Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday that unless the U.S. government and private industry are able to come to a compromise on the issue of default encryption on consumer devices, legislation may be how the debate is ultimately decided.
"I think there should be [room for compromise]," Wray said Wednesday night at a national security conference in Aspen, Colorado. "I don't want to characterize private conversations we're having with people in the industry. We're not there yet for sure. And if we can't get there, there may be other remedies, like legislation, that would have to come to bear."
Wray described the issue of “Going Dark” because of encryption as a "significant" and "growing" problem for federal, state and local law enforcement as well as foreign law enforcement and intelligence agencies. He claims strong encryption on mobile phones keeps law enforcement from gaining access to key evidence as it relates to active criminal investigations.
Source: FBI director: Without compromise on encryption, legislation may be the 'remedy'
Related Stories
If the cops and Feds can't read people's encrypted messages, you will install backdoors for us, regardless of the security hit, US Attorney General William Barr has told the technology world.
While speaking today in New York, Barr demanded eavesdropping mechanisms be added to consumer-level software and devices, mechanisms that can be used by investigators to forcibly decrypt and pry into strongly end-to-end encrypted chats, emails, files, and calls. No ifs, no buts.
And while this will likely weaken secure data storage and communications – by introducing backdoors that hackers and spies, as well as the cops and FBI, can potentially leverage to snoop on folks – it will be a price worth paying. And, after all, what do you really need that encryption for? Your email and selfies?
"We are not talking about protecting the nation's nuclear launch codes," Barr told the International Conference on Cyber Security at Fordham University. "Nor are we necessarily talking about the customized encryption used by large business enterprises to protect their operations. We are talking about consumer products and services such as messaging, smart phones, email, and voice and data applications. There have been enough dogmatic pronouncements that lawful access simply cannot be done. It can be, and it must be."
Related: DOJ: Strong Encryption That We Don't Have Access to is "Unreasonable"
FBI Director Calls Encryption a "Major Public Safety Issue"
FBI Director: Without Compromise on Encryption, Legislation May be the 'Remedy'
Five Eyes Governments Get Even Tougher on Encryption
Australia Set to Pass Controversial Encryption Law
FBI: End-to-End Encryption Problem "Infects" Law Enforcement and Intelligence Community
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:48PM (23 children)
And take your incompetent team of Keystone Kops with you. What happened to doing old-fashioned police work, huh?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:36PM (5 children)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @11:45AM (3 children)
To be fair, they didn't. They lied to judges, picked up bribes from the local gangs and made up evidence when it suited them. Best example and proof is how when DNA evidences were introduced, civil rights groups reviewed capital punishment convictions only to discover the vast majority of them were wrong and went on to overturn them in the courts. That is, police officers would routinely beat up people to get confessions and testimonies to such a measure that the vast majority of inmates weren't lying when they were saying "I didn't do it".
What's changed is public awareness and technology. People are aware they can't trust people to provide eye witness testimonies on their behalf when the cops are willing to flat out lie and say otherwise so they record everything. And the tech companies are signing and encrypting all those records so cops deleting or modifying them will get caught. So, now when a judge and jury notices "misplaced" evidences, they immediately mistrial. The jury since they stopped trusting the cops. The judge since they don't want to risk their careers by involving themselves with a potential scandal.
However, all this is simply the background. The problem right now is organizational: The career path for a police officer aiming for an administrative position like a Department Chief typically goes through the detective ranks since normal police work is just not enough to get noticed and gain merits. And this is a huge problem since if a detective does his real work then their solve rates are abysmal. Like, 90% unsolved crimes. The real way criminals get caught is when a pawn shop broker calls the cops telling them someone keeps dropping off household items every weekend or when neighbors complain about the noise of the local chop shop stripping parts. The well networked detectives will have their buddies tip them off and their Chief assign them those cases so they'll build up their resumes. But the people that actually do their jobs and investigate stuff properly and legally that isn't cherry picked don't get promoted. Eventually, everyone at the top are either bootlickers politicos or serial evidence fabricators.
So, realizing the problem, we face an daunting realization: Cops shouldn't be promoted on merit but on seniority. Sure, some competence is required. But introducing competitiveness to an occupation that basically relies on procedural "ask questions, collect evidence, fill report and hope for the best" is the recipe for the corrupt police state we're living in.
p.s. And I didn't even get to talk about how officers and departments actively sabotage each other by deliberately submitting lacking reports and misplacing evidences...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @05:11PM (2 children)
Really?, let's look for some citations.
