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Manhattan DA Pressures Google and Apple To Kill Zero Knowledge Encryption (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: In a speech to the 6th Annual Financial Crimes and Cybersecurity Symposium, New York County District Attorney for Manhattan Cyrus Vance Jr. has appealed to the tech community — specifically citing Google and Apple — to "do the right thing" and end zero-knowledge encryption in mobile operating systems. Vance Jr. praised FBI director James Comey for his 'outspoken' and 'fearless' advocacy against zero knowledge encryption, and uses the recent attacks on Paris as further justification for returning encryption keys to the cloud, so that communications providers can once again comply with court orders.

291 comments

  1. Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Event the Old York Times had to pull its crap article about encryption.

    1. Re:Except they used regular SMS by rlp · · Score: 2

      Old York's newspaper is called "The Press".

      --
      [Insert pithy quote here]
    2. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes they did - but the message the Paris investigators found which led them to perform the raid on Wednesday was recovered from an unencrypted phone and not from traffic capture.

      Don't get me wrong, I support zero knowledge encryption where possible, but having access to the phone contents reportedly did allow investigators to make headway in France.

    3. Re:Except they used regular SMS by unixisc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      While I'm ambivalent about Zero Knowledge Encryption, the above factoid - they used SMS - is tangential to the point in question. Yeah, the French Jihadis used SMS, but Jihadis everywhere else have been using whatever's out there - not just SMS.

      I do oppose any attempts to ban this, since there is nothing stopping Jihadis from developing their own encryption codes and going totally dark on the authorities everywhere.

    4. Re:Except they used regular SMS by TWX · · Score: 1

      Then why the hell are governments pushing for data-retention laws?

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    5. Re:Except they used regular SMS by NotInHere · · Score: 5, Insightful

      since there is nothing stopping Jihadis from developing their own encryption codes and going totally dark on the authorities everywhere.

      This is what they want to achieve, as when encryption is backdoored anywhere, its much easier to argue that everybody who uses non-backdoored encryption is a has something to hide and is a criminal suspect.

    6. Re:Except they used regular SMS by silas_moeckel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Considering that unbreakable encryption that can be done by hand and used over any medium has been around forever. It's cumbersome to well.

      Denying the public effective encryption does nothing to stop a terrorists from communicating it just lets the government pry into average citizens lives.

      --
      No sir I dont like it.
    7. Re:Except they used regular SMS by swillden · · Score: 5, Funny

      While I'm ambivalent about Zero Knowledge Encryption

      Personally, I'd really like to have an opinion on "zero knowledge encryption", but I can't figure out what the hell it is. From context I infer that he's using the term to describe device encryption, as done on Android and iOS. I know what that is, and wholeheartedly support it.

      But I have no idea where this "zero knowledge encryption" label came from or what it's intended to actually mean. I know what zero-knowledge proofs are, and they're really cool, but they have nothing to do with device encryption.

      I've got it! He's using the phrase "zero knowledge" to describe his understanding of encryption.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    8. Re:Except they used regular SMS by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Does it mean encryption that can't be decrypted?

    9. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They aren't actually after the terrorists. They're after everyone.

    10. Re:Except they used regular SMS by MirthScout · · Score: 3

      My read on it is they mean the vendor has zero knowledge of how to break the encryption to gain access to a user's data.

    11. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Jeremi · · Score: 1

      But I have no idea where this "zero knowledge encryption" label came from or what it's intended to actually mean.

      Without going to extreme measures like actually reading the article, I'm going to guess that they mean encryption mechanisms where the service provider (read: Apple or Google) has no way to unilaterally decrypt the user's data, because the only place the decryption passwords/keys are ever stored is on the user's device.

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    12. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Isn't it strange that the conversation has changed? Everyone in the room already knows and agrees
      that governments are vacuuming up all* communications and storing them in big warehouses.

      That they are already sifting through everything we do and say, and somehow they are going
      to find and interpretet that one in a trillion message that will allow them to identify a suicidal
      bomber.

      And we're arguing about whether or not limiting their access to some small percentage of our data
      is harming their mission.

      If this is the tenor of the argument, then people who disagree with the basic premise have already lost. we're
      only a hairs breadth away from living in a world where exposing everything about our lives to a massive
      security apparatus is mandatory, and avoidance is in and of itself punishable.

    13. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't get me wrong, I support zero knowledge encryption where possible, but having access to the phone contents reportedly did allow investigators to make headway in France.

      True, but this was not a stop and frisk give me your phone, they had actual probable cause. There is a difference.

    14. Re:Except they used regular SMS by kilfarsnar · · Score: 1

      But I have no idea where this "zero knowledge encryption" label came from or what it's intended to actually mean.

      Without going to extreme measures like actually reading the article, I'm going to guess that they mean encryption mechanisms where the service provider (read: Apple or Google) has no way to unilaterally decrypt the user's data, because the only place the decryption passwords/keys are ever stored is on the user's device.

      Having read the article, I believe you are correct.

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    15. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yes they did - but the message the Paris investigators found which led them to perform the raid on Wednesday was recovered from an unencrypted phone and not from traffic capture.

      Don't get me wrong, I support zero knowledge encryption where possible, but having access to the phone contents reportedly did allow investigators to make headway in France.

      In other news law enforcement magically found multiple cells of terrorists in the aftermath of the Paris shootings. Yet they could not find these three suspects before they committed mayhem in the city? The government sat on intelligence hoping to be led to bigger fish instead of arresting the Paris shooters. I do not believe a damn thing the government says or the media reports. While Obama and Hollande twiddled their thumbs at least Putin struck back decisively against ISIS/ISIL in Syria.

    16. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Then why the hell are governments pushing for data-retention laws?

      Because they are more interested in what Aunt Mertle did at her sewing circle last week than protecting people terrorists. Pushing targeted ads to Aunt Mertle is more profitable than stopping crime.

    17. Re:Except they used regular SMS by beelsebob · · Score: 1

      It means encryption where the vendor of the encryption software has zero knowledge of the key.

    18. Re:Except they used regular SMS by bradrum · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is about investigator laziness, disregard for law abiding citizens privacy, and expanding power bases for the police, FBI, etc.... What you won't hear until well after the authorities make a power grab are the mistakes of the investigators to use the existing powers they have to foil or stop the plot.

      Warrants and limitations on investigative powers are paramount to keeping the rule of law in place. While I can understand streamlining existing warrant procedures to make them more responsive. Such as changing wire taps to follow a person instead of be limited to a selected phone. The powers that be pushed for MUCH more than that. And congress encouraged this behavior in a number of ways, they wrote a blank check after 9/11 for the NSA, FBI, homeland sec for any thing they wanted to "prevent the next 9/11". So in a time of great austerity for many social programs, space, sciences, many agencies and 3rd parties were flush with money to pursue anything they fucking wanted.

    19. Re:Except they used regular SMS by l3v1 · · Score: 2

      "This is what they want to achieve, as when encryption is backdoored anywhere, its much easier to argue that everybody who uses non-backdoored encryption is a has something to hide and is a criminal suspect."

      That's why strongly encrypted e-mail communication was doomed from the start - nobody wants to be treated a criminal or terrorist just because they are tech-savvy and or trying to protect actual - e.g., industrial - secrets from everyone, including prying government eyes.

      --
      I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
    20. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh. And I was thinking this was about Google/Apple somehow using ZK proofs.

    21. Re:Except they used regular SMS by nine-times · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Still, the governments of the world have been asking us to give up on having any level of privacy so that they can "catch terrorists". I think they need to demonstrate some things before I can even think about accepting that idea.

      1) There's oversight over the collection and storage of the data that guarantees that it's being used for that purpose. There's no possibility that it can be used for other law enforcement operations, for blackmail, or for looking at dick pics (thank you, John Oliver).
      2) The program is effective. If you're collecting my SMS messages so that you can stop terrorist attacks, show me that you're catching terrorists that way. Don't collect SMS messages preemptively and then go, "Well after the fact, we found that the terrorists used SMS and we just didn't catch it. But after we caught people who were involved and found their cell phones, we thought it was kind of helpful to see those SMS messages."
      3) Explain why the terrorists won't just change their methods. People say things like, "When guns are illegal, only criminals will have guns," and then the same people say, "We need to make it illegal to send encrypted messages that we can't break." It doesn't make sense.

      That's just to start. I'll think about more questions when those can be answered.

    22. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Once they have these kinds of powers, everything an uncooperative politician can potentially be used to coerce.

    23. Re:Except they used regular SMS by sociocapitalist · · Score: 1

      "...solution for cloud storage data security. All of your data is encrypted, and the cloud storage provider doesn’t have the key, only you, the user does. In other words, the provider has “zero knowledge” of the encryption key."
      http://www.idganswers.com/ques...

      --
      blindly antisocialist = antisocial
    24. Re:Except they used regular SMS by edtice1559 · · Score: 1

      What it means is that Apple and Google are facilitating the encryption while retaining zero knowledge of the keys. Therefore, neither company is able to decrypt the user's data on behalf of law enforcement. They are doing this because, if they didn't, somebody else would offer apps to do it and then take over part of their ecosystem.

    25. Re:Except they used regular SMS by mark-t · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They appear to be under the impression that the only reason one would have something to hide is because one has done something wrong.

      Of course, nearly everyone has something to hide... and it is not because there is anything necessarily wrong. Does one wear clothes in public for example? Is there something wrong with their bodies that they feel they must do this, or do they do so simply because their bodies are private? Having something that you may feel is private or even something that you might feel somewhat embarrassed by if it were to be public does not mean that anything is amiss... it means you are human.

    26. Re:Except they used regular SMS by macs4all · · Score: 1

      Don't get me wrong, I support zero knowledge encryption where possible, but having access to the phone contents reportedly did allow investigators to make headway in France.

      "A Policeman's job is only easy in a Police State" - Ramon Vargas, "A Touch of Evil"

    27. Re:Except they used regular SMS by macs4all · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In other news law enforcement magically found multiple cells of terrorists in the aftermath of the Paris shootings. Yet they could not find these three suspects before they committed mayhem in the city? The government sat on intelligence hoping to be led to bigger fish instead of arresting the Paris shooters. I do not believe a damn thing the government says or the media reports. While Obama and Hollande twiddled their thumbs at least Putin struck back decisively against ISIS/ISIL in Syria.

      This. This. A THOUSAND times This!

      Meanwhile, we get "treated" to more and more Security Theater.

      If the gummints would aggressively go after each and every of the credible leads they OBVIOUSLY have, the life of the Terrist on the ground would be seen as less and less "glamorous", and sooner, rather than later, the likes of ISIS/ISIL would start having "attrition" numbers, and lack of new recruits, that would start putting a severe damper on their plans for world domination.

      And no, I don't believe that the "Martyr Effect" would work in their favor.

    28. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So what? Isn't that the entire point?
      https://youtu.be/KX-iEdDbP3M?t=27s

      You don't change anything by cutting at the heads of hydra.

    29. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmm, maybe we wear clothes because otherwise, people's baser instincts are closer to the fore and we revert to a more basic state of cognition, incapable of sustained modern civilized living (in the traditional sense)?

      I personally think we should go back to being nude, but I seem to be a minority. Also, you first.

    30. Re:Except they used regular SMS by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

      I read it as the user requires zero knowledge about encryption to use it, as in it's freely available and default and requires no user intervention to use it. This would block almost all snooping and is what Apple and Google have been talking about since the NSA revelations.

    31. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "This is what they want to achieve, as when encryption is backdoored anywhere, its much easier to argue that everybody who uses non-backdoored encryption is a has something to hide and is a criminal suspect."

      That's why strongly encrypted e-mail communication was doomed from the start - nobody wants to be treated a criminal or terrorist just because they are tech-savvy and or trying to protect actual - e.g., industrial - secrets from everyone, including prying government eyes.

      In fact, one is required by US law to keep discussion of potential patent disclosures secret, until they have been filed as patent applications. There is no exception for the US government. We use encrypted communications to do so. Furthermore, one is required to keep industrial secrets as secrets; again, there is no exception for the US government.

    32. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. It means encryption any dummy can deploy.

      You know, Slashdotters!...Politicans!...Police!...TLAs!...

    33. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The problem with giving government more surveillance capability is that the agencies that perform the surveillance ignore any legal or legislative limitations to their ability. They ignore the law as much as they can, just like criminals.

    34. Re:Except they used regular SMS by swillden · · Score: 2

      They are doing this because, if they didn't, somebody else would offer apps to do it and then take over part of their ecosystem.

      Heh. As one of the engineers at Google who builds Android device encryption, I'd say that we do it because that's how it should be. But it should surprise no one that engineers who gravitate to positions like mine are people think everything should be encrypted and that only the person who owns the data should have the keys.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    35. Re:Except they used regular SMS by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      Personally, I'd really like to have an opinion on "zero knowledge encryption", but I can't figure out what the hell it is. From context I infer that he's using the term to describe device encryption, as done on Android and iOS. I know what that is, and wholeheartedly support it.

      But I have no idea where this "zero knowledge encryption" label came from or what it's intended to actually mean. I know what zero-knowledge proofs are, and they're really cool, but they have nothing to do with device encryption.

      I've got it! He's using the phrase "zero knowledge" to describe his understanding of encryption.

      This.
      Zero knowledge protocols and proofs have plenty to do with cryptographic security, most commonly in authentication protocols, but have nothing to do with encryption.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    36. Re:Except they used regular SMS by swillden · · Score: 1

      Does it mean encryption that can't be decrypted?

      That would certainly be secure.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    37. Re:Except they used regular SMS by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      But I have no idea where this "zero knowledge encryption" label came from or what it's intended to actually mean.

      Without going to extreme measures like actually reading the article, I'm going to guess that they mean encryption mechanisms where the service provider (read: Apple or Google) has no way to unilaterally decrypt the user's data, because the only place the decryption passwords/keys are ever stored is on the user's device.

      This may be. But Zero Knowledge Proof means something very specific and that isn't it.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    38. Re: Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The definition of "credible" needs to be addressed. After Paris ISIL said that Washington is next. The FBI says that no "credible" threats were made.

    39. Re:Except they used regular SMS by necro81 · · Score: 1

      My read on it is they mean the vendor has zero knowledge of how to break the encryption to gain access to a user's data

      Oh, the vendor has plenty of knowledge on how to break the encryption - they developed it, after all - it's just that the knowledge of how the encryption works doesn't lead to any feasible way to break it in any reasonable timeframe. The knowledge the vendor has about breaking the encryption is "brute force is your only recourse, and we hope you can wait a loooong time."

    40. Re:Except they used regular SMS by unixisc · · Score: 1

      I have a business plan. Develop encryption routines made up of many:one functions, so that they can't be decrypted. And then sell them to ISIS and other Jihadis worldwide for a hefty fee. The plans they send each other won't be accessible by their recipient, which would certainly slow down their planning.

      Oh, and their only way of contacting me would be to use the same encryption, and so I'd have no way of viewing their death threats when it works as intended }:-)

    41. Re:Except they used regular SMS by silas_moeckel · · Score: 1

      The core issue with a wiretap following an individual is how do you know. They seem to want the tap everything and we will figure it out approach.

      --
      No sir I dont like it.
    42. Re:Except they used regular SMS by cfalcon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      > but having access to the phone contents reportedly did allow investigators to make headway in France

      So, we have access to encryption (aka real encryption, aka zero knowledge encryption), and the terrorists were not using it. This then becomes an argument against real encryption. Of course, if the terrorists WERE using it, it would ALSO be a an argument against real encryption.

