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El Reg :
Analysis In the wake of the FBI's failed fight against Apple, Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) have introduced a draft bill that would effectively ban strong crypto.
The bill would require tech and communications companies to allow law enforcement with a court order to decrypt their customers' data. Last week a draft copy of the bill, dubbed the Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016, was leaked, but the new version is even worse than the discussion draft.
In the draft version, court orders could only be issued for a crime resulting in death or serious bodily harm, terrorism and espionage, crimes against minors, serious violent felonies or Federal drug crimes. In the final version, those caveats are gone, so any court order will allow the police to access the data they want.
The bill would apply to "device manufacturers, software manufacturers, electronic communication services, remote communication services, providers of wire or electronic communication services, providers of remote communication services, or any person who provides a product or method to facilitate a communication or to process or store data." That's a pretty wide net.
"No entity or individual is above the law," said Feinstein. "The bill we have drafted would simply provide that, if a court of law issues an order to render technical assistance or provide decrypted data, the company or individual would be required to do so.
"Today, terrorists and criminals are increasingly using encryption to foil law enforcement efforts, even in the face of a court order. We need strong encryption to protect personal data, but we also need to know when terrorists are plotting to kill Americans."
Idiots, I tell you, they're a pair of idiots.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 15 2016, @01:30AM
It will be like marijuana prohibition except more widely ignored.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 15 2016, @01:44AM
This is the post I came here to make. It is *possible* for the government to shut down all for-profit corporate production of encryption. It is simply *not possible* for government to end all encryption that fails to meet their "standards".
And, if they could? It would be the same old story we've seen with all other attempts at prohibition. Alcohol, guns, cannabis, hard drugs. Ultimately, if you are convicted of some crime, and you happened to use encryption, then you get a few extra months/years tacked on to your sentence.
Remember - there are no intelligence tests for politicians. Feinstein couldn't pass a test for dog catcher, or sewerage inspector, or much of anything else, is why she went into politics.
Alternative für Deutschland
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 15 2016, @03:44AM
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday April 15 2016, @05:23AM
I'm picturing a situation where it's like where particular communities store cinderblocks in their trunks to make them seem weighed down with drugs/guns/whatever, but we just constantly blast random garbage under the pretense of being some kind of encryption.
Good luck both proving that the /dev/urandom i'm blasting out is both encryption and have fun trying to decrypt it while you're at it.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday April 15 2016, @04:50PM
That actually was a technique used by bootleggers, send out two or more cars weighted down with innocuous loads to draw off the law. Then sending out the car with the real stuff right behind them.
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 15 2016, @07:30PM
good, they can drive the fees up on the products i sell. finally! use the profit for bullets...