From the ACLU, https://www.aclu.org/other/dna-testing-and-death-penalty/ [aclu.org], 273 cases have been overturned duo to DNA evidence, 17 of them death row inmates. It would be great if 273 people were the vast majority of inmates in the US or that 17 people were the vast majority of death row inmates. But I'm afraid that kind of ridiculous exaggeration makes me distrust the vast majority of your post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @05:25PM (1 child)
Just to add (apparently your post hit a button on me this moring, go figure), according to wikipedia there are 2,706 death row inmates in the US. That's 0.6% (do not confuse with 60%, this is .006) of all death row inmates were overturned. While still disturbing, the phrase tiny, tiny minority seems to be a much better fit.
Hmm according to wiki again, in 2013, 2,220,300 were incarcerated, 273/2,220,300 ~ .0001, .01%, one percent of one percent, heh. While also disturbing, I'm not even sure that phrase tiny, tiny minority would be a good fit here.
I think the vast majority of your vision may be clouded by bias.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @06:20PM
Citation also needed for:
Pretty sure everyone from the judges, prosecutors, to the juries places a lot of faith in what cops have to say, even if they are lying through their teeth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @06:29PM
In all fairness, mobile phones and computers also increase the ability for criminals to communicate and store info. The Police did hove phone taps before. They were able to get warrants for searching/reading paper documents before (opening safes, etc.). They were able to bug person to person conversations before. Encryption does affect the police's ability to phone tap and access documents (although, to a lesser extent, mobile phones do make it easier to bug person to person conversations).
I'm not sure what the right answer is, but encryption is a change for the police.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @09:38PM
He should also take the lobbying firms (and whoever hired them) that keep planting these ideas with him while he's at it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday July 22 2018, @10:57PM (12 children)
I wouldn't worry too much about this, as it has played out before, in the Crypto Wars of the 1990's, which had the US military trying and failing to ban the export of strong encryption.
The problem for the people trying to stuff the genie back into the bottle, is that encryption is basically maths, and nobody has the monopoly on maths.
Legislation is not only not the answer, it is an admission that they've lost the war (again).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by https on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:27PM
Fuck that. The only reason crypto isn't outlawed outright now in the US is because people did worry about it. The bastards are relentless. Step zero in fighting back against the malice and idiocy is worrying about it.
Weak crypto means they can take your money and claim (with legal, not mathematical, definitions of proof) that you are the one who spent it. Or that you have a lolita comple^W^W^W are a pedophile. Or were planning to bomb city hall at 12:30. Worry is 100% a reasonable reaction.
Sure, this has played out before. But if you don't worry about it... it will play out differently. THEY ONLY HAVE TO WIN ONCE.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:57PM (6 children)
I don't understand what "compromise" might be. Will 0 suddenly = 0.00000000001 and 1 = 1.1? What IS a compromise in math? For as long as mankind has understood mathematical concepts, 1 has been 1, 2 has been 2, etc. It seems that maybe some early cultures may not have grasped the zero, but still, zero has been zero ever since it was discovered. So, how does one compromise on any of that?
(Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Monday July 23 2018, @12:17AM (2 children)
To compromise encryption means simply "~ to render it non-working" which sets a much, much lower bar.
You could limit any encryption to 8 or 16 bits, or if that's too hard, allow only the use of ROT13, or any other mathematical trickery you can think of that will make easily reversible scrambling possible, but encryption impossible.
Since people whose area of knowledge isn't encryption (i.e. almost everyone) might think that "compromise" is a friendly, happy, constructive, and encouraging thing, not knowing its meaning within that sphere, Wray seems to be looking for sympathy in a manipulative way, while plainly demanding an end to encryption.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday July 23 2018, @03:28AM (1 child)
Exactly. Wray is full of bull pucky. Either strong encryption is possible, or it is not possible. Either everyone can communicate securely, or no one can. There's no compromise in which some people can communicate securely, and the rest can't.
It's this kind of failure to comprehend reality plus the arrogance to think that they do get it, that has the tech world convinced that the legal world is and always will be clueless. Admittedly, Wray is part of the Trump administration, which is noted for their severe affliction with the Dunning-Kruger effect. But there have been many examples from the legal world unconnected with the current administration that show their incompetence. They don't get it about copyright and software patents either. Then there's the excessively harsh punishments for hacking, which I take to be cowardice. They're so skeered of haxxors they crap themselves, then go on witch hunts.
