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Feds Want Access to Your Machine
PDA Buzz wrote to us with the latest privacy-invasion scheme. The Clinton Administration plans to ask Congress to give police authority to go secretely into people's computers, search for passwords and override encryption programs, "using devices, if needed".Investigators would need to have a sealed warrant to carry this out, but privacy groups are casting this as an invasion of the home. Shades of the Clipper Chip, anyone? Check this out for another report as well.
woo hoo! 209th
I love needling the libertarians at this site. They are so paranoid, they can't see past the end of their paranoid_nose to realize some things folks just say to bate them.
Seriously, warrants are not given out on a whim, there has to be credible evidence of crminal activity. While I do support privacy, I personally don't have anything to hide.If I did I'd keep them on a Jazz disk on the shelf.
Oh, for you libertarians..reply to www.fbi.gov
How naive. The best code warriors work for Sam the Man; you know (UNCLE SAM) . You think some fresh faced kid in college knows more? Get real.
I have a friend, a patrolman, in an un-named state who is a Linux guru. Go figure. Not only does he not eat donuts, he runs 5K per day or does 25 miles on a road bike. Gee, he's fit and smart. Taught himself Linux, like the rest of us old farts.
I assure you thinking you have a corner on brains is only a sin of the young and dumb. John Law is not of those. While not all us are computer_Linux literate; don't be too smug.
Reply to www.fbi.gov.com
Here's a little something to think about. You know that illusive THEY you guys keep talking about? "... if you have something THEY want... THEY will use all the power they have to get it...." Well, who in the heck is this THEY you keep talking about? If you take a closer look, you'll find that part of THEY is YOU.
You see, that's be think with a society. You're part of it. The laws exist to protect you. The law enforcement agencies exist to enforce the law, which protects you.
As long as a society realizes that, there will be no threat to privacy. As long as YOU and I make the laws, these threats won't be an issue. But when you give up, and let this THEY run your life, you become a prisoner in your own society.
You are a part of THEY. When someone cuts you off in traffic, and you complain that the cop sitting nearby won't stop eating his donuts long enough to do something about it, you're being one of THEM. When your mother gets raped, and you complain that it's been 2 months and the cops haven't been able to do anything about it, you're being one of THEM. Whenever you're trying to get the laws to protect you, you're being one of THEM.
You think that THEY are only looking out for THEM. You're right. And, if you're part of THEM, THEY'll be looking out for you, too. If you're not, then go move out into the middle of the jungle somewhere and give up on society. Because that's what society is, my friend. It's a bunch of mes and yous getting together to form a THEM.
>But these arguments will not work on you, I know. Because you're a good little sheep.
But these arguments will not work on you, I know. Because you're against the idea of people working together to protect one another. You're against anyone telling you that you don't have the right to put a bullet through my skull. Well, remember, that means that you don't have the right to complain when your neighbor puts a bullet through yours.
- Rob Cottrell
Laws are the will of the lawmakers, nothing more. Occasionally that will is benign; often it is not.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
As much as everyone here is screaming about how they don't want to give the gov't that much power and that its an invasion of privacy, don't forget:
THEY'LL DO IT IF THEY WANT TO ANYWAY!!
If they really want to find out something about you and no judge will give them a warrent, they'll just go into your computer anyway, find out what they want, get enough evidence to get a warrant, then go back in *legally* and haul you off (IF you have anything they want, and sometimes even if you don't!).
So I think anything that does at least a little towards regulating this is good in my book, I'll just start beefin' up the security here at home a little more...
--Hurst Dawg
K]ÏMWý©±Îï$ [½5>VÎG Û 1 ر/M îåMA$ÚT
This is, of course, your opinion. You might as well say, "I don't like their decisions" -- unless, of course, you can provide examples other than your own subjective interpretations?
The Court does not determine what is or is not Constitutional; it determines what the government is going to treat as Constitutional or not.
This is simply playing with words.
Kythe
(Remove "x"'s from
Kythe
This does not require me to use a lock on my door or my car that the police can easily pick. If they want to search my house, they either have to get me to open it or break it down (and they have every right to break it down if I don't open it).
The problem with back doors is that they are prone to abuse. The search warrant is a legal technique that allows police to use powers they wouldn't otherwise have (without the warrant, searching my home is breaking and entering). If they required a technological technique, such as a lock that can be opened by anyone with a police key, the abuse could be rampant. A bad cop could just unlock my door with such a key and get whatever he wants, regardless of warrant. Without that, they have to break in, make a ruckus, make it obvious as to what he is doing, and basically give me a reasonable chance to get him arrested if he doesn't have a warrant.
Worse yet, a technological entry point like a back door can be used by non-cops. If cops can get into a back door, crackers can, too.
Note that not all cops are bad. Very few of them are. But if there are a million policemen in this country, and one half of one percent of them are "bad", that would be five thousand criminal policemen with keys to my data. Note that the above numbers are out of my hat; I don't have statistics on me.
Giving police a back door into your house, car, or computer means that you must implicitly trust, not police officers in general, but every single police officer individually. Do you? I don't.
If you have a warrant, you have my hard drive. But you are going to have to physically walk up to my house and seize the computer, or you are going to have to electronically monitor or enter it just like any cracker would. The ability of the police to obtain a warrant and search my data is a far cry from an obligation for me to make it easy for them to do so.
Also, I have an implicit right to encrypt anything. I am not required to testify against myself, again per the Constitution/Bill of Rights. Requiring me to make information available to police is potentially requiring me to testify against myself.
--The basis of all love is respect
You're implying that protections against police abuse rely upon the irretrievable hiding of information from the police. The illogic of this scenario is that a warranted search that turned up papers with the above information would in no way violate your rights. Again, the 4th Amendment relies upon the court system, not individuals, to control police abuses. Efficiency of the actual search is not an issue.
Furthermore, you can argue 5th Amendment protections, regardless.
As I've said before, the potential for abuse of power (i.e. ignoring the need for a warrant) is another issue, entirely. Such abuse is possible in any system, including the "old-fashioned one" in which the police had to enter suspect's homes manually. To wit:
1) If someone in law enforcement wanted to ignore the warrant system, he/she would have multiple illegal options open to him or her, regardless,
2) In a small-scale, corrupt system where the police have free reign, the limiting of police to "traditional" efficiency won't help you much,
3) In the large scale, such actions are prohibited by Constitutional protections, and would result in a major waste of time by (and probable legal action against) the police involved.
Kythe
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Kythe
Yes, you are legally bound to give out your keys if they have a subpoena. That is the whole point with it.
Did I mention those have to go too?
See subj:
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
>Look, guys, I'm as much a privacy advocate as the next guy, but the Bill of Rights CLEARLY states that a warrant is grounds to enter and search.
This could and should be made into a 5th amendment issue. If the computer can legally be considered an extension of the user, the 5th amendment could be extended to cover it's contents.
Many types of surveillance were expensive and difficult to implement, that's why it was only used when there was already reasonable suspicion. Today it's cheap and easy to tap phones and the FBI can get a warrant to do so on a whim. (unless you're involved with doing illegal favors for the president).
I'm against this. If I'm a drug dealer or a terrorist there will be real world examples of my breaking the law which can be prosecuted. If I'm a drug dealer, I have to actually make the sale somewhere. If I'm a gangster I have to actually pull the trigger to kill someone. We may as well criminalize violent thought while we're at it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The 4th Amendment's protection against illegal search and seizure does rely upon the "difficulty of conducting a search" or the efficiency of police operations. Rather, the entire rationale of the Amendment is the use of a warrant system for such protection.
The framers assumed certain things about how the world operated and build a system of checks and balances based on these assumptions. If some of these assumptions become invalid, the checks and balances are likely to become unbalanced. Stepping for a second into the realm of science fiction, imagine that the police officers can effortlessly see what's happening at any time in any location. Wouldn't the 4th Amendment be different then?
However, we're not talking about placing cameras in every home,
Not yet. But the "slippery slope" argument is pretty convincing here. Witness all the govenrment efforts to mandate backdoors to all encryption -- this is very similar in spirit.
We're talking about the police, with a warrant, entering a home
Unless I am mistaken, we are also talking about a remote intrusion over the net, and that's a very significant part.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Perhaps (a) and (b) are true, but I still don't think that they're that much of an issue. Privacy "experts" would *really* have a field day if either of those were really true.
I don't think that (c) is an issue at all though. Let me ask you this: How is a keyboard sniffer different than a wire tap on a phone?
Ben
get something for your linux box where if you specify the wrong password it corrupts all your data and blames it on something else.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
... let them do this, fine. Use hardware to circumvent it.
:-)
Microchip makes Keeloq devices (code-hopping technology) whcih you could plug into your keyboard port or serial or even put it on a card. Hell, why not incorporate it into a PCI IDE/SCSI controller? Don't ever type your password, 'cause you don't know it. You have an RFID style tag on your possession and when you're near the computer every time you need access to something the computer queries the tag for the next password.
They can't guess the next password and keeping a log of past passwords is useless.
You can throw in a self-destruct style case so that if you hit a sequence or they tried to open it it would obliterate the device and render the data useless. Unfortunately useless to you too. Perhaps backups with a nice big key so that you could restore if you had to and start over?
I like the idea of monitoring suspicious activity on the wire and alerting you. Gives you time to run or at least prepare if you have to. You could run SecureFS or some other sort of filesystem that keeps everything encrypted. Perhaps create a drive that will scatter-write or actually physically damage the platters if tampering is detected.
Hell I think I'm gonna start design on this.
Opening my doors to law enforcement, however, means leaving my doors open to every law enforcement officer with certain permissions.
If the setup gives one thousand police officers the technological ability (not the legal power) to access my machine, I can be potentially screwed if the corruption rate among police officers is one tenth of one percent.
In general, I trust any police officer I meet; the one I run into is not likely to be one of the corrupt few. But a back door for police makes you an easy target specifically for the corrupt officer. That back door will not be invaded by the nine hundred ninety-nine clean cops, unless they can procure a warrant. I only worry about the minority corrupt cop, and that's enough.
