Feinstein-Burr Encryption Legislation Is Dead In The Water (slashdot.org) 123
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Reuters: After the San Bernardino terrorist attack, key U.S. lawmakers pledged to require technology companies to give law enforcement agencies a "back door" to encrypted communications and electronic devices. Now, the push for legislation is dead only months after the terrorist attack. In April, Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein released the official version of their anti-encryption bill with hopes for it to pass through Congress. But with the lack of White House support for the legislation as well as the high-profile court case between Apple and the Justice Department, the legislation will likely not be introduced this year, and even if it were, it would stand no chance of advancing, said sources familiar with the matter. "The short life of the push for legislation illustrates the intractable nature of the debate over digital surveillance and encryption, which has been raging in one form or another since the 1990s," reports Reuters. Technology companies believe security would be undermined if it were to create a "back door" for law enforcement, while law enforcement agencies believe they need to monitor phone calls, emails, text messages and encrypted data in general for security purposes.
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
It was stupid legislation crafted by profoundly ignorant people.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
It was stupid legislation crafted by profoundly ignorant people.
You misspelled "malicious" there, sport. Both of these winners have been a cancer on The People from the beginning.
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
It was stupid legislation crafted by profoundly ignorant people.
You misspelled "malicious" there, sport. Both of these winners have been a cancer on The People from the beginning.
Malicious indeed dp, according to the draft of the Bill [scribd.com] if it had passed so too would the meta-data rentention provisions casually obscured in the definition of "DATA" in Sec 4.5 to include "COMMUNICATIONS IDENTIFYING INFORMATION" defined in Sec 4.1.A-C.
Section 4.1 defined that to be "dialing, routing, adressing, switching, signaling, processing, transmitting and other data that", (A) was *not* the contents of the communication, (B) identifies the origin, destination, time, date, duration, termination or status of each communication generated, received or controlled by a user and (C - here is the kick in the balls) includes (C.i) public, local and source addressing including (C.i.I) local and public IP address, (C.i.II) static or dynamic ports. (C.ii) MAC, IMIE and network service identifiers used by each party, (C.iii) Service address identifiers used by each party (C.iv) QOS, packet size (C.v) all co-ordinated to UTC.
I doubt this is the last you have seen of an attempt to pass a meta-data retention Bill as there were simply no discussion about these provisions in this bill that I saw.
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Feinstein has her points that keep her in office.
Oh yeah?
The fact that she wants to get guns off the streets is the main thing.
No, she does not.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Feinstein has her points that keep her in office.
Feinstein sucks. She *used* to have her points decades ago, but now she's just a crotchety old ignoramus with a hard on for a police state.
May her bill rest in peace, or rot in hell, as you prefer. ;)
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If you outlaw guns then only outlaws will have guns.
So which do you prefer?
1) Bad guys have guns
2) Bad guys and good guys have guns
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"The fact that she wants to get guns off the streets is the main thing. If the US follows in Australia's lead, it will bring the country out of the Wild West and into the modern world. "
So that we can be defenseless, as the Europeans are now finding out to their chagrin? At least Australia is an island, with no permeable land borders or with the whole ISIS guerrilla army just a few island hops away.
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About the same, if there's a reasonable proportion of the armed population who support him.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
"The fact that she wants to get guns off the streets is the main thing. If the US follows in Australia's lead, it will bring the country out of the Wild West and into the modern world. "
So that we can be defenseless, as the Europeans are now finding out to their chagrin? At least Australia is an island, with no permeable land borders or with the whole ISIS guerrilla army just a few island hops away.
What, as opposed to the US, which is isolated by two oceans and even farther away than Australia is? Also, your gun policy is pretty weak for fighting terrorists - not only are people without practice horrible shots, they're not going to carry a pump action shot gun to the grocery store, and terrorists attack soft targets like schools or public squares, where not only will people be unlikely to carry them but even if you had one you'd be unable to effectively utilize it.
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Also, your gun policy is pretty weak for fighting terrorists
ah, it's funny you mention that...
not only are people without practice horrible shots, they're not going to carry a pump action shot gun to the grocery store,
In your home, dealing with one intruder in a hallway, a pump action shotgun is a fine piece of equipment, especially if sawed short so that it's not inconvenient in hallways. In a mall, a shotgun is mostly a way to throw lots of ricochet material around the place. You want a semi-automatic handgun for dealing with the ranges and necessary accuracy involved.
Now, many states don't let you carry a firearm around with you, and that is a violation of our constitution. So while y
Re: Good (Score:1)
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But the second amendment was written at a time when we had no standing military,
Yes, that was the idea. Instead of which, we got a standing military, which the founders knew was harmful to freedom.
