US Anti-Encryption Law Is So 'Braindead' It Will Outlaw File Compression (theregister.co.uk)

An anonymous reader writes: The bill released Thursday by Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein to force U.S. companies to build backdoors into their encryption systems has been further dissected by experts. In less than 24 hours after the Court Orders Act of 2016 draft was released, 43,000 signatures have been added to a petition calling for the bill to be withdrawn. Bruce Schneier, the writer of the books on modern cryptography, said the bill would make most of what the NSA does illegal, unless no such agency is willing to backdoor its own encrypted communications. "This is the most braindead piece of legislation I've ever seen," Schneier told The Register. "The person who wrote this either has no idea how technology works or just doesn't care." Schneier says cryptographic code will be affected by this legislation, as well as "lossy compression algorithms" that are used to reduce the size of images for sending through email, which won't work in reverse and add back the data removed. Files that can't be decrypted on demand to their original state, and files that can't be decompressed back to their exact originals, all look the same to this draft now. He said even deleted data could be covered in this legislation.

Comments

Feinstein is one of those

[ArmoredDragon]

...where nobody seems to know how they continue to get elected.

Re:Feinstein is one of those

[KGIII]

I guess the question is this:

Does this surprise anyone, anyone at all? Is anyone gasping because they're shocked that such would be proposed? Anyone? Anyone?

No... Me either...

*sighs* I tell you what, it's seriously reaching the point where we the people need to remind the government who is in charge. No, I am not advocating violence. Yes, I am advocating forcing them to listen.

However, on the subject of violence... The government should fear the citizens, not the other way around. Fear, having a meaning akin to respect as well as what one might normally define it as.

See definition 4 here:
http://www.thefreedictionary.c...

Of course, if need be, the other definitions work.

Re:Feinstein is one of those

[dejitaru]

I mostly blame it on people voting strictly based on party and not the actual candidate... The biggest issue with voting imo.

Re:Feinstein is one of those

[KGIII]

Oh, I've already listed the best way that I can think of to get their attention and it's a bit long to write it out again. However, it's easy enough to do. What we need, in order to do it, is solidarity. That's what we, the citizens, lack. We're too busy fighting over who is what color, who is getting what for privilege, who has what politics, who has sex with who, who believes in this, and who believes in that. We call each other hillbillies, rednecks, fagots, and thugs. We berate someone for wearing a Confederate Flag or for wearing a Rainbow Flag. We're rooting for Trump and Clinton.

In other words, they've happily sat back and watched us squabble over the scraps while they continue eating their 12 course meal at the adult table. What we lack is the ability to stop pissing and moaning about the differences between us. What we lack is the motivation to pay attention to the many things we all have in common. We have no solidarity.

We have no unity (unless we have Ubuntu). We argue over operating systems, programming languages, politically correct pronouns, text editors, who shot first, grammar, and more. We hate anyone who has more than us and are sure they stole it, else they wouldn't have it. Either way, they don't deserve it. The people below us, financially, you either view them as incompetent and needing to be carried or needing to be left behind.

You don't see a human when you read my posts. You see an idea, you see a picture, you see a caricature. You either hate it or you like it but you don't bother to think about the things you and I have in common. You want to be right. You want to win, win what? You want to win the internet points? You want the last word? You want to be the King Shit on Turd Island? Well, that's what you've got.

And it might not even be your fault. You might be just peachy and perfect and willing to sacrifice for the greater good. That's quite possible but, really, if you are then you're no in the majority. The majority wants more and mine. The majority wants control and only views things in their own binary fashion. The majority isn't concerned about your problems because your problems aren't their problems. They don't even notice the disconnect when they finally have their problems and not a hand is raised to help them.

Then, accountability? We can not have that. Make a post suggesting someone have some personal accountability. Suggest that people be responsible. Note the remarks you get - just here, on this site, a site full of some of the smartest people on the 'net. You don't get solidarity without accountability. You don't get accountability without compassion. You don't get compassion without unity (unless you install it with apt-get).

No, we need solidarity. If you can tell me how to get solidarity, I will tell you how to rule the world.

Re:Feinstein is one of those

[ATMAvatar]

If that's what you want, you need to attack the places the politicians care about - their wallet and their power, and that means impeachment. But in the present system, politicians don't fear impeachment because it's such a convoluted process -- it doesn't happen much. What I propose is a process for direct impeachment, where every quarter constituents can vote to impeach or not. Perhaps semi-annually. It's like a job performance review -- they work for us so we should be able to fire them at any time if we think they are doing their job poorly. The reason these people remain in office is because the terms are so long, by the time re-elections are due, everyone has forgotten about the past 2-4 years of shenanigans. We need to close that loop, and get the people directly involved, on short timeframes. The colossal amount of fail happening in the government right now is truly embarrassing. We need to make it easier for the people to remove bad leaders. If we can't have direct democracy, I think direct impeachment is a good alternative.

There are plenty of issues with the US electoral system that need remedies, but 2-, 4-, and 6-year terms being too long is not one of them.

Let's review:

• Voters generally elect people by picking their "team" without regard for issues or voting history.
• Elections are winner-take-all.
• Gerrymandering has effectively predetermined the outcome of elections in many areas of the country.
• The Supreme Court declared that money = speech, enshrining corruption as a constitutional right. It has also defined the criteria for bribery so narrowly that it's nearly impossible to prosecute.
• Most elected officials are given cushy private sector jobs upon leaving office (likely in return for undisclosed favors).

While not all the above are under direct control by voters, the first one certainly is, and fixing it is necessary to address any of the others.

Goodbye stored passwords

[CanadianMacFan]

An interesting comment on The Register pointed out that how the law is written it would ban the use of one way hashes to store passwords.

I Wrote Her --Did You?

[BrendaEM]

Please share your views here, too.
http://www.feinstein.senate.go...

A question I keep asking that no one ever answers

[itsownreward]

Suppose I use some third-party encryption that is made available anonymously or from another country, so there's no company to compel to reverse it. (Think TrueCrypt, or something from Schneier's Applied Cryptography.) Now suppose I plead the fifth and refuse to decrypt it. What then? We start blocking any site that hosts such a thing? Burn books on cryptography? Ban people from running compilers? Code escrow of all source with the NSA on pain of death?

Sure, there's the obligatory XKCD wrench decryption, but otherwise... I'm not sure how this makes a lick of sense.

So no more MP3s...

[ddtmm]

If it bans any algorithm "that can't be decrypted on demand to their original state", that pretty cuts out MP3s, and pretty much every streaming audio and video service. Good luck with that...

Not even the MOST braindead thing about it

[Locke2005]

Won't forcing all US-made encryption software to include backdoors simply force all encryption software developers overseas??? Any company that wants to remain in the US will have to contract it's encryption out to a non-US company. Thanks, DiFI, for sending my job offshore!

How this law will work

[jodido]

It doesn't matter what this law will say. What matters--and this is of course true of every law--is how it will be enforced. They don't care about MP3s or even cryptography as such. What they care about is being able to decrypt the communications they want to decrypt. It's much easier from their point of view to write an overly broad law even if it appears stupid because it's only the enforcement that counts, and they control the enforcement.

They do know what they are doing...

[rezulir]

I think those who wrote this brain dead legislation know exactly what they are doing. There is just too damn much freedom on the internets.