Can you think of any group of one thousand people where you can trust each and every one of them? I can't.
--The basis of all love is respect
Hmm, runs the chksum on _every_ file, then replaces it? might as well just mount your filesystem in read only, cause the second you change a configuration file, or edit a file for that matter, or upgrade a program, will get you nowhere fast if it keeps replacing those files with the backed up ones. i would just check important programs, like in /bin/ or /sbin/. and not to overwrite them right away, just maybe notify you.
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You have forgotten the obligatory encryption backdoors and/or obligatory usage of DES as a standard (the fast hardware engine design for cracking it was published in 96).
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
This is exactly why we should encrypt everything on our drives as well as what we send out. I've been doing this for a while now.
What next? Random inspections of everyone's machine to see if there's anything illegal!?
Sure, nobody wants the gub'mint peeking into their email, but all this talk of "covert" and "black bag" operations by local police has me really concerned. It ought to have all of us concerned. We live in enough of a police state already, and if local police start operating like Oliver North, I'm leaving. I'm serious. Few other Americans seem to be at all concerned about it, and they won't be until it's too late.
We should be opposed to any effort to licence local law enforcement to engage in covert operations. Kee-rist, there's been enough scandals involving abuse of power this decade, and we want to give them more?
That's what we get for electing DAs to office en masse in the past 15 years.
I can see the fnords!
That's what the Feds basically want to install. I don't like this at all.
It seems that instead of 'spot the Fed' we'll all soon be playing 'spot the Fed sniffer on your machine'.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
the point is, that they want to able to *secretly* snoop in your computer... how would you like it if the FBI got a warrant, snuck in to your house at night, and looked for... I dunno, whatever the FBI likes to waste their time looking for... it's a big step...
The police can already get warrants to tap your phone and install surveillance in your house, all without you knowing. Now they're trying to tap your computer, and you all go nuts as if this is something bad.
And so what if some cops somewhere can get any warrant they feel like? Warrants can get thrown out of court at a later date anyway, and if it's a really blatant case of invasion of privacy, you can even sue the police department.
Knowing this, the cops are less likely to care about what the average joe is doing, and this law makes it easier to catch the losers who are trying to do the same thing to you (grab your credit card number, read your passwords, break into your machines).
And don't complain about this technology "getting into the wrong hands" as if it doesn't already exist (Think about it, keyboard and screen grabbers? You think this is new?). It does, and the government, and "other malicious people" can already get it if they really want.
Help the cops weed out the losers (including corrupt cops and government officials), don't hinder them.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
However, I do maintain that, if a warrant is served, under the law and the Constitution, the police do have the right to the specific material they are seeking. I believe the courts are the proper (and smarter) place to fight police abuses, overall.
Kythe
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Kythe
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing...
-- Thomas Jefferson
'nuff said.
nick
I'm not sure I get why this is a big deal..
Why is this any different than the Feds coming in and pulling apart your house with a warrant? They still have to go through the process of convincing a judge that they have probable cause to pull things apart trying to find stuff. The whole warrant system is designed to protect people's privacy, and I haven't heard of many cases where the warrant system is abused, so what's wrong with using the same system on people's computers? I understand that it's just one more place the gov't can come in to your little world, but still, the police have a right to investigate crime under certain restrictions, and as long as those restrictions are followed here I don't understand what's wrong.
Can anybody help me?
Ben
I just realized that the comment I posted on behalf of "us x86 users" was posted from a Mac G3...
But seriously, if the gov't can get require intel to include this functionality, they can just as easily go to AMD and require the same thing, or for that matter, any motherboard manufacturer...
I'd think the way to cirumvent the above scenario would be to use USB devices, actually... So long as they all provide standard I/O, it'd hopefully (someone help me here?) be impossible for a loggin mechanism of that type to discern which device sent which particular input... Unless it just logged the device with the slowest throughput or something.
This subject seems have been glued in the back of my mind now. I'm sitting here working, but thinking of the most invasive ways to monitor computers and then ways to circumvent them as well...
I hate it when people say "happen to know". Are you an Enlightened One?
"Old man yells at systemd"
ABC News has this article, as well; It mentions the old Clipper fiasco, too.
Whether it's too easy these days to GET warrants is another issue, entirely.
Kythe
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Kythe
If they show up at your door and want to search your computer, you'll be lucky if they let you watch from across the room. More likely, the officers at your door will not be computer-competent, and they'll take your hardware with them so they can have someone who knows more look at it -- no chance to make a backup, never mind if you need it to work, and your "receipt" documenting what they took might just be a picture of the box.
Personally, having them get a warrant try to crack in bothers me a lot less than a physical search. At least this way you keep physical control of your box and you have a chance to defend it or detect the intrusion. And you can be sure that the officers doing the search are at least as competent at a keyboard as your average script kiddie.
I don't like the idea of having my privacy invaded this way; I don't imagine anyone does. It would be better if you were notified of the warrant after the fact -- permanently sealed records keep voters from knowing about patterns of abuse. But of all the proposals I've heard for helping law enforcement cope with computers, I'd say this is most benign.
Read the rest of the thread, jackass.
"Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin,
well, i do for one. i don't even like my friends touching crap on my computer, let alone perfect strangers. plus i dont want to be harassed everytime i telnet into a box. "you were trying to hack this site and attain valuble info, right?", " no sir, just telneting to my friends computer to say hi, saves on long distance phone calls", "yeah right, youre under arrest".... i cant wait for that day...
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Clinton has commited the worse crime he could commit against the American people, treason. He gave away nuclear warhead secrets and sold the chinese a fuck in super computer for $30,000. Not super computer as in dual PIII by the old "super computer" definition, but one of the beasts that the military and intelligence agencies would use to guide their systems, or a scientist would use for a mega number crunching. He has armed the fuckin commies in China who have openly threatened to nuke LA if we intervene on taiwan's behalf! Now he wants to screw us over again, how can anyone be surprised?
---Got Coffee?---
That Thompson piece is thought provoking indeed. Does the FSF keep a master C compiler binary in a vault somewhere and checksum their working copies every so often? Would it be possible to create a very small compiler that would produce very unoptimized object code, but you could use it to 'bootstrap' a clean (unbugged) full-fledged c compiler binary?
Hmm. Then as Ken said, you'd have to worry about the CPU's microcode.
The US has all kinds of leverage over S.Korean and Taiwanese governments, and indirectly over the companies who make most of the world's non-Intel hardware, so:
My solution is to buy all your hardware from the French. They'd be the last to bow to demands from the US gov't.
[Fred Norris using his frenchie "look into my ass" voice]
"F*ck yewh! Yewh hambergeh iting, ketchup-on-everyting uncultur-ed meird-faces! Hey, Hyperpower, you kin kiss mah Parisian derriere!"
I'm cool like a fool in a swimming p-p-pfft-pool
Pretty soon they will be diving into our minds...
good thing I have a secure linux box running ssh at all times running ip masquerading for me, keeps me safe, and free to boot between linux and win98 to play games or what have you... hey, a guy has to have his fun...
Just to clarify- the complete texts of the fourth and fifth amendments to the U.S. Constitution follow. I take issue with your statement:
Your very use of the word "my" throws this directly into the mix of fifth amendment rights and protections (IMHO). The fifth amendment says: "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself".
If *MY* personal, private, not for archival purposes data were used against me (ie- you gank my private diary for a criminal case), that is in my mind a very serious breach of privacy.
Maybe I think a little differently than some, but when the lawyer says: "yet, in your own words, you said on your journal entry on 8/20/1999 that you enjoyed hearing the screams of your murder victims as your friend Paul watched on"... how is that not being compelled to testify against oneself? As horrible an example as this is, unless the person has the opportunity to say: "yes, you can read my private diary with private thoughts," or "no, you can't", then it's a very serious breach of privacy and trust. Now if you talk to Paul and he testifies against you, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
The other issue I would have with "remote keyboard sniffers" is that it doesn't adequately describe the "place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized".
Imagine law enforcement saying: "I'd like a search warrant for the internet, because it's being used to commit crimes" and being able to sniff the packets of everybody! This would follow probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, but would be contra to the idea of "secure in persons, houses, papers, effects", as well as "particularly describing the place to be searched and persons or things to be seized."
The problem with a remote keyboard sniffer is that it doesn't have fine enough grain of control- IIRC it is illegal for law enforcement to tap a phone call which is simply a private conversation, even if they have the lines all hooked up, etc... A keyboard sniffer that triggered off of keywords might be acceptable, but using sniffed passwords to violate privacy is just plain not good, IMHO.
Just my $0.02
--Robert (rames@utdallas.edu)
Not to mention the whole Ruby Ridge debacle. The FBI wanted this guy, Weaver, to help them infiltrate a local militia. He didn't want to. So an FBI agent posing as a local gun enthusiast convinced him to help him modify a gun in a slightly (and I do mean slightly, not being sarcastic) illegal, and used this as justification to lay siege to his property. They shot and killed his wife and his son, and wounded a friend of the family before he and his remaining living family member surrendered. THIS ALL HAPPENED, AND NOT TOO LONG AGO, RIGHT HERE IN THE USA. .. I don't have the author's name handy, unfortunately, and I see that amazon.com doesn't carry it, but searching on "antifederalist" did yield up two other references there which look promising.
The moral of the story is that the US government will leave you alone until they have decided that you have something they want, and then all bets are off. In the absence of more effective checks on government power, the only defense is to lay low and pray random chance won't draw their attention to you.
