Weakening encryption.

[Uvaman2]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdof...to-end-encrypted-messaging-report-claims/amp/

From the article:
All of which means that the powerbroker here, as in most things tech, is the U.S. government. Which is why when Politico reported that “senior Trump administration officials met on Wednesday [June 26] to discuss whether to seek legislation prohibiting tech companies from using forms of encryption that law enforcement can’t break,” it was of real significance, “a provocative step that would reopen a long-running feud between federal authorities and Silicon Valley.”

So other than some meeting, not much more to it at the moment.
Knowing that the big boys already let government look under the hood as needed (or even more than needed) I think sadly its a matter of time before laws are passed that actually modify how security in software works... Outlawing/penalising any software that doesn't work as approved.
But I am sure there will be plenty of mental gymnastics about how this is different than less savory countries, and how all this is for the children and not having anything to hide.

 

[seanreisk]

Weak encryption does more harm than good. Every case where law enforcement is able to view criminal files will be countered by criminals being able to crack personal information in order to steal from us.

Adding foreign agents to that list means weak encryption is a weakened nation. Strong encryption: Make America Great Again.

 

[Retronym]

my server, my property.

didn't they already rule that software is speech?

 

[Meeho]

As if hardened open source solution can't be used by the worst criminals. This is to fuck over ordinary people, not fight crime.

 

[OutOfPhase]

It sure would be cool if you could legislate away math, and have your legislation apply to enemies of your country!

 

[Vermillion]

What's really crazy is this wouldn't change much overall except big name apps like Whatsapp. Messaging apps like Signal are open source. Can't stop that from having great encryption.

 

[tangoseal]

So we can encrypt the shit out of internet commuications but we are not allowed to have encrypted walkie talkies.

We need strong encryption period. The burden of proof you committed a crime is on the prosecutors. Strong encryption is thier problem to break. The state should reserve no power over our freedom to speak and speak with privacy.

 

[RanceJustice]

Weak encryption does more harm than good. Every case where law enforcement is able to view criminal files will be countered by criminals being able to crack personal information in order to steal from us.

Adding foreign agents to that list means weak encryption is a weakened nation. Strong encryption: Make America Great Again.

In general I agree with you, but this is not a "Make America Great Again" issue, but more of a "Make America Great In This One Aspect For The First Time" Getting real privacy laws on the books relevant to this century and reasonable implementation in practice would be a major change. Ever since the modern post-war era we've had pervasive surveillance, parallel construction, involvement (often willing and compensated discreetly or otherwise; contracts, exclusivity, favorable laws etc ) of the private sector, flimsy justifications for "certain people or groups" to have their rights violated etc... and the Internet brought with it a new battlefield. From overt legislation attempts to refusal to rein in the invasive data gathering/analysis/sales boom kicked off by Google and thrown into high gear with Facebook and social media; The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Free Software Foundation's archives are full of moves by the opposition.

On a more practical level, those of us who have been to hacker conventions and played spot the Fed, know that at the very highest levels of the NSA and whatnot they have advanced capabilities, but prior to the Patriot Act (there were preceding issues but this is where it really took off) the chance that they were to be deployed for anything aside from "secret government stuff" was lower. The Patriot Act legalized a LOT of this sort of thing and normalized even more, such as TLA using their surveillance network to give information to law enforcement for mundane regular investigations (often obfuscated as to the source with parallel construction), and telecoms / big tech giving voluntary access/partnership/backdoors such as the ATT Room 614A situation.

In recent years we've gone through many disturbing changes and this just adds to the list, becoming more blatant; a new law would have even more far reaching consequences. Besides opposing such a law and administration (and voting for those who oppose this nonsense in the next elections), people should use as much open source software as possible. Worse, aggression on this front may mean that companies who work heavily upon open source software and strong encryption, from the likes of Signal's primarily developers at Open Whisper Systems to even a major company like Mozilla , will find they have to move some aspect of their development/registration etc.. overseas, to avoid being targeted! We should also be cognizant of choke points so to speak, in complicit companies and both bring awareness and opposition to their behavior (ie. All recent X64 CPUs have a questionable black-box element. Intel's ME and AMD's PSP implementations need to be open source/spec and able to be fully verified as disabled if desired

There are more reasons than ever to use LInux as a desktop OS and try to make use of open source and techno-ethical alternatives to common software/services. As Uvaman2 posted, the usual suspects will start to wage the PR war against that they can't control, claiming that people using encrypted open source software or services hosted in other nations etc... are doing so because they are evil people with something to hide. One of the best counters to this is to have a wide a user base as possible as it will be both socially and technically a benefit ,as well as rebuke of their attempts at ever increasing lockdown.

If anyone has interest in a specific application/type or service, I'll list some open source alternatives with strong encryption and other solid features.

 

[yourgrandma]

The last 3 administrations have tried chipping away at encryption somethings never change.

 

[TordanGow]

So we can encrypt the shit out of internet commuications but we are not allowed to have encrypted walking talkies.

We need strong encryption period. The burden of proof you committed a crime is on the prosecutors. Strong encryption is thier problem to break. The state should reserve no power over our freedom to speak and speak with privacy.

IIRC Encryption is protected under the 1A. IE. You can communicate in any language you want, and I communicate in AES256.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

The last 3 administrations have tried chipping away at encryption somethings never change.

It makes sense from a security perspective, at the most basic level. It's when you try to apply it that you find all the holes in the logic.

 

[WarriorX]

Lets just go back to Clear text transmissions, the internet was better back then anyways.