obama and Holder are the ones putting "the children at risk".... They are trying to force a completely totalitarian structure on America.. You think the old USSR was bad? With all of the surveilance technology we have today and the capabilities it has to destroy a once free country, it makes the old Gestapo/Stasi/KGB look tame, IF we don't fight it AT EVERY TURN... I'm 64 years old, a conservative, and a republican up until the middle of Bush Jrs second term, then I decided I'd had enough of the party that *used* to be for smaller government etc.. Now I'm an independent, and if we actually *have* a fair election in November, I'll be voting ANYthing but (R) or (D)... I'm pretty sure I won't be the ONLY one.. Whats going on in this country makes me sick to my stomach....
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Any deliberately installed backdoor is usually trivial to find with a forensic analysis and it doesn't take a "licensed" forensic analyst to find it. How long do you think it would take until knowledge of how to use that backdoor to enter your kids' appliances reaches the circles that are interested in peeping into your kids' bedrooms?
Dear Obama administration: Bullshitting people with the old "won't someone PLEASE think of the children" works both ways. In this case, I doubt that you have the better arguments. Faced with the choice of you not having access to their kids' systems and your access offering predators access to them as well, I kinda doubt concerned parents will side with you!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This all seems hokey to me. After the revelations of Ed Snowden, the big companies: Google, Apple, MS.... cry foul claiming their business models will be harmed by the knowledge that they knowingly give up the information on whom ever the cia, fbi, nsa... request info on. They cry to the government that nobody will want to do business with them after these revelations. In my mind there is a scenario that plays out and it goes a little something like this. Google, Applie, Microsoft ( all the others ), "Mr. Government, nobody will want to do business with us after finding out we are your bitches! Government responds, "Settle down, this is how this is going to play out, you'll claim to have created new security features on your products, we'll cry foul, saying you're enabling folks to skirt the law and everyone will think, "hey, the big business boys aren't as evil as we thought, maybe we can continue to business with them and buy their products." Governement will say, "See bitches, you got yourselves all worked up over nothing. Now, back to business as usual."
I know that Google and Apple have made very public announcements over how they plan on implementing encryption in their devices in order to keep your data private.
I just can't buy it. Trust, once violated, takes a VERY long time to rebuild. A simple press release of " We're not evil anymore ! Really ! " just doesn't do it for me.
If you think for one moment that the government and / or Law Enforcement is going to give up this kind of power without a fight, then you're delusional. Regardless of their claims, or the "concerns" by the administration and LE's in general, I consider it all a smoke-screen anyway.
For any company who makes this " promise " of sorts to us concerning our privacy consider this:
You've blown it once. You -MIGHT- get a second chance at this. Maybe.
If you do, and we find out you're in collusion with these folks yet again down the road, your entire company will simply cease to be. May as well sell it and turn off the lights because you will be forever blacklisted across the entire planet. THAT is what you're risking. Your entire existence now relies on your ability to regain the public trust.
Screw us again and you're done.
Obama like his backdoors ;-)
adults are authority figures, and start teaching them how to defend themselves when somebody is making them do something they feel illegal, unjust, etc.
Might help curb some of the hypocrisy in parenting if they had to stand toe to toe with their children. And all those other problems would either be solved, or would in fact be between consenting equals, if not adults.
Having unauthorized access to my phone is not legal. It broaches Wiretap Law violations. Therefore, it's all good Holder. You've pursued all _legal_ avenues to resolve a case...including not tapping my phone.
Think of the children!
What if the information on my phone could be abused to abduct children? What if Chester Molester figures out the back door? Why doesn't the DOJ care about the safety of children?
If we really cared about children, we'd arrest all the parents that smoke around children, poisoning them constantly.
Start with that, then we can work on issues like hunger, abuse, education - once those are all taken care of, guess what? It will be decades from now.
If you fuck up the world they live in.
"That N Bauman is such a useful idiot. More idiot than useful, but still..."