"The Federalist Papers" and "The Antifederalist Papers" are an account of the public discussions our founding fathers held prior to the drafting of the constitution, and describe effectively the thoughts behind its creation. I know that the federalist papers are available at http://sailor.gutenberg.org -- anyone who wants to speak authoratively on the Constitution should read them, or at least keep them readily on hand for reference. The reason I bring them up in this context is because they make it clear that the second amendment was intended to act as the "fourth leg" of the government's system of checks and balances -- put simply, the people should have guns so that if the government misbehaves the people can shoot them. I know that's an unpopular view these days, but it is undeniably how things were intended to work. The Antifederalist Papers are available as "The Complete Antifederalist"
-- Guges --
No, the law exists to further the law. In an ideal society, yes, YOU are part of THEY, but in ours, no. I'm sure, in the comment you originally replied to, THEY shot an innocent man to protect us all, right? Bullshit.
And civil liberty isn't about demanding the right to put a bullet in your head -- it's about the right to put a bullet in MY head. I'm all for getting rid of every fucking statist out there, but I would never support any objection to *not* being able to freely put a bullet in your head. It's a termination of YOUR rights.
If you believe that YOU are a THEY, you're wrong. You have totally bought in to the bullshit you are supposed to believe. WE do not make the laws. WE are the ones who get shot because we have long hair, or drive a beat up car, or, for gods sake, support the right to consume something "THEY" say you aren't supposed to consume.
Open your eyes, god damn it.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not the exclusive domains of Libertarians -- in fact, I'd argue that much or Libertarianism would result in a major loss of the above, carried to it's logical extreme.
Regardless, you're free to believe whatever you wish about the 10th Amendment, of course. However:
1) If you want to ignore Supreme Court interpretation of the Constitution, you need to explain how laws are to be screened for their adherence to individual rights. Should Congress simply be trusted to pass laws that do not violate constitutional rights, as the constitution implicitly allows? (BTW, judicial review is based upon several areas of legitimacy, including the fact that the Constitution itself allows the Supreme Court to settle all disputes to which the Federal Government is a party.)
2) The "intent of the Framers when they wrote the Amendment" is a wildly subjective thing, given the fact that they were quite a contentious lot, and each had their own agendas (gee, sounds quite a bit like -- today!). However, my second reference completely shoots down this objection, already: the Framers specifically voted down proposals to make the 10th Amendment a brake upon Federal powers.
3) The notion that one cannot surrender rights is a mixing of the notions of what is and what ought to be. One most certainly can surrender rights -- people living in totalitarian countries do it all the time.
4) I have absolutely no idea where you got your last paragraph.
Kythe
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Kythe
"But it has to be implemented in a way that's consistent with other values, such as law enforcement,"
Excuse me? Since when is 'law enforcement' a value? Didn't they used to call that justice? Wait, maybe that was something else...
I never said that it was the sole domain of libertarians. It is a core value of libertarians, and using the term disparagingly shows that you don't think much of the belief ... but anyway!
... and that's what's sad about this country today. Don't you care?
I never said that we should *ignore* the supreme court, i just said that they cannot legislate away individual inalienable rights, *by definition*. Im sure they picked that word carefully. No, congress cannot be trusted to pass laws that are constitutional, but neither can the sumpreme court be trusted to ubhold constitutional laws, nor strike down unconstitutional ones. Ethernal vigilance is the price of freedom.
The intent of the framers is not a wildly subjective thing; I believe you have already referenced the federalist papers, which while only written by three men, describe their feelings in great detail. And, even if they meant the 10th to be loosly interpreted, deToqueville has explained why that is, and I dont want to get too far offtopic (too late!)
One can never surrender their rights. They can be taken from someone, but not freely. And your pragmatic view belies your feeling that it's not worth fighting for
My last paragraph was a (rambling, i admit) description of the bogus argument that it is within the govt's right to do this. Would you complain if they had video cameras in your bedroom, always taping, in order to facilitate the execution of a warrant? Perhaps on charges of violation of a blue law? "We promise not to look at them, unless we have a valid warrant!" This is exactly the same thing, except because it's crypto, no many people understand it. "It doesn't affect me!"
"Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin,
What the world needs is massive bandwidth.
Chris
--
3rd Annual Atlanta Linux Showcase
-- www.primeharbor.com
They're calling this a "search warrant approved by a judge" and something close to the current sealed search warrants for wiretaps, but there are two huge differences here.
First, wiretaps don't necessarily require entering the target's premises. The taps can put into the phone company's CO, at the external junction box, or in a basement area. Having to place a wiretap in the target's bedroom or home office is rare. This helps ensure that the cops don't take advantage of the opportunity to illegally browse through the target's possessions. In contrast, this idea *requires* that the police invade the target's most personal spaces, yet the "reasonable grounds" barrier to obtain the warrant will be lower than all others since the nominal target of the warrant is so specific - all of a target's passwords should easily fit on a 3x5 index card!
Second, the burden on the police in obtaining a wiretap warrant is already pretty low, precisely because it's relatively non-invasive. This is especially true for the warrants that "only" record numbers dialed (and oops, up to 90 seconds of the conversation). The justification for this warrant is that *it's used as a prelude to a subsequent wiretap* (according to the Washington Post). In other words, this ancillary warrant would actually have more sweeping powers than the warrant it nominally supports!
Hopefully this trial balloon will go down in flames immediately, but if not I hope the adminstration and Congress realizes that these warrants may result in some enlightened judges holding the police to higher standards of proving that their evidence is "clean" when they have early access to the suspect's premises. They could easily win the battle (collecting evidence) but lose the war (no conviction since evidence is thrown out).
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
You're implying that protections against police abuse rely upon the irretrievable hiding of information from the police.
Yes, they do. That's not the only protection, and probably, not even a highly important one, but my capability to hide information from police puts a limit to police's power and so indirectly protects from the abuse of this power.
I don't trust the police to do all the right things all the time. I do want some capability to personally control which information can be found without necessarily depending upon the wisdom of some judge. You are telling me to trust the system -- I don't want to trust the system.
The illogic of this scenario is that a warranted search that turned up papers with the above information would in no way violate your rights
I don't see anything illogical here. If a cop searches your house without a warrant and finds some cocaine, he violated your rights. If you go to a cop and hand him the same cocaine, your rights weren't violated. So what?
Again, the 4th Amendment relies upon the court system, not individuals, to control police abuses.
Yes, but to repeat myself,
(1) Some assumptions on which the 4th was based have changed or are changing
(2) Regardless of what the 4th relies on, I do want some personal protection against police abuses.
Furthermore, you can argue 5th Amendment protections, regardless.
What do you mean? If the cops have my data and my encryption key, they don't have to ask me anything, the 5th just never comes up.
As I've said before, the potential for abuse of power (i.e. ignoring the need for a warrant) is another issue, entirely.
No, not at all. If there were no potential for abuse, there would be no need for all the checks and balances, and for the 4th in general. It is exactly the balance of power between the individuals and the government, and the distrust of the government, that brought to life the Bill of Rights.
Besides, I disagree with your examples. If I have encrypted data on my hard drive, it's currently very hard to get it. A single person is not likely to have the needed resources (TEMPEST surveillance, hardware keyboard sniffers, etc.) even if he resorts to illegal methods, and a small-scale corrupt system isn't likely to do much better, either.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
The difference is in checks and balances. If everyone searched knows they have been searched, the public has a way to judge if the searches are warranted (and Warranted). If the searches are covert, there's no checks and balances.
It's the difference between KNOWING you haven't been searched, and the creepy feeling that the feds MIGHT have been in your house because your best friend's second cousin's ex-wife's sister's boyfriend's mother's uncle's son might know the guy who posted a picture of Janet Reno in an SS uniform. (After all, they 'have reason to believe' you might have communicated with him).
I'm sorry you feel that the enforcement of property rights was an example of the Supreme Court being "challenged in basic reading skills". Unfortunately for you, the US government was NOT in the business of proclaiming people free or slaves: that was a private sector responsibility until that Evil Statist Lincoln stole that sacred private right for the State. Until that time, only private, capitalist owners had the right to declare whether a black person was free or slave. Slavery was a sin of capitalism alone -- which presents a particular problem for Libertarians.
So do civil forfeiture, and most of the federal drug laws - unless there's interstate trade or they levy a tax, there's no Constitutional justification.
There are many Federal functions and powers that are not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. As I've already addressed in other posts, this is a non-issue. Once again, we're back to the notion that you don't like the rulings -- hardly grounds for accusing the Court as you have.
If, for example, Congress & Clinton were to pass into law the proposal about posting the Ten Commandments in schools and the SC ok's it, it would still remain a blatant violation of the First Ammendment.
Even in the above doomsday scenario, you are trying to assign a more certain, fundamental meaning to words and principles than they truly have. In our current system, the Supreme Court is the final word on whether such a law is Constitutional. This is not to say that we cannot disagree with the Court's rulings. And we can do something about it, by working to change the composition of the Court. But if you don't want to trust Congress to pass laws that respect Constitutional rights, you need someone to have final say. If not the Supreme Court, then the ball is firmly in your court to provide a reasonable alternative.
Kythe
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Kythe
If you're attempting to demonstrate a straw-man argument, your own statement serves admirably.
The original poster stated:
I am less concerned with later judicial decisions regarding it; rather, what is important to understand is the intent of the framers when they wrote the amendment. Any future weakening of the constitution is invaild from the start, regardless of the Sumpreme Court decisions.
(emphasis added)
To which I replied:
If you want to ignore Supreme Court interpretation of the Constitution, you need to explain how laws are to be screened for their adherence to individual rights. Should Congress simply be trusted to pass laws that do not violate constitutional rights, as the constitution implicitly allows? (BTW, judicial review is based upon several areas of legitimacy, including the fact that the Constitution itself allows the Supreme Court to settle all disputes to which the Federal Government is a party.)
Nowhere did I defend the Supreme Court against abolition. Rather, I addressed his argument that Supreme Court decisions were invalid when he didn't like the findings. My question to him (or to you) is: how are you going to judge a "legitimate" interpretation of the Constitution? If you don't want the Supreme Court to be the final word, what will serve?