      The story so far: Terrorists communicate without using Bibles, or encryption. Terrorists kill a bunch of people without using Bibles, or encryption. Later investigators find phones without Bibles, or encryption.

      Nothing in this story involves Bibles, or encryption- if either one is inserted, it's because someone wants to take your Bible. Or more likely, your encryption.

    43. Re:Except they used regular SMS by cfalcon · · Score: 1

      So, it means encryption.

      If you put a modifier in front, it usually acts to modify. In this case, it is providing no modification. The opposite "key escrow", is a system where someone has a master key that can unlock anything locked by all the slave keys (that's what you get, citizen!).

    44. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Zero knowledge" - isn't that a requirement to hold government office?

    45. Re:Except they used regular SMS by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      4) Explain how they will prevent other governments using the same methods to steal our secrets and private information.
      5) Explain how they will prevent future governments from abusing the infrastructure they put in place to facilitate bulk data collection.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    46. Re:Except they used regular SMS by swillden · · Score: 1

      Nice!

      As a side benefit, it should be easy to achieve enormous data compression ratios along with the encryption. So not only would the messages be very secure, they'd also be very cheap and easy to transmit.

      How could this not be attractive to Jihadis?

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    47. Re:Except they used regular SMS by beelsebob · · Score: 1

      No, it doesn't mean "encryption". It's perfectly possible to have encryption in which more parties than the sender and receiver know the key. It's not very useful if what you're trying to do is secure the communication of A and B, but that doesn't make it "not encryption".

    48. Re:Except they used regular SMS by bradrum · · Score: 1

      Fair point. If you buy a piece of crap cell phone or change sims it would be hard to pick up on that unless they go through mainstream channels.

    49. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clothing is an alien organism that will take over the planet! Join Nudist Beach like the other AC!

    50. Re: Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      6) Explain why these extra powers which are supposed to be about fighting terrorism always find their way into general law enforcement use.

      I'll bet our allegedly courageous FBI director would howl and scream at any such limitation, especially if it were accompanied by severe criminal penalties for things like 'parallel construction'.

    51. Re:Except they used regular SMS by cheater512 · · Score: 1

      They found the unencrypted phone correct.

      If it HAD been encrypted, France already has mandatory data retention so they'd just have to make a call or two once they knew the IMEI.

      The phone being unencrypted just saves a few minutes since they used SMS.

    52. Re:Except they used regular SMS by aaaaaaargh! · · Score: 1

      For a while I thought they meant zero knowledge protocols. It took me a while what this discussion was really about.

    53. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Coren22 · · Score: 2

      If they were using the new iPhone with its encryption, there wouldn't have even been the SMS lead, because Apple is taking away law enforcement's ability to read the contents of a phone even with a warrant and when no one would argue it isn't reasonable.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    54. Re:Except they used regular SMS by amicusNYCL · · Score: 3, Insightful

      From the New York Times:

      French intelligence officials have concluded that Mr. Abaaoud was involved in at least four of six terrorist plots in France that have been foiled since the spring, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced at a news conference.

      Mr. Abaaoud, a Belgian citizen who was 27 or 28, went to Syria last year to fight with the Islamic State, but it was not until Monday that French authorities learned - through a foreign intelligence service - that he had returned to Europe, via Greece, Mr. Cazeneuve said.

      They had been tracking him, at least enough to break up several other things he was planning. But the problem with this situation, like we all know, is that the terrorists only have to succeed once, while law enforcement has to succeed every time. They didn't even realize he was back inside the country until 4 days before the attack, and that's not a lot of time to find someone who probably didn't want to be found.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    55. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First off, it is a misuse of the term "zero knowledge" which in security circles has a completely different meaning (zero-knowledge proof is a method of proving you have knowledge without first giving away some of that knowledge).

      What they mean is crypto where the keys aren't known to outside parties, ie. no back-doors.

    56. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because the economy is collapsing and a select few are attempting to establish a one world government under the control of a few. In order to do that, they need all the governments to be fascist, and in order to do that, they need control over as many areas as they can get.

      In the U.S. it's...

      TRAVEL (TSA, and illegal checkpoints)
      FINANCES (Restrictions on withdraws, control over credit cards. and restrictions on cash, capital controls)
      COMMUNICATIONS ("Net neutrality", Censorship)
      FOOD / WATER (GMO, Water shortages, Restrictions on collecting rain water and on growing gardens).
      EDUCATION ("Common core", political attacks on home schooling and charter schools)
      GUNS (Illegal restrictions, gun free zones, gun insurance, ammo restrictions).
      HEALTHCARE (Obamacare, forced vaccines)

      Data retention laws apply to communications, and control over you and I in what we say by imposing fear on the population, just like the Nazi's did.

    57. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's incredibly difficult to tell the difference between a terrorist and everyone else. So they have to go after everyone.

    58. Re:Except they used regular SMS by ihtoit · · Score: 1

      Because there are two constants in today's economy: data and weapons. Nobody ever went broke selling either.

      I refer you to BAE Systems' recent contracts and the fact that people still sell CDROM discs full of verified email addresses.

      http://www.baesystems.com/en/a... (£1.3Bn for a nuclear submarine)
      http://www.b2b-bl.com/?p=220 (B2B Spam and why opt-in lists work about as well as opt-out).

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    59. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you really believed that, you wouldn't work at Google.

    60. Re:Except they used regular SMS by nospam007 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "In other news law enforcement magically found multiple cells of terrorists in the aftermath of the Paris shootings. Yet they could not find these three suspects before they committed mayhem in the city?"

      Exactly! Now they have emergency law active, which allows them to search houses without any warrant or cause.

      When you are allowed to dry the whole pond, any idiot can catch some fish.

    61. Re:Except they used regular SMS by bmk67 · · Score: 2

      No.

      It's difficult to tell the difference between a *potential* terrorist and everyone else.

      The terrorist is the guy hosing down a crowd with a Kalashnikov.

    62. Re:Except they used regular SMS by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      The correct term is end-to-end encryption.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    63. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And of course we can trust the US Government.... Just ask the Native Americans...

    64. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Darinbob · · Score: 2

      Radio talk show covered this today. One guest kept claiming that you couldn't trust the encryption experts because they had a financial motivation from Silicon Valley companies. He kept hammering this point over and over despite how ridiculous it was. Encryption is being added by companies because the customers have demanded it.

      On the other hand, he never pointed out that law enforcement have their on innate biases towards fewer freedoms. Law enforcement has a long history of pushing hard against privacy boundaries, believe in guilty at first suspicion, etc. If they could get their way, law enforcement would have cameras in everybody's homes for their safety. They have a financial motivation to raise their conviction rates. The problem is that we could always have another J Edgar Hoover clone take charge of the FBI at which point we will need a government able to push back and slap down their attempts at spying on everyone, or the ability for the public to protect themselves with encryption.

      Fundamental problem the divide between people who feel it's better for a few guilty people to get away with their crimes as long as this protects innocent people, and others who believe that it's ok for a few innocent people are punished as long as no one guilty gets away with their crimes.

    65. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The government is not operating under the delusion that honest people have no reason to keep anything private. They know darn good and well that honest people have important communications every day that should be kept private, that's why the government is interested. Superior knowledge of everyone's private communications puts key government officials in a position where they can get crazy rich through intelligent market manipulation. They have done and will continue to do precisely this.

      Everything else is just fluff to convince stupid people to buy in.

    66. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But it should surprise no one that engineers who gravitate to positions like mine are people think everything should be encrypted and that only the person who owns the data should have the keys.

      ahem

    67. Re:Except they used regular SMS by swillden · · Score: 2

      If you really believed that, you wouldn't work at Google.

      And yet I do, and I know far more about Google than you.

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    68. Re:Except they used regular SMS by swillden · · Score: 1

      But it should surprise no one that engineers who gravitate to positions like mine are people think everything should be encrypted and that only the person who owns the data should have the keys.

      ahem

      And?

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    69. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is no such thing as a potential terrorist. That would amount to thought crime.

    70. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is not possible to simultaneously do #2 and #3. The only way to prevent the adversary from countering (or attempting to counter) your sources and methods, is to not disclose them to begin with.

    71. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The people that uses the "nothing wrong, nothing to hide" excuse misses the point
      the point is that those that want access to the information cannot be trusted
      sadly there is plenty of corruption going on in the world security services and the more powerful they are more corrupt they become
      Its not that they may use the anti privacy laws for their gain, its that the will and do use and abuse anything in their hand to push forward their agendas and personal gain
      the way to catch the baddies and end end with the terrorist is by having a clear hones agenda, working together and having real people doing the hard work, as always

      You don't protect freedom and democracy by killing it, you protect it by generating even more and setting an example to the world
      and yes freedom cost blood and democracy require constant care, our forefathers knew it and believed it was a price worth to pay for it
      today in our coziness we forget what is all about and its real worth

    72. Re:Except they used regular SMS by mark-t · · Score: 1

      the point is that those that want access to the information cannot be trusted

      Agreed, but even if they *COULD* be trusted (this is a hypothetical scenario here, I know, but hear me out)... it is still a bad idea, because if they are able to read your encrypted data, then so could somebody with less noble intentions. No matter how honest or trustworthy any governing body could ever be, they cannot prevent 100% of the bad guys from getting access to the exact same encryption defeating measures that the government might intend to use, so even if you give the government every benefit of the doubt about their intentions for how they would use these powers, you still wind up with catastrophic failure when somebody outside of the government, and over whom the government may have absolutely no control, gets access to the same data, and uses their ability to decrypt it for nefarious purposes, which may cause irreparable harm to completely innocent parties.

      That's *EVEN IF* the government could be trusted to not abuse the power they would have. No further investigation into how trustworthy the government may or may not actually be is necessary to show how colossally stupid and dangerous the idea is.

    73. Re:Except they used regular SMS by mark-t · · Score: 1

      I personally think we should go back to being nude, but I seem to be a minority. Also, you first.

      There are some horrors which, once seen, cannot be erased from your brain. Trust me, you do not want me to go first... or ever, for that matter.

    74. Re: Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There very much is a difference. Ignorance of that fact is dangerous.

    75. Re: Except they used regular SMS by ememisya · · Score: 1

      You are absolutely wrong. If only there were more backdoors and viruses preinstalled on devices we could have stopped terror from existing. The evil doers are just protected thanks to the pesky lock icon next to your browser.

    76. Re:Except they used regular SMS by ImprovOmega · · Score: 2

      It's easy - the potential terrorist is the one who wants to keep zero-knowledge encryption. If he was innocent then he wouldn't have anything to hide!

    77. Re:Except they used regular SMS by metrix007 · · Score: 1

      You are not an engineer. You are a software developer. Stop diluting the term because you want to be more than you are.

      --
      If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
    78. Re:Except they used regular SMS by swillden · · Score: 1

      You are not an engineer. You are a software developer. Stop diluting the term because you want to be more than you are.

      Bah. I'm not a certified professional engineer. But neither are most of the mechanical engineers, civil engineers, structural engineers, etc. The only difference between those engineering disciplines and software engineering is that the latter hasn't yet matured to the degree that PE certifications make sense.

      But there is absolutely no doubt that what I do is engineering, even if I don't have to be certified, or to get a certified PE to sign off on it.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    79. Re: Except they used regular SMS by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      7) Explain why these massive data collections can be trusted to be accessible only to government operatives, and won't leak to other organizations that might abuse them.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    80. Re:Except they used regular SMS by easyTree · · Score: 1

      The terrorist is the guy hosing down a crowd with a Kalashnikov.

      Or threatening to continue carpet-bombing your country with B-52's until you collectively oust your leader.

    81. Re:Except they used regular SMS by easyTree · · Score: 1

      I do not believe a damn thing the government says

      You're giving them way too much credit - no, I'm not being ironic :D

      10 PRINT "(Really, I'm not)"
      20 GOTO 10

    82. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not a security expert, but I think they invented the term "zero knowledge encryption" just to scare people into thinking it's bad. All it means is "an encryption scheme without a backdoor", but that's how encryption is *supposed* to work. The debate should be framed as "encryption" [correct] vs "insecure encryption" [flawed], instead of the "zero knowledge encryption" [correct] vs "encryption" [flawed] argument that the government seems to be making.

    83. Re:Except they used regular SMS by dadman · · Score: 1

      It's easy - the potential terrorist is the one who wants to keep zero-knowledge encryption. If he was innocent then he wouldn't have anything to hide!

      I have nothing to hide, but I also have nothing to disclose. So, zero-knowledge encryption is a workable solution for me.

    84. Re:Except they used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, you don't do engineering. You do software design, because you are not liable for the integrity of what you make.

      People just started calling it engineering to feel special, but it's pretty distinct, and dishonest of you to call yourself such.

    85. Re:Except they used regular SMS by swillden · · Score: 1

      No, you don't do engineering. You do software design, because you are not liable for the integrity of what you make.

      People just started calling it engineering to feel special, but it's pretty distinct, and dishonest of you to call yourself such.

      So, liability defines engineering, it has nothing to do with applying science to build things. Okay, whatever you say.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  2. Good luck with that by Dunbal · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A Manhattan DA is going after a California based company that has its manufacturing in China and most of its assets in Ireland. Yeah. Good luck with that.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    1. Re:Good luck with that by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 1

      He watched a few episodes of "Law and Order" and since McCoy once managed some form of spiritual victory, so he thinks he can pull it off.

    2. Re:Good luck with that by richieb · · Score: 1

      I thought the used ROT-26 cypher.

      --
      ...richie - It is a good day to code.
    3. Re:Good luck with that by behrooz0az · · Score: 0

      ROT-26 is not platform independent nor is it equal to 2*'ROT-13' if that's what you think you implied.

      --
      Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion. -- Spazmania (174582)
    4. Re:Good luck with that by roman_mir · · Score: 0

      You forgot something. A Manhattan DA is going after a California based company that manufactures in China and has assets around the world on the premise that the terrorist attacks in France could have been stopped somehow because:

      French police found an unencrypted, unlocked phone in a trash bin outside the Bataclan concert hall in Paris that contained a text sent in the clear: âoeOn est parti on commence.â (âoeLetâ(TM)s go, weâ(TM)re startingâ).

      You see, now not only encryption will be banned by governments but also the following combination of words: On est parti on commence. and its equivalents in other languages.

      I, however, suspect that the above message could have been sent in a multitude of different ways that the Manhattan DA also needs to attempt banning. For example I can see how the following string can be used with the same result:
      * let's do it
      * do it now
      * the time is now
      * we are doing it
      * starting it
      * time 0
      * the chicken is in the pot
      * blah habl blah kk erq[][]

      Once the Manhattan DA is done banning the above, then we will all be safe.

    5. Re:Good luck with that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And what happens when this goes so far as so change the law regarding encryption for civilian use? When devices cannot be sold without complying?

    6. Re:Good luck with that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not even funny, or accurate. Have you seen the Arabic alphabet? Perhaps you are unaware even basic European languages use accented characters and different symbols extended the English language latin glyphs. Nah, of course not. For someone that's been on /. for so long, shame on you.

    7. Re:Good luck with that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A Manhattan DA is going after a California based company that has its manufacturing in China and most of its assets in Ireland. Yeah. Good luck with that.