K. Marx.
In an international free market, if US companies are seen to succumb to this pressure, open source and foreign companies will come along and sell items that (they claim( don't have the back doors. Either the US can shut up about this, or it can lose its companies..
It is the other way around. You think "open source and foreign companies" don't want back doors?
Either the US does not shut up about this, or the companies invested in backdoors will go elsewhere.
What, you think the US makes all its own equipment, write all their own code? They are in partnership.
The public and private have merged. They are one and the same. This isn't "the U.S. government" this is "private companies
and the U.S. government working together." Who gains from this? Besides the continual erosion of freedoms, there is lots
of money to be made providing back-doored technologies.
The reality is, those companies who don't do business with the U.S. government will not get awarded large contracts, and their competitors who do take the bribe will be rewarded and perpetually subsidized; those who opt out will go under, while their competitors get rich. Much better perhaps to send the left arm to do the U.S. government's bidding, and the right arm can funnel
those earnings into secure technology, perhaps under another name. You act like companies have morals and the government is the big bad boogeyman. Companies are just as flaky. They will sell whatever is profitable.
Open source companies may be better, but how many times are the firmware and drivers just a binary blob? Those companies who are truly open source are few and far between.
It is only fair that if the government thinks they have a need to monitor the people for criminal activities, that the people have even more of a need to monitor the government for malfeasance and criminal activity.
when it comes to stealing data and privacy, just bring up child pornography and sexual predators... then everyone puts on their caps and lights a torch, and agrees with them.
seriously how many times are they gonna bring up an issue such as this, it is blown completetly out of proportion. the fact is they just want to track people
Last time I checked, the Constitution says nothing about corporations being people, or our private information being available without a court order, or our private musings being subject to debate by officials.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Thank you Mr. Holder. I *have* thought of the children.
They have exactly NOTHING to do with my desire not to have my devices and data compromised. Either by tech-savvy criminals, terrorists or a government panopticon run amok.
Ammendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
You were hired to do a job. DO YOUR JOB. DO IT THE RIGHT WAY! Stop whining that everything isn't handed to you on a silver plate.
I (and many like me) refuse to abrogate our rights just to make your life easier.
I (and many like me) refuse to be pre-criminalized just to make your life easier.
I (and many like me) refuse to be treated like criminals or monsters simply because you play demagogue when we don't make your life easier.
If you can't do your job without violating the law and people's rights, please quit and allow someone COMPETENT to take up your position. There's nothing shameful about acknowledging your own limitations.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Just FU, you piece of crap, and your "protect the children" BS. You deserve nothing but public contempt, well-earned.
the answer is NO !
NO WAY FOR ANY BACKDOORS !
IN ANY DEVICE, CHIP, PROGRAM, PROTOCOL...
The government is already tracking where, when, and who you are.
And all your social media.
And sharing it which almost every agency.
Next they will be sharing it with every company.
Want to have Amazon autoship Kleenex and your favorite cookies with Netflix starting a comfort flic when you get a breakup text from your girl/boy friend ?
How is a cell phone different that data at rest on a hard drive? Do they think it's a problem for individuals and businesses to be able to encrypt data on our hard drives? If Holder takes a laptop encrypted with Bitlocker, does Microsoft just happily decrypt it? This is a feedback loop on security paranoia. The government wants to see everything, so the people start encrypting everything. Ultimately they are forcing the hand of those who care about privacy. It's counter productive.
Maybe this is the reason why Microsoft skipped Windows 9 and went straight to Windows 10.
Windows 9 didn't have a backdoor. Windows 10 will be backdoor'ed to death.
Ahem.
If that is implemented, I won't buy any electronics designed or made in the USA.
... "Attorney General urges tech companies to leave open backdoors for police"
chortle!
Oh, I see the problem. You've internalized Republican wingnut derp. Only a wingnut would hold being a community organizer against someone.
