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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!”
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.
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.
"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
Encryption is a SHIELD.
It protects people from spies, fraudsters, and other 3 letter criminals.
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.
"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!
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.
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".
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!
> 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.
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.
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.