      Except that the Manhattan DA is located in New York, New York. Let's think about that for a second. What else is in New York that global multinational corporations need? The New York Stock Exchange or maybe world class financial services and all of the big banks? It would be a shame if suddenly your company's shares stopped trading on the exchange or the company bank accounts were frozen now wouldn't it? At the very least, I get the distinct impression that the Manhattan DA could cause your company some expensive headaches with the financial or banking regulators if he were so inclined. So I don't think that the Manhattan DA is quite so easily ignored, even if your a big company based in California and with most assets in Ireland.

    8. Re:Good luck with that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And appealing to public fervor. Yeah, good luck with that.

    9. Re:Good luck with that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is when you throw away any and all phone devices and buy a used C64.

    10. Re:Good luck with that by richieb · · Score: 1

      Well, then perhaps ROT-26 is a decent cypher with Arabic characters :)

      --
      ...richie - It is a good day to code.
    11. Re:Good luck with that by cfalcon · · Score: 1

      I'm fine with English speakers making jokes in English about the English language.

      Every single character that was in the English character set that wasn't shared with the standard set of European characters got ditched. No more thorns, no more eths, no more yogh. It fucked the language up pretty good too, giving us shitty words like "enough" and "ye" that are pronounced literally nothing like what they look like, despite previously having a totally phonetic spelling.

      If the English can go without all their fucking letters to make the French happy, then you don't really need all them funny accent markers either!

    12. Re:Good luck with that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apple is Delaware based; it operates as a foreign corporation in California. The location of a corporate headquarters does not determine where it is incorporated.

    13. Re:Good luck with that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *pretty well

      not

      'pretty good'

      That is all.

    14. Re:Good luck with that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Must have a big election coming up. People who are "tough" on the high profile criminals have an easier time posturing if they don't even have a chance of encountering the people they are slandering.

  3. Paris terrorists used regular SMS by Henriok · · Score: 4, Informative

    but the terrorists in Paris seems to have used plain old unencrypted SMS, in French no less. http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

    --

    - Henrik

    - when the Shadows descend -
    1. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 1

      That detail is not good enough to keep authoritarians from mouthing off.

    2. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      but the terrorists in Paris seems to have used plain old unencrypted SMS, in French no less.
      http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

      Irrelevent. Terrorism is the boogyman the government has forever linked to their justification for unlimited access to our private communications. It doesn't matter whether they use it or not, the government wants everyone to be scared into giving up more of their freedoms. Facts just get in the way of that.

    3. Re: Paris terrorists used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      But they did use text speak, so I say let's ban teenagers

    4. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      Probably the safest way to communicate as well. So much data to sift through means it can't be reasonably tapped without a good idea of who the terrorists are. Even terrorists are going to be mostly sending "hi how r u" type texts.

    5. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      From that very article:

      French police found an unencrypted, unlocked phone in a trash bin outside the Bataclan concert hall in Paris that contained a text sent in the clear: “On est parti on commence.” (“Let’s go, we’re starting”).

    6. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Clearly French needs to be banned. Maybe ban SMSs too.

    7. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      Its the NY DA and the FBI! These idiots think emojis are encryption

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    8. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes, same as the Red Scare was used back in the days. Keeps people from looking at who has one had in their pocket, and the other, bloody hand in the mideast.

      1/2 million dead Iraqis, who's the terrorists?

    9. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by Zorpheus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Only in the final phase when it did not matter anymore. Before they used encrypted communication over the playstation network

    10. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But just because the were unencrypted SMS messages on that phone, doesn't mean that the raid was planned using unencrypted messaging.

    11. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      As an alternative someone suggested that FBI agents learn French, but that idea was rejected as "too disruptive".

    12. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're right. Humor:

      NSA Wiretapping Public Service Announcement
      Trevor Moore (Whitest Kids U' Know) tells us what we can do about the NSA wiretapping our phones.

      http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ba0cc80eec/nsa-wiretapping-public-service-announcement

    13. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, same as the Red Scare was used back in the days. Keeps people from looking at who has one had in their pocket, and the other, bloody hand in the mideast.

      1/2 million dead Iraqis, who's the terrorists?

      USA USA USA LOL

    14. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by beelsebob · · Score: 1

      You're missing the point. The point is that even when the super sekrit spy agencies have access to all the unencrypted data, they can't use it to prevent these attacks (as demonstrated that they failed to use it here).

      So what does removing encryption buy us:
          The super sekrit spy agencies can in theory read it, but they also can't manage to use it effectively.
          Criminals can potentially hack Google/Apple and gain access to my messaging history, and personal information, allowing them to steal all kinds of my things.

      That's not a good pay off. The only way that there would be some pay off worth considering is if the spy agencies could actually use this information to prevent the attacks, and even in that case, the pay of is deeply questionable - identity fraud happens orders of magnitude more often than terrorist attacks, and can completely ruin people's lives. Making identity fraud easier for the pay off of occasionally preventing a terrorist attack doesn't sound like a reasonable pay off to me.

    15. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by sociocapitalist · · Score: 1

      but the terrorists in Paris seems to have used plain old unencrypted SMS, in French no less.
      http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

      Which is a mistake the probably won't make twice.

      --
      blindly antisocialist = antisocial
    16. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by bigfinger76 · · Score: 1

      I can't see why they'd worry about it; it had no effect whatsoever in this case.

    17. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That fact that terrorist were using unencrypted SMS makes your point weaker. Jihadis aren't that smart (exhibit A: unencrypted SMS). If every phone had default encryption like new iPhones, then even dumb jihadis will have encryption by default, without even trying. The authorities would not have been able to read that phone which was thrown in the garbage in Paris. This is why authorities want encryption taken away, so they don't get it for free, and because even terrorists won't both to encrypt their stuff.

    18. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I tried to learn French, and find AES-128 easier to understand! ;)

    19. Re:Paris terrorists used regular SMS by sociocapitalist · · Score: 1

      I can't see why they'd worry about it; it had no effect whatsoever in this case.

      Of course it did - how do you think the French police found them?

      --
      blindly antisocialist = antisocial
  4. scary by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In a time when leaders are getting more stupid the issues are getting super complex. And that scares the shit out of me.

    This particular anti-encryption movement isn't putting a gun to our economy's foot, it's putting a gun to our economy's head.

    1. Re:scary by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not just the economy ... your privacy, your personal digital security, your freedom of association.

      When these clowns say this kind of stuff, what they're really saying is "we need to be able to spy on everybody to make sure we can find the bad guys, if you're not a bad guy you'll be fine".

      This is basically saying "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear", and pretty much only fascists and tyrants say shit like this.

      Western democracies, and the people who claim to be protecting us, are devolving into entities who claim they need to undermine our freedoms in order to protect them. They act like the old state police of the communist countries we spent 50 years in a cold war with.

      They get these sweeping powers which are incompatible with our rights, claim they'll only use them for terrorists, and then come up with shit like "parallel construction" to commit perjury and lie about how they got it so they can make more mundane criminal charges stick. And, make no mistake, it's perjury -- it's a deliberate attempt to take evidence which would be inadmissible in court and obfuscate where it came from, including that it was technically illegally obtained.

      So now they want to outlaw all forms of encryption they can't break so they can monitor everything. And then they'll inevitably take that information, pass it on to law enforcement.

      There simply is no good outcome for citizens when government insist we not be able to have privacy from them, and then they can take everything we ever do and then retroactively decide we've broken a law.

      This is about FAR more than your economy. This is attacking the very underlying premises of our societies.

      When a fucking DA says shit like this, it says "we no longer give a damn about the law and your rights, it's far more convenient if we can just spy on everything everybody does and then decide who we need to round up".

      And if he's stupid enough to not understand that if they can break it, the other bad guys can as well, then he's too fucking stupid to continue to hold his job.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:scary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So what's new? A government is a wealthy and powerful entity. As is true in all such cases, without any exceptions, corruption sets in. This is just the government being corrupt, as all governments are and always will be.

      Of course, this corruption doesn't make governance any less necessary. Anarchism is even worse. But this necessity doesn't mitigate the corruption. The only problem here is people who expect that the government shouldn't be corrupt, and want to trust it and let it run in secrecy without accountability. That level of ignorance is what allows government corruption to be so harmful.

      Obama says polished phrases about how this is the politics of cynicism rather than the politics of hope. Obama is one of the most talented liars in the industry.

    3. Re:scary by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      Encryption isn't a major economic factor in this context.

    4. Re:scary by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Imagine if the DA went around saying, "we need to have a key to your bathroom door."
      With a bathroom door it sounds hilarious, but that's basically what he's saying.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    5. Re:scary by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      So we really shouldn't have any limits on government intrusion. If the government wants it, they should just have it. So next the government wants the 2nd amendment. Next, ...?

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    6. Re:scary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't seem to realize that currently the premises of our society is an illusion. The reality is that our supreme court has justified giving citizen's rights to corporate entities, and that our foreign policy is being dictated by said entities. We have reached the point where maintaining the pretense of a free society bound by rule of law is no longer necessary, and is likely the main contributing factor as to why everyone must be monitored, everywhere.

  5. Lol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    after-endless-demonization-encryption-police-find-paris-attackers-coordinated-via-unencrypted-sms
    https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

  6. "Fearless" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    About that coward? That is such a laugh riot that a martial law has been declared and the national guard is occupying the tristate area.

  7. PR can win the day! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    pple and Google can win this if they put their PR gund behind it...I really hope they do.

  8. so it must be good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If governments urge you not use a specific type of encryption, then you know you are using it right.

    1. Re:so it must be good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That's what they want you to think.

    2. Re:so it must be good by myrdos2 · · Score: 1

      Exactly. I never had any faith in Tor until the FBI told a professor to stop telling his students about it.

    3. Re:so it must be good by kevmeister · · Score: 1

      If governments urge you not use a specific type of encryption, then you know you are using it right.

      Remember that the government warned against the use of DES a few years ago because it WAS open to attack, though it took a few month for the drtails to become widely known. If you use DES today, you KNOW that anyone can crack it, so the warning was exactly right.

      --
      Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer, Retired
  9. This is new, and somehow patriotic sounding... by rmdingler · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Governors use a high profile, tragic terrorist attack to implement some freedom-strangling legislation.

    Freedom for safety... what could go wrong?

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:This is new, and somehow patriotic sounding... by spacepimp · · Score: 1

      The fact here though is that this douche nozzle is just a DA. According to the website: manhattanDA.org the responsibility of the Manhattan DA is:

      The District Attorney's Office represents the People of the State of New York in bringing charges against a suspect in a court of law. The New York County District Attorney's Office has the responsibility and authority to investigate and prosecute crimes in the borough of Manhattan.

      His role is to represent the people. In this instance he is not representing the people or prosecuting. He is just furthering an agenda.

    2. Re:This is new, and somehow patriotic sounding... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are correct in your analysis, but you failed to think beyond the immediate facts you provided. Representing the people or prosecuting crimes depends in part on efficiently gathering and presenting evidence. Leaving security arguments aside for a moment (backdoors weaken security, yada yada), Zero Knowledge Encryption severely limits the ability to gather evidence or shuts it down completely, thus making the DA's job more difficult or impossible. Pointing this out isn't furthering an agenda, its an appeal to help make representing the people and prosecuting crime possible.

    3. Re:This is new, and somehow patriotic sounding... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And you fail to think beyond technology. Zero Knowledge Encryption does ***NOT*** shut down the ability of the police and district attorney to gather and present evidence. It may make it more difficult to do so and it may require them to get off their fat asses and actually do investigation. It may deny them a smoking gun they want... sometimes. But it is also ABSOLUTELY furthering an agenda, to wit: requesting that our freedom and integrity be subjugated to security and the state.

    4. Re:This is new, and somehow patriotic sounding... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Occam's Razor suggests you're overthinking it, and giving these people too much credit for sophistication and deep thinking. There may be an agenda, but it's likely something more like: "my job and future opportunities for advancement are based on my successes, and even the slightest failure is a stain on my reputation and career, so I need to do everything I can to ensure success and minimize failure".

      Also, I suspect that most DAs work their asses off, and someone who can manage to become the Manhattan DA probably works even harder. Throwing around judgemental terms like "lazy" doesn't fit with likely reality. Everyone wants their job to be easier, and I would be suspicious of anyone who didn't.

  10. New Headline by PvtVoid · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Manhattan DA Pushes for Zero Knowledge Policy"

    You're welcome.

  11. NSA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe he can talk to the NSA and FBI about abusing their powers of surveillance which has caused regular, law-abiding citizens to take their communications "underground" to avoid the American Stasi. They have nobody to blame but themselves. It's the bully who keeps committing fouls and then whining, "hey, come on guys" when everyone takes the ball and leaves.

  12. Hey Mr DA: This crypto impacted how many cases? by schwit1 · · Score: 1

    Please provide verifiable numbers to support your position.

    1. Re:Hey Mr DA: This crypto impacted how many cases? by silas_moeckel · · Score: 1

      Ya see if we could just dragnet more communications I'm sure he could get more pedo's and wannabe terrorists (like that teenager the FBI entrapped). Mr DA wants some easy stats for his election PR.

      --
      No sir I dont like it.
    2. Re:Hey Mr DA: This crypto impacted how many cases? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That information is classified.

  13. "zero-knowledge encryption"? by Dereck1701 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Zero-knowledge encryption? Sounds like they're trying to invent some new buzzword to try to make something almost no one could argue against, secured communications and records for banking, conversations & confidential information (medical records, personal matters, etc). It should also be noted that there is a really good reason for this move to decentralized encryption, the feds simply couldn't keep their hands out of the cookie jar. That and there are no indications that allowing the government full access to communications has any effect on terrorist activity, its pretty obvious that they were hoovering information before 9/11 and it didn't stop that, they've created massive data centers and tied in with ISPs throughout the globe and they didn't stop Paris, Metrojet Flight 9268, Boston or any of the other major attacks. I find it disturbing they can argue for ever increasing levels of surveillance when the massive levels they are already spending tens of billions of dollars and not stopping a few nuts chatting over text messages.

    1. Re:"zero-knowledge encryption"? by david_bonn · · Score: 1

      It is worse than that. "Zero-knowledge proofs" is a specific term of art in the encryption field that has a specific meaning. It doesn't have anything to do with encrypting Android or IOS phones, as far as I know.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Someone had too many buzzwords with their coffee, I think.

    2. Re:"zero-knowledge encryption"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use good ole Morris Code. At the end of my sentences. See it here. And here. Is it here?No.

    3. Re:"zero-knowledge encryption"? by david_bonn · · Score: 1

      I stand corrected, it turns out that marketroids have already polluted this term.

    4. Re:"zero-knowledge encryption"? by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Zero-knowledge encryption? Sounds like they're trying to invent some new buzzword

      In this case, it's being used by Apple and Google (and likely others) to say "we have zero knowledge of how to decrypt this because we haven't given it to ourselves".

      This is them trying to wash their hands of it and say "we can't help you, you need to get subpoenas and contact the user", but leave us out of this.

      to try to make something almost no one could argue against, secured communications and records for banking, conversations & confidential information (medical records, personal matters, etc)

      And why do you say that like it's a bad thing? They're explicitly saying "since we have zero knowledge of how to decrypt it, it is safe for those things".

      Isn't this what we want?

      The DA wants "zero-knowledge" encryption to go away. Apple et al are saying "we don't want to do that". Are you arguing that Apple and Google are wrong here?