I'm not a Republican, but even I can see that you've misunderstood the complaint. He's not holding having been a community organizer against Barack Obama, he's implying that community organizer is the role in which Obama belongs, i.e. that he's not competent to be the president and that he should therefore go back to what he knows how to do.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Just round up any family living in the same household or in the immediate vicinity. The rape of children by strangers is rare it's practically mythical. Your child is more likely to be struck 10 times by lightning on the same cloudless, sunny day. It's virtually always a family member. Very very rarely, it's an unrelated family friend. Almost never is it a true stranger. We don't need cellphone backdoors to catch non-strangers...
He's not offtopic, he's just trying to shift blame to republicans, because he's a team player and that's his position in the starting lineup. He thinks.
Eric Holder, who is as Democrat as it can possibly get...
Ouch, that's a harsh slam on Democrats
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" But not on other peoples property, like, say, servers not on your property.
but while it isn't your server it is someone's server, and the same rule applies to their effects. An interesting law that might be passed is that "any party that is holding property or data on behalf of another, must require that a Warrant be served before yielding control of said property or data", forcing cable providers to stop piping every damn packet under the sun directly to the NSA.
Make the punishment death of the highest ranking company member to get them to really fear it.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
... the President stated about a year ago how the solution to NSA spying was technological developments which make the spying impossible. Does the Attorney General not support the President?
Think of the children when you take away their health insurance.
Think of the children when you tax the shit out of the lower class mommys and daddys.
Think of the children when you declare war.
There are many more, but let's be honest, if anyone in the government gave half of a shit about kids, children wouldn't be molested/beaten as much as they are these days. None of the ridiculous shit that the government can do, not even send someone into your house to monitor you 24/7 would stop child abuse of any kind. Keep alcohol legal, keep taxing the hell out of daddy and mommy, keep the streets as full of potholes as possible, keep the police as nervous as hell, keep the ability of corporations to pay government officials to sway law enactment, and you'll never, ever, ever, ever, EVER keep the children, or the adults, safe.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
But only the ones with stars and badges.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Dear Attorney General,
Perhaps you need to clean up your own house first. If law enforcers have not been aggressively raping cell phone data for the last several years (and doing so routinely at minor traffic stops using the flimsiest of excuses) then device manufacturers would not be bowing to public pressure to keep their customers data safe. If secret laws were not enabling secret courts to issue secret warrants with secret gag orders, then the device manufacturers would not need to "take themselves out of the loop".
Mr Holder, why were you not whining about this years ago? The technology has been built-in and available for years, the only thing that has changed is now the manufacturers are turning the option ON by default. Just what are you really up to here? We already know that the NSA has corrupted the routines that provide the numbers for elliptical curve encryption and they can easily break nearly all modern routines using it.
If getting a warrant is such a hassle for law enforcers, then perhaps they need to concentrate their efforts on people actually under investigation. Have probable cause, get actual evidence, get a warrant, and THEN conduct your search.
The current American law enforcement philosophy is that there is a crime being committed somewhere, so we will investigate everyone, you are all suspects. What happened to innocent until proven guilty. Surely the time to investigate a crime is once it has happened, not on the pretext that there is one happening right now.
Remember: More people have been killed by cops since 911 than terrorists.
I'm sorry, Mr. Holder, this kind of statement, combined with previous stories about government agencies hacking personal computers en mass and pushing spyware to personal computers belonging to U.S. Citizens, just makes me want to go out of my way to encrypt my data and communications to the highest level possible. It's not that I have anything to hide, it's that you've forgotten your place and government is overreaching.
Screw you Eric. You and your former boss were terrible American lawyers.
I don't care if he already resigned, the man should be removed early to send a message.
This is the same man who argued ridiculous charges were justified in the Aaron Schwartz prosecution because he was also offered plea bargains. Abuses of the justice system need to be strongly condemned at the highest level, not defended and lobbied for.
So much information is lost. So much information that could be used to solve a crime becomes unavailable. If only we could save it all. Why stop with giving government access to phone data? Why don't they record us all the time? Do they think that heinous crimes are communicated via chat? No. People talk to each other, and molecules of air vibrate, but then the information is lost to entropy, and the details of criminal conspiracies are lost forever. Everyone must wear a government owned and operated recorder around their neck at all times. This is the only way we can be sure that the government is able to capture anyone communicating any form of sinister intent.
