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Governments of the World Agree: Encryption Must Die!
Lauren Weinstein writes: Finally! There's something that apparently virtually all governments around the world can actually agree upon. Unfortunately, it's on par conceptually with handing out hydrogen bombs as lottery prizes. If the drumbeat isn't actually coordinated, it might as well be. Around the world, in testimony before national legislatures and in countless interviews with media, government officials and their surrogates are proclaiming the immediate need to "do something" about encryption that law enforcement and other government agencies can't read on demand.
Apropos: This IT World story (and the New York Times piece it draws from — also published today) about a newly disclosed NSA program through which the agency is "reportedly intercepting Internet communications from U.S. residents without getting court-ordered warrants."
as people start to use steganographic methods.
Governments of the world must die!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
think of the children!
The main link for this article is to what amounts to an opinion piece on some person's blog - it's completely unsourced, and really isn't news at all. The part about the NSA monitoring domestic internet communications without a warrant is probably a story, but it's tacked on to this blog post for no reason.
Finally! There's something that apparently virtually all people around the world can actually agree upon. Unfortunately, it's on par conceptually with handing out hydrogen bombs as lottery prizes. If the drumbeat isn't actually coordinated, it might as well be.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Copy protection often uses a form of encryption. Do they want this to be banned as well?
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Governments of the world come get me! My name is Anonymous Coward and I am legion.
In case you thought something happened, it didn't. All that showboating you saw in congress was exactly that.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Sorry, election results all over say exactly the opposite.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
"ohh no, encryption is terrism"
"clearing your browser history is destroying evimadence"
"don't video me while I'm beating this black man"
"the fourth amendment is a obsolete holdover from the 19th century"
Put on your big girl pants and do you fucking job by the book you shifty slackers.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Oh, please, CaptainDork, let us keep a certain politeness on Slashdot. That's MISTER (or MISS) Anonymous Cowardly Bastard(ess) to you.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Have a good day, Sir.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Government desires to disable or thwart encryption run contrary to the highest law of many of the nations saying they can't allow privacy.
A case in point: Canada.
Just because people want something doesn't mean it's legal for the Government to violate it's Constitution in thwarting it.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Encryption is a SHIELD.
It protects people from spies, fraudsters, and other 3 letter criminals.
We'll just create new encryption mechanisms anyhow. After all, if somebody not the intended recipient can read it, what's the point?
https://youtu.be/2yQgbYL4bIE
@Random_Adam
Sometimes a sig doesn't have to be funny!!
Yes, blocking encryption might make it easy to catch low hanging fruit, but it will win a battle or two and lose the war. ISIS and Al Qaeda do quite well in communications with just old fashioned courier services.
Lets say that the US signs a treaty with other nations (treaties override the US constitution as per precedent) banning all forms of crypto completely except say, Clipper 2.0 and SkipJack 2.0. The bad guys who wind up not caring that their private keys get sucked out and used against them will get nailed at first.
However, the real bad guys will just start going back to tried and true methods which worked perfectly to coordinate criminal activity for centuries before computers and portable devices came along. Yes, location monitoring might help with HUMINT, but as Iraq and ISIS has shown, extremely low tech means have gotten a group of insurgents armed with little more than pickup trucks, AKs and insane levels of brutality to actually form a caliphate which Europe officially recognizes as a sovereign nation and trading partner.
Then, there is the distrust factor. If only key escrow remains, who owns the master keys? If China does, US interests would be destroyed, like the solar panel industry. Eventually nations will keep encryption just so they are not vulnerable to other nations.
Finally, there is the DRM factor. If cryptography is banned, how can console makers keep selling $300 worth of crap for an eight-hour playing game and make money? How do they protect 5k video streams from pirates? Outlaw encryption in the US, China will have it. DRM requires strong crypto, and the big companies know it.
Government is inherently anti-privacy. We create governments in part to provide ourselves with a mechanism to deal fairly with sensitive matters.
That's why government needs to be kept small. Big governments run amok and abuse their power. Just like big corporations, big churches and all the big things you hate. Except you have been trained not to recognize this characteristic in government, and to hate anyone that points it out.
The reason we have secret fleets of FBI surveillance aircraft, NSA digging around in your email+phone+web, CPFB digging around your finances and all the other heinous crap our government is doing is because you have been trained to think the world is intolerable without millions upon millions of over-paid, over-funded government minders enforcing all sorts of prerogatives and doling out all sorts of benefits that you and others insist on.
So enjoy. It's all on you. All of it. And when they outlaw encryption that's on you as well. And there is no copping out with "reform." You de-fund them and send them packing or you live under their thumb. That's all there is.