Then you have downright stupid court cases such as the one about the innocent American citizen on America's kill list for drones. And the petty abuses of the legal system to pervert and corrupt it into a money grab, with, for example the red light camera tickets and the parking meter tickets. Justice is most definitely not blind to money, and it should be. The super rich behind the 2008 market collapse walk away with a fine that would be impossible for anyone in the 99% to pay, but for them it is a light wrist slap, while petty criminals with dark skins get ten years for shoplifting $2 worth of goods.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @07:42PM
Aside from all the other nonsense in your post, let's be clear about one thing: Wray's affiliation with Trump has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the FBI wanting to break/outlaw/backdoor encryption.
That's been a consistent wishlist item for them for decades.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Monday July 23 2018, @01:18AM
The 'concept' of zero has been the same, but the reality of it keeps changing as our technology and ability to measure gets better. Eventually we may come to discover that zero really is only a concept and never a physical reality, but who know, Shirly says not I.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Monday July 23 2018, @02:16AM (1 child)
"What IS a compromise in math?"
2+2=5
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday July 23 2018, @08:31AM
Or the Inidiana Pi Bill [wikipedia.org]?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by requerdanos on Monday July 23 2018, @12:09AM
Well, maybe.
"It shall be henceforth required that Wray and his FBI buddies keep their fat fingers off encrypted devices existing within or owned by persons within the United States of America, and instead be required to protect the rights of each individual resident of or visitor to the United States. Wray or any of his FBI or other LEO/TLA buddies found guilty of not working diligently to protect the civil rights of each individual shall be guilty of one count each of violation of the said individual's civil rights, with the penalty not to exceed life imprisonment upon a single count."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday July 23 2018, @04:00PM
Sort of. Except that trying to conceal knowledge is generally not possible, and impossible after it has been publicly shared.
But it is not possible to regulate and criminalize the use of knowledge.
The strategy will be that anyone wanting to use encryption electronically will either use a pre-approved (read:backdoored) product, or that the use of non-approved encryption products becomes a criminal offense in and of itself. It will be worded in a way that makes in constitutionally defensible - you have a constitutional right to free speech and to not self-incriminate but you have no right to freely encrypt that speech nor to avoid divulging keys in the face of a warrant. The law will enshrine that.
This is the FBI saying that if "industry" doesn't roll along with developing a product that can be backdoored the legislation will be still harder on the corporations and there will be a regulator which develops the standards used instead of letting industry set their own (with the approval of TPTB).
You individual users don't count or have a say.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:31AM (1 child)
I dearly wish I could have a monopoly on English however, if only to sentence you to a slapping. "Maths" is not a word. "Mathematics" is not plural. There is no such thing as a "mathematic". "Mathematics" is a non countable abstract concept, of which the abbreviated form is "math", just like "physics" is a non countable abstract concept, for which there is no singular form "physic".
Yes, language is dynamic. If enough people use "maths", then it will enter the official lexicon. But dammit, I'm going to fight it all the way there.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:57AM
Sorry mate.
The English I speak has always had it as maths, not math.
You will just have to accept it as one of the limitations of being a colonial.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @01:18AM
Think old fashioned "police work" was better? [youtube.com]
Full 1hr interview. [youtube.com] This is one of the issues where everyone should find common ground (humanity). Youtube is the forum where the long-form, bi-partisan intellectual debate is happening. Everyone is against abuses of power -- synthesis through dialectic. It's painful that some of the brightest commenters here have to be walked through current talking points that existed on the old left before the modern right. The corrective gestalt will eject the radicals.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 23 2018, @02:30AM (1 child)
I'm a traditionalist. With putters, with many things -- I absolutely hate those long putters. And it sounds like you are too. Because you say, "oh, do it the old fashioned way!" But the world is changing all around us. With the websites, with the cyber, with the cellphones, with the digital.
Many crooks use guns in their horrible crimes, as everybody knows. Look what happened in Los Angeles last night. Can you imagine, somebody gets shot. And you're saying, "oh, don't look at the bullet!" Our Law Enforcement has guys that are very gun-adept. Forensic scientologists. They can just look at a bullet and they know what kind of gun it came from. They take one look, they say, "oh, this is .22 caliber!" Or .45 caliber. And much more. They know. And that can help A LOT in the investigation. Or in court.
