Tag: Politics

Obama To South By Southwest: Fuck Your Privacy

I normally don’t follow South by Southwest too much but when Obama takes the stage to talk about privacy I can’t help but take note. Unfortunately his speech wasn’t surprising. It could be summed up as fuck your privacy:

President Barack Obama called on the tech community to build a safe encryption key to assist in law enforcement investigations, saying that if it failed, it could one day face a more draconian solution passed by a Congress that is less sympathetic to its worldview. The president said he could not comment on the FBI’s current fight with Apple over its demand that the company build software to unlock data on an iPhone used by one of the alleged San Bernardino shooters. But he spoke broadly about the need to balance privacy and security, and warned that absolutist views on both sides are dangerous.

Balance, in the case of privacy and security, means people like you and me get shitty crypto that the government, and anybody else with the master key, can break while the government gets to enjoy crypto we can’t break.

Obama warned against an absolutist view but crypto belongs to one of those very few things in the universe that is either black or white. There is no gray. Crypto is either effective, that is to say it has no known methods of attack that are faster than brute force, or it is ineffective. I’ve written extensively on this blog as to why this is.

The biggest problem with a master key is that anybody who holds that key can decrypt any data encrypted with a scheme that key can work for. If every iPhone was setup to decrypt the data with the government’s master key it would only be a matter of time, probably an alarmingly short period of time, before the key was leaked to the Internet and everybody in the world had the ability to decrypt any iPhone at will.

So we need an absolutist view because it’s the only view that offers any amount of security. But Obama heads one of the largest surveillance states in the world so it’s no surprise that he holds a total disregard for the security of us little people.

The Most Transparent Government In History

Nearly a decade ago Obama was campaigning on a platform of, amongst other things, transparency. After 9/11 the Bush administration went full Orwell (you never go full Orwell) and people were demanding change. Obama promised to deliver that change. But history repeated itself as it so often does. Like every other politician before him, Obama failed to deliver on most of the promises he made. He not only failed to deliver on his promises but he actually expanding what Bush was doing.

Decades will likely pass before we learn the full extent of the current administration’s expansions to the surveillance state. However, bits and pieces are already leaking out. A recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request produced a wealth of information on how the current administration has been working to undermine FOIA requests:

The Obama administration has long called itself the most transparent administration in history. But newly released Department of Justice (DOJ) documents show that the White House has actually worked aggressively behind the scenes to scuttle congressional reforms designed to give the public better access to information possessed by the federal government.

The documents were obtained by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports journalism in the public interest, which in turn shared them exclusively with VICE News. They were obtained using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) — the same law Congress was attempting to reform. The group sued the DOJ last December after its FOIA requests went unanswered for more than a year.

The documents confirm longstanding suspicions about the administration’s meddling, and lay bare for the first time how it worked to undermine FOIA reform bills that received overwhelming bipartisan support and were unanimously passed by both the House and Senate in 2014 — yet were never put up for a final vote.

It’s a lengthy article detailing several different ploys made by Obama’s administration in its quest to establish the most opaque government in history.

While the FOIA has revealed a great deal of the State’s dirty laundry it has always been a limited tool. When it was written a number of exemptions were included. Basically, at the judgement of the State, FOIA requests can be denied under several justifications. A FOIA request only reveals what the State is willing to reveal. However, the higher ups in the State have recognized that even with the number of exemptions put in place a lot of embarrassing information is still becoming public. That being the case, it’s not surprising to see the current administration working to add further restrictions on top of a bill that already includes numerous restrictions.

There is a lesson to be learned here. No matter what promises a politician makes up front they will almost invariably go unfulfilled if they win an election. Power seems terrible until you have it. Before becoming president I’m better Obama was being sincere in many of his promises. But when he gained the power he likely realized how good it felt. This is also why reforming the system through the voting process is doomed to fail. Even the most honest individuals can be corrupted with enough power.

Dianne Feinstein Planning To Propose Legislation To Enslave Tech Workers

Dianne Feinstein may be the Devil incarnate. Whenever there’s a glimmer of freedom slipping through the statists’ fingers she’s there to tighten the grip. Seeing Apple being allowed to fight the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) demand to write a compromised version of iOS, Feinstein is rushing in with legislation that will punish disobedient companies:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Technology companies could face civil penalties for refusing to comply with court orders to help investigators access encrypted data under draft legislation nearing completion in the U.S. Senate, sources familiar with continuing discussions told Reuters on Wednesday.

The long-awaited legislation from Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, may be introduced as soon as next week, one of the sources said.

Let’s call this proposal what it is: slavery. Under this legislation device manufacturers would be required to either perform labor when commanded or face severe punishment.

There should never be a circumstance under which you are forced to perform labor against your will. If law enforcers want to unlock a device and the manufacturer doesn’t want to help then they should be required to either do it themselves or hire somebody who wants to do it. But that’s a basic market principle and statism is the antithesis of the market.

Brining Fascism Back To Europe

You would think Europe would have learned its lesson about fascism during World War II. Of all the nations of Europe, you would expect France to have especially learned its lesson since it suffered under the boot of Nazi Germany for quite some time. Yet, in a rather ironic twist, France is leading the way to the fascism revival on that continent:

French parliamentary deputies, defying government wishes, have voted in favour of penalising smartphone makers which fail to cooperate in terrorism inquiries, entering a controversy that has pitted the FBI against Apple in the United States.

The move came in the form of an amendment to a penal reform bill that was receiving its first reading in parliament.

Part of me appreciates France’s honesty in its pursuit of absolute power over its people. While I completely disagree with such a philosophy I do prefer an opponent who is honest about their intentions. On the other hand, an honest government is often the most terrifying kind. When the State no longer sees a need to even pay lip service to the rights of individuals it quickly begins perpetrating heinous act after heinous act.

It’ll be interesting if this bill manages to pass into law. I’m sure the French government foresees it as an effective means of compelling smartphone manufacturers to kowtow to law enforcers. But it will likely convince smartphone manufacturers to take their business elsewhere. I can’t imagine many CEOs willing to risk being kidnapped because their company’s devices used effective cryptography. Especially when there are so many other countries around the world willing to take in money making companies.

Political Campaigns Suck At Protecting Your Personal Information

I don’t need more reasons to abandon politics but I realize others do. To that end I feel that it’s important to point out the abysmal security record of political campaigns:

Over the last three months, more than 100 million US voters have had their data exposed online. These data breaches weren’t caused by a sophisticated hack or malware. Instead, political campaigns’ abysmal cybersecurity practices are to blame. Although modern campaigns constantly acquire and purchase massive amounts of data, they often neglect to fully beef up security surrounding it, effectively turning the campaigns into sitting ducks — huge operations with databases left open and vulnerable.

[…]

That might be unsettling, but perhaps more troubling is the fact that political campaigns are terrible at cybersecurity. Not only do the organizations have access to more information than ever before, they’re not able to keep it safe. The incentives to do so just don’t exist, and that’s why we’re seeing so much compromised voter data.

In Iowa last month, the state’s Republican party failed to adequately protect a database containing information on 2 million voters, making it readily available through just a basic scan of the website’s source code. In December, an independent security researcher uncovered a publicly available database of 191 million voter records. Included in that trove was each voter’s full name, home address, mailing address, unique voter ID, state voter ID, gender, date of birth, phone number, date of registration, political affiliation, and voter history since 2000.

I’ve mentioned these sorts of issues to friends before but they always hid behind the “I give campaigns a fake phone number” excuse. But the phone number you gave to a campaign isn’t what’s getting out, it’s your real personal information including your home address.

Politics is continuing to become more polarizing in this country. Both parties have become religions where disagreements with the party being tantamount to heresy. True believers are often willing to shun former friends and family members. Some employers are even willing to avoid hiring or terminating employees based on their form of political worship. There are no signs indicating this trend will cease or reverse so your voting record could become a major problem in the near future.

The amount of personal information many campaigns have on individuals is rather shocking. It’s often enough information for people with access to commit acts of identify theft.

There really isn’t anything to gain for political participation and there’s a lot to lose. Control over your personal information is one of the things you could potentially lose. My advise is to avoid politics since it’s obvious campaigns have no interest in protecting you.