There is no picking and choosing either; you show me someone that thinks NSA snooping is criminal I'll show you someone that thinks the "protection" provided by the CPFB spinal tap into the finances of the Western world are fabulous. In the end if you have either you have both. It is the natural, inherent, inevitable outcome of big government.
just think of all the personal info that would be flying around the internets in the clear, including credit card and banking info, i doubt that encryption will die anytime soon
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
"bad guys" will continue to use home made encryption and not give a fuck what governments say.
ISIS and Al Qaeda do quite well in communications with just old fashioned courier services.
I thought they used smoke signals:
No smoke: wazzuuup! Takin' the day off.
1 Big puff of smoke: Yep - new detonator design works.
2 Big puffs of smoke: Ali who got sick the other day, is feeling okay again.
3 Big puffs of smoke: That new recruit seems very proficient in mixing the chemicals.
4 Big puffs of smoke: Wtf... who else is making bombs?!?
Big puffs of smoke everywhere: Sh** we're being bombed!
How do you figure? In the U.S. the people routinely split the power so they can battle it out to a standstill. Often, on purpose.
Meanwhile, where not voting is legal, it's quite common and few think less of the non-voters.
"US Office of Personnel Management Hacked Again"
Oh fucking hell, quick, you guys, turn the encryption back on again! crap crap crap, on noes! Too late, we suck
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
Indeed... the last time I encrypted someone, they were unrecognizable when I was finished with them.
This Freedom and Democracy thing was worth a shot -- but let's be honest it just hasn't been working for some time now. And to frank, it just gets in the way of the efficient consolidation of power and wealth
If there's one thing we learned from Hitler and Stalin is that they were AWESOME!
Indeed. The parent comment is an interesting exploration of what would happen if encryption vanished overnight, but that simply won't happen. Crypto is out of the bag, and it's not going to go away. Bad guys won't obey the laws.
Well... no. A double-dose of idiocy doesn't balance things out.
hidden by the new CONservative rulers here
Meanwhile the top modded and most visible post in this story is an anti-LEO spiel that would be groupthink approved on any libtard site you care to name.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Caitlyn!
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Unencrypt everything. Come governments show some integrity? Wait that is risky and would let those who do harm exploit you? Then why don't let others do the same?
http://saveie6.com/
Is it a fallacy?
Felons, by law, can't have guns. Felons kill other felons with guns in the inner city all the time.
Drugs, by law, are illegal. Criminals (by virtue of using drugs) continue to use illegal drugs and overdose on illegal drugs.
I don't think they're embracing any particular fallacy by saying something along the lines of "People who do not currently recognize the authority of [x] will continue to disregard the fiats passed by authority [x]."
Encryption (without back doors) for use by governments is absolutely essential to national security.
zacpijlpjmn xjcpjmpt pjwioqmxaj, jaf mkpo fxnk mkpo txt jam. vaa-kaa.
hint: a = o
They are actually okay with just the bad guys using it because they can have the computing power and attack vectors to break small amounts of encryption (and they'll be able to narrow down who the bad guys are). It's only when everyone uses that it becomes a problem for surveillance.
If encryption is outlawed, the no binary computer code should be allowed with out the source code.
And a testsuite should be provided to ensure it is operating correctly.
All computer hardware should have schematics, timing charts, and a complete service manual.
All mechanical devices should include a blueprint and shop manual.
All politicians finances, meetings, votes, lobbying activities, should be transparent, wether in office or campaining !
And DNA can NO be copyrighted, we all share the same codebase !
People are not created equally (physical or mental ), but we want to be treated equally by our social laws !
This is my opinion based on what little I know and understand of the rumors and lies Thanks, Randal
Felons kill other felons with guns in the inner city all the time.
Clearly, the problem is that there is such a thing as an "inner city" in the first place. Get rid of those, and no one will ever die by being shot in "the inner city".
Yes, blocking encryption might make it easy to catch low hanging fruit, but it will win a battle or two and lose the war. ISIS and Al Qaeda do quite well in communications with just old fashioned courier services.
isis and al qaeda? you're watching way too much television, son.
If cryptography is banned, how can console makers keep selling $300 worth of crap for an eight-hour playing game and make money?
read tfa. this is about some complete morons' desire to make ciphered communication between users transparent to agencies, which is suicidal.
Commit murder with encryption? Maybe with one of those Model M Keyboards... But I would have to say, a steam iron works just as well.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
No matter how benign or well intentioned the governments might be (and I don't allege that they are, but even if they were)... they cannot stop absolutely everyone who is intent on disregarding the law from doing so before they have potentially caused damage or done real harm.
Utilizing encryption that the government cannot break is no more of an announcement that one might be doing something illegal than wearing clothes in public is necessarily an announcement that there is something somehow physically wrong with a person's body (leaving aside the notion that there might be something wrong, my point is only that it is not a remotely infallible conclusion from the premise).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
how do you know that something is encrypted? I send send any number of things over the Internet that might appear to be encrypted objects. You going to bust everyone who sends data over the net in a format you aren't familiar with?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
"a caliphate which Europe officially recognizes as a sovereign nation and trading partner"
I've seen this nonsense on here before. Where does it come from?
oh shit, now they are going to ban pencils. Thanks, Jane Q. for ruining pencils for us, this is why we cant have nice things....
