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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday April 05 2020, @05:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the do-what-I-mean-not-what-I-meant dept.

While this is quasi related to the recent Zoom article on SN, this is mostly about attempting to outlaw End To End Encryption.

From TechDirt:
Senator Blumenthal Is Super Mad That Zoom Isn't Actually Offering The End To End Encryption His Law Will Outlaw

Richard Blumenthal has been attacking internet services he doesn't understand since before he was even a US Senator. It has carried over into his job as a Senator, and was abundantly obvious in his role as a co-sponsor for FOSTA. His hatred of the internet was on clear display during a hearing over FOSTA in which he flat out said that if smaller internet companies couldn't put in place the kind of infrastructure required to comply with FOSTA, that they should go out of business. Blumenthal's latest ridiculous bit of legislation lose your Section 230 protections. And while Blumenthal likes to pretend that the EARN IT Act doesn't target encryption, he also lied about FOSTA and insisted it had no impact on CDA 230 (which it directly amended).

But Blumenthal has now taken his ridiculousness up a notch. Following the (legitimately concerning) reports that the suddenly incredibly popular videoconferencing software Zoom was not actually providing end-to-end encrypted video chats (despite its marketing claims), Blumenthal decided to step in and play the hero sending an angry letter to the company, while linking to the Intercept's original story about Zoom's misleading claims about encryption:


Millions of Americans are now using @zoom_us to attend school, seek medical help, & socialize with their friends. Privacy & cybersecurity risks shouldn't be added to their list of worries. I'm calling for answers from Zoom on how it handles our private data. https://t.co/CEg1P3T3S1 pic.twitter.com/Vl9XyvxZjb

        — Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) March 31, 2020

So outlaw end to end encryption. When a company pretends to offer end to end encryption, but actually doesn't, then feign outrage over the lack of privacy; the privacy you want to deny everyone with your own legislation.

Are you confused yet?


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday April 05 2020, @07:30PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday April 05 2020, @07:30PM (#979466)

    he probably doesn't see himself as corrupt

    Very few people live in guilt, seeing themselves as corrupt. What's really astounding is when they take it to the next level and wonder why others perceive them as corrupt - when they're that far out of touch, it's time to bring out the guillotine.

    I worked directly for a CEO - he regularly hired consultants to tell him what was "acceptable behavior" - and he really was a pretty good guy, paid us market rates, paychecks never bounced, decent benefits, etc. However "acceptable behavior" included giving himself 5x the highest other annual pay in the company during good times, making loans to the company from his personal funds during hard times and charging upwards of 12% APR on the loans, handing out "restricted stock deals" to the employees where the employees could purchase up to $3K in stock at 50% of current market price restricted from trade for one year, while issuing himself $300K in stock at 25% of current market price restricted from trade for 6 months, etc... apparently, the consultants that CEOs hire to tell them what is acceptable think all of that is just fine...

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