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Clinton Hints At Tech Industry Compromise Over Encryption (huffingtonpost.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: At the Democratic presidential debate last night, Marques Brownlee asked the candidates a pointed question about whether the government should require tech companies to implement backdoors in their encryption, and how we should balance privacy with security. The responses were not ideal for those who recognize the problems with backdoors. Martin O'Malley said the government should have to get a warrant, but skirted the rest of the issue. Bernie Sanders said government must "have Silicon Valley help us" to discover information transmitted across the internet by ISIS and other terrorist organizations. He thinks we can do that without violating privacy, but didn't say how. But the most interesting comment came from Hillary Clinton. After mentioning that Obama Administration officials had "started the conversation" with tech companies on the encryption issue, one of the moderators noted that the government "got nowhere" with its requests. Clinton replied, "That is not what I've heard. Let me leave it at that." The implications of that small comment are troubling.
You're handing your data over to the government.
"Tech Industry Compromise"? Is that some sort of euphemism for the tech industry capitulating to a vicious threat from the government?
Did anyone really think the discussion would be something other than:
Government: "Give us a backdoor or we will audit and regulate you into oblivion, not to mention issue endless National Security Letters"
Tech CEOs: "Umm, ok... Just don't make it public"
Feds: We really need a back door into your encryption. ISIS, think of the children, sky is falling, etc.
Tech Industry: We've done the math. We stand to lose $xxx billion every year if we weaken encryption.
Feds: Think of the children.
Tech Industry: Here's our compromise. We get to keep stashing our global profits tax-free overseas. That's worth about half. We get to bulk import more H1Bs to keep labor costs down here at home. That's worth the other half. You promise to keep this a secret, that's worth another half (makes sure Fed isn't smart enough to do math on 3 halves..).
Feds: We think that's a great deal. Thanks!
So the tech industry gets what they want and makes the problem go away on a zero-cost basis. The Feds get to start bulk jailing people based on parallel constructions. The public gets zero reprieve from mass surveillance and the thing the government could do to help the public by making them pay their taxes and stop wage suppression they give up on.
In an interesting article here former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden claims* to be strongly against backdoors in encryption. It's law enforcement (FBI, DEA, etc) that are pushing for backdoors, not US intelligence (NSA). Hayden's rather chilling rationale is that since the NSA doesn't have to follow any rules, they can do bulk data and metadata collection and largely obviate the need to break encryption.
* Not that you can believe a thing he says, it's still useful to be clear on whether it's law enforcement or an intelligence agency deceiving you.
Switzerland doesn't give a shit about either US or EU. After being the banking center of the world, they just might be the future data banking center for people who don't want pesky sniffers in their belongings.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Lets give the quote:
Former NSA chief says U.S. can get around encryption with metadata, argues against backdoors
“Before any civil libertarians want to come up to me afterwards and get my autograph,” he explained at a Tuesday panel on national security hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, “let me tell you how we got around it: Bulk data and metadata [collection].”
Encryption is “a law enforcement issue more than an intelligence issue,” Hayden argued, “because, frankly, intelligence gets to break all sorts of rules, to cheat, to use other paths.”
Law enforcement and intelligence are different functions.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I'll never forget getting pushback from a lawyer regarding a desire to use AES with a claim that I'd need an export certificate. I pointed out that AES wasn't developed in the United States and that when I went to the Bureau of Standards website at the time that it linked to a foreign website for sources. Now how exactly was that an EXPORT or cryptography?
Unfortunately, your lawyer was correct. I am not an expert on ITAR restrictions but I do get yearly training (and I slept at a Holiday Inn Express!).
Even if you imported something, exporting it back to where you originally received it from can be an ITAR violation. Stupid? Yes. Senseless? Of course. A perfect example of a normal government regulation? Perfect indeed.
*sigh*
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen