Drunkard Posted July 25, 2019 Report Share Posted July 25, 2019 (edited) https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/23/us_encryption_backdoor/ This article popped up in the google feed on my phone the other day so I thought I'd share it. At first I thought it couldn't really be serious but it seems like the Register (United Kingdom) is a legit, middle of the political road news source. This seems exactly like the kind of deep state thing that the GOP typically rails against. It seems like they just want back door access to all electronic communication which doesn't really fit with the get government out of our lives mantra they tend to spout to the public. I never thought I'd say I miss Jeff Sessions or the Exxon CEO but I guess this is the down side to Trump going through appointees like Kleenex. Eventually guys like this are put into positions of power for no other reason than loyalty to the President. Does anyone really trust them to only perform surveillance when they have a valid warrant? Edited July 25, 2019 by Drunkard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SABRES 0311 Posted July 25, 2019 Report Share Posted July 25, 2019 I’m not going to pretend I am a cyber guy so forgive my ignorance. However this sounds like a slippery slope. There are laws about this kind of thing both in law enforcement and intel. I do not support this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunkard Posted July 25, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2019 21 minutes ago, SABRES 0311 said: I’m not going to pretend I am a cyber guy so forgive my ignorance. However this sounds like a slippery slope. There are laws about this kind of thing both in law enforcement and intel. I do not support this. Yeah, I'm not a tech expert by any means. I hope the companies that make all the gadgets we use continue to fight against it. That's probably the best thing about the fact that most electronics are being made outside the U.S. Even if they passed a law to require it, it's not like China, South Korea, or South Vietnam are required to follow US laws. But if they are unsuccessful at the manufacturing level they'll probably just put some type of worm/virus that gives them access into the software next though and a lot of that stuff is created/developed in the US. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SABRES 0311 Posted July 25, 2019 Report Share Posted July 25, 2019 1 hour ago, Drunkard said: Yeah, I'm not a tech expert by any means. I hope the companies that make all the gadgets we use continue to fight against it. That's probably the best thing about the fact that most electronics are being made outside the U.S. Even if they passed a law to require it, it's not like China, South Korea, or South Vietnam are required to follow US laws. But if they are unsuccessful at the manufacturing level they'll probably just put some type of worm/virus that gives them access into the software next though and a lot of that stuff is created/developed in the US. What if foreign manufacturers already put software in the devices so they can sift through our data? World gets weirder by the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunkard Posted July 25, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2019 42 minutes ago, SABRES 0311 said: What if foreign manufacturers already put software in the devices so they can sift through our data? World gets weirder by the day. Yeah, it's definitely possible. I know it drives me nuts seeing apps like google maps asking me to rate the restaurants I've frequented, especially when I didn't even use their app to get there in the first place. It really wouldn't surprise me to find out that Samsung, Apple, Nokia, etc. is selling our data to 3rd parties in exchange for lower prices. I read somewhere a while back that smart TV's are already doing this. That kind of stuff is ok if people are willing to share their data in exchange for lower prices, but it should be disclosed before hand so people know what they are getting and have the choice to opt for the more expensive model that protects their privacy if they prefer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SABRES 0311 Posted July 25, 2019 Report Share Posted July 25, 2019 I don’t see Trump supporting this. A guy who was surveilled making it easier to collect on U.S. persons wouldn’t make sense. I think the NSA proved they can track data. I mean ES proved they can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunkard Posted July 25, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2019 10 minutes ago, SABRES 0311 said: I don’t see Trump supporting this. A guy who was surveilled making it easier to collect on U.S. persons wouldn’t make sense. I think the NSA proved they can track data. I mean ES proved they can. It seems to be Trump's Attorney General who is pushing for it though. When you say you don't see Trump supporting this do you just mean in theory or do you think if Barr gets any traction with it that Trump would actually put a stop to it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SABRES 0311 Posted July 25, 2019 Report Share Posted July 25, 2019 2 hours ago, Drunkard said: It seems to be Trump's Attorney General who is pushing for it though. When you say you don't see Trump supporting this do you just mean in theory or do you think if Barr gets any traction with it that Trump would actually put a stop to it? That’s the thing. I think it’s time to look beyond party lines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weave Posted July 25, 2019 Report Share Posted July 25, 2019 8 hours ago, Drunkard said: This seems exactly like the kind of deep state thing that the GOP typically rails against. It seems like they just want back door access to all electronic communication which doesn't really fit with the get government out of our lives mantra they tend to spout to the public. This is downright laughable given The Patriot Act, TSA, and everything else that followed in the wake of 9/11. The days of Republicans being advocates for privacy started falling away with the war on drugs and officially ended when the 2nd plane flew into the World Trade Center. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LTS Posted July 26, 2019 Report Share Posted July 26, 2019 (edited) Someone just walked into my wheelhouse. Let's be clear, the surveillance of United States citizens has gone on far longer than any single Presidency and has occurred regardless of which party is currently in the Oval Office. https://www.pri.org/stories/2013-11-07/history-electronic-surveillance-abraham-lincolns-wiretaps-operation-shamrockhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/us/politics/att-helped-nsa-spy-on-an-array-of-internet-traffic.htmlhttps://www.cnet.com/news/at-t-lets-nsa-hide-and-surveil-in-plain-sight-the-intercept-reports/ It has long been speculated that the NSA can break heavy encryption algorithms already via brute force. The amount of compute power they have is incredible. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/10/how-the-nsa-can-break-trillions-of-encrypted-web-and-vpn-connections/ As for the hardware manufacturer's installing surveillance technology, one only needs to look at the recent case against SuperMicro. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/10/new-bloomberg-report-says-backdoored-supermicro-hardware-infiltrated-major-us-telecom/ The interesting thing with the SuperMicro case is just how much pushback there was on the Bloomberg article. In many circles, it's believed that the louder the rebuttal the more likely it was to have occurred. In general, when we hear things about "flaws, glitches, bugs" its hard to not believe that these are very well hidden back doors that were intentionally put in and left to operate until some researcher finds it. Then it's denounced as a bug, a fix is put in, and that loophole is closed. A new one is usually opened somewhere else, or has been there. US Citizens entering the country can be subjected to the following. https://papersplease.org/wp/2018/01/05/new-dhs-policy-on-demands-for-passwords-to-travelers-electronic-devices/ It's easy enough for the agents to confiscate your device, image it, and send that to the NSA to be decrypted. All of this pales in comparison to the amount of information people provide to corporations, every day. Cell phones are the single greatest tracking device ever invented. People willingly attach a GPS unit to them and allow their every action to be tracked. The extension of "smart home" devices and personal assistants eroded the last barrier of privacy and still people are willing to put them in their homes. (I have them too). Every bit of the communication path your data travels is harvesting information that is used to track and model you. Your ISP has incredible amounts of data on your habits despite most web traffic now being encrypted. Meta data is an incredible source of data from which you can accurately determine the hidden data that people believe is safe via encryption. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/23/anonymous-data-might-not-be-so-anonymous-study-shows.html In short.. I stopped worrying about being tracked and identified a long time ago. The only way to avoid it is to go completely off the grid and leave the country. I know I am being tracked, recorded, having my data collected, and being modeled by AI/ML. I accept it. Of course I avoid things like that stupid Aging app that made the rounds the past few weeks. The concern that a Russian software developer made the program raised a lot of security concerns. It was talked about on news outlets. The focus, naturally, was on the fact that your picture could be sent to Russia. It was the wrong focus. The real focus should have been in the EULA that grants the company Quote “grant Face App a perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide” license to “use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute and display your content”. Which basically means that they can take your photo and use to create political misinformation ads and you can do nothing about it. But hey, its awesome to see how you'll look when older right? Sigh... the world we live in. Oh.. one more thing.. I have not watched it yet but plan to. The Great Hack on Netflix. I hear great things about it. https://www.wired.com/story/the-great-hack-documentary/?verso=true Edited July 26, 2019 by LTS added The Great Hack. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunkard Posted July 26, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 26, 2019 14 hours ago, Weave said: This is downright laughable given The Patriot Act, TSA, and everything else that followed in the wake of 9/11. The days of Republicans being advocates for privacy started falling away with the war on drugs and officially ended when the 2nd plane flew into the World Trade Center. I agree completely but they still talk about getting the government off our backs when they campaign. They usually only bring it up for stuff like school lunches (I remember Sarah Palin encouraging parents to bring cupcakes as a middle finger to Michelle Obama's fit campaign) or when Bloomberg tried to get rid of big gulps in NYC. They definitely seem to favor the police state when it suits them (like the examples you posted) and then rail against it when it suits them (like regulating businesses). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eleven Posted July 26, 2019 Report Share Posted July 26, 2019 17 hours ago, SABRES 0311 said: That’s the thing. I think it’s time to look beyond party lines. Certainly, Obama was continuing Bush's policies--Snowden exposed that--so yes, both parties are doing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darksabre Posted July 26, 2019 Report Share Posted July 26, 2019 5 minutes ago, Eleven said: Certainly, Obama was continuing Bush's policies--Snowden exposed that--so yes, both parties are doing it. Surveillance is, I suppose, a human tradition. People in control, or desiring control, want information. The devil is in the deployment, the psychology, etc. The European tradition of overt surveillance is pretty well established. The Brits love their CCTV cameras, speed cameras, etc. They're well ahead of the US on that kind of stuff. The US seems to prefer covert surveillance, which I think is largely the fault of the public's perception of surveillance activities. Out of sight, out of mind. We're fine with the Patriot Act but we don't want to see any cameras watching us in public places. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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