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FBI Slammed On Capitol Hill For "Stupid" Ideas About Encryption
blottsie writes: At a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, the FBI endured outright hostility as both technical experts and members of Congress from both parties roundly criticized the law enforcement agency's desire to place so-called back doors into encryption technology. "Creating a technological backdoor just for good guys is technologically stupid," said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), a Stanford University computer science graduate. "That's just stupid. Our founders understood that an Orwellian overreaching government is one of the most dangerous things this world could have," Lieu said.
No, the founding fathers had seen some pretty bad behavior from kings and tyrants, and were people who understood the big picture.
They certainly didn't anticipate everything, but they sure as hell tried to lay the groundwork for trying to formulate how to prevent this crap.
And then people got all scared and lost their shot and decided "oh, fuck all those constitutional protections, we're scared".
The problem with the FBI is they moronically believe that if they poke holes in crypto that it would still have any value. Because they're too fucking concerned about getting this information they can't stop to think that if there are holes for them, there's holes for anybody else to use.
What the FBI et al are basically saying amounts to "everybody should leave their house unlocked in case we need to go in, and we will go 'la la la' and pretend that nobody else will do this".
The FBI are either collectively too fucking stupid, or too fucking fascist to comprehend that crypto only really works if you don't punch holes in it.
But, hey, between law enforcement hiding how often they use that Stingray thing, and the "manaul of institutional perjury" which is parallel construction -- maybe it's time we stopped treating them as anything but a corrupt organization which needs a serious culling?
Fire 'em, arrest 'em, hang 'em -- it doesn't matter. These clowns have decided the law doesn't apply to them, so they don't deserve to be treated like the good guys.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
it is the people that allow them to get away with this stupid shit in the first place.
Except they are NOT getting away with it ... because of the people. We are not going to accept it, and our elected representatives know that. They already tried this crap with the Clipper Chip, which died in a firestorm of protest. The same is happening now. There is no way that the TLAs are going to LEGALLY get a backdoor. It is not going to happen.
Agencies like the FBI, CIA and NSA have long relied on the general ignorance of the public, and even of Congress, on various technical matters. Further, they had their claws into academia and were thus capable of controlling the dissemination of information in regards to technical matters. These agencies still believe they are dealing with various kinds of ignorant rubes who will believe any technobabble their representatives care to spew. But this isn't the fertile ground for their particular brand of bullshit. The IT world is dominated by people of a rather different mindset, and while companies like Microsoft, Google and Apple couldn't really be regarded as friends of liberty, what they are is highly protective of their revenue streams. Crapola plans like encryption back doors and universal spying on their traffic is already damaging these companies' international reputations, and risks undermining many years worth the work of selling their platforms to foreign buyers.
And this, as sad is it is, is why these agencies will lose. Not because any of the Captains of IT Industry or anyone in Congress gives a flying fuck about liberties, but because it poses a threat to profits. I guess the little guy has to accept that the enemy of their enemy is their friend, and hope the IT companies win the day, but what bothers is that we may win the battle, and lose the war, simply because instead of a bunch of government spooks spying on every bit that gets transmitted over the Internet, we'll have a bunch of corporate spooks.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Whistleblowers have been coming forward, the people have been loudly criticizing it, we elected the Presidential candidate who was most opposed to it in both of the last two elections (the second guy was distinctly more of a "lesser of two evils" than the first), and we've been taking them to court.
So, to recap, that's soap box, ballot box, and jury box that we've been using. To claim that we're letting them get away with it is to betray your ignorance of the facts. Short of revolution, we have done everything we can. This is the oligarchy ignoring the law and the will of the people.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
A police state is what happens when the citizens forget that police-people always want more control and power that is good for society and forget to kick them in the nuts from time to time. The mind-set of most people joining the police and similar (like the FBI) is not compatible with a free society, hence oversight and democratic control. They literally cannot police themselves. Of course, many police states an even quite a few totalitarian regimes where cheered in by the people that later suffered under them.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Did you not see the recent scandal about the FBI forensic lab techs who lied on the stand? One guy's hair was matched to a fucking dog.