Cellphone, same thing. Many crooks use cellphone in their crimes. And our Law Enforcement has guys that can look at the cellphone. And get a lot of info from that. They use modern cyber. Because the crooks are using modern cyber. Including, unfortunately, encryption. We have the cyber to get past encryption. But it's not easy. It needs to be easy. And that's all Chris is asking for. Make it very easy. It's called Responsible Encryption. They had it in France, it worked very well. They stopped it, they had Charlie Hebdo. They had Bataclan. They had Nice, the truck attack in Nice. Big mistake! Responsible Encryption means less work for our Law Enforcement. And that means BIG SAVINGS for our taxpayers!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @06:13AM
Kinda funny this call for weak encryption. Its either ENCRYPTED, or its OBFUSCATED.
If genuinely encrypted, only the parties in the communication are privy to it.
If its just obfuscated, anyone with a de-obfuscator can tap in. Its just a bathroom lock. Nothing more. Nothing less. Its just a courtesy thing so someone does not walk in on someone else doing his private business. If anyone wants to be an ass about it, they can always use a paper-clip to get in. Damn near everyone knows how.
With governments crying about having weak encryption, could anyone tell me why the government was so pissed over Snowden? I mean, privacy isn't all that important is it?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:53PM (2 children)
The technical know-how amassed in the US Congress and current administration could fit inside a thimble, with enough room left over for a leprechaun's dick.
Their ability to write this type of legislation is at or near zero.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @09:43PM
FTFY
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:48PM
A drunk man is in the bathroom at a bar. At the urinal next to his is a Leprechaun. The Leprechaun has a massively huge dick, the guy asks "Hey how did you get your dick so big?". The Leprechaun says, "I'm a Leprechaun, I can have whatever I want.". Pressing, the man says, "How could I make mine that large?". The Leprechaun replies, "If you let me put my magic dick up your ass you will wake up tomorrow with a huge dick.". Reluctantly the man says ok go ahead and he bends over. After a few minutes of vigorous butt sex the Leprechaun leans over and whispers in the man's ear, "How old are you?". The man replies, "I'm 34.". Laughing the Leprechaun replies, "34, and you still believe in Leprechauns?!".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:57PM
Dear FBI
Encryption is not how we protect us from you. It is how we protect ourselves from the very people you are supposed to arrest and charge with crimes. You can not always do that due to your jurisdiction boundaries, time, and budget. We the people need encryption to protect ourselves. That it makes your job hard I am sorry for. But guess what I do not care about that. I care to protect my family and friend though. These silly ideas make it harder.
Let me quote the law which you and I are beholden to. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Basically get a warrant and even that will not always work as the next one (5th) says.
These are the very tools we the people use to protect ourselves from thieves. You can not be everywhere at once. You can pretend and gaslight us into thinking you can. But you can not we are all very aware of it. A device with a backdoor is just a device waiting for someone to hack and make my life miserable. These are the very tools that have allowed new industries to come into being. To cripple them with silly ideas like backdoors and weaking is foolhardy and does not help. Security is a process that takes a lot of work. To cripple it makes the world a worse place.
Thank you,
The Internet
(Score: 5, Informative) by srobert on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:59PM (1 child)
"He claims strong encryption on mobile phones keeps law enforcement from gaining access to key evidence as it relates to active criminal investigations."
I'm sure it does. And you know what else keeps law enforcement from gaining access to evidence? The Fourth Amendment. If the Constitution were being written today, these fascist bastards would make sure that wasn't part of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @04:56PM
this is the crux of the issue. these people are enemies of the people and should all be brought up on charges of sedition and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. the fact that they are not, should serve as a warning to real americans everywhere.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by legont on Sunday July 22 2018, @10:27PM (15 children)
I was reading about Trump visiting Finland and noticed that 2000 police were guarding him. The article said the whole Finland has 7000. It looked low so I checked around.