Once you get rid of our military and have formed militias, I'll support your interpretation, but not until then.
Once you become familiar with the history of the 2A, you'll support my interpretation. Once you become familiar with the history of standing militaries, you'll support my interpretation. Not until.
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But the second amendment was written at a time when we had no standing military,
Yes, that was the idea. Instead of which, we got a standing military, which the founders knew was harmful to freedom.
Once you get rid of our military and have formed militias, I'll support your interpretation, but not until then.
Once you become familiar with the history of the 2A, you'll support my interpretation. Once you become familiar with the history of standing militaries, you'll support my interpretation. Not until.
Uh, no, I wouldn't. George Washington complained that militias were inefficient and ineffective, and even though he was unable to enforce any order or structure (von Stuben, a German general, did it for him), he recognized it was not a system that would work. Later on, in the war of 1812, the Americans lost crucial battles and very important cities like New York and Boston early on, and much of it was because of how ineffective the American soldiers were. They were very poorly trained, had little professio
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Choosing to live with a violent person with a known agenda to murder you. What if he had bought a gun?
He already owned guns, stupid, including illegal ones. On a sober day he tried to give me a sawed-off pump action mossy.
You complain about guns being taken off violent people then complain your life is in danger: Really, do you not see the double-think there?
No, because I'm not an idiot or a coward. I don't fear other people being powerful. I am concerned, however, about shit laws that restrict the power I may collect to myself because the state is concerned that I might interfere with its ongoing march towards fascism. The government can choose to make a better citizen, or make a better sheep. It chose cattle, and you're cheering. But I hear
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they're not going to carry a pump action shot gun to the grocery store
Most certainly not. You need a hand for groceries; hence the reason semi-autos were invented.
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And may I say what a brilliant job it's doing there.
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Are we on the hook for Greece's debt?
Ha ha on you euro boy.
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"So that we can be defenseless, as the Europeans are now finding out to their chagrin?"
Fact: In the last year, 56 people in the USA were shot by children under three year old. Fact: In the UK, nobody can carry a gun legally, and ordinary police doesn't carry guns. But if you are a criminal (or not) an armed response unit will come down on you so hard you won't know what hit you. Criminals don't carry guns, because carrying a gun is so out of the ordinary that the police isn't going to stop until they have them.
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You are a HUGE part of this problem because you think about things like this.
They are not ignorant. They know exactly what they are doing and also how it looks to you. That is their job. That is their purpose in life.
You need to sit down and have a long, long think.
Who is pressuring the government to be the hand that intercepts all communications and why? What is really done with this data? Who really has access to it? What are the possibilities of what could happen if a malicious and powerful entity had ac
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I'm going to agree with the OP.
The government on the whole is ignorant about tech. They're very "I'm an ideas man" kind of people, which is code for, "I can say stuff without having to think the consequences through".
They think you can open up encryption safely without the "bad guys" getting to it, and they also think that law enforcement is on whole the "good guys".
Counter point : You are a HUGE Part of the problem because you make everybody resisting well meaning but ultimately stup
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Here's an example of politicians being all "I will tell you what the solution is, you guys can work out the details" when the solution is bad or unworkable because no experts were consulted https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
These people are very smart at business, good at making deals. That doesn't mean they're smart at tech or give enough respect to experts.
As someone who works in tech who often consults with business people, I've seen this behaviour a lot. Often I can influence the situat
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Law is the soup they swim in. They think anything is possible if it's backed by legal force. "We put a man on the moon, so surely we can put a man on the sun. If it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off." With computing, they're so used to being wowed by magic that they imagine they can conjure up a technological solution to anything with a gavel.
"We found this encrypted message. You wrote software able to encrypt it, so now write something to decrypt it!"
"...I can't, it's a 5000 digit pseudoprime
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This right here is my biggest concern. If OPM could get hacked multiple times, leaking the names of who worked for what, then a server farm somewhere can likely get breached which holds this data. Even with security, if someone wanted that data badly enough, they could use the OPM disclosure, and put the thumbscrews on an employee who might have access it (or their family) for access, XKCD, $5 wrench style.
Ultimately, this is where I step away from the "I have nothing to hide" crowd. Legit LEOs are one t
real reason the bill was dropped (Score:5, Insightful)
You had to read all the way to the last sentence of the article to get to the actual reason:
They also said there was reluctance to take on the tech industry in an election year.
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Why do we keep electing the same scum year after year? What is wrong with the American voter?
Feinstein's opposition in particular is usually some kind of special scum, probably on the premise that only scum can unseat scum. I vote against her every time I vote anyway.