"We must violate everyone's privacy to maybe, possibly prevent the violation of children!" Yeah right! Next they'll be saying stuff like "We have to take away legal gun ownership because maniacs sometimes kill people with guns, knives, and homemade bombs!" and "We have to restrict free speech so people are not allowed to say mean things, otherwise someone might get their feelings hurt and kill themselves."
Oh wait...
And since when did this administration care about whether an action they want to do is 'legal'?
"We’re not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help they need. I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone." - President Obama, January 2014
He is an idiot and should just STFU until he has even a 10th of a clue about how bad an idea he has brain-farted.
Republican Democrat there is no difference here. Read the Constitution carefully and reflect.
A liberal will argue for it a Conservative will just do it. No argument.
As long as Sunday school is legal the government is tacitly approving the worst sort of child abuse.
So what basis does his comment have now? He is out. He quit. So what? Whoever the new Attorney General is that is who has the voice on this subject.
Obama wore the purple scarf and GW wore the green one.
Of course, when an Elizabeth Warren (on the left) or a Ted Cruise (on the right) points out that most of the people in office from their respective parties seem to be pretenders, they are the ones who get labelled as "crazies" - it's like the Drazi looking at Ivanova and not understanding how this strange person does not "get" their obviously important power struggle (B5 references for any lesser-geeks).
The dirty little secret of the "establishment" parts of BOTH parties is that they are in it for themselves; they adopt the policies their funders want in order to have power and get money for themselves and their relatives and friends.
Right now, the GOP establishment is telling its base "vote for us, no matter how much we dislikke you and no matter how ineffectual we are... so WE can run the senate!". When their base asks them "ok, but then what will you DO with it?", they respond like Teddy Kennedy when asked "why do you want to be president?" - with a blank stare. The GOP establishment has NO plan to DO anything, THEY just want to be the ones running the senate.
Same thing was true for most Dem senators; THEY just wanted to be the ones running the place, which is why they never debate or vote on ony of the hundreds of bills the House has sent over and which Harry Reid has stuffed into his desk drawer. The Dems currently running the senate get more political benefit from telling their base that the House is a "do nothing" House than they would get from actually debating and voting on what the House has sent them. If what the House has sent them is REALLY "that bad" then surely the Senate Dems would benefit from publicly debating it and voting "NO" on it, but that's not what is going on at all ... if they debated those bills and held votes many of the Senate Dems would have to vote FOR them (to look good to the voters back home in "fly-over country") and that would destroy the narrative of "the guys in the green scarfs are BAD"
American politics are melting-down into a highly-optimized consultant-and-pollster-driven game for an elite group who pretend to stand for this or that issue but actually just use those things as base-activating tactics to get elected to NOT address those issues (so they can be re-used in the next election) .... so those elites can get rich and be "in charge" without actually DOING anything productive.
"Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requires the routers in USA to have ability to intercept and log network traffic." http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/... ISPs are actually required by law to provide wiretap access into the network traffic. This is done by storing all network packets on an extra CALEA server on the network. While it would be reprehensible for an ISP to do this for data mining, it's required that the ISP do this for the government. Failure to comply means facing some hefty fines.
use a computer
Democrats "center-right"???? The current Democrat party is so far to the left it would DESPISE its icons if they were alive today; Woodrow Wilson, FDR and JFK - NONE were for "gay marriage", nor were any for removing God from the public arena, nor for abortion-on-demand, nor for unlimited "open borders" immigration policies, etc. and ALL were for America being militarily strong.