Legalizing Slavery

The United States has a long history of slavery. Since the very beginning of this country through the end of the Civil War black individuals could be owned as slaves in many states. After that the rules were changed. Private ownership of slaves was deemed illegal (a very good thing) but the State gave itself permission to enslave anybody it arbitrarily labeled as a criminal (a very bad thing). Eventually the process was streamlined and Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR) was created so manage the federally owned slaves. Individual states used this precedence to establish their own government owned corporations to managed their slaves.

Now a congressman is looking to change the rules yet again by expanding the State’s ability to own slaves. If passed, this bill will allow the State to enslave anybody by issuing a simple court order:

Sen. Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, reportedly will introduce legislation soon to criminalize a company’s refusal to aid decryption efforts as part of a governmental investigation. The news was first reported Thursday afternoon by the Wall Street Journal.

Aiding decryption efforts requires labor. In the San Bernardino case the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is order Apple to create a custom version of iOS that removes several key security features. Apple has refused and it has every right to do so because nobody should be compelled into performing labor against their will. If the FBI wants the phone unlocked so badly it can either put in the effort itself or hire somebody willing to try.

We’re living in interesting times. The State is seeing less and less reason to conceal its intentions.

The Party Of Fascism

I believe that getting into bed with social conservatives was one of the worst things to happen to libertarianism. Now that election season is upon us I’m reminded of this every day. Self-proclaimed libertarians are openly declaring their support for Republican frontrunners that continue to remind us that their interests aligned with fascism, not libertarianism.

The recent kerfuffle between Apple and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is yet another demonstration of this. Using the All Writs Act, a federal court is trying to make literal slaves out of Apple’s iOS developers. Anybody who subscribed to even very basic libertarian principles would oppose this order. But a fascist, whose loyalty is to the State above all else, would support. So where does Donald Trump stand?

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump is insisting that Apple unlock the iPhone of one of the shooters in the San Bernardino, Calif., terrorist attack.

[…]

Trump disagreed stridently on Wednesday, calling it a matter of “common sense.”

“I agree 100 percent with the courts,” the business mogul said. “In that case, we should open it up. I think security over all — we have to open it up, and we have to use our heads. We have to use common sense.”

Donald believes Apple’s software developers are property of the State and should be compelled to write software. Let’s look at the current favorite amongst so-called libertarians, Ted Cruz (and we’ll throw in his buddy Carson as an added bonus):

Cruz said, “Apple has a serious argument” in protecting users’ privacy but said resisting the FBI’s request for help amounted to defying a search warrant. Carson said that Apple should find a way to get over mistrust of the government, but then added that might have to wait until President Obama leaves office, allowing for a delay that the FBI would probably oppose.

As if defying a terrible court order is a bad thing. My “libertarian” friends that support Cruz keep telling me he’s for small government and individual liberty but I can’t fathom how a man who thinks a court has a right to enslave software developers is for small government. Carson also demonstrates his love of government by criticizing Apple for being mistrustful of it.

Finally, just for fun, I’m going to throw in Tom “I Hate Due Process” Cotton for giggles:

“As a society, we don’t allow phone companies to design their systems to avoid lawful, court-ordered searches,” Cotton said in the statement. “If we apply a different legal standard to companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook, we can expect them to become the preferred messaging services of child pornographers, drug traffickers, and terrorists alike — which neither these companies nor law enforcement want.”

Whereas the other Republicans at least tried to sound kind of reasonable, Cotton went straight for the “messaging service of child pornographers, drug traffickers, and terrorists” line.

The Republican Party really is the party of fascism (as opposed to their close rival, the Democratic Party, which prefers its socialism be international). Not only are the policies put forth by Republican lawmakers generally fascist in nature but its members can’t help themselves when an opportunity to go on television and public declare their fascist policies presents itself. How this is supposed to be the party libertarians can prevail with is beyond me.