Finland has 5.5 million dwellers. http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/finland-population/ [worldpopulationreview.com]
Just across the border there is second largest Russia's city of St Petersburg. Its official population is 5.2 million with another 1.7 in the area say 7 millions total. Their total police force, to my surprise, came to 9000 employees (not officers, but total labour force) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg_Police [wikipedia.org]
Population numbers are subject to controvercy (as there are different estimates and 1-2 million illegals in St Petersburg) but it appears that the "evil police state" of Russia has similar and probably fewer police that Finland.
Checking my hometown of New York, which has 8.5 million people, there are 40,000 police officers (who knows how many employees) in the NY City department alone plus another 10-15,000 of special police such as school police and so on.
The US, at least as represented by the liberal nest of NY, is at least 5 times more police state than Russia.
There will be blood.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @10:57PM (2 children)
Do the Russian police actually solve crimes?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 23 2018, @12:07AM (1 child)
Probably. And, they probably fail to solve some crimes. The question is, how important is is to solve every crime? Your answer to that question is probably a good indication of your willingness to live in a police state.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @07:53AM
The answer is "sometimes". They have a strong "thief must be in prison" mentality, so if they they think you are guilty you are fucked (unless you have connections higher up), evidence be damned. They'll torture you if they have to, or maybe even if they don't. Plus, they have to appease a god of statistics who says that they must always solve more crimes every year, which generally translates to "fabricate some evidence", "provoke something that can be used to hang someone on", or just surf around VKontakte for "extremist" content.
(Score: 5, Informative) by richtopia on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:03PM (4 children)
Here is the table you want:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_number_of_police_officers [wikipedia.org]
Finland has one of the lowest Police : Population ratios in the world, and the lowest for western nations (132 police/100k people). According to the table, the USA is relatively average as the 54th lowest ratio and 284 police/100k people.
(Score: 3, Informative) by legont on Monday July 23 2018, @01:12AM (3 children)
Something is wrong with this table at least as the US is concerned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Police_Department [wikipedia.org]
50,000 not counting civilians. 50*284 = 14.2 million people.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 23 2018, @02:41AM
It's a table of Countries. But New York City isn't a Country -- believe me, I know because I'm from New York. Although it's richer than Russia -- and almost as rich as South Korea!!!
(Score: 5, Informative) by schad on Monday July 23 2018, @02:46AM (1 child)
What's wrong with it? All you've shown is that NYC has a higher-than-average (for the country as a whole) ratio of cops to citizens (about 581).
For your reference, here are cops per 100k citizens for some major cities:
There are the five (including NYC at #1) largest PDs in the US. So it would seem that you have, perhaps unintentionally, cherry-picked the large city with the worst (from your perspective) ratio. The average for nos. 2 through 5 is 322, not too far from the overall US average from the WP list cited by GP of 284. And since the top 5 given here is by size of the PD, you'd expect the "winners" to have worse ratios. For example, Phoenix is the 5th-largest US city, and Philly is actually the 6th-largest. So you know that Phoenix has a ratio far lower than Philly. I also spot-checked a few other US cities -- not included above because I didn't bother writing down my results -- and found this to be fairly consistent.
In short, NYC is a massive outlier. It is not the norm.
Gotta say, though, NYC has one of the better (i.e. lower) crime rates of major US cities. At least they're getting some bang, as it were, for their buck.
(Score: 1, Troll) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 23 2018, @05:37PM
Wow, our Russia fans here will mod up anything even remotely positive towards Russia regardless of how blatantly counter-factual it is.
(Score: 1) by noneof_theabove on Monday July 23 2018, @01:20AM (1 child)
Everyone forgot the most important.
1) no private guns
2) only the KGB can kill people, with or with out political affiliation.
3) do a crime and get caught and sentenced, your address changes to SumwharButNowhar, Siberia.
4) internet crimes are for the other countries not their own.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday July 23 2018, @02:22AM
So many Americans think only Americans have guns.
Finland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Finland [wikipedia.org] (TLDR: 12% of the population including pistols, rifles, and semi-automatic firearms).