By your admission the Framers were a contentious lot, but somehow they all agreed that the Tenth Admendment wasn't supposed to be a break on the Federal government, huh? Isn't that convenient? I suppose that the First admendment is also "largely symbolic" too
It's not a matter of convenience; rather, it's a matter of public record. Anti-Federalists wanted to insert the word "expressly", to limit the powers of the Government to those specifically enumerated in the Constitution. However, the majority voted it down, presumably recognizing the fact that Government (and the Constitution upon which it is based) must change and adapt with the times. Most constitutional historians regard the 10th Amendment as the unsuccessful attempt to limit Federal powers that it was. You might want to check out what FindLaw has to say on the subject.
So is the very idea of rights in the first place! Your point?
I assume you're saying that rights are "what we believe ought to be". If so, we agree. My point was, I take issue with the previous poster's implication that the Supreme Court has somehow gone against some notion of "absolute rights". If you indeed agree with me, you should take issue with this, too.
My example of totalitarian societies was simply a refutation of the notion of absolute rights. It had nothing to do with whether "we in the US should tolerate the infringement,if not the outright denial of our rights".
Kythe
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Kythe
The average person feels powerless (yes, I am average, and yes, I feel powerless).
Do we write our senators, congessmen and mayor?
I think most people would consider that a waste of time, and instead, just *hope* that someone is willing to stick up for the average person.
I will write the letter however, I will sign the petition and I will voice my opinions. But I still feel relatively powerless. My main hope is that there are politicians and law makers out there who will denounce this, and these plans will not go through.
"if you're clean, Uncle Sam leaves you alone"
And I'm sure back in the dark ages (which I'm not sure we've completely left yet, future generations will probably call the 20th century the dark ages) conversations would run something along the lines of "if you're not a witch you dont have to worry".
Whose definition of "clean" do you prefer to go by anyway? You must have a LOT of trust in your government! (And in human nature in general - or perhaps you've never heard of corruption and/or abuse of priviledge/power)
A warrant for some particular snippet of data on your computer gives the police the right to look anywhere on your computer where that data might be hidden, obviously, just as a warrant to search for, say, tabs of acid in your car will allow them to look all over your car. Thus, any sort of incriminating data in those places is up for grabs. Depending on how you look at this issue, you may or may not find this an important distinction, but it is a point worth understanding about search and seizure law.
Basically, the aspect of this to which people are objecting is the "secret" part. It is different in no way than the ability of investigators to secretly tap your phone line or enter your home without your knowledge.
The issue is not whether investigators should be allowed monitor your computer use at all, but whether it should be made easier for them to get the warrants which allow them to do so.
De facto, yes, this is the case. De jure, however, it is not; the Court assumed the power or judicial review for itself decades after the Constitution was ratified, in the Marbury v. Madison decision. It is not a role provided for by the Constitution. That is not a value judgement that the Court should or should not have such power; it is a textual and historical fact.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Seems to me this law is just insurance that such a search cannot be excluded at trial. Current laws allow surrepetitious entry to plant microphones and cameras, and those warrants are upheld at trial, most likely a warrant to plant sniffer software would be upheld too. they just don't want it to be decided by a judge. .^
^.
( @ )
>And just how exactly do the laws that punish you for having sex for money (or with members of the same sex or of other races, those laws are still on the books in some places), for growing or smoking the buds of certain plants, or for buying or selling pictures of naked people, protect me?
These laws reflect the moral opinions of the majority of society. If the moral opinions of the majority of society change, that majority should be able to vote people into office who will change those laws. Some of those laws you mentioned above are just. Others, if tested, would not stand up in today's courts.
>Laws are the will of the lawmakers, nothing more
I agree entirely! You could not have put it more simply.
I think the point that you are missing here, though, is that you can be a lawmaker in this country. That's what voting is for. Instead of complaining that laws suck, change them.
The laws of this country have been made, indirectly, by the voters of this country. (Whether or not those voters are idiots is another matter).
If every intelligent, free-thinking person had your attitude (and, unfortunately, many do), then none of them would involve themselves in the law-making process. That would leave the idiots and zealots to run the country. Is that honestly what you want?
- Rob Cottrell
But you can't pick and choose the decisions you want to treat as "legitimate" -- because your idea of "inalienable rights" might be different from mine, and views of rights changes over time, thanks to a more enlightened view. Our system, including Supreme Court decisions, is particularly good at this. We've abolished slavery, enfranchised women, minorities, and debtors, just to name a few changes to rights in the U.S. I do not believe that rights are "inalienable" -- rather, they are a reflection of the way we would like to live, and the kind of society we want to live in. They are based upon long, hard experience with other systems. I would submit to you that, without a final arbiter (the Court), there would be no instrument for protecting Constitutional rights.
This does not mean that we cannot work to change the composition of the Supreme Court, if we feel that they are making rulings contrary to what we would like. But that does not make their rulings "illegitimate".
One can never surrender their rights. They can be taken from someone, but not freely. And your pragmatic view belies your feeling that it's not worth fighting for ... and that's what's sad about this country today. Don't you care?
I care absolutely passionately about rights in this country. There are multitudes of reasons, ranging from the fact that the U.S. fundamentally represents the sort of society in which the vast majority of us would like to live, given the alternatives, to the democratic means by which the laws, the Constitution and upheld rights are responsive to the will of the People.
It is precisely because rights are not inalienable (by which I mean, they can be taken away) that I care as much as I do.
Kythe
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Kythe
That wouldn't necessarily protect the computers of the other people who might be involved in what the Congresscritters are hiding. Suppose Monica had kept a diary on her PC...
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Do I look like I speak for my employer?
Of course, that means that your private key floppy will be on your person when they present you the search warrant for it - no chance to 'lose' it.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
The technology exists to spy on anyone anytime: churning the technological arms race won't help us. Any lock can be broken by a determined attacker. We need to practice social engineering and forge societies where spying is impossible. Look for solutions that lead to fewer secrets rather than more secrets and remove the necessity for complicated technological locks.
For example: Openly install monitoring tools on all police hardware with a 3 month delay before it goes public. So maybe they will be spying on us, but at least we can find out exactly what abuses they are doing. (The three month delay is to give them some time to prosecute their cases.) -ccm
There is a phrase I've heard... "rubber hose cryptography". It amounts to "Give me your encryption keys or we will do something very bad to you." Constitutional or not, IT HAPPENS. Constitutional amendments don't mend broken bones or give you back the finite days of your life spent under a 'contempt of court' trial-less incarceration.
Anyone remember how many YEARS Susan McDougal spent in jail because Ken Starr put her there to extort falsified testimony? Rapists get less time in jail than McDougal did. And if Starr can do that to someone with the whole nation watching, what prevents anyone with a badge or a gavel from doing exactly the same thing to YOU? The difference is, you don't have reporters interested in you like McDougal did. No one will be demanding YOUR release.
Bottom line: crypto is a Good Thing, but no crypto in the world will protect you from good old-fashioned application of force. Worried about something Politically Incorrect being on your computer? DON'T PUT IT THERE.
And for God's sake, don't labor under the illusion that the Powers That Be consider themselves subject to law.
This still requires a warrant. As other posters have pointed out, "fishing expeditions" are just as illegal with this law as they were before the law. So no one can legally install a hardware sniffer on your machine without the same sort of warrant necessary to wiretap your phone, for example. This isn't really a big change.
What the authorities are trying to prevent is the sort of situation that occurred with Kevin Mitnick. (I'm not an authority on Mr. Mitnick; I'm sure someone here will correct me if I get the facts a little wrong.) My understanding is that he had encrypted files on his machines which could have been used as evidence against him. However, he refused to surrender the password/keys necessary to get at the files (I can't argue with that, from a 5th Amendment point of view). This new law allows the government to install a hardware monitor on your machine hopefully before you encrypt all of your data. After that, even though you think you are encrypting all of your files, that may no longer be the case. Or perhaps your files are encrypted, but the password and/or keys are stored by the monitoring device, so that there's no wasted time getting information out of the suspect in order to decrypt their files.
Either way, no more messy 5th Amendment issues to cause headaches for law enforcement.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Bad news: I'm pretty sure a faraday cage doesn't make you tempest proof. It will drain electric current (als in lightning etc), but it'll only decrease the intensity of EM radiation.
The only problem for the criminals that I see is determining if it's some script kiddie working on their own or if it's some script kiddie working for the man.. I'm sure if I sold drugs, I'd be pissed that I'd shutdown shop just for some punk trying to be 3l33+.
Oh yes, and we know what drug barons do when they're pissed... buhbye packet weenies
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
Glad to see Big Brother is doing his job...
That's my 1/50 of $1.00 US
JM
Big Brother is watching, vote Libertarian!!
--Justin Mitchell
"2nd Place is a fancy word for losing" --Bender (Futurama)
You know the routine... M-x spook :-)
Zontar the Mindless....think about it? You question my logic mwith a tag like that?
reply to www.fbi.gov.com
In this country (USA), your rights don't vanish overnight. They are slowly, gradually eroded through small steps meant to punish the various unpopular villians-of-the-day like casual drug users, deadbeat dads, foreign terrorists, child pornographers, flag burners, beerhall politicians, gun owners, religious fanatics, and the like.
Do me a favor. Go and read the Bill of Rights (those are the first ten amendments to the Constitution), then tell me how many of those rights are still protected by the US government. If it helps, there are some web sites "run by paranoids with tinfoil hats" which contain some uncomfortable truths about these things, which may shed some light on the matter. I don't have time to compile a good list in this message, but perhaps some of my fellow slashdotters can provide some tasty examples.
-- $SIGNATURE
"Unreasonable search and seizure..." (I forget the exact wording) clearly implies that one should be able to understand what is being sought. Traditionally warrants are supposed to describe exactly what is being searched for, and the searchers are supposed to only collect that (those) item(s). If the warrants are sealed, this becomes impossible.
There is much more here, going back to the rise of Parliment after the Magna Charta, but I don't remember the details right now, and am not in a place where I can look them up.
