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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: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 15 2016, @02:04AM
Techdirt [techdirt.com] points out this quote from a recent encryption debate:
"I think it would be reasonable to ban the import of open-source encryption software" -- US Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Barbara McQuade
...
Yeah.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 15 2016, @02:12AM
Seems sort of fitting. For a long time, the position of the US government was to put export restrictions in place to keep the strong stuff in the US and let everyone else (including bad guys) using the weak stuff. After finding out that didn't work, now they have an import restriction to keep the weak stuff in the US and let everyone else (including bad guys) use the strong stuff.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday April 15 2016, @11:54AM
...the position of the US government was to put export restrictions in place to keep the strong stuff in the US and let everyone else (including bad guys) using the weak stuff. After finding out that didn't work, now they have an import restriction to keep the weak stuff in the US and let everyone else (including bad guys) use the strong stuff
So Burr and Feinstein are like Doug and Dinsdale Pirhana [montypython.net] starting "The Other Operation"?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday April 15 2016, @02:49AM
Perhaps she understands that OpenSSH and LibreSSL are imported from Canada. [openbsdfoundation.org] Then again, perhaps Hanlon's razor applies.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Friday April 15 2016, @03:02AM
Big wall of USA coming soon to a tier-1 router near you? H1-B visas for Chinese consultants will skyrocket..
The normal approach is to assume that politicians are dumb. But then analyzing the system and gaming theory. Perhaps the clues are right there?
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Friday April 15 2016, @03:47PM
And it would also kind of be necessary to ban teaching of modern cryptosystems such as AES. And quite possibly even DES, because increasing key-size and going triple-des (or even beyond) will make it a PITA. Hell, even teaching XOR will become evil, because $ONE_TIME_PAD.