Russia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_gun_laws_by_nation#Russia [wikipedia.org] (Sounds like NJ or CA, or how those states want to be in five years' time).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @01:22AM
Great. Now count in the secret police and domestic spies in Russia too. And compare police powers too.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday July 23 2018, @06:26AM (1 child)
The majority of police in America are full time toll collectors.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @05:06PM
it's worse than toll collectors. they kidnap and imprison people (destroying whole neighborhoods) just so they can steal their stuff. they are thieves, plain and simple. sometimes they do a little raping to look for plants that aren't any of their goddamn business, but they are criminals and enemies of freedom so what do they care about the constitution. all they understand is force and power and who they think is predator and prey. time to teach them the proper relationship of the police and the people.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday July 23 2018, @09:08AM (1 child)
And the winner is... Vatican City! Praise the Lord
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-most-police-officers-per-capita.html [worldatlas.com]
Full list here:
http://www.gutenberg.us/articles/list_of_countries_by_number_of_police_officers [gutenberg.us]
US comes out lower than many other major nations,
US 256 per 100k
UK 307 per 100k
Germany 298 per 100k
France 356 per 100k
Russia 546 per 100k
China 120 per 100k
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday July 24 2018, @01:37AM
I checked the wiki's references.
Let me point out that statistics from those tables are really wrong for Russia and at least some of Asian countries. The document referenced from wiki is about the total number of employees of the internal affairs department. This department, in addition to police officers, has education facilities starting from kindergarten for all employee's families. It has scientific research centers, including basic research. It has full service medical division enough for all the employees and for some privileged outsiders. It has recreational facilities.
When a Russian police officer takes a vacation he goes to a police owned spa hotel where he gets police doctors medical care, food preprepared by police employees, and massages from a girl employed by the police. All of them are counted in the numbers quoted.
The real number of police officers are way closer to what I mentioned initially and likely lower than Finland's.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by crafoo on Sunday July 22 2018, @10:39PM (1 child)
Guys guys, we can find a compromise here. Our government simply wants Carte Blanche to violate the 4th amendment at will. It's really not too much to ask, is it? Come on guys, you aren't even really using it. Besides, if you needed it, it's probably because you have something to hide and are a criminal. People, please. Your rights are making it difficult for us to subjugate you. Freedom is very inconvenient to our law enforcement efforts. The FBI and CIA are on the up-and-up. 100% respectable and honourable fellows. Why are you complaining while we violate your rights? Let me see your phone citizen. I bet you've been up to no good.
(Score: 5, Funny) by takyon on Sunday July 22 2018, @10:44PM
"I don't have a cell phone."
"You're under arrest for suspicious activity."
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:02PM (1 child)
Please, by all means legislate mandatory backdoors in US-produced encryption. This might just be the wakeup call the rest of the world needs to finally turn their backs on US IT products, as it seems the Snowden revelations haven't been enough.
While you're at it, just outlaw this whole annoying encryption thing altogether. This might just be the wakeup call your citizens need to finally start pushing back against the monstrous surveillance kraken your government and Silly Valley tech corps inflicted on humanity.
Signed,
the rest of the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @05:12PM
i wish they would too b/c i won't stop using real encryption and it will create a nice black market for people like me to operate in. stupid pigs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:09PM (2 children)
It will be the old argument ' if you have nothing to hide', and we will go back to having encryption declared a munition, and you have to have government approval to distribute it and regulate its basic use. ( and of course if you dont provide the governmental backdoor, it wont get approved ).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:20PM (1 child)
And then banks and other businesses will scream as their systems are hacked every other Wednesday since their government approved encryption keeps getting hacked.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 23 2018, @12:19AM
Alright, you get every other Wednesday. When we negotiated these things, I got every second Thursday. I guess you had better lobbyists than I did.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by requerdanos on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:50PM (3 children)
And it might sound very reasonable for him to say such a thing; after all, compromise is good and noble and right and just. Right?
Not so fast.
With respect to disagreements, compromise means working together towards the middle ground.
But with respect to encryption, compromise means completely and utterly defeat the encryption--the opposite meaning.
Any compromise on encryption, any position except "allow and vigorously protect strong encryption", is the complete and utter defeat of encryption because anything less than state-of-the-art strong encryption is not encryption at all, but merely storing something in an inconvenient but completely retrievable format.
Wray, and those who think that "law enforcement" status means someone should be able to break the rules all they want while wearing an ironic "good guy" hat, is full of something that you would hold your nose if you had to clean it off your shoes after stepping in it. No thanks.
Support strong, uncompromised encryption, the only kind that works for anything. In the United States, encryption seals the crossroads between the fourth (no unreasonable search/seizure) and fifth (right not to self-incriminate) amendments. Without it, these federal legal protections are (even more) meaningless.