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Why is it that Evil gets do-over after do-over until they get their way? And once they get their way, it's almost impossible for Good to change it?
Don't get me wrong. (Score:1)
Time to recall Feinstein, CA (Score:4, Insightful)
She's corrupt and senile and completely off in la-la land. Time for her to retire somewhere she can yell at clouds and grumble about not being able to divert federal contracts to her husband or wipe her ass with the Bill of Rights anymore.
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The recurring problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The recurring problem is that this can be shot down this year, and next year, and the year after that... but they only have to succeed once, and then we're all stuck with it. Add to that the fact that they can just tack it on to a budget bill [wired.com] and seriously, how are we supposed to stop these things from happening? The attack mode on any Congressman who votes against the budget bill is incredibly scathing, no matter what their justification for doing so, and again, that little problem remains that freedom has to win every battle, while the police state only has to win one.
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which is why we need to simplify legislation in general to say 50 pages max. No more 2000+ page pieces of shit that nobody can understand with buried crap that slips by without review. These fucking idiots in Congress don't read legislation anyway but if it's at least small enough they can't sneak shit like this onto a bill.
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which is why we need to simplify legislation in general to say 50 pages max.
And require that all legislation to have a sunset provision with a maximum of 4 years before needing to be re-voted on.
Re: The recurring problem (Score:2)
I'm sure there's a punchline for this (Score:2)
Most rednecks have redneck cousins. Most rednecks have redneck spouses.
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I see you are observing the "dildo legislation" I have harped about in the past.
https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... [slashdot.org]
https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... [slashdot.org]
Well, here it is, a few years later-- and we have a dildo up all our collective asses (TPP), because after 4 consecutive attempts and being told no each and every time, they decided behind closed doors that we really meant yes, and just jammed it in without even asking.
Expect the same kind of shit with Feinstein and her fetish for backdooring everything and everyo
Works for me (Score:2)
If Congress was going to spend what little common sense it possesses on something - this was a good choice.
It is not dead (Score:1)
It's just resting
It is a zombie bill that will never die. In fact, SCO will die first.
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SCO, the zombie apocalypse of companies.
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At first I thought you're talking about Feinstein.
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Yes, we know that, but in an election year appearances do matter, and their effectiveness cannot be denied.
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:-) Things aren't always as they appear. There are more than two choices, and the chances of winning are determined by the voters, not the money, or anything else.
What debate? (Score:4, Interesting)
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If you build in backdoors into encryption, you can be certain that the terrorists will have the key before the year is over.
There is no "government only" backdoor (Score:2)
At the very least not one where only YOUR government will have the key to that backdoor. We're talking about something here that is valuable. James-Bond-Evil-Genius-Wants-To-Have-It valuable. Every government on this planet would want to have it. We're talking about nothing short of being able to decrypt ALL secret communication. From government secrets to trade secrets. Every single government on this planet will be after those keys. And they have deep pockets to bribe those who have them.
Not to mention th
Re: There is no "government only" backdoor (Score:1)
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Oh, I'm sorry, did they change the wording from the last 10 times they tried to push that bullshit?
Color me surprised, they actually learned listened and learned? Sorry, I honestly didn't deem this possible.
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Nothing in this Act may be construed to authorize any government officer to require or prohibit any specific design or operating system to be adopted by any covered entity.
You've swallowed the hyperbole, like so many. There is a very disturbing misinformation campaign surrounding this whole Apple business. You'd be wise to make no assumptions and verify everything. And please, pass it along. The "good guys" usually aren't who they appear to be, and it's always the punch you don't see coming that gets you.
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You mean like a law proposal being tossed into the voting bin again and again 'til finally at some point nobody's looking and it gets approved?
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Safe journey.
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I'm not sure what version of the bill you're angry about. The only one I've seen mentions nothing about backdoors, or encryption. In fact, it explicitly states:
That line just means that they don't have to build in a backdoor to the governments specifications. It doesn't mean that they don't have to put in a backdoor.
(2), a covered entity that receives a court order from
8 a government for information or data shall—
9 (A) provide such information or data to
10 such government in an intelligible format; or
11 (B) provide such technical assistance as is
12 necessary to obtain such information or data in
13 an intelligible format or to achieve the purpose
14 of the court order.
How would a covered entity provide the information in an intelligible format without a backdoor?
They must provide the data in an intelligible format or provide technical assistance master key) to the government to obtain the information in an intelligible format. That's a backdoor.
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Nothing in this Act may be construed to authorize any government officer to require or prohibit any specific design or operating system to be adopted by any covered entity.
Pay attention to the bolded part. It doesn't require a specific design but it does require you to be able to provide it in an intelligible format. A warrant is going to specify a time frame, fail to do it and you run afoul of the law and face contempt of court. It's pretty easy to read the law.