You Can’t Stop The Signal

What would happen if the United States government passed a bill mandating the inclusion of backdoors in cryptographic algorithms? Not much. The politicians in Washington DC, like many denizens of this nation, forget that there is an entire world outside of this nation’s borders. A recent report put together by actual security experts shows that any domestic laws hindering encryption will be futile because a lot of cryptography software comes from abroad:

An estimated 63 percent of the encryption products available today are developed outside US borders, according to a new report that takes a firm stance against the kinds of mandated backdoors some federal officials have contended are crucial to ensuring national security.

The report, prepared by security researchers Bruce Schneier, Kathleen Seidel, and Saranya Vijayakumar, identified 865 hardware or software products from 55 countries that incorporate encryption. Of them, 546 originated from outside the US. The most common non-US country was Germany, a country that has publicly disavowed the kinds of backdoors advocated by FBI Director James Comey and other US officials. Although the Obama administration is no longer asking Congress for legislation requiring them, it continues to lobby private industry to include ways law enforcement agencies can decrypt encrypted data sent or stored by criminal or terrorism suspects.

We’re told that mandatory backdoors are necessary to make the lives of law enforcers easier. But passing a law mandating backdoors in systems that utilize cryptography would only effect domestic companies. Most devices are manufactured outside of the United States. Any law mandating ineffective cryptography would only applies to domestic devices, which means the mandated backdoors would likely only be included in devices meant for sale in the United States. That means avoiding a purposely weakened device would be as simple as ordering it from a foreign reseller.

Most of the boogeymen the politicians point to to justify mandating backdoors are primarily based in foreign countries. The terrorist and sex trafficking organizations are already buying their communication equipment outside of the United States so they will be entirely unaffected by any new domestic laws. Furthermore, being criminal organizations, nothing will change for them since they’re already breaking numerous laws.

At most a mandatory backdoor law will put the denizens here, at least those dumb enough to continue buying domestic devices, at risk of being exploited by domestic and foreign governments as well as malware producers.

We’re Closer To A Pony Based Economy And Time Travel Technology Than Ever Before

I try to avoid politics but I’m a sucker for free ponies and time travel technology, both of which are platforms for the only presidential candidate that matters, Vermin Supreme. It brings me great joy to say that we’re closer to free ponies and time travel than ever before! Vermin Supreme was in 4th place for the Democratic Party in New Hampshire!

While other politicians were looking for photo opportunities the future overlord of Earth was busy debating one of the lesser presidential candidates:

But that’s exactly what happened to Ted Cruz, whose pit stop was interrupted by his fellow presidential candidate Vermin Supreme, who had some choice words for Cruz that he delivered with a megaphone.

For starters Supreme, who has pledged to give every American a pony, grilled Cruz on whether waterboarding water should be fluoridated and demanded that the candidate come out with his “hands up” and his “pants down.”

Supreme also asked Cruz “Why do you hate America?” before posing perhaps the most salient question of all to prospective voters:

“Will Ted Cruz give you a pony?”

Here Vermin pointed out one of the things that annoys me about the lesser presidential candidates, their unwillingness to discuss important issues. Not one of the other candidates has stated their position on fluoridating water used in waterboarding. Do they believe prisoners have a right to strong teeth or not? We have no idea because none of them have stated their position on their critical matter.

Ted Cruz has also never stated a willingness to transition the United States to a pony based economy, which leads to wonder why he does hate America so much. Fortunately Vermin Supreme is willing to fight the good fight and address the matters that actually impact our everyday lives.

Fascist France

France appears to have learned all the wrong lessons from World War II. Instead of recognizing fascism as a bad idea France seems to be adopting the idea that their conquerer must have had the right idea. No longer satisfied with merely having emergency powers as law the parliament of France has decided to make emergency powers part of the nation’s constitution:

Paris (AFP) – The lower house of the French parliament voted Monday in favour of enshrining in the constitution the process of declaring a state of national emergency, one of a series of controversial amendments the government proposed after November’s Paris attacks.

The measure — which gives the state increased security powers — was voted through by 103 to 26, although it met opposition from some leftwing lawmakers and some deputies from the right.

Truthfully this doesn’t change anything. Since emergency powers have already been declared and were being used it’s obvious the nation’s constitution did nothing to stop them. What this vote amounts to is the statist equivalent of a religious ritual. Within the religion of statism ritual is what determines whether a governmental decree is holy or heresy.