I believe in them; I believe in my rights being protected; I believe in jackasses like Wray being legally obligated to protect my rights. They clearly, as TFA demonstrates, wouldn't stand up for your rights and mine unless required to.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Monday July 23 2018, @12:19AM (2 children)
Wray and his predecessors talk about compromise because they don't have the leverage. Businesses don't want an encryption ban/circumvention/backdoor law. Congress apparently doesn't want it either, because they haven't passed one yet. The FBI would love to shame companies into submission, but that didn't really work with Apple. So they are having chats and "thinking" out loud at conferences.
Enforcing a law will be difficult. Probably anyone who wants to securely* communicate with each other using encryption or encrypt their file system will continue to do so, but if you get caught in relation to other computer crimes, they will just have another charge to throw at you along with the rest of the book.
The summary implies that the FBI is trying to convince the major tech companies to voluntarily backdoor. That could probably work, but people can be moved to other services or manually encrypt. Although many users are stupid, you might be surprised at what they are capable of if you give them a little help. Package end-to-end encrypted communications in a convenient app not hosted on Google Play, or on a web site, or desktop application, and people will show interest in it. Actual terrorists, anarchists, and other misfits who really need secure communications will probably do a little more research to get what they need (or they might be naturally selected by an American drone [soylentnews.org]). In the end, FBI will probably still seek a ban.
As far as encrypted phones go, there may be a sweet spot for the hardware/software version where it is apparently not vulnerable to the FBI (like older models such as iPhone 5C are) but it can't be updated to remove encryption capabilities (think of all those phones that only receive updates for a year or two). The longer this encryption war gets waged, more people will have access to "full disk" encrypted phones. And if a ban happens or major manufacturers like Samsung and Apple cave to pressure, you could try using a foreign phone (hmmmmm, maybe that's why intelligence agencies [soylentnews.org] don't want the likes of ZTE and Huawei to compete in the US market).
*To the extent that the software/encryption actually works (think Mujahedeen Secrets, which is said to be laughably insecure), and without other vulnerabilities in play (often undermining the Going Dark narrative). Quantum computing could also be breaking RSA soon, and you can bet that the NSA will be one of the first customers.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @03:00AM (1 child)
Swaying the business community then may be what the misogynerd narrative is all about. We'll see it again in full force the next time the D team is in power.
How many people in management positions understand that compromise and encryption are as compatible as a screen door on a submarine? None.
Discredit the professions who understand that compromised encryption is a screen door on a submarine, and management will overrule them,
just as easily as a janitor is overruled.
If hacks begin exploding, then we know who is really at fault: those incels who overcomplicate coding beyond a three week boot camp specifically to exclude women. The manly men in management won't listen to any more bullshit from the boys who can't get laid.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday July 23 2018, @09:11AM
Most large businesses have a Director of IT or similar who does know which end of a ssh tunnel is which, who can advise CEO/equivalent. CEO is probably reasonably switched on for most outfits.
(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 23 2018, @12:17AM (2 children)
Remember when that radical Islamic terrorist couple from Cal shot so many people? Apple wouldn't give Obama's FBI the security to that phone. I said, boycott all Apple products until they give that security number. A lot of folks did the boycott. But unfortunately it didn't work. I fired Comey for the terrible way he handled that. And I put in Chris -- terrific guy! But we must get much tougher. We need a law. So ALL the companies will give the cellphone info to authorities.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 23 2018, @12:21AM (1 child)
Let me help you with your faulty memory. When the cops finally broke into that phone, they DID NOT SOLVE ANY CRIME. The phone was not critical to figuring out who did what, when, where, or why. The phone only offered up a few minor details. Had the phone never been cracked, nothing would have changed.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 23 2018, @01:34AM
They didn't solve it, possibly that's true. And I think they're still working on that one. But the cellphone can be so important, it's called EVIDENCE. And possibly you're saying, cellphone info isn't important. That it can't help our Law Enforcement. Because it didn't help that one time -- when, as I said, there was TREMENDOUS OBSTRUCTION by Apple. And maybe without the obstruction, even the horribly incompetent Obama FBI would have solved that one. Because they would have had the info much quicker. And the crooks would have had much less time to get away.
