Slashdot Mirror
US Tech Giants Ask Obama Not To Compromise Encryption
An anonymous reader writes: Two industry bodies which represent Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, IBM, and others, have written to President Obama urging that the U.S. government not seek to legislate "official back doors" into encryption techniques. The Software and Information Industry Association and the Information Technology Industry Council sent the "strongly worded" letter on Monday, saying, "Consumer trust in digital products and services is an essential component enabling continued economic growth of the online marketplace. Accordingly, we urge you not to pursue any policy or proposal that would require or encourage companies to weaken these technologies, including the weakening of encryption or creating encryption 'work-arounds.'" The letter is the latest salvo in a public battle for secure communications, one that has reached the public eye in a way that few security stories do.
They actually mean "Consumer trust in _closed-source_ digital products and services is an essential component enabling continued economic growth..."
Why do we need encryption rules in the TPP?
A key priority for the U.S. semiconductor industry regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement currently under negotiation has been to introduce rules to prevent restrictions on the import and use of commercial encryption technologies.
You can bet VPN and other technologies are on the plate too.
If you Google "encryption and TPP" you will find a link to the PDF without having to fill anything out.
http://go.semiconductors.org/w...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I think if they can't manage to convince politicians how dangerous their plans are, there will be some TV adverts that tell the lay person in an easy to understand way what is going on and what the risks are.
If the same message is brought to people in adverts by Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, eBay, and they all tell you that the politicians want to mess up your life, that would get people's attention. Not just on Slashdot.
A government that does this:
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
is simply no longer interested in the rule of law other than to further their handler's interests.
So, request away! Ask for a pony while you're at it.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Anyone else catch the nonsensical bomb-threat at the White House yesterday?
I was passing a TV set to CNN and that was the focus. I've not seen much about it otherwise.
But they evacuated the Press Room once or twice.
Eventually somebody stood at a podium to opine about how we all need to address this issue of Encryption because it hinders their ability to catch the bad guys when the bad guys "misuse" encryption.
I was incredibly offended at the very idea. It's so stupid - you either use it or you don't. Using encryption to keep the feds from looking over your shoulder and reading your communications is not "misuse". It's the entire purpose and absolutely correctly used as such. And in the context of the US, it would seem we have the 1st, 4th and 5th amendments to consider.
Not only was I disgusted at this moment of sheer propaganda, I found myself very inclined to believe the entire thing was completley staged.