Basically, one is supposed to have sufficient information to defend oneself against what one is being accused of, and fishing expeditions are forbidden. That's the short of it.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Today, Intel, Asus and a variety of other motherboard manufacturers have brought out new boards with the new clipper chip! This chip will improve your connectivity more than you could ever believe!
The company's say the new boards will only be $100 more than the originals but this is a small price to pay for such features.
On a side note: Them pesky crackers have sent out a program allowing anyone to get into a computer with the clipper chip installed, a patch was put out only 5 hours later, but was cracked again.
Do you mean a "Rise up and fight" revolution?
I do not see us needing that.
One thing that I see that I do like is someone like Jesse "The Body" Ventura getting elected to political office. That sends a message. Granted, he is not going to be able to accomplish much at all, but the fact that American people have supported him, and other non-politicians (including Ross Perot) is a good sign. While i may not agree with everything they stand for.. at least they are making some room for people to come along and actually make those changes.
This country is great... we just have to hope that people do not become so content that they sit back and watch TV as their rights are taken away.
Things are not that hopeless as to warrant revolution.
I'm not a nazi for all you paranoid types. Once more if you're clean, Uncle Sam leaves you alone. /. replies to issues like this are generally libertarian. Nuff said. Lay off the hemp (or whatever) and your thinking process clear up.
Besides, run a firewall when your're online, and when your off, disconnect from the phone jack. Duh!! How many of us have TEMPEST-proof computers?
The problem I see with this is that the warrant in question is likely to come out a close-court ruling by the judges that the FBI/NSA/(other big governmental acronym) keep sequestered for just this purpose.
I forget my source but there is a panel of judeges who do nothing but issues warrants for wiretapping. The judges in question do not conduct public hearings, and you cannot get access to the court records. They also grant like 90% of the warrants asked for. Basically rubber-stamping whatever the Feds want.
It is that 'easily obtained' warrant that scares me. The Mitnick case clearly demonstrates the governments desire to act illegally in order to send a message to the hackers. Now could they have another tool to abuse. Not good.
-abs
'I don't have a sig you silly english knight, now go away or I shall taunt you again.'
My objection to this would be the fact that it alows ongoing searches. The 4th ammendment allows searches, but it doesn't allow an ongoing, endless search. That would require that an agent of some sort be allowed to remain in the house for an extended period of time.
And that would violate the 3rd ammendment. I'm curious to know if the 3rd ammendment has been interpreted to include government agents other than strictly 'soldiers'. If so, it would be possible to argue that any sort of sniffer sprogram or hardware device is an agent of the government, and that this should be excluded by the 3rd ammendment.
I recall somewhere hearing that they did swipe it from Toqueville. Of course I could be wrong.
-abs
The Court does not determine what is or is not Constitutional; it determines what the government is going to treat as Constitutional or not. It's a buggy parser; but bugs in the parser don't change the meaning of the code. They just mean that you need a new parser.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Would your rights be more secured if there were Orwellian style surveillance to "delineate between criminals and law abiding citizenry?"
There already is a line in the law. This proposal seeks to move that line in the _wrong_ direction. Any move that makes it easier for any person, government or corporation to legally investigate you without your knowledge is dangerous. More dangerous is the suggestion, implicit in your last sentence that we accept that officers of the law break the law. Moreover, your conclusion from this premise (that we should relax the law that binds these officers) is highly problematic. As over-zealous officers step over the new line, do we move _that_ line back again?
Just because I have nothing to hide, doesn't mean I want people looking at everything.
It's interesting how President Clinton still wants to run our lives. And this mask that he puts up to cover his real intentions are humorous indeed. Doesn't he ever get tired? Where is a petition so that we can kill this bill?
You could try DOS (say) 5.0. They hadn't thought of it then.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
If the govt does do this how will they be their backdoors onto existing computers and how are they going to prevent people using these backdoors? People seem to be cracking all sorts of things nowadays. bet microsoft will be the first to step up to help with that to get the govt off their @$$es about monopoly things
Unrealistic? I can personally verify that this technology not only exists, but that it is FAR more advanced than they showed on that movie. It only looks unrealistic because it has not been released to the general public.
Now, however, I can download my OS from, say, (where else) Finland, check out the source and compile it myself.
Of course, it occurs to me now they could build this sort of thing into the hardware and restrict the sale of other hardware in the US. At that point, I think I'd like to move to Cuba or Iran, or some other country where they make no pretense at loving libery and where despotism can be taken in its pure form.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Legally, perhaps, but not in the intent of the 4th. What a lot of judges, and now seemingly a lot of the populace, seem to forget is that a law's intent is extremely relevant.
In conventional searches, a warrant is issued based on 'reasonable cause' of illegal activity. There must be enough circumstantial evidence, in the opinion of a judge, for the target to be a suspect in a crime. The problem with allowing keyboard sniffing and other Key-recovery methods is that many people -- including judges -- view the mere use of encryption to be suspicious activity. This means that warrants "just to see" will be easier to come by.
Also, using a sealed warrant to provide an electronic means of reading all your data is much more dangerous to us all because the average user -- even the above average user -- would not know when or if their information was being scanned. The 4th Ammendment was meant to provide protection for citizens from authorities doing random searches. The way this is proposed provides a very large, very easy to use loophole for the authorities.
While I certianly have no illegal activity to hide, consider this -- how many in the /. community have ever 'hacked' someone's box? However innocently? I know several people who have managed to break into websites and make minor changes, then notify the admin how to fix it. This, to us, is honorable and there is nothing wrong with it. But to a lot of people, it is crime. So what if you have some security protocol info on your PC? And you, of course, have it encrypted? Whoops. you're under suspicion.
This is certainly a _legal_ exercise -- but it still bothers me.
01 - just my 2 bits. IANAL, but I play one at work. :P
Posted by the Proteus
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
With a warrent to search and seize, you are served with the warrant and can be present during the procedure. This law would allow a form of "secret warrants," akin to telephone tapping but much more invasive of your privacy and your property. Not a good thing, especially in a country with laws against nearly everything and a rapidly shrinking core of basic rights.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I will admit that the "central" idiology of the libertarians would appear to be against this, but what I've seen of some particular "libertarian" private lives (i.e., the way they were running companies) doesn't encourage me to believe that this is an automatic cure.
The fundamental flaw of Libertarianism is that you can do what you want with your own property, including restrict the activities of those who are on it or impose obligations on them for remaining there. So, if you think of the U.S. as one big Home Owner's Association, and the Constitution as the rules of that HOA, we live in a perfectly Libertarian society. Don't like the rules of the U.S.? You're perfectly welcome to go elsewhere and live by the rules of the current owner. There's nowhere on earth with the rules you want? Not my problem.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Well, first of all you seem to be mightily confused about what is a society and what is a government. You are arguing that societies are a good thing and without a society around us life would suck. Sure, no problem. But then you make a interesting jump and tell me that the government is the society. Er... Consider for a moment an interesting place like North Korea. Are you willing to tell me that the government there is doing nothing but serving the North Korean society, looking out for every member of it, etc. etc? Are you going to tell me that every law passed is a good law and should be obeyed because THEY know better and are really doing this in your best interest?
Go back and read some basic history/sociology/political science/anthropology/philosophy -- hell, almost anything that deals with humans. There are such things as clues lying around there. Try to find at least one.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Every party that is without power is willing to limit the powers of government. The history of what they do when they get power is less than encouraging.
I will admit that the "central" idiology of the libertarians would appear to be against this, but what I've seen of some particular "libertarian" private lives (i.e., the way they were running companies) doesn't encourage me to believe that this is an automatic cure.
OTOH, having multiple parties (20 would be a good number) would tend to fragment the power, and thus lessen the control. But our election system encourages centralization.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Hmmm, ever heard of a little thing called the 5th Amendment?
Nevertheless, I'm writing my Congressmen on this one.
What's the difference between an orange?
This week's SNS newsletter, a memo on technology strategy, talks about how personal chat is overwhelming business talk on cellular phones. That creates hell for spooks - can you imagine being the guy listening to 2000 hours of meaningless banter that Echelon flagged as significant?
As governments around the world realise the Net makes them irrelevant, they will strike out to protect their own existence; we have a few scary years before governments are truly harmless. But remember it's their own paranoia that will kill them. Because wasting tremendous resources checking out really stupid stuff will eventually cause them to collapse under their own weight... letting the web's freedom and libertarianism emerge into the world at large.
I think I'll let them install one on my older PC, set it to randomly spam Microsoft addresses with chapters of spy novels, and mention the words "terrorist" and "FBI" in the sigfile.
- Read fiction at www.espressostories.com
This scheme would use secret sealed search warrents, and you would never know that the feds are spying on you.
Granted, but I'm not sure the above difference rests in the realm of constitutionality; sounds more like preference to me.
Anyone know of any legal decisions that would support the above difference as being important?
Kythe
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Kythe
Think about it. The so-called monitoring programs they would install to snoop on us are probably all Windows based. They would be stymied on finding a Linux box.
"Hey Bill, this thing doesn't have a C: drive in it."
"Aw crap. Another Linux user. We gotta get some geek to write us a snoop program for Linux. You think AC will do it for us?"
I hope all the privacy sue groups sue like mad if this ever gets off the desk. If this is not the limit to which the 4th Amendment can be eroded, I don't know what is. I might as well go live in an anarchistic unruly 3rd World country rather than live in this Police State.
I really hope everyone starts hitting ompages.com and people, programmers, sys-admins, and web developers start volunteering and taking leadership roles in that public privacy networking project. If any court allow breaking and entering by government officials into my home, I will move out of the US the first opportunity I get.
Searches of homes without Probable Cause is outrageous. A warrant is still required. These officers are trying to search a person's home in search of probable cause. This is utterly unacceptable. Anyone who believes that is a justifiable practice on the part of law enforcement should really think long and hard about the kind of country they want to live in. These practices were just fine in Soviet Russia or in present day China. Did we really win the Cold War so that our law enforcement would be the only ones with all the power? Was the Cold War really a fight for world dominance between the KGB and CIA/FBI/DOJ? I'm starting to think it was.