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    5. Re:"zero-knowledge encryption"? by Wycliffe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The DA wants "zero-knowledge" encryption to go away. Apple et al are saying "we don't want to do that". Are you arguing that Apple and Google are wrong here?

      They can want it to go away all they want but zero knowledge encryption is exactly what would happen if apple/google stopped providing encryption. If I encrypt it using a one time hash before I send the message, upload it to dropbox, etc... then of course they have zero knowledge of the key. Honestly, if I was a terrorist, this is exactly how I would do it. I would encrypt the message and then embed it in a Steganograph jpeg. It would be rather simple to write an iphone app that did exactly this and automated the whole process so that all it looked like was two users were sending pictures back and forth.

    6. Re:"zero-knowledge encryption"? by gstoddart · · Score: 2

      Well, you can be a terrorist however you choose, that's up to you.

      But since most ordinary people aren't going to jump through all of those hoops to have every day encryption, that would have the effect of taking encryption away from non-technical people.

      So, me, I'm in favor of Google and Apple putting encryption on and having no access to the key to decode it.

      Having Apple and Google stop providing encryption is exactly what the spies and fascists want. That way everyone is insecure, and the use of encryption can be equated to being a terrorist. I'd rather see everyone use encryption all the time, and the spies can fuck off an get warrants from judges after showing probable cause ... not just gathering everything and figuring out what to do with it later.

      But having everyone expect to be spied on just in case? Yeah, show me your fucker papers, comrade.

      That's not "free", that's the opposite of free. That's saying the government needs to be able to spy on everything you do without warrant or probable cause, and you should accept that.

      If Americans are starting to think this, then America is pretty much screwed.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    7. Re:"zero-knowledge encryption"? by cfalcon · · Score: 1

      "Hey Apple, gimme a list of everyone who downloaded the stego app. Also, there's a bunch of data that's stored in an encrypted dropbox, can you tell us what phone did that? Thanks, ok, can you dump the unencrypted cache from the unencrypted phone for us?"

      One huge downside of these vendor lock in phones is that it creates a single point of failure- the company that issues them. Apple and Google are doing what they can to make things private, but all it takes is these turkeys to convince them otherwise briefly and it all goes away. It's not like on a PC where you have root and no one else can fuck your shit up.

    8. Re:"zero-knowledge encryption"? by Wycliffe · · Score: 1

      Except that at least on android, it's easy enough to sideload unofficial apps and if you actually do the encryption with a onetime pad before encoding it in the picture then apple has no ability to "dump the unencrypted cache" because it never existed.

    9. Re:"zero-knowledge encryption"? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      It is worse: These cretins do not even know basic crypto terminology. "Zero Knowledge" has a fixed, clear meaning in cryptology and it has nothing to do with communication encryption. It refers to proving that you know a secret without revealing the secret itself.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    10. Re:"zero-knowledge encryption"? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The US government has, by law, access to all communications systems. All communications companies operating in the US have to have a way to tap what they handle. Theoretically, this is only used according to a warrant. What the US government, at least, is arguing for is not having unbreakable encryption for data "at rest".

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  14. Re:Cyrus Vance Jr by unixisc · · Score: 2

    Is he related to Jimmy Carter's secretary of state Cyrus Vance? The one who had to resign after a botched attempt to save the US hostages in Iran in 1979?

  15. Re:Cyrus Vance Jr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes: He is the father of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... I guess Democrats really do hate freedom.

  16. The Spectrum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As always, there's a spectrum with freedom and privacy on one side and security on the other. Along with many others here, I value my freedom and privacy more than I value my security on that spectrum. Now I just have to convince my friends and family of the same...

  17. Encryption pushes toward equality by dingleberrie · · Score: 3

    The more power you accumulate in one place, the more that place will attract greedy psychopaths and power-mongers. Imbalance of information knowledge is power and the key to domination. Encryption while on the grid is one of the few ways we have to prevent an accumulation of power that can be abused by those attracted to it. It puts everyone closer to the same footing. Equality of power in each citizen is what made our country strong. If we want to save lives from devastation over the next couple of generations, maybe we should make encryption stronger and invalidate any secret courts and secret laws... because... you know... imbalance of information.

  18. Not stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The "stupid" leaders you speak of have succeeded in creating the largest, most expensive, most powerful government AND world empire (with military bases in some 150 countries) in the entire history of mankind. In terms of business, this kind of growth is way beyond a home run -- even calling it a grand slam doesn't do it justice. This is a business achievement that simply cannot be topped, period.

    1. Re:Not stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The collapse of the US will be directly precipitated by the attempts to continually grow empire.

      And that is about as stupid as it gets, son.

    2. Re:Not stupid by khallow · · Score: 1

      The "stupid" leaders you speak of have succeeded in creating the largest, most expensive, most powerful government AND world empire

      There are two problems with your statement. First, you make it sound like a hard thing to do. To start such an empire is hard. But once it reaches a certain level of power and growth, it grows itself. The leaders just need to get out of the way. And that leads to the second problem. The current leaders aren't the ones who built the US as a society or empire. They're riding on past effort by better people and natural tendencies of growth.

      That they're auguring this into the ground indicates that they are indeed as stupid as advertised.

    3. Re:Not stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The leaders in the past that actually *did* the building weren't nearly this stupid. The leaders today are merely riding coattails of the past and ARE this stupid..

    4. Re:Not stupid by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 1

      Also, businesses are constrained by the necessity of convincing people to give them money willingly, and the requirement of bringing in more money than they spend.

      Give me the authority to take as much money as I want from everyone straight out of their paychecks, plus the ability to still spend an effectively unlimited amount of money on top of that; and I'll build you a pretty nice empire, coattails to ride, or not.

      --
      Imagine all the people...
  19. Guns and Death. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cite what murder by gun figure you like. I'm sure it goes over 129 deaths at some point. Maybe a busy weekend.

    Did Cyrus Vance Jr calls for guns to be banned? He wants to change gun law; but not take away the death machine.
    I don't trust his motivations. People death doesn't seem to be issue.

  20. Tim... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

    ... you were wondering what to do with those hundreds of billions of dollars of cash. Here's a good use for one of them.

    It used to be in NYC you could see buildings and buses plastered with the images of the misfits - the troublemakers; Apple roared into its current success on those precepts. Now it's time for a massive pro-privacy campaign on the same or larger scale.

    Fix this - it'll be a good investment for the shareholders.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  21. Come on people, we can do better! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1- warrantless wiretapping of American citizens is not only wrong, unconstitutional it is a waste of effort that could be used to catch actual terrorists.
    2- We should not be complaining about the fact that the terrorists didn't encrypt their communications, we should encourage them to use broken codes
    3- The NSA should be using whatever communication channels to sign up "agents" to be trained to pull off terror attacks and find out where the terrorist cells are and blow them up before they get a chance to do any damage to anyone other than themselves.
    4- We cooperate with Russia, France, the UK, the Netherlands and other allies to wipe out ISIS and make sure the only place they show up is in the history books.
    5- We hold our presidential candidates to the fire and make it clear that surveillance and technology HAS TO be beholden to the law and the constitution.
    6- We move forward and at least act like we live in the 21st century, not the 19th.

    While we are at it, we should get our armed forces to soak all their ammunition in pigs blood, so the terrorists know that if they die in a fire fight they will not be martyred , because if they touch swine the cannot go to heaven, allah cannot look at them.. so if they don't want to end up with the infidels in the afterlife they cannot mess with the civilized world.. This worked in WWI so we need to make this the known Modus Operandi of the Allied Armed Forces agains ISIS.

  22. Re:Cyrus Vance Jr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whoever modded that down, fuck you. He's taking away your rights, but I say tongue balls and it turns you into hysterics. Fuck you.

  23. Compare and contrast by zioncat · · Score: 1

    US Rep. Joe Barton Has a Plan To Stop Terrorists: Shut Down Websites

    Manhattan DA Pressures Google and Apple To Kill Zero Knowledge Encryption

    Both a negative story about dumb politician trying to overreach after the terror attacks in France. One has a name of politician in the headline and party affiliation in the summary while another doesn't include name of politician in headline and information on party affiliation isn't found in summary nor linked article. I guess it's time to play the classic game of Guess That Party!

    1. Re:Compare and contrast by Earthquake+Retrofit · · Score: 1

      I wrote that first headline like that intentionally. I try to never use brand names to identify a generic product unless I am endorsing it. That goes for party affiliation as well.

      --
      Fifty years of Yippie! 1968-2018
  24. Entirely their fault by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe people wouldn't feel the need to use encryption as much had the law enforcement agencies not abused the power that they were given.

  25. Old boys club by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He is doing it for back scratching points in the old boys club.

    Then he can come out later and claim he did this and that and the other for his friends or cuntry.

  26. Oblig. Princess Leia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The more you tighten your grip, District Attorney Vance, the more secure communication systems will escape through your fingers.

  27. Lets make a deal by tommyatomic · · Score: 1

    Government is supposed to be a social contract. You cant take away people ability to protect themselves from data theft without a guarantee of payout.

    I feel that my data is worth 150 billion dollars. You can have my encryption keys but if I suffer a data breach then you have to pay me out.

    I'll probably use the payout to fund an independant open source "zero knowledge encryption" standard with an easy open free distribution.

    1. Re:Lets make a deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What about this:

      Our liberty is infinitely valuable. Our rights are inalienable from our existence.

      You can take them away, but we will strike you down.

  28. We want our jobs to be easy (not easier). by Chas · · Score: 1

    Oh, and hand them to use on a silver plate.

    And pay us 7 digits a year.

    And we want a pony too!

    What? It makes our citizens LESS safe and more likely to get ripped off?
    FUCK THEM! As long as we're getting our sheckel, hookers, blow, and a big check for no actual work, we don't give a fuck!

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  29. Another asshole lawyer seeking political gains by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Obviously he skipped class the day ethics were discussed.

    I hope this asshole gets terminal cancer.

    1. Re:Another asshole lawyer seeking political gains by desdinova+216 · · Score: 1

      Legal ethics? Isn't that an oxymoron like Government Intelligence?

    2. Re:Another asshole lawyer seeking political gains by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While that is funny to say on the internet, you must realize the government of the world do in fact employ some intelligent people who create some awesome things. Like for instance, the internet you just used to insult government happens to have been created by government. A lot of other major infrastructure also takes government to make happen. Railroads, roads, bridges, they don't work when fully privatized. Deregulation of power has only led to more middlemen and higher prices. The overly private US health care system is extremely inefficient when compared to almost any other system, especially government run or regulated systems.

      Nuclear science was heavily funded and organized by government. Space travel, satellite, rockets, jets are all examples of stupid government programs.

      Government is the people, there is no evil empire. The evil is you and I and all of humanity and with any semblance of intelligence comes a tidal wave of ignorance. That's because most people are not in the top 10%, they can't reason well enough to even fully understand this post I'm writing. Sure, the slashdot audience is smarter than average, but when we talk about the average private or government worker we are talking about average people with IQs around 100.

      The problem with most governments is clearly the citizens/voters who allow mismanagement over decades, not the concept of government. Government is just the biggest corporation of all and managed badly any organization will eventually falter and fail. So.... why bother generalizing all government as bad when it's clearly not. It would seem to suggest a disconnect from reality and a desire to lay blame for all of humanities failures onto one easy to blame target, thus only propagating the ignorance you claim to dislike.

      It's a funny phrase, but a democratic system blaming anyone but the voters is just the projection of the same lack of accountablity we see in big corporations and government. It's THEIR fault, but never ours. I find that to be a highly unlikely proposition.

  30. Killing "zero-knowledge", eh? by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    I guess that means we're on our own to find a solution.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  31. A Matter of Internal Security by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "'A matter of internal security.' The age-old cry of the oppressor." - Captain Picard

    Source: Star Trek: The Next Generation (TV Series) The Hunted (1990)

  32. Too late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe if the government didn't ALREADY commit abuse of our privacy in the most egregious way possible, the tech companies wouldn't have implemented this. It is a direct result of the government's actions that the tech companies were forced to do this. If they hadn't, they faced the potential to lose out on revenues. The government already cause economic harm to many of the nation's tech companies because of their privacy invasions (which at least one federal court found to be unconstitutional). Oh, and by the way, those privacy invasions have netted all of ZERO terrorists.

    So, I say to the government, tough luck buddy. You got what you asked for. Guess you have to use good old fashioned investigation...

  33. Cyrus Vance... by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Wow, the ghost of Christmas past comes back to haunt us, sending their kid to do their dirty work. Do we have any fresh blood in this business? Over and over again we see the same old names.

    Eh, regardless, I know it's a pipe dream, but let's hope some backlash will spring up out of this.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  34. Zero Knowledge DAs by AnotherBlackHat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What we really need is fewer Zero Knowledge DAs.

    Pre-broken encryption is as bad as it sounds.

  35. Governments think terrorists are stupid by JoeyRox · · Score: 3, Informative

    The encryption is genie is already out of the bottle - there are already apps available to facilitate encrypted communications. The government seems to think that if they add encryption backdoors to newer apps/services that the terrorists will be dumb enough to use them instead of what's available now.

    1. Re:Governments think terrorists are stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well they WERE dumb enough to use unencrypted phones / SMS.

      Not that that helped stopped the attack. But, they were dumb enough.

    2. Re:Governments think terrorists are stupid by JoeyRox · · Score: 1

      The Paris terrorists sent an SMS that read "weâ(TM)re off; weâ(TM)re starting.". Not exactly the type of information they would need to encrypt.

  36. To do the right thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "do the right thing" and end zero-knowledge encryption in mobile operating systems

    Those two options are mutually exclusive.

  37. Ban it... by grumpyman · · Score: 1

    ... and yeah.. then nobody else would develop it. This method is so freaking effective.

  38. Well, well, well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    DISCLAIMER: I support some level of surveillance, provided we can ensure the governments work as planned. We cannot allow organized activities to endanger people's lives (at a very minimum).

    That said, chalk up another one for the "weasel words" dictionary of oxymora:

    - intellectual property (total contradiction of terms!)
    - patent (they're not patent at all, but there's a pearl called "submarine patent")
    - zero-knowledge encryption: that's what every encryption is, non-zero-knowledge is an absurdity.

    I wonder if we can rate a person intellect by how carelessly they come up with ideas which are self-conflicting (that's not the same as balancing conflicting concepts, which is sometimes mandatory).

    1. Re:Well, well, well... by gweihir · · Score: 1

      There is no "Zero Knowledge" encryption. The term "Zero Knowledge" stands for something else entirely in cryptography. These people do not even understand basic crypto terminology.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  39. Do the Right Thing Is.... by shubus · · Score: 1

    Do the right thing is to have strong unbreakable encryption with no back doors. That Manhattan DA needs to get his head out of his ass and do some friggin' research. He should know first of all that all this spying by NSA has produce ZERO results--no terrorists have ever been caught by this kind of spying. Second, the Paris attacks used unencrypted SMS.

  40. What a great idea! by Tyrannosaur · · Score: 1

    Having zero knowledge about encryption's really not effective anyway. Advocating for there to be education about it is wonderful!
    [/sarcasm]
    I wish...

  41. Want your freedom? Oppose importing terrorists by Orgasmatron · · Score: 1

    If you want your freedom, tell your elected representatives to stop importing terrorists and the populations that they hide in.