Al Capone's Vault, do you remember that one? Brilliant TV (thank you, Geraldo). But a little disappointing at the end. Al Capone, very famous crook -- one of the biggest until Hillary came along. They opened up his vault, not a lot in there. Because the crooks had plenty of time -- more than 50 years. They cleaned it up. And no crimes were solved. But if Geraldo came in the 1920s, 1930s, possibly he would find something fabulous in there. That's how it is with the encryption. We can get the encryption info. But it takes a long time. If we have the security info, much faster. So we can get something done!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by exaeta on Monday July 23 2018, @12:17AM (2 children)
We must not allow the government to destroy our civil liberties. There is no justification for allowing encryption backdoors. I don't think they are constitutional, given that encryption backdoors are a form of self incrimination because it suggests that you are required to hand your communications over to the government. The government doesn't have that authority. Any attempt to take it is tyranny. And we should remove any politician who would attempt passing such unconstitutional legislation.
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @12:42AM (1 child)
Don't like it? Then move to Liberia and live with all the other libertarians, but don't come crying to us when the terrorists rape your children.
(Score: 2, Touché) by exaeta on Tuesday July 24 2018, @06:19PM
Because our current system, which is not currently filled with terrorists attacking us, will soon be filled with terrorists UNLESS we ban encryption right away!!!!1!!!1!!one!!
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mendax on Monday July 23 2018, @12:50AM (6 children)
When will these law enforcement fucks ever understand that the genie is out of the bottle, that strong encryption is here to stay and that it's not going away, even if it is made illegal. Furthermore, there is something else that these dumb fucks need to understand: In the United States, anonymous communications is a First Amendment right. These cock suckers be able to somehow make an encrypted phone illegal (even though it will only mean the bad guys will have the encrypted phones), but they will never be able to effectively legislate away the right to anonymous communications.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @12:52AM
Let's see if you feel the same way when they apply 120 volts to your testicles, terrorist scumbag.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 23 2018, @01:25AM (4 children)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/10/31/a-setback-for-first-amendment-protection-for-anonymous-speech/ [washingtonpost.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Anonymous_speech [wikipedia.org]
The text doesn't explicitly mention anonymity. All it takes is a few Supreme Court decisions to erase that "right". Have all the free speech you want, as long as we can identify you!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by mendax on Monday July 23 2018, @05:59AM (1 child)
Okay, granted that its not explicitly engrained in the First Amendment, but Talley v. California and McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (both mentioned in the Wikipedia article you mentioned) are the settled precedents. I suspect it is unlikely for even a conservative Supreme Court to overturn those.
The case cited in that Washington Post article deals with Illinois law. A similar law was tossed [eff.org] by the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 23 2018, @11:57AM
Wishful thinking.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @08:57AM (1 child)
Nor does it need to, since it's logically implied. Restricting anonymous speech necessarily restricts speech, via chilling effects and because the anonymity is actually part of the speech.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 23 2018, @12:05PM
Here's the new logic. You are free to speak whatever you want, but you aren't free to hide your identity. Your identity has nothing to do with the contents of your speech/writing. Better yet, your requests (metadata) to and from your ISP and web servers have nothing to do with your speech.
The Constitution means whatever the Supreme Court decides it means in the latest case. Precedents can and will be crushed by the Supreme Court.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @01:01AM
Hopefully history will say that
The early days of the Internet gave government an unprecedented flash of visibility into the everyday lives of the citizens.
Although government resisted, ultimately this flash went dark.
It was judged that human nature made a government with this visibility incompatible with the Constitution.
The result was not perfect, but it did permit the essence of the Republic to continue.
(Score: 1) by noneof_theabove on Monday July 23 2018, @01:23AM
They can kill my Private Internate Access [.com] when Wray goes over to AhShit Pie and replaces his tonsils with is balls.
NO ONE HAS A RIGHT TO MY INFORMATION especially my ISP, Google, Amazon, etc. PERIOD. FULL STOP. END OF CONVERSATION ! !
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday July 23 2018, @10:54AM (1 child)
Perhaps those more au courant with the state of the art in cryptography can chime in, but doesn't the federal government have the resources to brute force the encryption on targeted suspects they have properly obtained warrants for? Let's assume that we're talking about honestly encrypted, not fake-encrypted using compromised software or hardware.
Yes, they probably don't have the resources to mass-decrypt everyone's communications, properly encrypted, but then they're not supposed to be doing that anyway.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @05:39PM
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/79319/brute-forcing-luks-full-disk-encryption-time [stackexchange.com]