Slashdot Mirror
Senate Bill Draft Would Prohibit Unbreakable Encryption (ap.org)
buck-yar quotes a report from the Associated Press: "A draft version of a Senate bill would effectively prohibit unbreakable encryption and require companies to help the government access data on a computer or mobile device with a warrant."
The two Senators finalizing the bill announced "No individual or company is above the law," saying their goal is to ensure compliance with court orders to help law enforcement or to provide decrypted information. The ACLU's legislative counsel argued the drafted legislation represents a "clear threat to everyone's privacy and security," and the bill is opposed by another member of the Senate committee, Ron Wyden, who says it would require "American companies to build a backdoor... They would be required by federal law per this statute to decide how to weaken their products to make Americans less safe."
The two Senators finalizing the bill announced "No individual or company is above the law," saying their goal is to ensure compliance with court orders to help law enforcement or to provide decrypted information. The ACLU's legislative counsel argued the drafted legislation represents a "clear threat to everyone's privacy and security," and the bill is opposed by another member of the Senate committee, Ron Wyden, who says it would require "American companies to build a backdoor... They would be required by federal law per this statute to decide how to weaken their products to make Americans less safe."
This is a good time to drop them a letter AND an email AND a phone call AND a fax while at it. Go on, do what's expected of you but too few of you actually do.
Was this bill introduced with the intention of passing it, or was it done for election time?
Many bills get introduced that have zero chance of passing, rather they do it so the Congresscritters can go back to their home state and say "I'm fighting for you, to stop those evil terrorists from threatening your family, vote for me!"
Only government is.
GCv5c3FA9xfa7&aigJ
Didn't the Supreme Court discover a general right to privacy in the penumbra from the emanations of the Constitution? Whatever happened to that?
Or does the US Congress think that they pass laws for the whole planet?
Was that a serious question? ;-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
She's just a paranoid old woman who's so scared about "the terrorists" that she's willing to give up ... what's the line ? Oh yeah, "essential liberty" ... sounds familiar somehow.
I happen to work on De Anza Blvd, and I was looking out the window when the proverbial was hitting the fan with Apple and the FBI, there was suddenly a cavalcade of blacked-out sedans overriding the lights sequence, with police blowing their horn as someone (my assumption here is that it was the senator, no-one else really gets that level of police co-operation) halted the normal traffic lights sequence so this entire entourage could turn into Infinite Loop.
So, Diane was going to yell at Tim. I have some reasonable hope that Tim told her to stick it where the sun don't shine, but I think he's more polite (not to mention politically astute) than I, so I'm sure he came up with a gentlemanly way to say it.
The good news is that she won't be re-elected because she's not going to run any more. She's too old (thank $deity) so we have a chance of getting someone in who isn't a complete fucking moron when it comes to national security. There's no way this state will elect a republican, so we're stuck with her until then. She gets a lot of votes, and I really hope that's just people voting along party lines because if people actually *want* her policies, well... shit, time to leave.
Physicists get Hadrons!
They don't get the inherent flaw with "breakable" encryption: if the government can break it then so can third-parties. Which may be other governments. Like China looking for industrial secrets. Hell, even right now you know that encrypted channels of every kind are being recorded for the inevitable day quantum computing becomes a reality and they can then be decrypted after the fact.
Shh.
Ban unbreakable encryption. Politicians proving once again they are dangerously uneducated. About time you stopped electing people with socially useless law and politics degrees.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
This is good. Not the bill, but this is the correct place for this debate, in the legislature, not the courts. Now we just need to make sure it loses, and for the right reasons.
The Congressmen should speak to PM Cameron of the UK about the need for privacy and encryption. He seems to have gotten a change of heart following the Panama Papers leak. Anyhoo, all encryption is breakable. It may just take a while...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Such a parallel argument would be equally missing-the-point. Just because a thing is possible to do doesn't preclude laws making that thing illegal to do, or to own. And while those laws may not make owning or doing that thing impossible, they can make it rare or difficult for Joe Average to do or own.
Except that in this case, the thing being made illegal is a piece of software whose source code has already been declared protected free speech.
Even if Joe Average doesn't touch it, Joe McTerrorist sure will---thus defeating the entire purpose of this bill.
Follow along with me:
Cryptograghy is subject to ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations)
This means the Federal Government treats Cryptography as an Armament
What does the second amendment say: "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"
Hey NRA time to step up and defend the Second Amendment against the heinous assault. Slippery slope and all. You don't want these guys coming after your guns do you.
The NSA and FBI brought this on themselves. Before all the spying on everyone, parallel construction, and warrant less use of stingray plus secret courts, nobody was all that much interested in consumer products with unbreakable encryption.
If they want to blame someone for this, they need to look in a mirror and understand that their operations are just plain creepy and incompatible with a free country. They are starting to smell like the Stasi and a significant portion of the citizens of this country don't care to give them any more of a foothold.
A one-time pad is pretty close, in that you can never really tell when you've actually decoded it.
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
Wow - no wonder the USA is messed up. In the UK our ministers get a chauffeured car - and that's it. Disrupting the traffic - especially because it's so bad anyway - is the way to lose elections over here. I remember seeing Obama go past in a 50 car cavalcade. WHY?
