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Why Governments Lie About Encryption Backdoors (vortex.com)
Lauren Weinstein says there are smart people in government, "who fully understand the technical realities of modern strong encryption systems and how backdoors would catastrophically weaken them," but asks So why do they continue to argue for these backdoor mechanisms, now more loudly than ever? The answer appears to be that they're lying to us. Or if lying seems like too strong a word, we could alternatively say they're being 'incredibly disingenuous' in their arguments. You don't need to be a computer scientist to follow the logic of how we reach this unfortunate and frankly disheartening determination regarding governments' invocation of terrorism as an excuse for demanding crypto backdoors for authorities' use.
I don't understand why people believe a single word from the (US) government
It's part of their religion.
Every time, on nearly every topic but especially security / military, what they say turns out to be not true.
Talking snakes poll even better - objective truth has little relevance.
But also consider the mental load of admitting that they're being economically and culturally ruined by these people. That would imply a moral imperative to action, which would require them to get off the couch. Technology has created the best living conditions in human history which brings comfort. They don't realize that fascistic regulations prevent that technology & comfort from being many times better. That's where the flying cars are.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
We've read the "Government does this, the Government doesn't do what it should, and the Government is corrupted etc." so many times it becomes both tiring and old, especially since most of it is just us - the people - voicing our opinions about things we've "heard" about, and even if it was true - we do basically NOTHING about it...but talk.
That said...even if you elected someone else - the power of knowledge is too tempting for ANYONE to resist. Therefore the way is OPEN SOURCE all the way. The safest way is actually no secrets in any source or any software, keep everything open - and then no one will be able to put in back doors or abuse bugs that are unknown as everyone will be able to peek inside and help fixing it.
What we need to do is to stop this endless paranoid game of "who do you trust?" and start producing results and solutions. We can do this together...the "gorberment" can't do anything about it, if anything - they should keep to what they do best (whatever that is) and leave the technology to enthusiasts like us, WE - the people - will pretty much make sure your privacy is safe because we'll all end up using open source software.
The only thing "goberment" is achieving with this crazy "who do you trust?" game is making sure would-be terrorist keep digging a deeper hole to hide in and grow a HUGE database of every persons private lives - kept - for their interpretation, with the kind of knowledge and power NO man should hold.
What you do with your computer or in your home - isn't government business no matter what the cause is. If you don't have the freedom to think freely, voice your opinions at will - then you don't have any freedoms at all.
Now, if they ever outlaw open source, then we'll be in trouble (or rather - they will).
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Serious question here......how would that work from a technical perspective?
Presumably they want to have a "master key" that would unencrypt any iPhone drive, but each user has to have their own unique key, as well. What kind of encryption algorithm lets either of two keys unencrypt something?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Well I think it's just as much the general public not being used to early, brutal death anymore. I just checked the mortality statistics here in Norway:
0-1 years old: <0.25%
0-45 years old: <2%
0-66 years old: <10%
That is rather amazing when you consider there's still fatal accidents, diseases, murder and suicide. But we're chipping away at it bit by bit, adding safety measures, advancing medicine, reducing crime, improving mental care. Then a guy with a Kalashnikov fucks it up good, killing lots of people who with 98-99% probability should have lived decades, minimum. I'm not sure how they really coped with that during WWI and WWII when young men (and quite a few others) were dying left, right and center but I know today it's such an abomination we don't deal with it at all. We want it solved and eradicated, not just make the reasonable precautions and live with the residual risk.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Keep asking the encryption question and you'll find out how far away from a democracy we've drifted. And when our government gives up with the b.s. stories and lays down the law, they'll do it with armed troops.
Have gnu, will travel.
The simple truth is that while unbreakable encryption is out there in the form of books or papers with the math, most people -- bad guys included -- are lazy and just going to use what the simple, convenient stuff. (The back-doored stuff.)
They fall into the trap of thinking "there are so many people using Facebook chat, the authorities will never find MY stuff in all that noise". In many cases they end up using simple code-book substitution and trivial code names. Instead of Abdul al-Hazred, they'll use "Mr. White". Instead of the Twin Towers they'll use "Faculty of Commerce". They think they're being clever because THEY would never catch this stuff.
I've had this argument with gov't lawyers and it boiled down to me saying "but this is trivial to bypass -- smart bad guys would just use X", and them responding "yeah, but we'll catch the stupid ones and there are a TON of those".
Anyone who has studied the history of crypto knows it is damn near impossible to get it right every last time, much less develop it without bugs. Even WITH source code samples, algorithms and coding skills people who have been doing this for a lifetime screw it up. Thus, "the horse has escaped the barn" isn't really an honest argument. That horse is going to trip of its own volition fairly quickly.
The popular cryptographer and author Bruce Schneier in his blog recalled a conversation with fellow crypto expert Matt Blaze of the University of Pennsylvania, who said the publication of the Snowden documents would begin a âoenew dark age of cryptography, as people abandon good algorithms and software for snake oil of their own devising.â
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Misdirection. Legerdemain. The "backdoors" are already there. The encryption is already broken. The network is already hacked.
(1) Aldrich Ames;
(2) Kim Philby;
(3) J. Edgar Hoover; and
(4) the State of Alabama (NAACP v. Button).
Sooner or later the Supreme Court is going to revisit the Fourth Amendment as it relates to wireless communications. Perhaps the feds are trying to shape the course of public opinion in this regard.
> , there's a shadow government,
Gee, and that's why the G20 summit secret law and TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) were held in the open, right? Oh, wait,they're weren't until WELL after the fact.
Maybe if governments would stop making bullshit reasons for secret laws maybe this conspiracy would finally die.
> WTC was an inside job,
And yet seven hours after the Twin Towers collapsed, Building 7 just "mysteriously" collapses.
What was the official report on the cause of _that_ again??
Only a fucking idiot would believe it was "the terrorists."
So you never heard of the "Microsoft Tax"? And they don't need to jail you, not physically at least. Just cut off your internet access and uninstall unwanted programs remotely in your computer if you happen to run the latest Win 10.
Notice that the corporations can afford to pay lawyers and lobbyists to bend the regulations their way. And add your name to a "no fly" list is simple.
We are already there in a world where we are monitored, controlled and manipulated. But we are held unaware. Also look at all the trackers that are accessed when you access a web page. Who do really benefit from them? In the early year of the web you had a page counter counting the number of visits to the page. Today that's done a hundred times over combined with data that's used to uniquely identify you as a person so that targeted ads can be served and they can probably identify you good enough to be able to see what kind of offers they shall provide through snail mail to your home address.
So corporations definitely know you - and probably every politician that has an important enough position to become manipulated. It's enough information collected today to get hooks into every political party that exists and then push for some support for some obscure legislation writing to get it through in a way that benefits the corporation.
Just realize that this is why many corporations hates ad-blockers because it hurts them when they try to collect data about you. The sharing of WiFi passwords in Win 10 isn't for your convenience either, it's there for them to be able to make the linking even stronger, since now you know which friends that you have - and how many outside marriage sexual relations you have.
We currently live in a world where we have a combination of Huxley's Brave New World, Orwells 1984 and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. OK, we don't burn books directly, but we have electronic information that's forbidden to possess.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Has forcible rape skyrocketed or has the number of women actually filing charges skyrocketed? It has been getting easier for a woman to charge a rapist without being put on trial herself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
In the United States, the Constitution was written to put three branches of government IN CONFLICT with each other, so that no one - nor even any two - branches of government can become destructive of liberty. But we don't use it as written any more, and many of the "progressive" elements of the early 1900s have conspired to rip down the barriers.
The first was the 17th Amendment, allowing direct election of Senators. The Senate was DESIGNED to be the body that represented the STATES interests, while the House was directly elected. The 17th Amendment allowed for the Federal Government to tramp on the responsibilities and rights of the States. The 16th Amendment allowing for an income tax (introduced earlier, but passed with the 17th in 1913) allowed the Federal Government to grow rapidly.
have you seen merkins touching their hearts during the anthem, saluting the flag, reciting the pledge of allegiance (to the effing flag?), treating their flag like a freshly born baby (WTF flag code???!!), displaying flags on their houses, flagpoles in frontyards, etc...? that IS a religion, if i ever saw one.
and they start this brainwashing earlier than most people start with 'normal' religion. WTF merkins?