    It seems to be that we can pick not more than two from the set (Security, Freedom, Multiculturalism).. Find me another culture, anywhere on the planet, that respects freedom the way we do, or at least once did, and I'll reconsider. Until then, I'm sticking with the evidence at hand.

    We have freedom, and we have multiculturalism, and people are realizing that we don't have security. We want security, so we need to choose. Do we get rid of the people that hate us? Or do we get rid of our freedom?

    (And yes, I'm aware that "get rid of the people that hate us" includes a lot of people that don't hate us, but are otherwise indistinguishable. Some may be willing to trade their freedom or security for them, but I suspect that most will not.)

    --
    See that "Preview" button?
  42. No encryption means we're not secure vs terrorists by PeterM+from+Berkeley · · Score: 1

    When are all these idiots going to realize that if WE the people don't have strong encryption, then TERRORISTS and CRIMINALS will be able to get at OUR vital information to get US?

    Security vulnerabilities put the general population at FAR MORE risk of harm than it puts terrorists at risk of being captured!

    Even a "government only" back door is just one leak or discovery away from being everyone's security vulnerability.

    --PeterM

  43. Praise be to Putin by mi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    at least Putin struck back decisively against ISIS/ISIL in Syria.

    Putin's, peace be upon him, strikes against ISIS are, at best, half-hearted and at worst a sham. He is not fighting against ISIS, he is fighting for Assad — a decades-long client of the USSR/Russia. Because of Russia's strikes against anti-Assad fighters, ISIS was, actually, been able to gain ground in Syria on several occasions.

    Considering the post-tragedy rise of Le Pen and other European nationalists, who tend to be Putin's, peace be upon him, clients themselves, one may argue, Putin had a hand in the Paris-attack himself. Whether that's true or not, the sentiment such as yours certainly illustrates, how he benefited from it.

    I have no love the Nobel Peace Prize winner we are saddled with — his foreign policy is as destructive as the internal ones — but praising Putin seems outright dumb. Obama will be gone in a year, Putin will remain a menacing danger for as long as he lives — and the asshole is fit, hale and healthy...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re:Praise be to Putin by unixisc · · Score: 4, Informative

      at least Putin struck back decisively against ISIS/ISIL in Syria.

      Putin's, peace be upon him, strikes against ISIS are, at best, half-hearted and at worst a sham. He is not fighting against ISIS, he is fighting for Assad — a decades-long client of the USSR/Russia. Because of Russia's strikes against anti-Assad fighters, ISIS was, actually, been able to gain ground in Syria on several occasions.

      Considering the post-tragedy rise of Le Pen and other European nationalists, who tend to be Putin's, peace be upon him, clients themselves, one may argue, Putin had a hand in the Paris-attack himself. Whether that's true or not, the sentiment such as yours certainly illustrates, how he benefited from it.

      I have no love the Nobel Peace Prize winner we are saddled with — his foreign policy is as destructive as the internal ones — but praising Putin seems outright dumb. Obama will be gone in a year, Putin will remain a menacing danger for as long as he lives — and the asshole is fit, hale and healthy...

      This was true before that Russian airliner went down in the Sinai, and ISIS so helpfully claimed responsibility. Putin, as well as Beijing, back Assad b'cos that's their lone surviving customer for Soviet era weapons. Previously, Moscow had Saddam, Gadaffi and Assad all. First Saddam was toppled, then Gadaffi, and now both Russia and China risk losing their last customer of weaponry - Syria. Which is why they are fighting tooth and nail to save him.

      However, ISIS is no ally of Russia, and in fact, Russia has a dim view of Sunni Jihadis - like the Chechens, the Islamic movement of Turkestan and other Jihadi movements in Russia, like the Tatars. So Russia is more than happy to take out ISIS. It's just that w/ al Nusra and the FSA being closer to Damascus than ISIS was, they were a higher priority for Putin, but now, w/ this Russian plane going down, ISIS kicked themselves up in the scheduler list.

    2. Re:Praise be to Putin by mi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This was true before that Russian airliner went down in the Sinai, and ISIS so helpfully claimed responsibility.

      Putin has staged terrorist acts against his own citizens before. I would not put too much credence into that airliner's disaster...

      but now, w/ this Russian plane going down, ISIS kicked themselves up in the scheduler list.

      Yes, and suddenly Putin no longer seems like such a bad guy, does he? I mean, invasion of a peaceful neighbor is soooo last year, we need to cooperate with Russia now, do we not?

      230 Russian lives are a small price to pay for such a turn in the world's public opinion. Glory be to Mother Russia...

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    3. Re:Praise be to Putin by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      India and other south Asian countries buy Russian and Chinese weapons. India even partners with Russia to buy new ones.

      Actually, all that happened is that for years Russia was militarily weak due to economic problems after the fall of the USSR. That was an opportunity for the west to de-escalate as well, but it didn't so now Russia is re-emerging as a military power. That part of the world was always unfinished business for them, along with Afghanistan. Now that the west has had an opportunity to screw it up and fail to fix it, Russia sees an opportunity to establish itself at relatively little cost or danger.

      Well, so it thought until that airliner came down, but even so the basic idea is that they can succeed because they support Assad and can just bomb everyone else, where as the west is hampered by trying to support badly trained and equipped militia with a variety of dubious motives.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    4. Re:Praise be to Putin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except Russia is second largest arms exporter in the world and they sell weaponry to plenty of countrie. Syria is not largest russian arms importer either. You can easily verify it yourself using freely available sources on the internet.

    5. Re:Praise be to Putin by unixisc · · Score: 2

      I fully agree w/ this. During the Yeltsin era, Russia was weak, and that was a good time for the West to completely co-opt them. However, the State Department still lived in the 80s and had Russia, instead of the Islamic countries, as enemies, and so Russia kept getting isolated, even while the West encouraged anti-Slavic Jihadis, be it the Chechens, the Bosniaks, the Albanians in Kosovo et al so that any goodwill that they had among the Russian people got evaporated and paved the way for Putin to get elected.

      India was more of a Soviet client during the Cold War, but after the Nehru-Gandhi family lost power, it normalized relations w/ Israel. Today, Israel has displaced Russia as India's #1 partner in military equipment. While India is still friendly w/ Russia, it is more than willing to work w/ the US when needed - like when they canned their proposed pipeline from Iran to India thru Pakistan. Given India's rivalry w/ Pakistan, that pipeline was a bad idea from an Indian POV to begin w/, and ultimately, India's nuclear ambitions trumped it.

      India has never been much of a partner to China, though, ever since the Chinese annexation of Tibet and then China's attack on India in 1962. In fact, the reason that India became a nuclear weapons state was China more than Pakistan.

    6. Re:Praise be to Putin by ihtoit · · Score: 1

      and why wouldn't he? Assad is the legitimate head of state in Syria. He flies the official flag of tricolore and two stars.

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    7. Re:Praise be to Putin by mi · · Score: 1

      Assad is the legitimate head of state in Syria

      Today's Assad merely inherited the position from his father — himself a dictator (and a rather brutal one too). For a Western mind, that's a shaky claim to "legitimacy"...

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    8. Re:Praise be to Putin by ihtoit · · Score: 1

      uh... he was voted in twice. If that's not legitimising his position, what is?

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    9. Re:Praise be to Putin by StikyPad · · Score: 2

      Except ISIS made a credible claim to be responsible for the downed airliner, including both photos of the device, and details of how they smuggled it onto the plane. If your version of events were true, they would probably dispute those claims, or have no evidence.

      I'm not saying that Putin is a "good guy," but he's not an idiot, and ISIS is run by, really, just idiots. You have to be truly stupid to believe that unilateral violence against any and all countries in the world, including your own, could possibly succeed, unless you're a religious zealot who believes God has his back.

    10. Re:Praise be to Putin by StikyPad · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, we're perfectly happy to deal with other monarchies, dictatorships, and sham-democracies in the region, so it's not strictly the non-democracy aspect of Assad's reign that we have a problem with, or even the human rights issues, so much as his uncooperative nature with regard to American foreign policy. The dictatorship is just something we bring up when it suits our agenda. Not that Assad deserved to be defended, but let's not pretend that we wouldn't overlook that if it suited us.

    11. Re:Praise be to Putin by mi · · Score: 0

      Except ISIS made a credible claim to be responsible for the downed airliner

      Even if my accusations of ISIS having been created with the help of, and being controlled in part by Russia are true — and I have no proof, just speculations — few people inside ISIS would be aware of it. Wouldn't be the first time Russia financed a foreign organization without its members knowledge

      ISIS claim of responsibility seems sincere and they, very likely, really did plant the actual bomb. That does not mean, Putin's FSB had nothing to do with it..

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    12. Re:Praise be to Putin by mi · · Score: 1

      uh... he was voted in twice.

      It is not a vote, if the winner is known with 146% certainty ahead of time. (Time for Russians to recognize that too, by the way.) Syrian elections last year were a sham.

      If that's not legitimising his position, what is?

      Easy: a vote, that takes place after multiple challengers are allowed to campaign — unmolested — before the poll and where the vote-count raises no questions of large-scale manipulation (small-scale abuses are inevitable).

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    13. Re:Praise be to Putin by mi · · Score: 1

      we're perfectly happy to deal with other monarchies, dictatorships, and sham-democracies

      I doubt, the term "perfectly happy" applies. It is more like a "hold your nose and do it" situation.

      it's not strictly the non-democracy aspect of Assad's reign that we have a problem with

      True. But I was not claiming, he is exceptionally evil for that neighbourhood. I was simply refuting ihtoit's claim of Assad's legitimacy as a ruler.

      But now that you mentioned it, it is hard to identify a regime there, that governs with a lesser consent of the governed, than his. Cuba and North Korea, perhaps — but not the rest of the Arab world, for example (now that Saddam Hussein is gone). They may be monarchies and/or sham-democracies, but they don't need to rely on armed forces (as much) to stay in power.

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    14. Re:Praise be to Putin by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      The inner circle of ISIS are religious zealots who believe that it's the end of days and they are bringing the forces of the world to fight in the Middle East. At least that's what they proclaim publicly. What's truly in their hearts I don't know. But not many explanations fit for taking credit for bombing the Russian airliner. Russia was mostly taking care of the rebel troops in Syria with some token bombing of ISIS so from a strategic standpoint they had everything to lose by making that claim. But if you are trying to drag in as many armies into the fight as possible then it makes sense.

    15. Re:Praise be to Putin by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 1

      He is not fighting against ISIS, he is fighting for Assad

      Because Putin is not an idiot.

      The idea western governments seem to have is that they can air-strike IS out of existence. Reality check: you cannot bomb a state out of existence short of using nukes and killing everyone within its territory. The idea that they can drop bombs on a few buildings and get rid of IS is about as realistic as the 9/11 hijackers idea that they could destroy America by destroying a few office buildings. Who cares? Countries and governments are spread out, and stronger than that.

      The only actual way to expunge IS from the world without literally glassing half of Syria is to have boots on the ground, an army that is close enough to the action to separate friends from foes, and a credible replacement for IS once it's gone. Western powers are unwilling to provide either of those things: they won't put soldiers on the ground, and they don't know what would replace IS if it was gone. Oh, wait, maybe those "moderate" rebels (lol).

      Russia and Putin, whether you like them or not, are clear thinkers. To get rid of IS they need an army. Assad has an army. Check. They need a credible replacement for IS. Assad is such a replacement. He may not be a good leader, indeed in many ways he's incredibly bad, but there don't appear to be any good leadership candidates in Syria and Assad is at least a good old fashioned mostly secular dictator, as opposed to a crazed death cultist.

      One problem - Assad is on the verge of losing against the "moderate" rebels (like al-Qaeda) who are being armed by the CIA. The CIA doesn't have a fucking clue what will happen if Assad falls, they just aren't capable of thinking that far ahead, but it's fair to say that the bits of Syria where women can walk around dressed like westerners will quickly become .... not like that.

      So Russia props up Assad. That mostly means hitting the "moderate" rebels. If Assad manages to stabilise his position and regain control over the areas currently controlled by the non-IS rebels, then there's a credible battle tested army that's fighting for its own existence ready and waiting to go to war against IS.

    16. Re:Praise be to Putin by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 1

      Putin has staged terrorist acts against his own citizens before.

      Although some of those events look pretty bad at first, there's nonetheless significant criticism of that theory from neutral third parties.

      The biggest criticism of it is that the entire conspiracy theory makes no sense, as it revolves around the idea that Putin's FSB bombed its own people to create support for the war in Chechnya. Except that war had already been started by Yeltsin with the full support of all the power structures and Putin's 1999 attack on Chechnya was preceded by the insurrection in Dagestan. There was no need for apartment bombings to get an excuse to engage in military action in Chechnya. The claimed motive just doesn't line up with the actual timings of events.

      The second biggest criticism is that the people who suggested the possibility had no evidence for it good enough to stand up in a court.

      The third biggest criticism is that whilst the motive of the Kremlin to do this was rather garbled, a Chechen rebel leader had actually said "[they would] set off bombs everywhere", "Russian women and children will pay for the crimes of Russian generals." and that "this will not happen tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow" ..... and two days after he said that, an apartment building was bombed. And after fighting in Dagestan was concluded the bombings stopped.

      So you have two possibilities - Islamic extremists bombed the apartment buildings in retaliation for their insurrection being put down. That possibility is a simple one. Or the Russian government engaged in a conspiracy to bomb its own people in a false flag operation. Given the history since 1999 of Islamists blowing shit up, I say ... go with Occam's Razor.

    17. Re:Praise be to Putin by unixisc · · Score: 1

      The US toppled Saddam, and the result is a Shia regime that's now pro-Iran. They enabled the toppling of Gadaffi, and the result is a country where ISIS is a big player.

      Now they wanna topple Assad. Problem is that all the rebel factions are Sunni Arab Jihadis. The only difference b/w al Nusra/Khorasan and ISIS is the leaders they center towards. The massacre and expulsion of Christians from Aleppo and Homs was not done by ISIS: it was done by the Free Syrian Army.

      Israel has the clearest vision of what's going on. They don't like Assad due to the fact that he's propped up in part by Hizbullah. But they know that if he falls, then one of the Jihadi factions that's worse would take over - it would be like Mosri in Egypt. Which is why they secretly root for Assad, on the grounds that the devil they know is preferable to the one they don't.

    18. Re:Praise be to Putin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings

      According to researcher Gordon Bennett, the conspiracy theory that the FSB was behind the bombings was kept alive by the Russian oligarch and Kremlin-critic Boris Berezovsky. Bennett points out that neither Berezovsky nor his team (which includes Alexander Litvinenko) provided any evidence to support their claims. In the BBC World Hard Talk interview on 8 May 2002, Berezovsky was also unable to present any evidence for his claims, and he did not suggest he was in possession of such evidence which he would be ready to present in a court. Bennett also points out that Putin's critics often forget that the decision to send troops to Chechnya was taken by Boris Yeltsin — not Vladimir Putin — with the wholehearted support of all power structures.

      mi (197448) cited anti-Russia sources/people and considered this the only truth. This kind of investigation is that to convict Putin in the first place, no otherwise.