Republicans as "far-right, religious lunatic, white supremacists"???? The modern Republican party is 1/10th as religious as DEMOCRATS used to be. FDR lead the people of the United States in Christian prayers on national radio broadcasts! The Republican Party was FOUNDED on eliminating slavery, whereas all slaves in US history were owned by Democrats, and Democrat President Woodrow wilson was the one who ordered the US government to be segregated along racial lines (it was NOT segregated for its first hundred years). The Klan was founded by Democrats and its founders were delegates to the Democrat Conventions - the last Klansman to serve in congress was Democrat Robert Byrd (who all the Democrat senators, including manye who are still in office like Feinstein and Boxer from California, voted FOR as their LEADER). Wanna know why Democrat conventions look to racially-balanced on TV???? for DECADES, Democrats have issued tickets to their conventions with SKIN COLOR as an issuing criteria PRECISELY for that public image... THEY are the party that putse every person into a skin-color box and then interacts with people in-part based on skin color. LBJ was famous for using the so-called "n-word" when referring to blacks. Even TODAY, it is the Democrats who are desperate to import as many poor illiterate minorities into the country for cheap labor and to count them for electoral purposes (EXACTLY the same thing the slave-owner Democrats were doing in the 1700s (and WHY the Constitution has the 3/5ths cluse to NOT count "non-free persons" as less than 1 person for apportionment of congressional seats)
The Democrats have always been, and to this very day continue to be, the ones who focus on "race" ... and while they keep blasting away at the TEA Party as "racists", the TEA Party makes NO issue of people's skin color and indeed has many leaders who are minorities.
from "normal" political parties and into the TEA Party... (grin)
The astonishing thing is the degree to which a Democrat strangle-hold on the educational establishment (via unionized teachers who all belong to unions that are hardcore Democrat activists) has lead us to a point where a huge portion of the population now thinks that TEA Partiers are "wierd" and "fringe" and "extremists" for simply wanting the Constitution to be obeyed AS WRITTEN (not as interpreted as a so-called "living document" by some leftist judge in a Karnac hat who claims to be able to detect "penumbras" and "emanations" of the things he wishes to find in the Constitution (READ the Roe-v-Wade ruling to be truly shocked at this form of insanity...)). The big-wigs of the GOP establishment don't have "clean hands" on this either - people like the Bush dynasty (plug in ANY bushie; they're all interchangeable) are perfectly happy to use the Constitution as toilet paper any time it gets in the way of their opinions on national security or international relationships.
All Americans USED to be raised to believe in the Constitution and to take things like the 4th amendment seriously. Sadly, today many just live on the cultural memory of those days and do not REALLY believe in the document at all - and that includes most politicians and judges who find the Constitution to be too inconvenient...
Reminder to you Democrat readers: Democrats were OUTRAGED when Nixon TALKED about using the IRS against his opponents and tried to impeach him for it. Our founders, when they wrote the Constitution, tried to limit corruption by limiting government because they UNDERSTOOD human nature and the idea that people in power would be too tempted to abuse it.... and Barack Obama and the modern "progressive" Democrats are the current PROOF; now with your guy in power and ACTUAL use of the IRS against political opponents having been admitted to under oath in congressional testimony by the agency, the Democrat "talking points" are that [1] nothing happened (not true according to IRS testimony) [2] it was done to Democrats too (not true according to IRS testimony) [3] the victims "deserved it" and [4] those crazy Republicans are EVIL for even TALKING about impeaching Obama... (Republican leaders "talking" about it were doing so in the context of insisting they are far too wimpy and impotent to ever take such an action, unlike Democrats who actually filed an article of impeachment against Nixon on this)
I'm sure some "open minded" Limbaugh-hating-troll will down-mod this just for spite (NORMAL people can appreciate truth and humor even when presented by a political opponent), but one of the things Rush used to famously say about these things was a mock-headline (which I cannot quote perfectly having not heard him in a long time) along the lines of:
"World to End Soon! Women and Children to suffer most."
The general notion being that people emphasize SOME victims of things for more impact; as though the world ending would be worse because it impacts women and children. The moment some "crusader" in the press or in politics can hang a more-sympathetic "victim" on something, he can get people to shut-off parts of their brains and swallow things that they would normally reject (like flushing their Constitutional rights down the toilet without even having any measurable impact on the thing used to justify the act)
EVERY time government tries to get the public to surrender more rights and more power to government, the claim will be made that one of the following is involved:
1. Terrorism (NOT everything that is "terrible" or even "terrifying" is "terrorism", which is non-government actors attacking innocent civilians in order to drive terror in a polulation in order to force political change)
2. Kiddie porn
3. Child molestation (Which, judging by recent British politics is apparently FINE in the pea-brains of politicians as long as the public is unaware)
Part of the key to seeing through the fog of this tactic is to ask the people asking for more power a simple question: "How EXACTLY will this eliminate the problem, and will you insert a sunset clause intot the legislation so it self-elimninates if it fails to solve the problem?" Most of the garbage they shove to solve terrorism or various abuses of children will do NOTHING about these things while enabling government to use the new powers to go after people for entirely unrelated things.
OH, CRY FOR THE CHILDREN!!!
To protect the children, we must give up ALL of our rights and privacy. After all, the public cannot be allowed privacy. Since they would not give it up for the DRUG war, and they would not give it up for the TERRORISM war, now we have to do it for the CHILDREN.
The truth is that children are kidnapped everyday. When the police go looking for them they usually do not find them until the bodies are dumped. Google and you will find many cases where it was found that a neighbor had the kid in their home and was torturing and molesting them while searchers were right outside. If you really want to protect the children you would allow law enforcement to enter any home or business without a warrant, breaking in if not allowed immediate access. Many children's lives could have been saved if this was allowed in the past. Many future children could be saved.
SO HOW MANY OF YOU WOULD BE WILLING TO ACCEPT THIS??? IT WOULD SAVE CHILDREN. IT WOULD ALSO GIVE THE GOVERNMENT TOO MUCH POWER. SO WE LIVE WITH OUR PRIVACY UNDERSTANDING THAT IT SOMETIMES ALLOWS EVIL PEOPLE TO DO EVIL THINGS IN SECRET. WOULD IT BE BETTER TO ALLOW OUR OR ANY OTHER GOVERNMENT TO HAVE UNRESTRICTED ACCESS TO OUR LIVES???
Even if you think you can trust your government today, are you sure you will be able to trust them tomorrow, next year, next decade? Once your rights are gone, they will be gone FOREVER. Think of the consequences.
Comments, Anyone?
Why does he think we care about children? If we did then we would have paid paternity leave like other developed nations. Those people care about children.
Postponing the obvious quote for the moment, the question with any backdoor is what's to keep the bad guys from finding it. (Okay ... the other bad guys. Picky, picky.) If something is known to have a backdoor, the hackers will do whatever it takes to find it. Breaking in to some manufacturer's system, bribing someone, or just brute force - once they find it, they know what it is on all similar systems. If anyone has a backdoor then the supposed protection is meaningless.
The quote? Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. - Benjamin Franklin
Voter fraud has been uncovered in every state, and it's been going on for decades. LBJ had a reputation for winning the cotes of dead people in the 1960s in Texas. People have registered to vote all around the country under names like "Mikey Mouse" (an act that lets poll workers stuff the ballot boxes at the end of the voting day) and have been filmed admitting to voting multiple times. The reason the official numbers are alway low is that in states Democrats control, there is very little government effort to detect it. Indeed, many Democrats insist that everybody (citizens and non-citizens alike) have the right to vote; by this definition, there is no such thing as an illegal or fraudulent vote.
This is just like Democrats who keep lying about the IRS and the TEA Party. The Democrats have done everything they could possibly do to block the investigation, their Democrat co-chair of the "investigation" has been caught colluding with the IRS to bury it, Democrats in the press have written numerous dishonest articles claiming there is "no there there" (counting on their ignorant readers to only read the articles and NOT the IRS documents) and yet there is the unavoidable truth: The IRS has sent representatives to congress where they have testified under oath (unlike all the Democrats repeating talking points) that the IRS did indeed target the TEA Party and that while they also selected progressive groups for special treatrment, those progressive groups got preferential treatment (accellerated approval) whereas the TEA PArty groups are STILL being suppressed today.