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
> treaties override the US constitution as per precedent ...
No. Only in certain very limited cases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
From that article: "No agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress, or on any other branch of Government, which is free from the restraints of the Constitution."
And,
"The concept that the Bill of Rights and other constitutional protections against arbitrary government are inoperative when they become inconvenient or when expediency dictates otherwise is a very dangerous doctrine and if allowed to flourish would destroy the benefit of a written Constitution and undermine the basis of our government."
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
But... to use key escrow, I presume you have to go to some trouble to get the key from escrow and apply it to specific people. unless of course the escrow is a ruse for just decrypting everything.
And shield is a weapon. Try exporting a Kevlar suit out of your country, and you'll know, what I'm talking about.
From your list, the spies and the objectionable 3-letter agencies are what the taxes pay for. The government-adoring "buyers of civilization" pay for it — and force the rest of us to pay for it...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Time for the governments to die.
Really, the government is supposed to fear its citizens, not the other way around...
I'm with you brother! Man the barricades!
...just as soon as I've got paid this month so I can make my mortgage payment, queued up for the latest iShiny and watched the new series of XFactor.
No government will ever tolerate free speech. Despite the dreadful power in hand all governments fear the light of day and communications of the public.
Okay, fine. In that case, it's protected by the Second Amendment and government [or at least the US Government] can fuck right off!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Then they'll want it back
They'll vote themselves an exemption to the law. Just like Congress permits its members to engage in insider trading.
Have gnu, will travel.
ISIS and Al Qaeda aren't the threats anti-encryption movement is intended to fight. As economy fares worse and worse, people are getting tired of watching the fat cats get richer while they're facing ever more severe austerity and insecurity. We're headed for another age of revolution, and the top dogs are building their bunkers.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
isis and al qaeda? you're watching way too much television, son.
You're spending too much time hanging out at the lit table on the mall.
We know; she's cute. That doesn't mean you should believe everything printed on the leaflets she gives out.
I am all for 33-1/3 revolutions per minute.
Spin in place, revolution brother. Spin in place.
This isn't about organised bad guys at this stage. It's about control over normal individuals.
NSA methods of collecting data en masse and parsing it automatically for certain elements is becoming hugely widespread after Snowden's revelations, as you can only fight that kind of fire with similar fire on state level.
And wide;y used encryption used encryption cripples NSA-style methods, as automatic parsing becomes unfeasible in light of computational/subversive power needed to crack the encryption.
And protects against thieves of commercial and industrial secrets as well. Imagine the temptation for the NSA, sell to the highest bidder on Wall Street the new prototype of an advanced machine of a European company that they just copied from an email from an executive that they were spying.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
And who is selling guns to these felons, and why aren't they prosecuted?
Oh, most guns used by felons are "stolen". Why not make it illegal to not secure your guns, the same way it's illegal to leave the keys in your (running) car.
Learn to love Alaska
(treaties override the US constitution as per precedent)
Wrong.
I often wonder what possesses people to make blatantly inaccurate statements, such as yours here, on Slashdot. So help me out. Did you just make that up and assume it's true because it made sense to you, are you deliberately misinforming people, or are you some sort of crank?
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
If encryption, a mathematical method to protect information, can't be used because the user "could" be using it to hide illegal things
mm ... stop being a human being.
The "trouble" is minimal. The encryption is identifiable by its public keys, especially when the "keys" are nailed to the motherboard by programls like "Trusted Computing" and held by Microsoft in their "escrow", with no policy of resisting any requests whatsoever. Examine the pratices and policy of that technology carefully: it's not aimed at protecting users, it's aimed at both DRM and at making documents _traceable_ to specific sources.
(...) but as Iraq and ISIS has shown, extremely low tech means have gotten a group of insurgents armed with little more than pickup trucks, AKs and insane levels of brutality to actually form a caliphate which Europe officially recognizes as a sovereign nation and trading partner.
You're going to have to provide sources for this as it's a rather plain accusation of supporting terrorism. As an European, I'm not pleased at all of someone spewing bullshit about Europe recognizing ISIS as anything more than a bunch of backward barbarian.
[...] a group of insurgents armed with little more than pickup trucks, AKs and insane levels of brutality to actually form a caliphate which Europe officially recognizes as a sovereign nation and trading partner.
Do you have any proof for this statement (that Europe recognizes ISIS)?
If not: Stop spreading such BS.
"bad guys" will continue to use home made encryption and not give a fuck what governments say.
Heh Heh.
"You SHOULD roll your own encryption, and you can't be too careful so don't forget to make your own PRNG too." -- Well Funded Intelligence Agency
I made that up. But you know it's true.
