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The same government that is fighting against the use of encryption by its citizens has approved use of Silent Circle's app, which allows users to make end-to-end encrypted phone calls from iPhones, iPads, and Android devices:
The certification follows other major software makers, including BlackBerry and Apple, whose software is also allowed to be used for low-level secure work.
[...] The certification may benefit users in government, but it's the same administration that's spent the past year fighting Silicon Valley against encryption.
Some have called for backdoors to be put in encryption, despite calls from the security and academic community saying it would defeat the very point of scrambled data. Others have called on greater cooperation between the US government and tech companies.
Irony much?
Related: Blackphone V2
Security-Conscious Blackphone Found to Have Basic SMS Vulnerability
Silent Circle Blackphone - Out in June for $630 US
(Score: 1, Troll) by Wootery on Thursday December 17 2015, @01:46AM
Not as I do.
In certain instances, I'm entirely ok with governments doing that, such as with gun laws. But crypto? No.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Thursday December 17 2015, @02:01AM
Time to encrypt our 3d printed gun designs!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @03:04AM
such as with gun laws. But crypto? No.
Let them take the guns, you're powerless to prevent them from outlawing crypto. The 2nd amendment protects the 1st.
Furthermore, Crypto is regulated under the same specs as Munitions. That's fine with me that I have to contact NSA and jump through hoops to write encryption software as manufacture munitions. However, the 2nd amendment should then apply. We should have the right to keep and bear technology, because that's all guns and crypto are. The 2nd's scope only covers weapons, but all technology can be "weaponized". For instance: I can kill you with several variety of fish... From sword fish to puffer fish.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday December 17 2015, @03:18AM
Let them take the guns, you're powerless to prevent them from outlawing crypto.
Unconstitutional mass surveillance is occurring right now. The government is violating the constitution in countless other ways, as well. This is happening even though so many ordinary people have guns in this country. Why are they not stopping it?
I am opposed to gun control, but lots of people who are also opposed to gun control only seem to care about the second amendment. When the government violates other parts of the constitution, they do not care much. This is particularly evident when it comes to Republicans.
That's fine with me that I have to contact NSA and jump through hoops to write encryption software as manufacture munitions.
Why would such an unconstitutional requirement ever be fine with you?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday December 17 2015, @04:13AM
but lots of people who are also opposed to gun control only seem to care about the second amendment. When the government violates other parts of the constitution, they do not care much.
I think you will find you are dead wrong about this.
The same people who oppose gun control also oppose just about every federal overreach.
Stop grandstanding. Either that or find a significant group opposed to gun control but which is all right with government reading your mail.
Other than the delusional bar fly, you won't find any.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday December 17 2015, @04:27AM
I think you will find you are dead wrong about this.
I have not noticed a significant correlation between support for gun rights and support for freedom in general.
Either that or find a significant group opposed to gun control but which is all right with government reading your mail.
Lots of Republicans are exactly like that. Is that just a myth, or are they all merely delusional bar flies?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 17 2015, @04:46AM
They've got nothing to hide.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday December 17 2015, @07:27AM
They hid frojack. I wonder why? Does frojack have a backdoor?
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday December 17 2015, @08:32AM
Anyone gets taken away must have had it coming!
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @03:18AM
Are you really sure handguns and rifles will protect you from tanks and ABC weapons?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @01:51PM
The antis are out in full force this morning. If you aren't paying attention, this is their plausibility argument against self-defense: Nobody will bear arms against the government and win.
Well here you go: Are you sure that the government, with their infinite resources, won't break your personal encryption? They gave us AES-256 and Tor. Do you want to play this game? Do you thick that they won't use their infinite resources to draw up a charge against you and then break you so that you reveal your password?
Your flawed argument against personal self defense can also be used to restrict personal use of encryption.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 18 2015, @04:34AM
The argument isn't, "You won't be able to win a war against the government simply with weapons civilians are capable of getting their hands on, so we should ban guns." The argument from gun control proponents is usually that guns generally are not all that useful for self-defense in practice, having this many people with this many guns leaves many more people dead than would otherwise be if we had stricter gun control, and finally that having all these weapons wouldn't enable you to defeat the government. In other words, they say that lax gun control laws have too few pros and too many cons to be justifiable. You have pretended like their only argument for having stricter gun control is that having little to no gun control isn't effective at preventing tyranny, which is dishonest.
As for encryption, the situation is simply not comparable. Sure, it's possible to break even the strongest encryption with current hardware, but it would take such a long time that it's simply not feasible. Not even the government has unlimited resources; there's simply no such thing. Furthermore, they have lots of encryption they want to crack, so succeeding in doing so a few times wouldn't be enough for them. And sure, maybe our capabilities will improve and encryption that was once practically uncrackable will become more easily crackable, but even then the encryption can be useful in making *mass* surveillance more difficult.
I would say that it's less likely for you to be able to win a war against the government using civilian firearms than it is for people to secure themselves using encryption that's good enough for their purposes.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday December 18 2015, @08:56PM
Let them take the guns, you're powerless to prevent them from outlawing crypto. The 2nd amendment protects the 1st.
Except this kind of pro-revolution thinking is irrelevant. We're not talking about a government running riot against the will of the people.