The only outcome that this kind of activity would create is many many more shootouts with private citizens. The fact that the Gov would even ask for such power makes this a sad, sad, sad day to be an American.
If this type of governmental activity begins no American will have the right to call him or herself a free person. No one will have the right to name America a Democracy, or free. The rights of the individual will finally have been replaced by the government's wanton pursuit of power.
The effort to make the internet as secure as possible for everyone's freedom's sake should dwarf the effort the make linux as easy to use as Windows.
I don't give a DAMN about Windows. I want a secure network dammit! If we don't unite efforts to combat the government by making encryption of everything on the network pervasive, then we will have cheated ourselves out of our freedoms, identities, self-respect. Let the corporations hack linux; its there now. Newsflash!: The revolution is here, and it will not be televised. It's on the network. Drop all coding efforts for all those packages. Put them on hold. All community effort must be geared to counteract these underhanded government activities. If you fail to act now; you are a sheep and you will be sheered and slaughtered.
It's fine to work on fun 3Dfx, and other cool technology. But we must get our priorities straight now or forever lose our freedom. Imagine how powerful the Linux movement would become if the people who have been hacking kernels and GPL apps outsources the work to the corporations working to make Linux more corp friendly and begin making Linux a powerful public tool to secure privacy, speech, and privilege. Focusing on corporate acceptance of Linux is a job for corporations like Red Hat. They seek to profit from Linux. I seek to make Linux the primary tool by which I gain control over my speech. Isn't that what this is all about? If you all want 'geek' and 'nerd' to ever achieve positive connotations you all must accept your duty to be warriors for the people. You are warriors. You have that power. Be heroes and heroines. Don't be sheep.
Well Done.
Don Negro
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
This is an interesting law though. They aren't proposing that anything be weakened (read: learn how to secure a box and learn some encryption) they are just proposing that the government be allowed to crack in to your computer, unannounced, with a "sealed warrant" and look around. It sounds like they think they are pretty good if you ask me. Then, if you've not done anything wrong, you would potentially never know about the intrusion. (or on the otherhand, if you're breaking one law and they get a sealed warrant because they think you're breaking another law and they find evidence for the first crime they can go get another sealed warrant and then gather evidence and you never knew why they suspected you in the first place)
This bill will fail and we can protect ourselves.
You have absolutely the right attitude. This is a power for the people by the people only if the people hold on to it tightly, and strike down anyone who would take that power away.
We must engage in character assassination of all government employees who engage in illegal behavior. They must be discredited.
I sent in this story too... looks like someone beat me to it :)
Everyone, start voting libertarian before we don't have any rights left.
Are you kidding? We don't really have any rights left today. Most people don't realize this, but we've become the country we've grown to despise. Our rights have been gone for quite some time now.
--
.-.--
The US. Govt on the federal level has never had such broad power as it has now. Thomas Jefferson said that when the states loose their power that the democracy will fail. The federal govt has no right to 1) interfere in state affairs and 2) second guess the taxpayers. The federal govt. believes itself to be supreme over everything when it should not be so, and if there is a controversial issue they push it to the states. The federal govt is there to keep the internal affairs of the country cohesive (ie the states can't go to war against each other) and to keep external affairs cohesive (ie so we don't war with other people or they don't war with us).
The federal govt now only passes off issues to the states that are good for the individual. For instance - look at homosexual marriage - something blatantly controversial, not to mention there are good arguments on both sides. But the federal government does not make a play on something that only complicates state law - same with Medical Marajuana, evolution in schools (which shouldn't be a controversial subject imho), or anything that may 'break the mold'. Yes encryption does make it more difficult for the law to crack but who cares? Most people and companies use it as a simple means to protect data, not keep dangerous criminal activities away from other people.
Crime sucks, let's face it - but lets look at the mob in the 1920's, they didn't write down on the registers of the interstate trucks "20 cases of whiskey" they wrote down "20 cases of tomatos" -- even if you get data I seriously doubt that it will help you one damn bit. The best way to break crime is to find rock solid evidence, witnesses (with 6 billion people on earth you'd think someone would have seen 'em)
Let's keep the USA a democracy please.
Y'all, even if something like SAFE does pass, it is not only the country's responsibility, but in everyone's best interests to have some manner of even attempting to retrieve encrypted information. It looks good on paper. In reality, if you follow good key security (ie, keep your secret key on a floppy disk that only you know of) then even with a "warrant" feds shouldn't be able to get to your information, at least not with the methods I know of. The US seems to be intent on pursuing a self-defeating policy, so we should be realistic in thinking that we're going to have to deal with something. Besides. Even if it passes, it won't be easy to put over on someone who knows their shit.
Andrew G. Feinberg
The 4th Amendment says absolutely nothing about the necessity of warrants being open.
Quite simply, I can understand your objections, but if you have a problem with it, I suggest you strike up a campaign to change the law, if necessary.
Me, the only difference I see is whether you know you're screwed sooner rather than later.
Kythe
(Remove "x"'s from
Kythe
To stop this blatent attack on our privacy you can do the following things:
Get logmaster.c (in the MISC directory) which is written by HKhalsa and monitor whoever trys to get into your machine.
Second, whenever you get someone trying to get on your computer, get their IP address and post it on as many skript kiddie IRC channels as possible.
Let the fun begin!
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit. -- Robert Anton Wilson
jdube is who
Thankfully, this mess doesn't apply to me (yet) as I am in Canada. If I were American though, I'd fight like a dog. If an authority has a warrant to my house, comes in, searches, finds my computer, then breaks into that, fine. Thats in the physical realm, and I know whats going on. But them searching your computer without you knowing whats going on? You know, I can't help but wonder if /everyone/ was more .. well .. resposible and law abiding, we wouldn't live in an age of paranoia anyhow. Somewhere along the line the focus shifted from making laws that suited society to making society to fit the laws.
"Old man yells at systemd"
> if you haven't done anything illegal, who cares?
If you don't have anything to hide, then I guess you won't mind submitting to body cavity searches at random intervals?
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me. -- HS Thompson
What "devices that override encryption programs" would they be installing... keyboard sniffers? BO2K (US Gov't Special Edition)?
And what if the feds can't break your encryption? This whole law seems to assume that they *can* break your encryption (without using an Echelon machine)... if they can't and they have a subpoena, are you "leagally obligated" to comply with their requests for your password...?
(And of course we would all claim to have forgotten it, but that's not the point... what is the legal aspect of this?)
Say goodbye to your personal liberties.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Some of the replies to the Justice Department proposal suprise me! A number have said something to the effect of: "What, are you a criminal? Do you have anything to worry about? If you're clean, you don't, so no problem!"
;) ]. I don't have the script on me, as I'm at work currently, but it runs on my system at home.
Does anybody else see this as incredibly naive thinking?
Perhaps if George Orwell could have read the future a little more accurately, 1984 would have been titled "1999" instead.
On a side note, here is one simple technical solution to spook sniffers (or sniffers of any kind) on your system: use cron and run a script that inventories all of the file checksums on your system. Run it daily, perhaps. Compare yesterday's checksums to today's. If there's a difference, cron emails you with the alert, and you replace any affected files with your clean backups [that you keep offsite, of course
Food for thought...
Why would you even care that the feds can crack into your machine? It's not like they're going to go into every machine on the planet. They've got so many things to do, they'll only go where they suspect illegal activity.
And even if they did go to every machine, if you haven't done anything illegal, who cares? I mean unless you're running Windows, all your software should be free. If you have plans about blowing up a federal building, then I hope you do get caught.
Unless they start deleting or stealing some of my work, I don't see the issue. Besides, it's not much of an issue up here in Canada.
BH
What "devices that override encryption programs" would they be installing... keyboard sniffers? BO2K-US Gov't Special Edition?
And what if the feds can't break your encryption? This whole law seems to assume that they *can* break your encryption (without using an Echelon machine)... if they can't and they have a subpoena, are you "leagally obligated" to comply with their requests for your password...?
(And of course we would all claim to have forgotten it, but that's not the point... what is the legal aspect of this?)
That still isn't fool proof. It can be gotten around. You really need to boot from and run all programs from imutable media to be sure. Even then that isn't much against a determined foe.
Against an average joe hoacker, this will do well, but the checksum file and checking program really need to be stored on read only media. A good program for this type of work on UNIX systems is tripwire.
The unfortunate thing is most really good hackers can get around this quite effectively by patching the kernel. Under any OS that allows loadable modules, this can be done on the fly in seconds. The kernel provides most of the mechanisms. The hacker only needs to activate them.
There are a few issues that I don't like...
If the feds can "crack" your machine to check it, they are probably not the only one that can do it (how many HD reformatted and others things when script kiddies will get hands on this?)
Do you seriously think a real criminal will let this happen to his computer? He probably know how to get strong crypto anyway. It's the normal citizen that get screwed once again.
I'd have nothing against a search warrant delivered to me, but being spyed that way (the secret search warrant) doesn't seem good, remind me of Enemy of the State (good movie).
I'm happy not to be in USA and the more things like this the less likely I'd want to go, Canada is a much better place to live for privacy and crypto related issues.
Big Brother is watching you.
CryptFS here I come... If I win the lotto (or make neough $$ anytime soon) I'm building a room to use the computer in thats as nearly as proof as can be.. heh
Our Govt granted ASIO this right, warrantless I think, this year. They aren't your police-at-large
but the whole attitude is vile.
Cameron Simpson, DoD#743 cs@cskk.id.au http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/
Me, the only difference I see is whether you know you're screwed sooner rather than later.
true, but w/ secret warrants you dont know why you are beening screwed! ie did your x-lover plant somethingi and then make an call? or are the Fed's after them teen pr0n? w/ a secret warrant you dont know! so how can you build a defence for something you can't see comming?
nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
I want my fscking lawyer the *second* the government starts snooping around. Without some kind of legal protection, it's too easy to strip away my rights (why do you think the cops never ever want anyone to call a lawyer?).