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Let's take it a step further. What does Dianne Feinstein say about this bill?
Source: http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=EA927EA1-E098-4E62-8E61-DF55CBAC1649/ [senate.gov]
The government cannot require or prohibit any specific design or operating system for any covered entity to use in complying with a court order.
She explicitely says the restriction you refer to only refers to the system used in complying with a court order. Not that you can avoid complying with it if your encryption doesn't allow you to, but that
Covered entities are responsible only for the information or data that they (or another party on their behalf) have made unintelligible.
they just can't be told how they have to comply.
Pretty simple, from the words of dianne herself. Or are you going to
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Certain communication service providers that distribute licenses for a covered entity’s products and services also must ensure that these products and services are capable of providing information or data in an intelligible format.
This is much more troubling as it would suggest telecoms can't sell devices that use strong encryption. While this is still far from mandating a government only backdoor, if the intent of the bill is to effectively outlaw strong encryption I would vehemently oppose it. This would be a blatent violation of the right to free speech and the 4th amendment.
I will submit that you are rig
Wow. What a summary. (Score:1)
U.S. lawmakers pledged to require technology companies to give law enforcement agencies a "back door" to encrypted communications and electronic devices.
I curious whether any of these tech "news" sites actually read the bill or even understand its intention beyond the hyperbole. The above would suggest they don't. Here's an excerpt from the actual bill:
to uphold both the rule of law and protect the interests and security of the United States, all persons receiving an authorized judicial order for information or data must provide, in a timely manner, responsive, intelligible information or data, or appropriate technical assistance to obtain such information or data; [...] Nothing in this Act may be construed to authorize any government officer to require or prohibit any specific design or operating system to be adopted by any covered entity.
This bill was about establishing a legal framework to get tech companies to follow court orders. It has nothing to do with encryption. The bill even explicitly states they cannot mandate that software be designed a certain way. So design your products so they are secured in a decentralized way so even you can
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This bill was about establishing a legal framework to get tech companies to follow court orders. It has nothing to do with encryption. The bill even explicitly states they cannot mandate that software be designed a certain way. So design your products so they are secured in a decentralized way so even you can't get into them and you're fine. Design your products so theyre breakable and highly centralized like Apple and you might have to share the punch. This is completely reasonable. If breaking into iphones is possible, why should apple have the exclusive privilege to do so? And why all the misinformation and hyperbole? This has all been very very strange. It screams of an Apple propaganda campaign more than any real reasoned debate over what will be an important issue in the future.
The bill clearly says a covered entity receiving a court order shall (ust) provide such information or data to the government in an intelligible format; or provide such technical assistance as is necescary to obtain such information or data in an intelligible format to achieve the purpose of the court order.
(2), a covered entity that receives a court order from
8 a government for information or data shall—
9 (A) provide such information or data to
10 such government in an intelligible format; or
11 (B) provide such technical assistance as is
12 necessary to obtain such information or data in
13 an intelligible format or to achieve the purpose
14 of the court order.
Note, nowhere does it say that they shall do it if possible. It says absolutely they shall provide that information or assistance.
That would absolutely require a backdoor. Try reading the actual bill. It
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Nothing in this Act may be construed to authorize any government officer to require or prohibit any specific design or operating system to be adopted by any covered entity.
Nothing in this act is surely clearer language than "shall". If your argument is an entity could be sued for not adhering to the "shall", this clause specifically forbidding a "specific design or operating system be adopted" would surely take precedence over any subtle implications you think "shall" would have. This clause is actually explicit, whereas the term "shall" certainly
Dear Government... (Score:1)
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congress from doing their just. They hate Feinstein despite how much she has done for the people, so they irrationally stand against everything she does.
You said it. Hating Feinstein and all she stands for is something in which we of the dark party take great pride.
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What past service? She's always been useless.
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They hate Feinstein despite how much she has done for the people
Feinstein has done a lot for Feinstein; her financials are the size of a phone book. But for the people? Poppycock. She's done a lot to the people, mind you. She vetoed domestic partner legislation in 1982, proposed banning handguns in SF in 1984 so that only she and her cronies could carry them, was fined $190,000 for failure to properly report campaign contributions in 1992, voted for the extension of the PATRIOT ACT and the FISA provisions, cosponsored PIPA, labeled Edward Snowden a traitor after his lea
Re: Again, Republican obstructionism keeps... (Score:1)
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She sure is...but maybe that's because so many of those positions she took were Republican positions. Just like Hillary and Obama, Feinstein is a moderate Republican,
Just like most so-called Democrats, you mean.