I think that that is a misunderstanding of the currently proposed law - although that too could come in the future.
The currently proposed law is targeting manufacturers so that your computer and telecommunications infrastructure comes with a built-in backdoor. That doesn’t legally prevent you, as the user / owner, from removing the backdoor.
Although I am saying that without having looked at the Backdoor Bill as noone has linked to it so far.
It would be difficult for the government to tell whether your device does or does not have the mandated backdoor, particularly remotely. A backdoor into a virtual environment could give all the appearances of a backdoor but without exposing any private data. However that is all academic for numpties (myself included) who use Apple / Google phones where you will get all the backdoors that they want you to have.
That means https and TLS too, right? I can’t imagine that would fly with the rest of the world. Though I suppose that just means American firmware will be hobbled in this way.
As a representative of the rest of the world, I can confirm that: it will not fly.
The whole idea is ridiculous. Trying to ban encryption is almost like banning eating or breathing or something like that. People want to encrypt things, they need it, and they will do it. It’s not the kind of thing you can reasonably legislate against.
Though, technically, its not banning encryption per se. Its rendering it useless against the American government. But only for hardware used in the US, because if there’s anyone a government can’t trust, it’s its own people.
useless against the American government and any other party who is able to utilise the mandatory backdoor, which could be foreign governments and criminal organisations etc., perhaps informed by (former) employees of the company who inserted the mandatory backdoor.
What is your price if you are that employee being offered squillions to help out with access to the backdoor?
I didn’t check specifically in the text of the bill but I expect that coughing up information will be a criminal offense but people commit criminal offenses every day for the “wrong” reasons.
this is basically saying "if you have sensitive information to disclose (directed at whistleblowers) then your free-speech is protected but you must know that we will find you and apply whatever treatment is necessary to dissuade you from exercising that right to it’s full potential.
basically a free-speech vasectomy of sorts … what good are words if they have no power ? or if they are not carrying a sufficiently powerful message … in the famous words of Russel Crowe in Gladiator “Are you NOT entertained ?”
The more likely scenario is that some version of the Lawful Access bill will be attached to a must pass bill as a rider.
Such as an Stimulus Two bill, or perhaps an increase to the debt ceiling bill.
Thing is AG Barr probably wants this Lawful Access Bill.
From what I read, the goal of the bill is for the government to have complete, unlimited access to the content on all my digital devices, (and cloud or other offsite internet storage) without a Warrant of any kind. Being able to get through the encryption tools is only one of the parts of this bill.
I suspect the one group which is predisposed to not passing this bill, will allow the rider to go through, hoping to retake both the Senate, Presidency, keep the house with enough votes to repeal it in the future. But a law once passed, is more difficult to remove.
If no other senators have expressed an opinion then I would make no assumption about how they view the bill or how they would vote.
Or the opposite … the one group which is predisposed to not passing this bill will allow the bill to go through so as not to damage their chances of retaking the Senate, the Presidency, and keeping the House by being wedged on this bill and being seen to be weak on “national security” … and after that it won’t be a priority to change anything.
The bill is not likely to even get a floor vote in the senate, because the tech giants have very effective lobbyists. Even if it somehow manages to pass the Senate, the Democrats control the House, and they do what Silicon Valley wants. The tech giants will make sure that this bill doesn’t get through the House.
I may not like Google and Apple, but this is one of those times when it is good to have Google and Apple on our side. The security state lobby simply doesn’t match the big tech lobby. Look at the market capitalization of Google and Apple. A powerful lobby is very effective at gridlocking Washington, so it does nothing.
Generally speaking, bad law should not be passed … rather than knowing that it is bad law, but passing it anyway and hoping to repeal or amend it in the future. Lots of things can go wrong with the latter strategy
e.g.
you don’t do well enough in the election to initiate the future repeal or amendment of the bill
you do do well enough but the supporters of the, by then, status quo are strong enough to block action
you do do well enough but your priorities as determined by the party as a whole lie elsewhere.
I know it’s a big ask but if a lawmaker thinks that it’s bad law then he or she should stand on principle, call it out for what it is, and vote against it.
If getting those passed required breaking encryption, I would vote against it for sure. Way more harm to come from having access to all information than a lack of money.
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind big airlines going under. I live 30 miles from an airport and it is just a constant rumble night and day. These last two months have been rather nice with outside sound levels below 50 dB. Besides, fewer planes in the air does wonders for air quality.
I would give it 50 years before all security and data privacy companies who care about users move to Norway and Switzerland.
edit: I am so happy I don’t live in the US of 1984. Instead live in Great Brit- oh wait…
Weakened version of ‘Earn It’ act reported out of committee on Thursday, 7-2-2020
A bit different than what we are posting on the ‘Lawful Access Bill.’
To get the kind of bills we are talking about here voted on, what could make it happen. Trump could call McConnell: "I am a law and order President. I want strong versions of the bills written by my friend Lindsay Graham out of committee and passed by the Senate.
It is the way the bill could be added to another bill, as a rider, that could make it law before the election.
ho ? if i were the sys-admin from my ISP i would look at the client connections and be like :
“look ! that guy and that guy and that guy etc. , etc. are all using a M$-OS - why don’t i briefly disconnect them from time to time ? so that they think about installing a free-software OS next time” ^-^
see ? sometimes manipulation has positive effects > now i am on GNU/Linux
> now i am on GNU/Linux 