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
It's scary when people can invade your privacy without you noticing it. Glad I don't live in the US, cos lately, what a US citizen mainly gets is the right to be spied upon. hmm.. maybe it's time to start collecting viri on a linuxbox..
:)
Fed1: Hmm.. what does this thingy do?
Fed2: hmm.. it seems to be executable... let's try it
bombs, terrorists, Osama Bin Lade BillClinton president allah - have fun, echelon
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Even if you don't have anything to hide everyone with a connection to the 'net should be really upset over this. Do you really want someone else sniffing your e-mails or where you visit on the internet? This is really Big Brother-ish in my opinion. It amounts to "You're not doing anything wrong but we want to take a look anyway." Supposing I encyrpted vital personal information to send to someone else for safekeeping, I really don't want some desk jockey over at the DOJ taking a look on his lunch hour. I encrypted that for a reason. I really don't care if they have to get a warrent. First, show me probable cause then I will let Mr. Fed take a look at my machine. But I really don't want them looking just because I happen to fit into some sort of profile.
O.K. Rant [OFF]. I feel better. Think I'll move to Canada.
In a backlash, more than 250 members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors to legislation that would prohibit mandating such back-door devices on computers.
After all, the Congresscritters have stuff to hide, too. More than some people here. They don't want the FBI and the Ethics Committee going and sneaking around into their work and home PCs either...
Brazil has decided you're cute.
When the government starts coercing operating system companies into putting law enforcement back doors into their distributions, I'll be glad I'm running an open source OS. ;)
Geeky modern art T-shirts
If the police get a warrant, they can burst into your home and search for kiddie porn in your closet, under your bed or on top of the laundry hamper in your bathroom. They can also override any security procedures you have installed to prevent this - like a door lock. Heavens! We have to do something to stop this invasion of privacy.
--Shoeboy.
What are some good free programs to do that (if there are any)?
-- Scream, Dracula, Scream!
"1984 was a typo" -Hackers.
What is to stop them from sneaking in, looking around, and THEN (if they find something) postdating a sealed warrant? (And to those who say, if you have done something illegal, then let them search, How would you feel, as an innocent citizen, if you were required to be strip searched every day?)
01101100 01101001 01101110 01110101 01111000 01110010 01110101 01101100 01100101 01110011
blah.. that sucks.
I submitted this as a story, but it probably won't be posted now. Here is the original Washington Post article all the other news sources are quoting...
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
And the difference here would be...? If someone (including the police) wanted to plant something, they wouldn't need a sealed warrant to do it.
w/ a secret warrant you dont know! so how can you build a defence for something you can't see comming?
If you're going to mount a defense, the last place and time to do it are when the police are conducting a search. That's true whether you know at the time that the search is being conducted. Building a defense, rather, is done in the courts.
It sounds like you want to have a chance to hide stuff that looks bad. I can understand that. But with a non-sealed warrant, you can't see it coming, either. The only difference is that you can see them rummaging around your house.
Kythe
(Remove "x"'s from
Kythe
I've seen N zillion of these things get introduced now, and there's one thing I can't figure out. Who is the constituency for all these boneheaded laws? Is there somebody out there who really would vote for or contribute to a candidate because they favor these sorts of things?
We need to get real.
When Germany ordered Jews to wear yellow markers, the majority of the population of Denmark started wearing yellow markers.
The same goes for privacy. Encrypt everything.
Or encrypt "Mom, I'll be home for Christmas."
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Well, if this happens, either everyone will start using open source software because it becomes easy to disable any gov't backdoor nonsense (A warrant doesn't do any good without the means to enter...), or it will soon become illegal to run Linux on a PC without government authorization.
Or, not.. because I'm thinking the government can't do that.
Then again, if they tried, we'd just switch to another OS, taking Linux with us with a new name.. I mean, for pete's sake, we're talking about the government here. Like they have any clue as to what's going on. It would be too formidable of a task for them to attempt to implement such a regulation, if one such was made.
Insert mind here.
How about keeping your old keyboard? ;)
(And anything else that is suddenly 'touched' by the grubby lil Federal mits, come to that).
Delphis
One of the main complaints that the US Government has had against encryption is that it makes wiretaps nearly impossible for agencies like the FBI to perform. If they are trying to get this law passed, it would appear that they have given up on that argument, because they could just as easily get a wiretap warrent for your phoneline as they could for your computer proper.
However, in my personal opinion, this plan wont work, because the truely paranoid (i.e. the people with something really to hide) will run a program like tripwire (possibly keeping the relevant data on him/herself the entire time and be check his machine on every access for modified programs.
It's sorta funny how all of our security programs that are there to make the computers/the internet more secure, can actually make this law almost impossible to implement.
Is the embedded processor in your keyboard (at both ends of the coiled cable, at the keyboard end and the motherboard end) running open source software? How about the firmware in your modem? How about the firmware in your hard drive? In your video card?
(not trying to make anybody paranoid, just issuing a heads up)
Is it just me, or am I the only one who thinks of his HD as an extension of the owner's mind? Think about it. You type documents that are composed of your thoughts, the programs you install will reflect your personality, and even the OS you choose can reflect on you. Maybe it is a bit of a stretch, but if the US Government could read your mind, would you want them to without your knowledge? :)
Oh, and by the way... Hi Mr. Clinton. I hope you have fun reading this.
I would gladly allow any fed to search my HD with my knowledge, but this is just a way for the government to crack (or hack if you're a media type) into your computer as long as they have the required paperwork.
Ok, I'm done. Lets test this Echeleon thing:
bomb white house murder treason microsoft
The spooks like hardware...
How about a keyboard cable that looks exactly like the one you have now, but just happens to have certain additional capabilities?
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
The image of local law enforcement or even the FBI sneaking into houses in the dead of the night and calmly hacking subversive programs into my Linux box is difficult to picture. After they got past the high-security electric lockout mechanism (with only a cryptic 1/0 symbol to give any hint to its purpose), they'd be mystified by these unfamiliar penguin images everywhere.
Evidence of cracking from the root console of a Linux box would be just as conspicuous as hacking from outside when done by a hired gun of the Federal Government or the local police. Most security conscious Slashdot readers would be instantly aware if their computer systems had been compromised, and would take appropriate actions to plug the holes and further secure their data instantly.
Consider that for any sort of high level computer crime, the possible "benefits" of this bill are completely meaningless, because the perpetrator is likely to be better versed in computer security than the agents sent to investigate him or her. In fact, taking such action would instantly alert that person to the fact that an investigation was taking place and allow them time to purge their data entirely.
To join in the rising chorus of disgust, I must agree that it's just an altogether stupid idea.
--
Rob Carlson
Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Is this your original or should it be attributed to someone else?
--Flam
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers - Pablo Picasso
my point was w/ and secret warrant you have no idea of what you will / willnt be chared with.
ie if the FED's are searching my house for illigal pr0n, then i can at least start thinging about what the fsck i am going to do if i have some and they find it. if i dont know what they are looking well, there isnt much i can do. or think of to do. this will only increass the level of paranoia in the USA. which will, led to more crime etc...
nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
This means I'll always make sure that I'm logged out of my computer when I leave it unattended.
What a shame it is to distrust your own government, but what a greater shame it is to trust it blindly.
--
mr._b._c._dull@hushmail.com -- http://www.hushmail.com
It sounds like you want to have a chance to hide stuff that looks bad. I can understand that. But with a non-sealed warrant, you can't see it coming, either. The only difference is that you can see them rummaging around your house.
No, you don't understand the difference. Let's say I have collected a large body of information on home-growing of pot and stored it on my hard drive. Suspecting that other people might not think that my motives are pure, I encrypt all this stuff, and, maybe use steganography, as well. Now if the cops come with a warrant, they have to deal with the encryption. They need a court order for me to surrender the key, I can claim Fifth Amendment, etc., etc. It becomes a prolonged legal battle, expensive for the cops to wage.
However, in the case we are discussing now, the cops have installed a keyboard sniffer on my machine and so don't need a court order for my encryption key: they already have it. Major time- and effort-saving for cops happened, and I am screwed in worse way than with a 'normal' warrant.
Again, as I posted elsewhere, I don't believe (as a lot of posters around here) that the main issue is with the warrant being sealed. That was done before, and while unpleasant it is understandable and perfectly legal. I think that the main problem is making the search-and-seizure so easy, fast and cheap, that the balance of power shifts and the protections we have look much more inadequate.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Phone lines are controlled by phone company(ies). Secret phone taps are allowed but the phone company can ask to see a warrant first.(I know the US is trying to abolish this). So then it is actually legal and there is a controlling agency to monitor what they are doing. So no randomly tapping phone conversations.
With this there is no one to say. "Hey, you don't have a warrant! Piss off!" The only thing protecting you is whether the police think your computer is interesting or not. I wouldn't doubt some fed would just go for a quick trip and scan 1000 computers just to "check". I know, illegal, but how will you know? log entry? letter in the mail?
I'm sorry I just don't trust the police(FBI/CIA) not to do that if they had the chance.
You don't exist. Go away. --SysVinit Halt
But what if the sniffer is installed in the bios or similar low level location somehow. You can change to inferior operating systems all you want, it wont help you.
This bill would be nothing short of terrific for criminals with a clue.
This would give criminals advanced notice that the government is actively trying to take them down, and is able to get warrants against them. All they have to do is setup some passable security on the computer with tripwires, and they'll be set. When the computer's alarm goes off, they can just read some logs, see that it's very very un-kosher, fire off a script to re-encrypt everything on the hard drive, and pack their bags.. the encryption should slow their computer, and the hacking on it, to a crawl. The criminals will be able to walk out the front door while the government tries to hack into their computer's backdoor.
Let's say you wanted to take down a warez group. Do you think they'll have a better chance at taking them down by attacking their computers, or breaking into their homes? The attacked group member would be able to fire off a warning email to every member and every affiliate in the world within seconds of the start of the attack. The whole operation would be shutdown within a day, and most of it would have shutdown within an hour.