Seems like this has potential as a campaign issue.
Dear Senate, all of you are drooling morons. uncrackable encryption has existed for decades, and will continue to exist after your stupid law. All the law does is makes honest people criminals.
It's to the point that it's not worth it to be an honest citizen because the criminals have more freedom.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That will work just about as well as laws that make suicide illegal. Or guns.
Unenforceable; impractical; in the final analysis, stupid.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
If you hadn't already said that you weren't in the US, I'd know it from this remark. The US, I am very sorry to tell you, has an incredible overabundance of absurdist, foolish, ridiculous, unconstitutional, and otherwise (cough) "serious" laws.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Let's take this law to its logical conclusion. No one in power cares about individuals download pgp and encrypting their email. Everyone cares when money gets involved.
All "trusted" internet commerce where you plug in your credit card number is dependent upon encryption strong enough to prevent credit card and identity theft. If this law were to pass no internet commerce company would be able to use encryption strong enough to prevent people from stealing credit card numbers by skimming traffic. It may take a little bit (hours or days) but someone skimming Amazon or bank traffic will start being to pull out credit card and account numbers and the trust of internet banking will be destroyed for years.
This is what will prevent strong encryption from going away- the encryption has to be available to all users for it to be useful. People, credit card companies and insurance companies will not tolerate money being stolen whole sale that we have not seen yet. Yes I am aware that people get their card numbers stolen everyday. Removing encryption would guarantee that your card is stolen the first time you use your card on the internet.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
American companies can not provide unbreakable encryption? Another country will provide those products and people will want them. Our tech firms get hurt. Brilliant!
...Until all countries follow our laws and prohibit the same thing(s).
Then the only people who have an immense, evil amount of power are governments... beyond what we (in the US) allow today.
Not to get into the politics of it all, but doesn't limiting the size and scope of our government here in the US make the most sense in the long-run? Handing over power to our government might seem great when the right people are in office, but when the people change (and the power is still there), everyone is screwed. History repeating itself over and over.
Unbreakable encryption -- outside of direct coercion of the sender or receiver -- is trivial. Here's an encrypted message from me:
"The cockatrice is in the jacuzzi"
Let me know when you can decrypt it without directly coercing me. You're allowed to use any intellectual or computing resources available to anyone on the planet. Or all of them. Until you can, there's no way, literally no way to make unbreakable encryption inaccessible to anyone with a vocabulary larger than a parrot's (on second thought, that might be enough anyway.) Making such a thing illegal to do, or use, is completely impractical.
You can punish someone for using it, if you can catch them at it.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
It's not pretty close, a genuine OTP is unencryptable. The phrase is "information theoretic security".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Well in spite of US pressure, New Zealand became Nuclear free and no later governments have been brave enough to try and change that status.
New Zealand got punished economically for their democratic decision, how dare a country of (back them) 3 million people say NO to the US. At the same time China got "Favoured Nation Status" for trade.
Unfortunately since then our MPs have had less spine, the should have said NO to the TPPA too.
The one thing the US is consistent about, its moral stance depends on how much money can be made. The US will forgive any crime by other countries if there is enough money in it for them.
Think about it, dear politicians, what this would mean for your economy.
Let's say I have a company. I have data that is important to me because it contains trade secrets. I'm in research and development, i.e. THE field you want to attract. No/little use of resources, employs lots of people from top eggheads to braindead menial workers and the output is patents that can be multiplied at will with zero cost and sold (not only domestic but also abroad) for insane amounts of money.
In case you're too stupid to understand that, dear politican: YOU DO WANT THAT BUSINESS in your town, state and country. You do want that. It's the perfect cash cow, the industry that turns literally NOTHING into gold.
I will steer clear of you if you disallow me to use unbreakable encryption and perfect safety from spying, though. For obvious reasons: There is none, never has been, never will be, a government-only backdoor. Or rather, there will not be an anything-only backdoor. Any backdoor you can use will eventually be available to my competitor.
Oh, it's safe because only you have the key? Think again. That key is in the hands of some person working for you. And the entities interested in my research are not only corporations but also whole countries with funds that make that guy, or the guys (seriously, whether it's one or a handful, who gives a shit?), blind when I only suggest paying them. And I will pay them. I have no reason to kill them, I turn them into accomplices. And then I have that key. And that means I have that key to all the research happening in your country. Can you imagine just how much I can pay your underpaid public office workers before this becomes unfeasible for me?
In other words, in simple words so even you politicians get it: Do that and NOBODY in their sane mind will place their R&D data into a place where your insanity rules. R&D is one of the things you can very easily move abroad. It's not like delivering takes lots of money. Relocating the people I need is peanuts compared to the risk of doing business where you invent insane laws like this.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Will there be a US and export versions of Windows and Mac OS? I guess the situation with Linux is a bit better e.g. Red Had builds a crippled version for the US market and CentOS do the secure version entirely outside the US. Even if Microsoft and Apple are allowed to make export versions, or do it via an end run around the law, to try and keep customers, would people trust them? Yea, I know, my country is one of many that would pass the same law in the interest of "free trade" so it probably doesn't matter.
Hopefully this proposed law will fail...