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ISIS Supporters Abandon U.S. Encryption Tools As Apple-FBI Fight Rages

blottsie writes: Islamic State militants and supporters are promoting strong encryption tools from outside the United States that the American government cannot touch with legislation. In the last month, Islamic State supporters have promoted security software from Finland, Romania, America, France, the Czech Republic, Canada, Panama, Germany, Switzerland, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and other nations, a Daily Dot review found. The international availability of encryption technology, of which Islamic State militants are well aware, underscores FBI Director James Comey's long-held desire to build an international legal regime to deal with the problems posed by encryption, what he calls "going dark."

4 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Confused by aldousd666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you outlaw good cryptography, then only outlaws will have good cryptography

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    Speak for yourself.
  2. Re:This article is propaganda by Lab+Rat+Jason · · Score: 5, Funny

    Thank God! Anonymous Coward is the worst member of this site... always stirring up trouble! I'll be glad to see him go!

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    Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
  3. cheating at the game. by nimbius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the US is a country spending nearly 1.4 trillion dollars per year on defense. It dwarfs the spending of the next 7 largest countries combined. Americans endured this sort of breakneck spending for 50 years under the guise that, once communism fell, we would embrace a newfound wave of peace in the west.

    instead we've invented boogeymen by hook and by crook. We invented ISIS by the iraq war. We invented the iraq war by weapons of mass destruction. we invented the war on terror by 9/11. we invented 9/11 by founding and training al-quaeda. we invented al-quaeda by funding an training the mujahadeen. we invented the war in afghanistan by proxy through our desire to defeat russias communism. we invented communism as a threat through the implicit desire of our oligarchy and capital class to disarm any real objection to capitalism by any means necessary.

    now we're faced with a guerilla enemy, as we were when we created most of our proxy wars in central and south america...but the rules have changed. our "wars" before were innocuous as they werent winnable or loseable, only profitable. we would fight until public opinion turned, then broker a peace deal and leave. Sometimes with oil contracts, other times with infrastructure contracts. Now with the advent of a perfect shield by which our newly created enemy can conceal their intent, we are all but on a level playing field. an actor needs no longer obtain advanced weapons or tactics to defeat us, they merely need to plan extensively.

    the solution is to step back from the carter doctrine of foreign policy, and deprecate our dependency on defense economy.

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    Good people go to bed earlier.
  4. Re:"US" != "America" by tnk1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, but no other country in the Americas goes by "America". You either say it is from the Americas (which is probably what they meant) or you say North or South America.

    You could say that calling it the "United States" is also wrong, because Mexico is actually officially, the "United States of Mexico". The fact is that, no one from Mexico or the US really cares.

    Referring to the US as "America" is pretty much accepted by everyone, including the other people living on the American continents. They don't really care if the US has used the shorthand.

    And I should also note that the USA is the oldest existing independent country in the Americas, so the short hand made even more sense at the beginning.