Never mind that you cannot attend many Democrat events, board a plane, rent a car, buy a drink, or buy decongestants at the local pharmacy or grocery store without photo ID, according to Democrats you are a RACIST if you want people to show photo ID before they get to cast a vote (which might well nullify the vote of an actual American citizen).
People who keep denying voter fraud are like "9-11 truthers" and "moon hoaxers"; No matter how much you yell "La La La" while plugging your ears and scrunching your eyes shut, you cannot change reality and your denial does not become reality. No claims of "there's been no voter fraud" are legitimate as long as the people making those claims are so completely devoted to both blocking voter fraud AND preventing government from detecting and measuring it (actions the Democrat National Comittee is deeply involved in all around the nation).
âoeIt is fully possible to permit law enforcement to do its job while still adequately protecting personal privacy,â
Yes, but the way to do so is to get a document signed by a court and give it to a human being who will then do what it orders, like unlock his phone and give it to you.
It is absolutely, 100% not possible to put a backdoor into a system without compromising the system. If it has a backdoor, the backdoor will be abused. If it is protected by a unique key, the key will be lost. If it is protected by encryption (key/certificate authentication), the signing certificate will be stolen or leaked (it would become the master-key target that every criminal in the sphere would be after, only a matter of time until one of them succeeds).
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Actually, one of the nastier persistent problems is this one called 'failure to enforce laws already on the books.' Notice you almost never see a politician suggest the solution is to actually start doing that. There's been some very nasty cases where CPS has jumped the gun, and basically the evidence is worse than 'the child made it up' as the child now has false memories induced by overzealous investigators, and a few children who actually really did make it up...and those? You do need to investigate as usually it's either displaced or a problem best treated quickly. They tend to grow up to become compulsive liars and go into disreputable careers, like politics.
Instead of invading our privacy to "protect the children" make the fucking penalty of molesting children death. Instead of a slap on the wrist two year sentence and then letting the fucker walk around to do it again. The Russians do more, they do chemical castration.
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If American tech companies DON'T put effective encryption on their devices, we'll all be buying tech products from foreign companies that do. GET USED TO IT.
"It is fully possible to permit law enforcement to do its job while still adequately protecting personal privacy"
Absolutely possible, where does it say however that access to people's phone is required for law enforcement to do its job?
“Recent technological advances have the potential to greatly embolden online criminals, providing new methods for abusers to avoid detection,”
Absolutely correct, take a look at what the NSA has been doing.
Indeed, odds are low that actual shit will actually happen.
In fact, we could even spin your president's argument:
"When so few children are actually in danger at any given moment: predators, crooks, bullies and thieves needs to be able to take advantage of every government-sponsored backdoor to hack into computers to quickly find vulnerable children and potential targets to abuse/mug. It is worrisome to see companies ready to leave backdoors and giving ability to create exploits" -- Mirror universe Obama (The one with the evil goatee)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I think that the invasion of Iraq and the lies propagated by the Bush administration as well as the Reagan scandal of arms for contras was the last straw for the public trusting the government. Lack of prison sentences for the mortgage scandals haven't helped one bit either. And then there is the issue of the use of torture on POWs. At some point one begins to think of the US as a banana republic that operates without any morality at all.
Fuck them.
"Think of the children" is the 21st century equivalent of reefer madness.
It's time to push the reset button on US government as a failed experiment in political science. They've become as fucking corrupt and sleazy as the East Germans.
Is a book by Orwell.
Read it.
Then look around you.
If you're not scared, then you either didn't understand it, or you are part of the problem.
It is clear where Mr. Holder stands.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
The rhetoric. Will it ever stop?
Guys like you and me could come off their fat asses and build Liberty Computers. They would be as simple as possible, complete with mathematical correctness proofs. We would not use the complex craptastic stuff like TLS or PGP.
Neither would we use opaque stuff like commercial USB chips. The boundary to the "untrusted" world would be a bunch of TTL signals going into a parallel port of an untrusted computer. We certainly would not use JS and the craptastically complex browsers for our truly private communications.