Which points to exactly what the surveillance is all about, nothing to do with terrorist and everything to do with crushing political activism, silencing the voice of the people under the threat of anything they say could be used to destroy them and their families. Just as the US Federal government under that slimey POS Uncle Tom surveilled, attacked and persecuted via false prosecution out of existence, the occupy wall street movement.
Nothing at all to do with crime and everything to do with again silencing the voice of the majority, censorship, surveillance of that censorship and following up with prosecution as punishment to silence dissent. The corporate masters declaring their right to secrecy and privacy whilst demanding access to everyone's else's lives in order to enslave and control them.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Why doing so complicated and tricky as to build your own crypto? The source code of GnuPG, TextSecure, TrueCrypt and other well-known crypto programs are widely available. One only has to take the old version without the backdoor, or rip out the backdoor. There will be underground developers enough who will do that.
Escrow is soo 1990's. With perfect forward secrecy, there is no single key to escrow. Even if I would cooperate, there is no way I would be able to help someone decrypt my intercepted old TextSecure messages or Redphone calls.
Maybe the internet services and banks should not use it exclusive for em.
Actually the OP was using modus tollens, which is not fallacious at all.
You are confused.
The only encryption that the gov't want to stop is when it is used by individuals.
Corporations and governments still get to use high-quality, secure encryption.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Europe does not recognise IS, either as a sovereign nation or a trading partner. For one thing, "Europe" is not an entity. Do you mean each individual nation in Europe? The European Union? The European Economic Area? The European Free Trade Association?
For another, no individual state and no European organisation has recognised IS.
..a caliphate which Europe officially recognizes as a sovereign nation and trading partner.
I mean bureaucrats of EU are senile and corrupt but they still have not stumbled on ISIS.
There are fewer bad guys than ordinary people. If using cryptography means being flagged as a "bad guy" with all the unpleasant and life-altering consequences that follow, people will steer clear of encryption and behave as if they were under constant surveillance, which is exactly the goal of the whole business: not bagging some "bad guys" but keeping the populace under strict control.
I had this idea of not revealing my IP address to everybody in order to keep some privacy in IRC (and probably to remove at least some port-knocking from the server). Now, for that I need to be in TOR network, making me a criminal (at least some think so). I understand the Internet is was originally academic so there really was no need for "privacy". On the other hand the proponents of encryption are those doing criminal acts AND those who just don't want to share everything with everybody else.
I am afraid of being in the "criminal" group being hunted by the cops, I just need to keep my basic information "hidden". Only 1% of IRC activity is done in TOR and probably because of criminal activity (i.e. not to be seen by the cops). I felt I was in the wrong territory so I just chickened out of it, period. No matter what the "free speech" proponents thinks, TOR was not a solution for me (and I bet GPG/PGP won't be either).
Any be extension, anyone not obeying the law is a bad guy. It's just another law to use against citizens they don't like, i.e. the ones who care about privacy. Encrypted files found on your computer, planted or real, will be evidence of terrorism. Naturally the laws will be anti-terror laws, not just regular criminal laws, and so by definition anyone who violates them is a terrorist.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I see this problem similar to the "let's Skype" slogan when needing to do some peer-to-peer IP chat. You can select something else than Skype but you will be the one doing all the dirty work of teaching how to use "your own alternative". And most could care less, they just want "things that just work". If it sounds complicated or not working out-of-the-box, if it offers no real benefits, it's probably because you have something to hide... Basically the story of IPv6 vs. IPv4 too (minus the "IP addresses will end Soon").
well the documentation is already out there for various crypto algorithms and there are a number of open source implementations to look at so it isn't like this is an impossible task. Also given that these people are already doing something illegal what is to stop them from violating the GPL or just saying fuck it and using a real encryption program.
Time to offend someone
Jura rapelcgvba vf onaarq, bayl pevzvanyf jvyy unir rapelcgvba.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
...inane comments instead rational thought.
Wonder no longer: the locals call it "Florida."
Which is why gun safes are required by law in many places. If they break in when you aren't there, they aren't getting the guns. If they hit you over the head to take them, you report it and it's treated seriously.
Learn to love Alaska
The only time you will find a Statist (usually these days the political Left) recommend encryption is when they can suggest using their "special approved brand" which they can back-door. You know: government-approved encryption algorithms.
If you trust Government to regulate your encryption, you are a fool. I really don't know a better, more polite, or more subtle way to say it and still be honest. For decades now the U.S. government has consistently PROVED in is untrustworthy in this regard.
Find a good, non-gov encryption tool and stick with it. (TrueCrypt has proven to be good. No significant faults found by independent body, anyway.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Treaties do not override and cannot amend the Constitution and they may be nullified by statute. What they do allow is limited power to a federal government outside of its enumerated powers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...