Few people seem to mind being spied on. It's not important enough to them to vote the problem away. Arming everyone wouldn't help.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday December 19 2015, @09:12PM
Few people seem to mind these kinds of privacy violations, but more people mind something like stop-and-frisk, especially if you talk about the racist aspect of it. The thing about this type of constitutional violation is that it's less in-your-face; if your private data is being collected and stored in some location so that the government can potentially make use of it, that has no tangible effect on you even if it threatens our constitutional form of government and democracy itself. Humans tend to be bad at long-term thinking (which is further evident when you look at how people vote), so if all we have to point to is some indirect threat to democracy that doesn't seem like it will do major damage in the short-term, it's going to be tough to mobilize people.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Saturday December 19 2015, @10:17PM
A sound analysis. Can't fault any of that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @04:05AM
> Do as I say
> Not as I do.
It is almost as if the government is made up of hundreds of thousands of different individuals with different motivations and interests that range from tightly coupled to in opposition. Who let that happen?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 21 2015, @08:01PM
Do you really think that the people spouting the "there should be backdoors in encryption" nonsense actually think that should apply to government communications? Really?!
Yes the government is made up of lots of people with different viewpoints, but that isn't really an argument against those calling for backdoors in encryption being hypocrites.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @04:07AM
There is no difference between protecting yourself with one dangerous technology and protecting yourself with another dangerous technology.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @05:05AM
The important thing is not leave them on the kitchen counter in reach of the kids. Heaven forbid that your 5 year old find that copy of PGP.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @05:10AM
Copy of PGP on a counter? Okay grandpa its past your bedtime.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @01:43PM
Oh yeah, the "Think of the kids!" argument. I honestly didn't see that coming. Well here you go: paedophiles use encryption to perpetuate abuse against children, therefore it must be banned.
Do you see the slippery slope of your argument for government monopoly on technologies? Government shouldn't be the only ones with the right to self defense, and they shouldn't be the only ones with backdoor free encryption.
Your move.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @02:18PM
He doesn't care. Authoritarians know they are right and no one has ever been able to convince them otherwise. From Caesars, to Tsars, to modern mini-fascists, they are all the same. They take what isn't theirs and ban what they don't use until there is nothing left but concrete walls, snitching neighbors, and we are all prisoners to their obviously correct way of living.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday December 18 2015, @04:47AM
I would not describe encryption as "dangerous". Encryption may sometimes shield people who do things that are actually harmful, but the act of encrypting data is not itself harmful.
Well here you go: paedophiles use encryption to perpetuate abuse against children
If someone is abusing children, then maybe more specific terms like "child molester" could be used. The real point of your example has not been lost on me, but I can't help but comment on the terminology being used when I see real people use it this way all the time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 21 2015, @08:07PM
Quite, but encryption is dangerous in the same way that a bulletproof vest is dangerous. You can protect yourself with a bulletproof vest, but it is pretty fucking difficult to kill someone with one. In other words, despite the US governments claims that crypto is a "dangerous munition", it really isn't. Guns on the other hand really are dangerous.
(Score: 1) by Some call me Tim on Thursday December 17 2015, @05:15AM
I'm getting tired of this shit. California has most of the anti-gun laws on Obama's wish list (short of confiscation) and none of them make any difference at all in crime rates. The many of California's laws deal with cosmetics as in "OMG, it looks scary so we have to have a law against it". All the while, our state Senator Feinstien has declared all of our Veterans as being unfit to own firearms while she has armed guards 24/7. http://www.mrconservative.com/2013/03/6011-feinstein-says-veterans-mentally-ill-cant-own-guns/ [mrconservative.com] Yes it's a crappy website but it was one of the fist that came up in a search for Feinstien that wasn't a youtube link. That alone should tell you something.
Questioning science is how you do science!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @06:04AM
California has most of the anti-gun laws on Obama's wish list (short of confiscation) and none of them make any difference at all in crime rates.
On what basis do you make that claim? I think that we can agree you are rational person, correct?
So you must have good research to support your opinions. [citylab.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @02:37PM
That link, no only is irrelevant to "Obama's wishlist", but does not say what you think it does. Note that paper is not at all what you think it is nor what the writer of that news piece. They lumped 61% of all firearm fatalities being suicides in with the crime rate and called that authoritative. Then it moves on to utilizing subjective values for data analysis that just so happens to have an extremely high correlation with what they wanted to find. Finally switching bases to correlating the number of laws with the number of firearm related incidents as classified and defined by themselves.
They showed five major problems with their own study, any one of which makes the study invalid. This was a by-the-numbers grant-led research mission, which is probably why it was published publicly in JAMA instead of in a database.
The last line of the study has integrity:
I suggest you read it before showing your continuing ignorance on academic rigor, research process, and the current subject matter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @07:52AM
. California has most of the anti-gun laws on Obama's wish list (short of confiscation) and none of them make any difference at all in crime rates.
Um, that is not Obama's wish list, it is your neighbor's wish list. Besides, the most dangerous armed faction in California is the police. I remember a picture of a red brick wall shortly after the LA riots of some years ago, and spray-painted on the wall was "LAPD Rules!", pointing out, as one commentator did, that the LAPD is just the best paid, staffed, and armed gang in the City of Angels. And then there are several recent incidents. So yeah, Thanks Obama! For taking away Californian's guns.
But on the side, you better hide your guns. I recommend burying them, covered in grease and grease paper, just like WWI vintage, so that Obama can't find them. Same thing with all your ammo. Vacuum sealed drums, at least six feet down. Leave no traces of disturbance where you bury them, and for God's sake do not make any maps or record any GPS coordinates that will just help the gun-grabbers grab your guns. After a few years, even if the jackbooted neighbors interrogate you about where all your guns are, you honestly won't remember! That is the way to stay an armed and vigilant, and Alzheimerish, free citizen of the Great State that no longer has any Grizzlies alive in it.