But hey, everybody - including us, falls for the shiny-blinky-backdoored stuff like Android, firefox, Windows, Linux etc.
Joe Biden is a square shooter. Joe Biden for 2016.
Now with ECC encryption!
Because we care so much about the children, we need to protect their parents from any government that tortures, injects people with poison, and sentences people to being raped.
Our president needs to speak to some IT pros before making any new proposals because creating a backdoor would leave my phone with my personal data on it easy to be accessed by hackers... Back doors are no good when widespread the gov should atop trying to cheat because the damn judicial system takes months or years to process a case anyway
And that includes all children at all times. But since these people have long ago stopped to do anything for the population and are just interested to increase their power, this is not really about children at all.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
There are a lot of idiots in the world. That is how people like this come to power.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
All these "progressives" want to destroy essentially ANY sound rules about civilized political process. They hate any traditions which actually support REAL freedom, as long as those traditions stand in the way of their romantic goals.
If you shit on Magna Charta, you want to be enslaved along with your fellow countrymen. And that is what all these "progressives" do. They also call it Multi-Culturalism when they import millions of people who adhere to a believe which is only compatible with political tyranny.
And those "conservatives" who support shitting on Magna Charta should also be labelled "lefties", actually the image of Feliks Dzeherzhinsky should be burned into their foreheads, so that everybody can see what these people are up to.
Damn I wish I had mod points.
We really need +1 Idiot of the Week, so we can all have a good laugh
Just another day in Paradise
I am ever so worn out with "Its for the children" excuse. Stop, just stop with this lame ass reason. Show probable cause, get a warrant, Follow the Constitution.
Guideline, my arse.
At this point in time, the phrase "To protect the children" has lost what it once actually meant. When I see this statement now I automatically become very skeptical. Back doors are for houses, not for government surveillance on its people.
Is there no limit to the number of liberties these butt wipes won't try and do in. Save your old computers and operating systems. If there is a back door I won't buy the device. Screw big brother !!
funny when the time comes and they DO need to find a missing child how the whining on this issue will stop and the whining on why they didnt do something will then begin.
Holden never stated nor asked that govt be able to constantly be able to access personal electronics he said it at CHILD ABUSE CONFERENCE thus it was in the CONTEXT of abuse or a child abduction situation.
Tin hats off people!
I suggest since the U.S. is all about profit, lawsuits, me first politics and penalties, do thus. Offer anyone whose data needs to be extracted from theories phone a reward for its retrieval code. Make it a LOT of money..millions. If the data is not criminal, the government forfeits this huge fee, no questions or recriminations asked or given. If on the other hand the data is as suspected in the original request for access for the suspected crime being investigated ONLY, then amd only then is the money not paid. Of course that would mean that standing on principle makes you instantly guilty of whatever is the unproven allegation. Do you see the absurdity in the idea of a backdoor? There is NO SOLUTION to this. Privacy ought to be sacrosanct and guaranteed by the UN Charter of Rights.
Anyone can encrypt anything really. The fact that it is built into a phone by default only makes it easier. There is absolutely nothing preventing me from encrypting anything I want, storing it on my phone, and transmitting it any number of ways.
I am pretty sure if I were a criminal, that might be the first thing I would do when using any sort of device on a network of any kind. The fact that most people are not criminals, and thus wouldn't bother pretty much means:
1) This won't help catching real criminals, as they would presumably be smart enough not to get caught.
2) This will help invading normal peoples privacy 99% of the time.
3) The only criminals you will catch are the stupid ones, and if that is the case there are likely a number of different tools to catch them that do not include the wholesale spying on the greater public.
It is also a play on the Democrat's own sneer against the previous President: Somewhere in Texas a village is missing its idiot (bumper stickers still available).
I think, mine has more class to it, though. As do most things Republican...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Let me answer your rhetorical question:
Nowhere. It's not something Marx or Lenin ever wrote or have been quoted as saying.
I'm getting sick of hearing about how it's a good idea to have basic rights taken away "for the children", because that's a load of crap being sold in the drive to monitor and control everything. Long live freedom.