    19. Re:Praise be to Putin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings

      According to researcher Gordon Bennett, the conspiracy theory that the FSB was behind the bombings was kept alive by the Russian oligarch and Kremlin-critic Boris Berezovsky. Bennett points out that neither Berezovsky nor his team (which includes Alexander Litvinenko) provided any evidence to support their claims. In the BBC World Hard Talk interview on 8 May 2002, Berezovsky was also unable to present any evidence for his claims, and he did not suggest he was in possession of such evidence which he would be ready to present in a court. Bennett also points out that Putin's critics often forget that the decision to send troops to Chechnya was taken by Boris Yeltsin — not Vladimir Putin — with the wholehearted support of all power structures.

      mi (197448) cited anti-Russia sources/people and considered this the only truth. This kind of investigation is that to convict Putin in the first place, no otherwise.

      It's not so surprised that all the ex-officials of Boris Eltsin, who lost power when Putin became president hate him so much.

    20. Re:Praise be to Putin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Blah blah blah standard /. rant

      No, Putin's strategy is to defend the last remaining strongman in the middle-east, so that HE can stop ISIL, which was formed when the big dumb old USA went in and took out Saddam Hussein, the other middle-east strongman, destroying the stability of the region and creating a power vacuum into which something much nastier would step. (ISIL).

      Putin is trying not to repeat the neophyte and ridiculous mistake of the West in ousting Hussein. It doesn't matter that they were/are both "bad bad men", it's just plain silly to think anyone in the region wants or needs USA-style "freedom", and that these strongmen should be removed out of some mis-placed Western ideal.

  44. Goddamnit, politicians, THAT WON'T DO ANYTHING! by kheldan · · Score: 1

    When guns (or encryption!) are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns (or use encryption)!

    Why can't you understand that!? FIND ANOTHER WAY!

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    1. Re:Goddamnit, politicians, THAT WON'T DO ANYTHING! by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

      When quantum encryption is outlawed both outlaws and law abiding citizens will simultaneously both have and lack quantum encryption.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    2. Re:Goddamnit, politicians, THAT WON'T DO ANYTHING! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      A country with strict gun laws can (at least eventually) make it difficult to get a gun, so only some of the outlaws have them. It's a lot harder to prevent them from getting strong encryption. If one outlaw has a gun, it doesn't mean that his buddy does. If one outlaw has secure crypto, his buddy does too.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  45. Encryption is for Pussies by macs4all · · Score: 2

    What is being danced around here is the fact that, messages that are encrypted are almost assuredly already given a higher "score" in the SIGINT world than non-encrypted messages.

    That is likely one of the reasons the Terrists in Paris used UNENCRYPTED SMS to communicate. So the "signal" gets lost in the "noise" of a gazillion other SMS messages-per-second, instead of creating a "Sore Thumb" by being "encrypted".

    And it is a foregone conclusion that another staple of SIGINT, the "connections" and frequency-of-communications between one known bad guy and others is often as important, and sometimes even more important, as knowing the CONTENTS of the messages themselves. And that kind of "signal" is much harder to eliminate.

    If bad guy "A" communicates with bad guy "B", who then communicates with bad guys "C", "D" and "E", who then communicates with unknown guys "F" through "AA", even without knowing the contents of those communications, we have gathered enough intelligence to start actually surveilling some or all of those people, which WILL, in short order, reveal what is being planned, and by whom.

    So, if we outlaw all "cipher-based" encryption, the real baddies will simply build "codes" that ARE cleartext, and APPEAR to be innocent "what's up? Wanna do lunch?"-LOOKING messages; but are in fact, messages of a far more nefarious sort. And so in the end, the terrists continue to have the jump on law enforcement, and all of us regular citizens lose the ability to have private, encrypted communications with business partners, friends and family, or just because we don't particularly like writing our emails on postcards.

    1. Re:Encryption is for Pussies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes and No.

      First, security through obscurity is better than no security, but not actually secure.

      2nd: I agree that often the content is immaterial, or at least, not the only thing that can be learned from the communication. But knowing someone is a "known comminicator with a badguy" is definitly different than knowing someone "is planning on shooting people tomorrow at xyz location".

      3rd: Your solution the bad guys will develop.....is encryption. Just a very weak form of it.

      Lastly though, I truely believe that people with the DA here are enemies of the people. Whether they are making these statements because it would make their job easier, or they are scared and think it will make them more "safe", it doesn't matter. There is a price to pay for freedom, and private communication has NEVER been refused by our government. They are literally asking that any commincation be non-private. "Whispering" to avoid the micro-recorder would be avoiding the anti-non-disclosure laws. Why would it matter if I speak a private detail to my wife, write it down and burn it, e-mail or text it and delete? What about actions? Sign-language! Now, everyone must ensure they are in full view of the government cameras while signing, otherwise, how would the government know if you were signing about a terrorist plot or not? Sure, we could do all this in the name of "safety", but we wouldn't be free. Freedoms this country has previously enjoyed, come at the price of occassionally dying due to the random act of violence or terrorist. But THOSE things are not threats to our society or country. They are few and far between, and make no difference on the whole. Threats to our society or country are large, cooridnated, powerful attacks, that can change or eliminate "us" as we are. These include foreign threats (WWI/WWII, provide plenty of examples), as well as internal (current government and corporate entities are another great example). This is why we have the 2nd ammendment. Not that it will do much in todays day and age, BUT think about why it was there. To protect us from government getting and abusing too much power, thus threatening our society!

      The terrorists may in the end get their way, and maybe that is their whole plan (I doubt it, these people for instance were not intelligent, their targets alone show this). But it won't be by a giant reemergence of a Persian empire with military and technological might. It will be that the real enemy, more powerful than them, will destroy our society. That is our government, and is already happening. My child will likely live in an America which does not resemble the USA I grew up with, and will not hold the same values, and will in fact be a different society. And thus, the society and culture (which is "us") will have been eliminated. This is probably the same thing my grandfather said too, which is why this change isn't noticed by everyone.

      Hopefully though there will be a revolution and my child's generation, or soon after will use their 2nd ammendment rights (which probably won't exist then) to start over with a another expirement in a free society.

  46. Never attribute to incompetence.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He knows. They've had days with the 'corrections' out after all. The truth does nothing to detract people with these goals, as they don't give a flying **** about truth, let alone the rule of law or "civil liberties".

    That DA, and all those like him, will scream at the top of their lungs that removing all encryption from non-governmental hands is the *only* way to prevent another terrorist attack using unencrypted SMS. Not - of course - that they'd ever do anything to prevent it, as if it's stopped then you have no grounds for claiming your budgets and abuses were still insufficient.

  47. Yip by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Another pathetic little boy building his pathetic little political career thinking he is the man. When nobody will remember him or care a few years down the line. Meanwhile messing up peoples' lives and turning the system upside down.

  48. CIA keys in the cloud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, do the CIA have to store their encryption keys in the provider could as well? How else could the curiosity of the local DA be fulfilled?

  49. Already there by TimTucker · · Score: 1

    Imagine if the DA went around saying, "we need to have a key to your bathroom door." With a bathroom door it sounds hilarious, but that's basically what he's saying.

    I believe you're looking for Section 1008.1.9.5.1 of the International Building Code:

    Closet and bathroom doors in Group R-4 occupancies.
    In Group R-4 occupancies, closet doors that latch in the closed position shall be openable from inside the closet, and bathroom doors that latch in the closed position shall be capable of being unlocked from the ingress side.

  50. Re:Governments think terrorists are what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Stupid? HA! "They're wonderful excuses" is what they think.

    The only stupid people are those thinking the same people clamoring day and night for the removal of human rights would do anything but smile inwardly and capitalize on so useful an occasion as a a few dozen or hundred corpses of folks that don't matter and a nebulous "enemy'. This is their chance to nip that filthy technological privacy in the bud, before their nonstop plundering and corruption lands them in a popular revolt arranged beneath their noses through high-tech means that even their heavily armed 'peacekeepers' can no longer easily contain.

  51. Encryption is not possible ... by PPH · · Score: 1

    ... when everyone's name is 'Mohammad' and their pass phrases are all 'Jihad'.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  52. There could be a 9/11 attack every day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And I still would not support weakening encryption, nor a ban on guns.

  53. Terroism by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This guy IS a terrorist. He is attempting to deprive the ordinary citizen of privacy by inciting fear.

    That is terrorism by definition.

    Send him strait to Gitmo NOW!

    --
    Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    1. Re:Terroism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait -- doesn't the current administration authorize drone strikes for US citizens inciting terrorism abroad? ...Is this guy traveling overseas anytime soon? Maybe he'll solve his own problem.

  54. Re:Want your freedom? Oppose importing terrorists by Nemyst · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This post is a perfect example of why social conservatism is stupid.

    You want to oppose importing terrorists eh? How do you go about doing that, pray tell? First of all, just in case you weren't aware: all of the successful terrorist attacks that happened in France weren't caused by Syrian refugees. They were carried out by people who emigrated years prior, who'd been setup as sleeper cells until the time was right to strike. So what do you do to prevent them from entering the country? Prevent anyone who looks vaguely Arabic from entering? That's millions of people you're suddenly blocking there to prevent 0.01% of them (if that) from entering.

    But that's not all, is it? There are already millions of them on your soil. Do you kick them out too? People who might've been here for generations, who have families, friends, a job and are perfectly normal citizens? Because if you don't, that leaves hundreds of possible sleeper cells around.

    And then, that's not even solving the issue fully. There have been terrorist acts carried out by converted Westerners too. How do you go about preventing that? Ban Islam entirely? That's again millions of people, some of whom have been here for so many generations they're an integral part of your country's history. Plus, it won't really help, since those converted people know how to act "normally" since they've been raised that way and were only converted later on.

    But no matter, even if you fixed that miraculously, you'd still have school shootings and crazies like Anders Breivik who are literally indistinguishable from the rest of your population and who can carry out atrocities just as well as that horrible Muslim you're so scared of.

    Here's the funny thing too: regardless of where you stop in this dangerous trend, you've still created two classes of people: those who can live in your country and those who can't. You've removed their freedom to "protect" yours. You've failed to achieve what you set out to do, unless you are so egotistical to only care about yourself. And if you're American (which is a pretty good guess from the tone of your post and the website it was posted on), you've also gone against the one thing that made it into what it is: that everyone stands equal and everyone has a chance. Now you don't stand a chance if your skin is brown. Welcome to the Confederacy.

    TL;DR: Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

  55. "do the right thing" by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

    Just the audacity of them makes me pissed off.

    --
    I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
  56. It's probably all misinformation by NSA/five eyes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The government probably wants the people to think that we've fixed the holes which enabled NSA spying that we evidenced from the Edward Snowden leaks. Or at a minimum create confusion. The reality is the NSA/government/law enforcement have the tools to break into phones and connect suspects without access to the contents of the encrypted messages.

    Points:

    1. All phones can be tracked by there very nature - you can't avoid it
    2. Encryption is meaningless when the government can connect the dots among organizing parties
    3. Phones, computers, and other devices can be easily attacked via remote holes and backdoors

    So the idea that we're somehow gaining an advantage here is tiny to non-existent. I'd still encourage people to encrypt- but don't be so stupid as to think they aren't listing or connecting the dots. They can, they are, and you need to throw away the phones if you really want to avoid them.

    All cell phones have proprietary bits in the modem portions of the phones. You can't avoid that and those bits generally also have control over the main memory and microphone. In reality they can control *EVERYTHING*. But even if that wasn't the case the operating systems are shipping with backdoors. The Replicant project found backdoors in all Android devices.

    Our laptops are also backdoored. They're under the control of Intel and disguised as remote access tools. Don't think you can get away just by buying an ARM-based laptop either. The Chinese government has backdoored at least one of its home-grown ARM laptop designs. While it's not public information I worked on a project with someone who did the reverse engineering that discovered it. The purpose of the reverse engineering had nothing to do with the backdoor either. It was a consequence of the manufacturer charging too much for access to what was suppose to be GPL licensed code. They were in violation of the license, but none-the-less refused to hand over the requested code. Later the manufacturer was told we had the code (not about the backdoor) and immediately stopped communicating. So we send our local representative to find out why. Turns out they knew about the backdoor and were concerned the government would charge them (ie kill them) for conspiring with the enemy. Or something all to this effect anyway.

  57. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  58. More like camera in every room by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We have see pedophiles use bathrooms to molest children, so we need a camera in every room. We can review the images and arrest the guilty.
    Don't worry if the police are watching your wives and daughters, they are "Professionals".

  59. Way to go DHI again, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Another blunder fuck i see..

    well, um NO.. Secure is secure,, otherwise those whom tout their encryption products have to disclose that they are not SECURE.
    This act by default breaks the standard practice..

    If you guys are all bitching and moaning about it, then why offer it at all??? It's a catch 22.

    Put it to Dumb Heads International to post such crap..

    No wonder they are still up for sale and no one is buying.
    I mean look at how these individuals are tarnishing the name until it has no lustre any more, driving its value down, just to be ejected..

  60. Re:Want your freedom? Oppose importing terrorists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A four digit user id, and all I want to say is "/pol pls go"

  61. Re:Want your freedom? Oppose importing terrorists by swillden · · Score: 1

    Here's the funny thing too: regardless of where you stop in this dangerous trend, you've still created two classes of people: those who can live in your country and those who can't. You've removed their freedom to "protect" yours.

    It's a little worse than that.

    However you go about deciding which people to exclude, you still have to solve the practical problem of how to effectively keep them out while allowing the privileged class to enter. This means gates, guards and ID checks, which in turn require processes to identify people and issue ID documentation, and creates opportunities for errors and abuse. All of which means that the privileged class must also sacrifice some amount of their own freedom in order to build the filter and make it work.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  62. Re:Cyrus Vance Jr by hondo77 · · Score: 1
    --
    I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
  63. Google as an organization no champion of privacy by drnb · · Score: 1

    They are doing this because, if they didn't, somebody else would offer apps to do it and then take over part of their ecosystem.

    Heh. As one of the engineers at Google who builds Android device encryption, I'd say that we do it because that's how it should be. But it should surprise no one that engineers who gravitate to positions like mine are people think everything should be encrypted and that only the person who owns the data should have the keys.

    And it would be fair to point out that people who share such privacy concerns do not gravitate to Google corporate management. For example they of course believe it is quite legitimate to scan people's emails so that advertising may be more accurately targeted. Your "we" as in "we do it because" refers more to your specific team members and less to Google in general. Google as an organization is no champion of privacy, it is a targeted advertising company after all.

  64. Zero Knowledge by DarkSabreLord · · Score: 1

    Ok, but can we also do something about the zero knowledge politicians?

    1. Re:Zero Knowledge by gweihir · · Score: 1

      In particular, as "Zero Knowledge" in cryptography does not refer to message encryption at all, but has a fixed, clear and decidedly different meaning. They really have no clue at all what they are talking about.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  65. You're right! by tekrat · · Score: 2

    You're right and there's only one sure-fire solution. Kill Everyone. Without exception. Nuke the entire planet. Only after everyone is dead will we be safe.

    --
    If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
  66. Re: Google as an organization no champion of priva by swillden · · Score: 1

    And it would be fair to point out that people who share such privacy concerns do not gravitate to Google corporate management.

    I don't think that's at all true. It's certainly not consistent with those in my management chain with whom I've interacted (which is all of them except Sundar). It's also fairly irrelevant, since Google is a very bottom-up organization. Management decided to staff an Android security team, but they really don't tell us what to do.

    For example they of course believe it is quite legitimate to scan people's emails so that advertising may be more accurately targeted.

    Sure, as long as the people in question have agreed to it. I have no problem with that, at all. Personally, as long as it's relatively unobtrusive, I'd much rather pay for content with my eyeballs than my dollars, and if I have to see advertising I prefer that it's relevant, so Google's model is a win/win for me. Not everyone feels the same way, of course, which is why Google provides tools to enable opting out of analytics and targeted advertising. In most cases while still allowing opted-out users to use Google's services.

    Google as an organization is no champion of privacy, it is a targeted advertising company after all.

    Those things aren't inherently opposed. There's nothing anti-privacy about a business model based on users voluntarily providing information to enable targeted advertising, as long as the company takes due care to protect user data. The key word there is "voluntarily", obviously. As for "due care", Google does an outstanding job of protecting user data.

    it is a targeted advertising company after all.

    It really isn't. That may seem a strange claim about a company that derives 90+% of its revenue from advertising, but it's true nonetheless. Google's biggest current products are most effectively monetized with advertising, true, but Google as a whole really isn't focused on advertising, and isn't particularly even concerned about building stuff that drives advertising. The mandate is to build stuff that the whole world will want to use, and then we'll figure out later how to make money from it. In many cases, advertising fits the bill. In others, SaaS is better (that's mostly what has driven advertising from 100% to 90%). Increasingly, I expect Google's revenues to start coming from hardware sales.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  67. They've been the enemies of men for over 100ryrs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They've been the enemies of men for over 100 years.

    >>In the United States, as late as the 1880s most States set the minimum age at 10-12, (in Delaware it was 7 in 1895).[8] Inspired by the "Maiden Tribute" female reformers in the US initiated their own campaign[9] which petitioned legislators to raise the legal minimum age to at least 16, with the ultimate goal to raise the age to 18. The campaign was successful, with almost all states raising the minimum age to 16-18 years by 1920.

  68. Corrected News Release by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    'Cyrus Vance Jr. has appealed to the tech community — specifically citing Google and Apple — to "endanger citizens", "violate the constitution", and "make business on the internet, including banking, shopping, logistics and order fulfillment, impossible.'

    'Vance Jr. praised FBI director James Comey for his "reckless" and "stupid" advocacy against zero knowledge encryption, and uses the recent attacks on Paris as further justification for invasion of privacy, unchecked growth of the security apparatus, and targeting citizens without regard for guilt, probable cause, or due process'.

    'We've got a job to do and we don't much care how it gets done, Vance said. Imprison them all and let God sort it out.'

    This News Release proudly fact checked by the NY DA's office!

  69. because.... by CoOtter77 · · Score: 1

    because terrorists that know about this (all of them) will somehow *not* go out of their way to use zero knowledge encryption systems that are already widely available when they become illegal? How would this prevent anything other than law-abiding citizens being kept from their privacy? Ugh.

  70. Re:Want your freedom? Oppose importing terrorists by washort · · Score: 1

    Ask Israel how they did it, and how well it works.

  71. copy paste by presidenteloco · · Score: 1

    Procedure:
    1. Browse in mobile browser to https://mynewencryptingwebpage...
    2. write "top secret message" into text area in my newly hosted encrypting web page,
    3. Enter email address or phone number I will be sending to in second field.
    4. Press (encrypt) button, cleverly labelled (Post) instead.
    5. Copy encrypted ciphertext from https://mynewencryptingwebpage...
    6. Send ciphertext by email or sms
    7. Recipient procedure is left as an exercise for the reader.

    --

    Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
  72. Re: Coren22's "greatest hits" fails #5/5... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Fuck you and the spam bot you rode in on, APK. I'm trying to read a relatively sensible discussion and suddenly I have to scroll through a dozen screens full of your petty minded auto posted drivel. Absolutely nobody reads all the way through your rants. Nobody is going to see that and think "shit, you know what, he's right! Coren22 does have to eat his words! Thank you apk for making me see the light!". Do you know what everybody seeing your script sputum thinks? They think "oh for fuck's sake not this shit again" and scroll on by until the grown up conversation starts again.

  73. Re:Want your freedom? Oppose importing terrorists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do you even realize the cognitive dissonance of what you've just expressed? You'll admit that the result of indiscriminate immigration under the banner of cultural egalitarianism has introduced a predictable element that runs counter to the very nature of a free and liberal society, but yet still self-righteously moralize that immigration has to be an all-or-nothing policy and anyone who thinks otherwise is a racist bigot who doesn't appreciate freedom.

    This is the same kind of mindset that willingly self-censors on the behalf of one selective group out of fear of provoking an excessive reaction, but then turns around and bashes the opinion of those critical of said group using terms like racist and islamophobe. In this sense, by allowing unchecked immigration and unconditional tolerance of a group that must be given special consideration as to not become 'radicalized', everyone else's freedom is diminished. Don't believe me? Make a public display of burning a koran and you'll find out if there is a religious mafia or not.

    Immigration from countries that are experiencing pandemics is restricted and very selective for a reason, but it highly likely your social conditioning has left you incapable of drawing any parallels to that. There is a reason why suicide bombers target crowded mosques, and I suggest you dwell on that.

  74. Re:Want your freedom? Oppose importing terrorists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    IMO, the pattern we've seen for folks who have been 'radicalization' (I don't consider it word, but it's frustratingly easy to use) are:
    1 - through external action or the perception of action the subject feels cut off or ostracized from more positive events around them.
    2 - not knowing what else to do, the concept festers until they call attention to themselves over it in some comparatively benign manner.
    (steps 1 and 2 can repeat in a cycle for some time)
    3 - Outside group keys subject and pushes them into dangerous territory, or subject self-activates of their own accord.
    4 - Boom.

    Frankly, the best thing to do is to give the more poisonous thoughts no place to run. Accepting refugees in this case and providing them a solid base from which to start (ESL programs, basic financial assistance for finding work or starting their own businesses, enrollment in standard government assistance programs, PTSD counseling, access to vetted religious outreach organizations, etc.) and providing the exact same to natives in similar straits (poverty at the far end of the scale, the homeless, those mentally ill to the state of day-to-day dysfunction -- folks we should be giving identical levels of baseline assistance already and have been failing to). Doing so puts those affected groups on track in general for living a simple life relatively free from need.

    While yes, some folks turn to criminal/terrorist behavior despite this, you're removing the more frustrated and desperate from the cycle above. They've got enough to get by and the rest is up to them. Why risk the opportunity?

    Granted, the other side of the equation is that the US populace can't math for shit and have yet to key to the fact that the person most likely to end them with a bomb or a bullet was born less than 500 miles from them and is more likely to have a cross pendant on their neck than anything else, but hey!

    We don't realize as a people that with life comes risk. That concept alone puts the infinitesimal odds of premature death at the hands of an idiot in stark comparison. And if I'm going to risk my life, I'd rather do it in the process of doing the right thing than live in meaningless fear.

  75. Re:Want your freedom? Oppose importing terrorists by Darinbob · · Score: 1

    Yup, let's get rid of all the White Christians in this countries. Not all of them are terrorists sure, but we have overwhelming evidence that they purposely were engaged in an ongoing campaign to kill the natives residents with guns and disease and import their barbaric eastern legal practices to replace the existing system of laws. Why should we trade our freedom away just so that these genocidal maniacs who hate us can go free?

  76. Another idiot who doesn't understand encruption by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can't merely ask Google and Apple to stop end to end encryption. Any decent programmer can create end to end encryption on any open or semi-open infrastructure.

    The reality is there are more encrypted ways to communicate than any one person even kntlows about and on top of all that terrorists are people who common don't hold the value of their own life high enough for encryption to be a requirement. They can just communicate out in the open and MOST of the time nobody even notices. It takes little more than a child understanding of hiding the meaning of your words to thwart the intelligence agencies of the world.

    As it stands all of our high tech efforts have mostly failed at preventing terrorist attacks. The system in place is not fast enough, it's not accurate enough and at the end of the day it requires a human to read through it all and give the GO order to take action. On top of that the pile of information these agencies have is getting too large for them to use it effectively.

  77. Wasting Time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Too many comments when a simple Fuck These Assholes would do.

  78. Default == opt-in proves Google's position by drnb · · Score: 1

    Management decided to staff an Android security team, but they really don't tell us what to do.

    Of course not, but senior management funded the Android project beyond an experimental phase because senior management had a plan on how to generate revenue. And advertising was a major component of that plan, of establishing control over a large portion of mobile advertising. Advertising was not an afterthought, it was a justification for the investment required to take the project to the scale of a major mobile device platform.

    For example they of course believe it is quite legitimate to scan people's emails so that advertising may be more accurately targeted.

    Sure, as long as the people in question have agreed to it. I have no problem with that, at all.

    Things are not that simple. Google relies on the fact that people do not read terms of use agreements and do not change default settings. So the default is opt-in. Your argument would be far more credible if the default policy for Google products were opt-out. But default opt-out is not what an organization that is at its heart a targeted advertising company would do, default opt-out is something that a true technology company would do.

    Google as an organization is no champion of privacy, it is a targeted advertising company after all.

    Those things aren't inherently opposed. There's nothing anti-privacy about a business model based on users voluntarily providing information to enable targeted advertising, as long as the company takes due care to protect user data. The key word there is "voluntarily", obviously.

    "Voluntary" in a legal sense, not a moral sense. The "moral sense" is lost by leveraging the ignorance and laziness of the average user. Again, default opt-out.

    As for "due care", Google does an outstanding job of protecting user data.

    That is not a completely altruistic move given that such user data is also a valuable business resource that Google would not want competitors or clients (advertisers) to have access too. Keeping a user's "profile information" private is absolutely required for Google's targeted advertising business. It must protect its position as the required middleman between customers (advertisers) and users.

    it is a targeted advertising company after all.

    It really isn't. That may seem a strange claim about a company that derives 90+% of its revenue from advertising, but it's true nonetheless. Google's biggest current products are most effectively monetized with advertising, true, but Google as a whole really isn't focused on advertising, ...

    That is a pretty strong case of denial there. :-)

    ... and isn't particularly even concerned about building stuff that drives advertising. The mandate is to build stuff that the whole world will want to use, and then we'll figure out later how to make money from it. In many cases, advertising fits the bill.

    Absolutely untrue. How to make money, and advertising being a large part of the answer, was determined *before* projects like Android, Gmail, etc received the funding necessary to take them from an experimental phase to a large scale project for the public. Do not think that the entrepreneurial like experimentation that is fostered at the "small" scale, and a long term focus rather than the quarterly report focus, is evidence of not being focused on advertising. Its evidence of being very smart and well run, which may be something novel in the advertising field but not mutually exclusive.

    In others, SaaS is better (that's mostly what has driven advertising from 100% to 90%).

    Diversification is good. And its an excellent domain to expand into, but this doesn't chang

  79. This won't solve anything by Balial · · Score: 1

    When encryption is outlawed, only the terrorists will have encryption. We can't unlearn the maths. Banning it serves no purpose.

  80. Surely a better approach would be by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Surely a better approach would be to appeal to the law enforcement agencies to stop there abuse of the wire tap lwas and revert back to a system where only people directly under investigation are monitored. Instead of spying on everyone - which is the reason why the encryption was introduced in response to the heavy handed approach by the law enforcement agencies.

  81. Not everybody is stupid. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In a speech to the 6th Annual Financial Crimes and Cybersecurity Symposium, New York County District Attorney for Manhattan Cyrus Vance Jr. has appealed to the tech community — specifically citing Google and Apple — to "do the right thing"

    The right thing according to a lawyer in Manhattan. nah homie.

    end zero-knowledge encryption in mobile operating systems

    Welcome to Earth. People would circumvent this. The guy seems like he wants to "look like he's doing the right thing" though. Ban homing pigeons then work on this.

    Vance Jr. praised FBI director James Comey for his 'outspoken' and 'fearless' advocacy against zero knowledge encryption

    The appeal to emotion is so thick you can spread it on your bagels.

    and uses the recent attacks on Paris as further justification for returning encryption keys to the cloud, so that communications providers can once again comply with court orders.

    Whoa. And nobody even notices the trend of giving up rights for "safety" at all huh. "returning encryption keys to the cloud". That translates to let us backdoor the public's PC's. The term cloud is a pretty way of saying store YOUR SHIT on OUR COMPUTERS.

  82. WTF are they talking about? by gweihir · · Score: 1

    "Zero Knowledge" has a definite and clear meaning in cryptography: It applies to protocols where Alice can prove to Bob that she has a certain secret, without Bob learning anything about the secret itself. This has nothing at all to do with message encryption.

    These people presume to lecture us about encryption, and they do not even get the very basics right?

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  83. Re:That's fine by gweihir · · Score: 1

    Simple: Just allow government agencies and their chosen representatives any and all uses of this data.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  84. Re:Want your freedom? Oppose importing terrorists by gweihir · · Score: 1

    Obviously stupid posting is stupid.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  85. A tale of two Assads by unixisc · · Score: 2

    What you described above is true about the current president's father - Hafez al Assad. He was indeed a thug, and a terror ruler, rivalling both Saddam and Gadaffi. He backed Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizbullah. He engineered the assassination of several Lebanese leaders, particularly their president elect Bashir Gemayel. He massacred thousands of people in Homs in response to a Muslim Brotherhood uprising. During the Iran-Iraq war, he supported Iran, and during Operation Desert Storm, he supported the US, given his hatred for Saddam. He opposed Egypt's and Jordan's peace deals w/ Israel, and therefore caused the Golan Heights to get annexed by Israel. Just like Saddam remained in power by having control of his military and curbing the Shias and Kurds, Hafez Assad kept hold of things by curbing the Sunnis of his country.

    His son, who succeeded him, is a completely different character. He started his reign like Gorbachyev, trying to bring in reforms. However, once the Arab Spring rebellion started, just like others in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Bahrein and Yemen, his hands were forced. Unlike the other Arab countries, which had largely monolithic Sunni Arab populations (except Bahrein and Yemen, one of which got occupied by Saudi troops and the other is now in a civil war), quitting was not an option w/ Assad, not just for his own safety, which could have meant him going the Gadaffi or Mubarak way, but also not an option for the Alawite led Baath coalition of Alawites, Druze and Christians. So the fact that there was a significant portion of the population ready to back him was what plunged Syria into a civil war.

    I'm no fan of Putin, but I'm w/ the Russians on this one. In the early part of the civil war, before ISIS/ISIL became a big player, the US backed rebels - the Free Syrian Army - were guilty of ethnic cleansing of Allepo and Homs of Christians. Under the Assads, Christians lived relatively peacefully in Syria - like in Iraq, but unlike in Egypt or Lebanon. Once the US troops left Iraq, the new 'democratic' regime of Maliki and Haidari allowed pogroms against Christians, who then fled to Assad's Syria for safety. Once this civil war started, both Iraqi and Syrian Christians started fleeing to Lebanon, and then abroad. On one hand, the US doesn't want to discriminate b/w Muslim and Christian refugees from Syria, and yet, they're opposed to Vlad propping up the Assad regime. Well, they can't have it both ways.

    Russian support to Syria is what has prevented a bigger bloodbath than there would have been. Going forward, it's hard to see Syria remain a single country. It was a bad model in Iraq, and remains one in Syria. A partition of the region along ethnic lines - w/ independent countries for the Kurds, the Druze, the Sunnis, the Alawites would probably be the best solution - for both Iraq and Syria.

