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.
It's all about control. Once the Federal government gets its nose in your business it never leaves.
The excused used by dictators since the dawn of time to rob you of your liberty.
"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. --
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.
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?"
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?
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.
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.
I think they are being quite transparent when they imply that invasion of privacy is a part of their job.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
Correction: Yet another attempt TO SCARE the public into giving up their rights happily.
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.
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.
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.
It's great to go after pedophiles, drug dealers, terrorists, etc. Go to court and get your warrant access that persons information then go after that person. They shouldn't be allowed to casually browse through your emails and texts looking for "suspicious" looking information.
Holder is a lame duck, so he's saying and doing things that he would have avoided previously. You see, after they claim poverty ("they cut our budget") the next most common excuse of a government official for their offences and failures is "I can't answer for my predecessor/I wasn't in charge at the time." Holder is saying and doing things so his replacement won't have to.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
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.
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.
...and I'd get in trouble for this, I suppose in this case 'Think of the children' would not work as excuse?
Isn't he going to be appointed for SCOTUS when a justice retires?
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.
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?
I agree that Mr. O flunks civil liberties as much as Bush (and probably Mitt), but there are other categories to consider besides civil liberties. I wish there were federal issue votes on the ballot for this kind of thing, similar to some States' "propositions". That way we don't have to lump bunches of different issues into:
Please select one:
[_] Jerk A
[_] Jerk B
Table-ized A.I.
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.
Is anyone out there actually stupid enough to believe this? Anyone?
(Crickets)
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
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.
A national initiative petition and a national recall would both be welcome additions to our current system. Oh and term limits for house and senate would be nice. While we're at it lets switch to a ranked voting system so that third party candidates actually have a chance.
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.
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?
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.
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!!!
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.
... "Attorney General urges tech companies to leave open backdoors for police"
chortle!
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!
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.
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.
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.
As long as Sunday school is legal the government is tacitly approving the worst sort of child abuse.
"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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Why is it great to go after pedophiles - people who have a sexual attraction to prepubescent children? Let me guess: You bought into the myth that all pedophiles are child molesters, making the word entirely meaningless and demonizing countless innocent people. Sound about right?
Sorry to tickle your sensibilities Chester.
I hate to burst your bubble but all people who have sex with children are technically pedophiles if they have sex because they are attracted to that child. I am not sure about the "myth" that you are stating. There is a subset of pedophiles that don't have sex with children but are sexually attracted to children, I am not talking about those people. I am strongly against prosecuting people for mind crimes.
I am not for violating anyone rights until they commit an actual crime. If you think you can look and not touch and you're one of the good ones, then all I can say is only time will tell the tale.
Your argument is lame since you could describe a pharmacist, nurse or doctor as drug dealer. I am not sure what finite point you are trying to make but I am sure that you understand the implicit meaning of what I am saying anyway.
What if it was not illegal to have sex with children Chester? Would you still look and not touch?
Sorry to tickle your sensibilities Chester.
You said: "It's great to after pedophiles[...]". You used the incorrect term, so I merely corrected you. Such misunderstandings lead to many innocent people being persecuted for no reason.
Your argument is lame since you could describe a pharmacist, nurse or doctor as drug dealer.
That makes no sense and has nothing to do with your incorrect usage of the term "pedophile."
I am not sure what finite point you are trying to make but I am sure that you understand the implicit meaning of what I am saying anyway.
There are so many people who think that "pedophile" = "child molester." In a society where you could very well be on the receiving end of an angry mob just for being accused of molesting a child, it's pretty damn important to use these terms correctly.
What if it was not illegal to have sex with children Chester? Would you still look and not touch?
Who are you talking to? Or have you assumed that because I corrected you, that means I am a pedophile? If someone used the word "mountain climber" when they really meant "drug dealer," I would try to correct them on that too. Does that automatically make me a mountain climber, merely because I corrected someone?