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The State Versus the Internet

Cold Highway

Dispenser of Negativity
DP Veteran
Joined
May 30, 2007
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Location
Newburgh, New York and World 8: Dark Land
Gender
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Political Leaning
Libertarian
Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times broke the news that the White House, their "Internet Czar," the FBI and others had a new plan to wiretap the Internet. It is expected to be in front of Congress next year. This plan would force every product and service provider to redesign their products to give governments a back-door, so they can listen in whenever they want. That means that Blackberry, iPhone, Facebook, Skype and everyone else has to redesign their products. It also means that smaller operations will have to fold-up: very few of them can just dump their existing systems and crank out new ones. Only the large will remain, and only if they bow to the state.

The internet the ultimate bastion of free speech in today's world, any attempts at government shutdowns or censorship should be met with extreme opposition.

The State Versus the Internet by Paul Rosenberg
 
I'm not panicking just yet.

The Feebs were going on and on about key escrow back in the 90s, and that went nowhere.

They figured out that they could quietly acquire the assets needed to break most encryption they they needed to circumvent behind closed doors. They also figured out they could ship any national security-sensitive work over to the NSA, since breaking codes is part of their core set of duties.

For the rest, they've been using judges to force people to hand over encryption keys.


My point, in case I rambled (and I probably did) is that they'll get what they want with or without a new law, and we the technically minded will render it worthless in due course.
 
Besides, I think they're already doing this anyway -- they just can't introduce the result in criminal court, and they don't want to admit to having the capability just yet.

At some point, someone will break the story, and then the Feebs will stop asking for what they already have. :lol:
 
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