I know they're going after the mob and druglords and whatnot, but I assume those guys can hire net security guys as well as the next group. They don't even need the best anyway.. I mean, I haven't done active sys-admin'ing in years, and I'm certain that I could determine if my system was being attacked. I figure if they bothered to use PGP already, they'll figure out how to use this to their advantage as well.
The only problem for the criminals that I see is determining if it's some script kiddie working on their own or if it's some script kiddie working for the man.. I'm sure if I sold drugs, I'd be pissed that I'd shutdown shop just for some punk trying to be 3l33+.
Anyway, my basic point is that this bill would do way more harm than good for the government.
- George Gruschow
Now now, don't go advocating violence. There is no need for it.
If everyone like you, who feels there is no viable option in the established political system would go VOTE we wouldn't have this problem! The Libertarians have been growing steadily for the past 20 years, but we need all the help we can get. Let's exhaust all peacefull measures before we go calling for revolution.
I say again, if you don't like this QUIT VOTING FOR THEM!!! And don't just not vote either, that's become a sign that you don't care or are generally happy with the way things are to the Republicrat polititions. There is only ONE political party I'm aware of that consistantly fights for your rights, the Libertarian Party. Slashdoters are generally able to see through the FUD, if you don't like them for some reason, feel free to send me email and I'll hapilly debate you on it. Even better, find out what they stand for with your brain! www.lp.org.
Imagine this scenario.
A developer working for the "authorities" is placed in a position of responsibility within a well known and respected Antivirus company. using technology already available from the likes of the CDC (cult of the dead cow). The developer, slips in the trojan code, which whill of course appear to be part of the native install.
Once installed your machine runs the software which activates the server element. Using standard plugins the server mails your current ip address and in turn the "authorities" are aware when you go online, what you IP is and if they wish can enable their client to inpect your machine.
Now lets say we encrypt the machine, using what? a password. Well your going to type that password in and if you do who says the keystrokes are not being caught and examined.....
Encryption, and privacy are important issues I agree but what I really would like to see are
scanners and detectors.
If I am being watched I want to know, if I am being tapped I want to be aware. If my words are being noted and used in evidence against me I should be notified.........
Freedom of speech should include responsibility for your actions and results. Someone can hear me talk any time they like but at least I can have the option to shut up if I think those are listening whom I dont wish to speak to.
And thats why Firecrackers and kittens don't mix.
C: dir
drugrec.xls
cocaine.txt
Which brings up a question... Assuming one
does not name files with obvious names, how
do you tell an encryped file named
foo.dll from a real file foo.dll. Or even
better, is there not an encryption related
technology available that weaves drugrec.xls
into foo.dll in such a way that makes drugrec.xls
indetectable while preserving the function of
foo.dll?
It seems that this type of scheme is better
then straight encryption. Might be useful
to our Chinese friends today.
cliff
This goes out to everyone who thinks that this sort of thing is OK "as long as they have nothing to hide" :
I've seen--and lived through, first hand--totally different sets of treatment from law enforcement officials based on mere appearances and assumptions.
Also, as an attorney (putting on my Hunter S. Thompson hat for a second) let me say that if you go and read the case law, especially that from the 80's onward....the second you start combining "urgent situations" (according to the cops) with "reasonable suspicion" (also according to the cops) 99.9999% of all Constitutional procedural protection goes STRAIGHT DOWN THE TOILET. Law books are filled with cases of courts upholding gross missteppings of the boundaries of warrants, warrantless searches, etc.
Giving the government an easier way to snoop here will only encourage abuses. Despite the mess, witnesses, risks, etc. there are STILL hundreds of cases a year of the cops kicking down the wrong doors, shooting up the wrong people, and causing huge damage while trying to dig up ANY kind of dirt on a suspect. Can you imagine the level of snooping that will go on once this kind of invasion becomes bloodless and messless?
Conformity is everything to any tyrrany, and this will be used to enforce it at whatever level that any particular official feels threatened, which gets back to my point about appearances. NOTE: Personal anecdote follows, stop reading if you're in a rush. Case in point:
I almost got shot in Maryland for accidentally running a stop sign that was obscured by an untrimmed tree. To make a long story short, I was dressed down and my car (must have) matched a profile of some sort. Well, out of nowhere I get pinned in by two patrol cars full of VERY agitated cops. They drew weapons on me, which of course would normally be illegal for a traffic violation but in this case there was of course an emergency. They asked for my license and nearly put a cap in my ass when I reached for my backpack to get out my wallet...after that I moved very VERY slowly and announced every sneeze and fart. After 45 minutes of bullshit they let me go--with a ticket FULL of trumped-up traffic violations which even the local judge laughed at when I went to challenge it. The moral of the story is that I almost died because I wore an earcuff and drove a shitty looking Buick in the wrong residential neighborhood at night (I was lost) and didn't see a stop sign.
SHIFT SCENE: I am being sworn in to the Bar in D.C. I have on my suit. I am going into a courthouse. I throw my backpack onto the conveyor belt...and at that moment I panic 'cause I realize that I left my folding Bowie knife in the bottom of the bag (I had helped a friend move and had it for cutting rope). No problem--the guy took one look at ME and didn't even look at my bag. My Palm Pilot on my waistband set off the Stupid Metal Detector. Again, the guard said, "Oh, that's cool, I want one of those" and let me take it in without any further examination.
Now, that "Pilot" could have had plastic explosives and anthrax in it. Or PCP. If I had left it in any judge's chamber or even in a crowded courthouse I could have killed a LOT of people if that had been my intent. But hey, it's all OK, right? After all, I'm a white chick in a suit who looks like she's in a hurry, what harm could I cause, right?
Remember: Freedom once lost is impossible to regain.
Anyone that paranoid is going to take countermeasures against this.
But more to the point, at what time does it go onto the machine? What are we looking at? Software? a Chip?
No business in thier right minds is going to use a machine with this ability, can you imagine the damage that will be caused when the script kiddies get to play.
That's my question now. Let's suppose that this thing passes. I am quite sure that if the Fed tries to dcrypt something they are not going to get a nice business letter detailting the who, what, when, where, why and how. Sure, they might catch some of the smaller outfits, but not the really big stuff that makes news. Besides, if crime guys know what they are, doing all incriminating evidence is stored off site, with pieces of it in seperate locations. So, if they do bust in, all that is there is a computer and a dymanic IP address. Second, the server is most likely remotely admin'ed, with all requests coming through dynamic Ip's and dymanic gateways after being routed through a few anymoumous remailers. It ain't gonna work. The internet is just to big and moves to quickly for the bloated DOJ to keep up.
There I'm done now. I'm going back and play with my 8086. Try and crack that. "Hey Bill, what's this DeskMate stuff?"
OK! Let's cut the ``if you've got nothing to hide'' garbage.
This latest attempt to get access into each and every American's household is nothing more than a direct assault on the use of something that's not illegal and turning it into an excuse to harrass law-abiding citizens. Do any of the ``if you've got nothing to hide'' types really think that anyone who purchases over the counter or downloads a copy of any type of encryption software isn't going to wind up in a DoJ database somewhere? Puhleez!
The Janet Reno/Louis Freah (sp?) crowd have already got their hooks into enough of our private information now (or can get into it at the drop of a hat). They now want to get at without anything like probably cause. Oh yah! That's right: ``If you've got nothing to hide''...
I'm not normally paranoid about this. But the last couple of months, Feds have been proposing some damned frightening stuff. I'm not sure who I'm going to be voting for in 2000, except I'm sure it won't be Gore as he'll probably agree to anything that Reno wants to do. With Tipper as ``First Busybody'' and Reno running the DoJ nobody'll be safe from Government intrusions.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
This is one of those "I know someone" posts, but I can assure you it's true....
I know someone who works for a company that does contract work almost exclusively for a government agency. While he never gives me details of what he's working on (he'd be fired on the spot and could be imprisoned), he *is* allowed to talk about the vague concepts and ideas.
For a while now he's been telling me how cool it is that he's learning all the ways to hide data on unused tracks and to get software to install and execute without the user ever knowing about it. In fact,almost all of the concepts we discuss involve hiding things and making machines execute code without the user knowing!
If I recall correctly, some time ago there was mention of him working on ways to circumvent the tcp/ip stack, and more recently, he tells me it's been his company's holy grail for some time to get a NT device driver to run an executable undetected.
I often ask him if what he writes is used to spy on people, and his usual nondescript response is this,"They [the aforementioned gov't agency] use my programs to help catch *REALLY* bad people".
It's obvious why a government agency would want to quietly execute code and hide data; I just question who decides who the "*REALLY* bad" people are.
~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
LOL....
didnt know that cDc was werking for uncle sam...
nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
Probably, they really do want to protect us from terrorists. But this is too much. I have nothing to hide. If they want to take a look at my computer, I'll gladly cooperate. All they have to do is show up at my door and with a warrant that they will show me, and I'll gladly let them look at whatever they want. But until they get that warrant, I'll do everything I can to keep my stuff private. I'd been putting off using encryption, simply because too few of my friends know how to use it. But I'll be starting now.
Ding....this guy's got it.
Enlightened one = www.fbi.gov
go John Law
I will agree with the concensus that the Clinton Administration's request is a Bad Thing that would make George Orwell turn in his grave. As I try and note the positive of any situation, if any have read through the CNN article, it says that about 250 Congressman have signed on to support legislation that would prevent such back-doors from being put into electronic devices.
So, in other words, SOMEONE has a clue up on Capital Hill.
Also, should this ever become law (Spirit Forbid), it can probably be challenged as a violation of the 4th amendment.
p.s. Kaa: Love your sig.
How about keeping your old keyboard? ;)
Ah, that's a free upgrade program courtesy of the Federal government. Why, they'll come in and upgrade your keyboard cable all for free, you needn't worry your pretty little head about it. They may forget to mention it to you, too, but you know how paperworks gets lost...
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.