    All that said, Assad's regime is nowhere near those in Pyongyang or Havana in terms of brutality. What Syria has going on is a civil war not b/w the supporters and opponents of a government, but b/w the majority ethnic group - Sunni Arabs - vs the rest.

    1. Re:A tale of two Assads by mi · · Score: 1

      once the Arab Spring rebellion started, just like others in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Bahrein and Yemen, his hands were forced

      He assumed office in 2000. Obama's "Arab Springs" started way after 2009. Maybe, he tried to be better than daddy, but, as I said, I can't think of a regime over there, that needs military so badly to survive.

      I'm no fan of Putin, but [...]

      Congratulations. Putin's public relations efforts have worked their magic on you.

      Assad's regime is nowhere near those in Pyongyang or Havana in terms of brutality.

      Probably. Yet, I can think of nothing in between. Myanmar, maybe...

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    2. Re:A tale of two Assads by unixisc · · Score: 1

      He assumed office in 2000. Obama's "Arab Springs" started way after 2009. Maybe, he tried to be better than daddy, but, as I said, I can't think of a regime over there, that needs military so badly to survive.

      Just about every regime out there outside Israel needs a military to survive. That includes Jordan, which is heavily Palestinian, and so while they are more democratic than their neighbors, they need to keep an iron grip on things.

      Congratulations. Putin's public relations efforts have worked their magic on you.

      I disagree w/ his policy on supporting Iran, as well as his attacks on the Donbass, and would be all for Russians getting rid of him, if they wanted. However, I don't have a knee-jerk opposition to everything he does

  86. Re: Google as an organization no champion of priva by mattack2 · · Score: 1

    And it would be fair to point out that people who share such privacy concerns do not gravitate to Google corporate management. For example they of course believe it is quite legitimate to scan people's emails so that advertising may be more accurately targeted.

    You're conflating two completely different things.

    Device encryption is one thing.

    People using a free service _in exchange for advertisements_ is completely different.

    Plus, isn't it true that corporate gmail DOESN'T do this type of scanning? I thought I had read that, or maybe it was only the educational version.

  87. Not again! by rcase5 · · Score: 1

    This is the same nonsense they tried to advocate in the 90s with the key escrow stuff. They're counting on people having short attention spans and short memories.

    Well, the answer was "NO" then, and it is still "NO" now! Deal with it! Do you jobs! And stop being so goddamned lazy!

  88. Email scanning is a "feature" ... by drnb · · Score: 1

    People using a free service _in exchange for advertisements_ is completely different.

    Perhaps if it were a default opt-out system, but its not. The current default opt-in system leverages user ignorance and laziness.

    Plus, isn't it true that corporate gmail DOESN'T do this type of scanning? I thought I had read that, or maybe it was only the educational version.

    I think what Google clarified is that no humans are reading the email, that it is an automated process.

    "Google’s ads use information gleaned from a user’s email combined with data from their Google profile as a whole, including search results, map requests and YouTube views, to display what it considers are relevant ads in the hope that the user is more likely to click on them and generate more advertising revenue for Google."
    http://www.theguardian.com/tec...

    To Google targeted advertising is a "feature" of their email scanning like spam and malware detection.

  89. Education and Government exempt from scanning by drnb · · Score: 1

    Plus, isn't it true that corporate gmail DOESN'T do this type of scanning? I thought I had read that, or maybe it was only the educational version.

    Found more info, yes, Apps for Education is exempt, users may be minors and that is a touchy legal thing. As well as Government, which also has legal issues. However consumers, fair game.
    http://www.pcworld.com/article...

    1. Re:Education and Government exempt from scanning by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      Sorry, I meant corporate as in business gmail.. I thought that was a thing, where businesses could buy 'official' google services, and have it not have this type of scanning. I could very well be wrong.

    2. Re:Education and Government exempt from scanning by drnb · · Score: 1

      Sorry, I meant corporate as in business gmail.. I thought that was a thing, where businesses could buy 'official' google services, and have it not have this type of scanning. I could very well be wrong.

      Reading farther into that link shows that the paid-for corporate is also exempt. It seems only the consumers and businesses (and rogue government employees) using the free service are subject to the default opt-in for scanning.

  90. Re:Want your freedom? Oppose importing terrorists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Have you been hiding from the news, or were you lying intentionally? Are you waiting for God to personally slap you in the face with one of the Syrian passports used by the attackers?

  91. "compliance" ? by v1 · · Score: 1

    so that communications providers can once again comply with court orders.

    If the court order demands you produce the data, and it's physically impossible for you to do it, that's not non-compliance. That's "hey retards, you DO realize you just demanded we do the impossible, go take a hike!".

    There's absolutely nothing wrong (or unexpected) to do with refusing to do the impossible. Quit twisting words, the internet's pretty good at seeing through that crap.

    I find it entirely gratifying to see companies that in the past have been getitng forced to cooperate with the government ignoring the people's rights finally being able to tell the criminals wearing the badges to get lost, without risk of arrest or prossicution.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  92. Coren22's "greatest hits" fails #1/5... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Apk doesn't think DNS servers are worth running & believes Microsoft Active Directory can run w/out DNS." - by Coren22 (1625475) on Tuesday October 27, 2015

    Where'd I say it? Show us. I say AD needs internal DNS far back as 2007 http://forums.tweaktown.com/wi...

    See "To warn users who have ActiveDirectory/AD LAN-WAN setups to NOT use external DNS servers" there on OpenDNS free (I use it) + AD in my security guide.

    + how to migrate hosts across a LAN (admin/scripts not GPO)-> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

    ... apk

    ---

    I'm RIGHT on admin priv + hosts (WFP/SFP)!

    "figured out why privilege escalation's a bad thing?" - by Coren22 on Tuesday September 22, 2015

    How else can I programmatically update hosts itself?

    ---

    "it requires elevation to write hosts" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Wednesday September 23, 2015

    Hypocrite later admits it!

    Even MalwareBytes AntiMalware DEMANDS it or it can't do a job fully like many security tools!

    ---

    "Needing admin privileges every time a program updates is poor design" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Tuesday November 10, 2015

    Mine doesn't to get new data to update hosts vs. threats. Only hosts itself updates need it vs. WFP/SFP. Users set it too. It's not programmatic impersonation.

    ---

    "90's tech to fight modern war" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Tuesday November 10, 2015

    Ozymandias/Watchmen per a namesake:

    "I resolved to apply antiquities teachings" (hosts) "to our world today & began my path to conquest - Conquest not of men but of the evils that beset them: Fossil Fuels (antispyware), Oil (antivir), Nuclear Power (addons) are like a drug & you gentlemen along w/ foreign interests are the pushers"

    It works Aryeh Goretsky NOD32/ESET hosts = good security-> http://it.slashdot.org/comment...

    Oliver Day (Symantec) too-> http://www.securityfocus.com/c...

    MalwareBytes' hpHosts' Admin hosts+recommends APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-2 32/64-bit-> http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl...

    APK

    P.S.=> Con't. in #2/5... apk

  93. Coren22's "greatest hits" fails #2/5... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I guess we should avoid your crap, it looks like it is marked as malware. Good luck getting that removed." - by Coren22 (1625475) on Monday November 02, 2015 @03:52PM (#50850445)

    62 sources of good repute show + /. users say otherwise:

    Proven safe by 57 antivirus programs in its 64-bit model https://www.virustotal.com/en/...

    +

    Same for the 32-bit model https://www.virustotal.com/en/...

    &

    Per VirScan its installer too -> http://f.virscan.org/APKHostsF...

    ---

    MalwareBytes' hpHosts Admin (MalwareBytes employee) hosts & recommends it -> http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl... & MalwareBytes = BEST antivirus per this VERY recent testing of them all http://www.av-test.org/en/news... /.'ers say my work is good too:

    "his hosts program is actually pretty good" - by xenotransplant (4179011) on Monday August 10, 2015 @03:34PM (#50287195)

    "I like your host file system." - by Karmashock (2415832) on Wednesday September 09, 2015 @03:57PM (#50489401)

    "APK is kinda right... I've given up on JS based adblocking and gone to blackholing in /etc/hosts, just like it was back in the 90s. The computational load has gotten intolerable for any ad-blocking using JS. I've tried his hosts file generating software. It works." - by bmo (77928) on Thursday October 15, 2015 @11:30AM (#50736071)

    "his hosts tool is actually useful for those cases in which one does indeed want to locally block stuff outright while consuming minimum system resources" by alexgieg (948359) on Friday September 25, 2015 @09:57AM (#50596461)

    ---

    You tried using Computer Associates antivirus that I overturned on false positives (1/8 over time) were caught in ACCOUNTING SCANDALS FRAUD http://www.bing.com/search?q=c...

    Reputable source (not): They had to sell off their PC security suite too (crap too) LOWERING the 'threat level' on THAT program (not my hosts file engine) TO ZERO!

    * YOU ARE WRONG ON EVERY ACCOUNT NOTED!

    APK

    P.S.=> Con't in part #3/5... apk

  94. Coren22's "greatest hits" fails #3/5... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Virus scanners/Adblock software don't need admin priv to update" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Tuesday November 10, 2015 @04:14PM (#50904323)

    Neither does my program. AV does to remove threats - Adblock addons = Vastly INFERIOR in abilities + efficiency vs. hosts as I proved & no one proved me wrong to date!

    ---

    "your software does" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Tuesday November 10, 2015 @04:14PM (#50904323)

    No, hosts do due to WFP/SFP - Intake update of new hosts data doesn't!

    ---

    "won't reveal your source code" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Tuesday November 10, 2015 @04:14PM (#50904323)

    I don't owe you it. I don't give away work to be stolen by others so it's misused like GOOGLE CHROME http://it.slashdot.org/story/1...

    ---

    "What's stopping you from pointing my bank's web site at your private server?" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Tuesday November 10, 2015 @04:14PM (#50904323)

    I don't keep a server. Security guru (not - you create no ware for security & your forensics skills = non-existent): Put it in a VM, trace it using process monitor + wireshark to prove it (don't need code)!

    ---

    "the possibility of being caught, which would be pretty hard to catch w/ such a large hosts file, as no one can go through it manually." - by Coren22 (1625475) on Tuesday November 10, 2015 @04:14PM (#50904323)

    I place hardcoded fav sites @ top of hosts for speed & reliabilty - you'd spot it easily & bulk of hosts is sorted blocked known bad threats.

    ---

    "What are you going to do when Windows gets rid of the hosts file completely?" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Tuesday November 10, 2015 @04:14PM (#50904323)

    Hasn't happened!

    ---

    "They have already taken steps to make it useless in Windows 10." - by Coren22 (1625475) on Tuesday November 10, 2015 @04:14PM (#50904323)

    It works there!

    Telemetry tracking's killing 10 by itself: Win10 = Win8 = flops - who're you fooling other than yourself?

    APK

    P.S.=> Con't. in #4/5... apk

  95. Coren22's "greatest hits" fails #4/5... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Coren22 'eats his words' vs. me 2x yet again:

    "introduces risk you are relying on a 3rd party to update a hosts file potentially opening you up to MITM attacks" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Tuesday November 17, 2015

    How can my program do it?

    Only things it puts in as non-blocking IP addy to hostnames is ones users give it as their favs to speed up @ the TOP of hosts REVERSE DNS VERIFIED!

    (For more speed, & reliability + security - in RAM as 1st resolver queried = faster & more secure vs. remote DNS w/ all its security issues in Kaminsky flaw, DNSChanger malware IP stack settings, routers bushwhacked in DNS settings, rogue DNS, Open DNS servers abused by malware. It aids in reliability vs. redirects).

    YOU'D SPOT IT INSTANTLY AS THEY ARE @ TOP OF CUSTOM HOSTS & can easily edit anything you want out of it!

    (Rest = known bad sites from 10 reputable security community sites for blocking - the MAJORITY of what's in my hosts files!)

    ---

    "maybe one day you can get a score 5 comment" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Tuesday November 17, 2015

    See subject & ~ 12 +5 upmods making you "eat your words" vs. me (1st one: You tried using what I post there against me to FAIL):

    +5 'modded up' posts by "yours truly" (11):

    http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
    http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...
    http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
    http://science.slashdot.org/co...
    http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...
    http://hardware.slashdot.org/c...
    http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
    http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
    http://hardware.slashdot.org/c...
    http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
    http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

    "You believe you are getting the better of me" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Tuesday November 17, 2015

    YOU GOT THE BEST OF YOURSELF in tech fails & lies about me. Your immature signatures about me SCREAM you're butthurt - You did it to yourself.

    APK

    P.S.=> Con't. in #5/5... apk

  96. Coren22's "greatest hits" fails #5/5... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "defame me saying things he knows aren't true - by Coren22 (1625475) on Wednesday November 04, 2015

    Hypocrite You're projecting & your signatures do the rest.

    "the feeling of icky his software - by Coren22 (1625475) on Wednesday November 04, 2015

    I show /.'ers say differently by quoted testimonials - Show us you've done better: YOU can't!

    "maybe someone will think they are true - by Coren22 (1625475) on Wednesday November 04, 2015

    Quotes of you = true - & You can't keep your word + projecting what YOU do (AD/DNS lie).

    "I don't have time for the Troll APK, and refuse to respond anymore to a post signed APK" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Tuesday November 03, 2015

    I protect users speeding them up, helping reliability, & security + anonymity online w/ more ability & efficiency than ANY 1 solution doing more w/ less - do you? No.

    "I should change my signature again to rile him up more." - by Coren22 (1625475) on Tuesday November 03, 2015

    Childish sigs = all you've got!

    "I refuted his assertions - by Coren22 (1625475) on Wednesday November 04, 2015

    &

    "You claim I have never proved you wrong...a flat out lie." - by Coren22 on Monday November 16, 2015

    &

    "I proved you wrong on numerous occasions" - by Coren22 on Monday November 16, 2015

    Where & on what tech? "Cat got your tongue"??

    "written in shitty Delphi, "How to secure Windows" docs I could have written in my sleep when I was 20" - by Coren22 on Monday November 16, 2016

    You're 30++ & haven't done either!

    Show you've done MORE vs.a small partial list of mine & better, + earlier:

    http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

    THEN talk vs. TALKING OUT YOUR ASS!

    CIS Tool took fixes from me http://slashdot.org/comments.p... which you doubted & my layered security guides got me paid http://pcpitstop.com/news/winn... MILLIONS use.

    APK

    P.S.=>

    "I never admit you were right" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Tuesday November 10, 2015

    You PROVED I am... apk

  97. Re: Coren22's "greatest hits" fails #5/5... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Everyone sees your mistakes, libel, and lies Coren22. What's the matter? Don't like being exposed in it?? All the downmods in the world from sock puppets can't stop it either hahahahaha.

  98. Locks by vandamme · · Score: 1

    ....are to keep honest people out.

  99. STOP by peawormsworth · · Score: 1

    There is an assumption that with enough information we can foresee the future to avoid or stop these types of events.

    Does anyone believe that?

    And who cares whether encryption was used or not. Its a good tool with a useful and legal purpose. And nobody was harmed by the use of encryption. Criminals use all kinds of tools including, crowbars, phones, cars, running shoes... all of which assist them in the crime.

  100. ISIS Tweeted the Paris attack.... by LinuxLuver · · Score: 1

    Apparently, ISIS twitter accounts were wishing their team in Paris good luck with their operations at least 72 hours before the attack. No need to spy on people. Just pay attention.

    --
    Only boring people are ever bored.