Posted on 05/18/2016 7:12:56 AM PDT by Cyberman
Beyond James Comey, there are still a few law enforcement officials beating the anti-encryption drum. Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance is one of those. He's been joined in this fight by some like-minded district attorneys from the other coast, seeing as New York and California both have anti-encryption bills currently working their way through local legislatures. Vance, along with Los Angeles County DA Jackie Lacey and San Diego County DA Bonnie Dumanis, penned an op-ed against encryption for the LA Times. In it, they argue that tech companies have set them up as "gatekeepers" of communications and data, which they believe law enforcement should always have access to, no matter what.
DA Dumanis goes even further in a press release issued by her office. Tech companies aren't just gatekeepers standing between law enforcement and data. They're "gatekeepers of justice," apparently standing between victims of crime and punishment of wrongdoers.
...Dumanis especially shouldn't be inserting herself into the encryption debate--not with her general disdain for the security of her constituents....
In 2012, Dumanis spent $25,000 in public money on 5,000 copies of a piece of “parental monitoring” software called ComputerCop. This CD-ROM, which was distributed to families throughout the county for free, included a video from Dumanis promoting the program as the “first step” in protecting your children online.This first step, however, involved parents installing keylogger software on their home computers. This type of technology is a favorite tool of malicious hackers, since it captures everything a user types, including personal information such as passwords and credit card numbers. Not only did ComputerCop store keylogs in an unencrypted file on the person’s computer, but it also transmitted some of that information over unsecured connections to a mysterious third-party server....
(Excerpt) Read more at techdirt.com ...
For another ‘eye opener’ check out: Wireless Network Watcher
No one seems to be interested in VPN.
In theory, VPN should be very secure.
The Gov seems to be more interested in ‘file storage’ than the data transport.
Not sure why but it is something to think about.
Wireless Network Watcher (WNW) is relatively benign. If you’re not smart enough to change the defaults on your home wireless router, you should have someone help you. Wireless access points are NOT something to trifle with.
Used to be that having an insecure LAN was no big deal, as physical access was required to do any damage. With wireless, however, your entire network is at risk if the AP is not secure.
WNW only enumerates endpoints on a wireless network that is A) insecure, B) unsecured, C) unencrypted. It’s helpful to use in your home environment to get an idea as to what’s out there, but it’s not exactly a useful forensic tool against entities who know their way around IPSEC, RADIUS, or have their home networks properly secured.
They want to do away with encryption in general or at least provide a “back door” that any law enforcement agency or foreign actor could easily crack.
Encryption, by its nature, is not supposed to have backdoors. It’s intended to encrypt data at-rest and transmitted. If they require a backdoor for at-rest data, it’s only a matter of time before in-transit data, such as VPN traffic, would be required to have a backdoor as well.
And you can bet your last dime that these far left legislatures will outlaw encryption, in the name of "terrorism", "safety" and "the children", those catch-all phrases used by scoundrels everywhere to advance their tyrannical agenda so as to put their boot on the necks of the people.
His heart was in the right place, but his head was up his ass..........................
.......or domestic blackmailer or ex spouse or their lawyer or the teenage hacker next door.......................
I’ve been studying encryption theory for three years now.
I do know that the more secure and simple a system is, the more it seems to attract Gov interference.
TrueCrypt was driven out of the market for whole disk encryption and the ‘story’ was their was a security breach.
Turns out that was a lie.
Something is going on but not sure yet what it is.
The California bill has been shot down.
It is interesting to have observed over time how reliant law enforcement has become on technology to solve crimes. The days of true gumshoe detective work are gone. Law enforcement now relies on the criminals to create all the evidence they need in the form of data crumbs left across cyber space. Think about the difference between Jethro Gibbs (NCIS) and Joe Friday (Dragnet)..
So they pass laws? So you get encription software from a source outside the state and use it anyhow. How would a law like this even get enforced?
Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
The only reason the government isn’t demanding access to VPN is because they already have it.
There’s nothing special about VPN vs. any other encryption modality. VPN requires the use of certificates to secure the tunnels created whether you’re using PPTP, IKE, L2TP or SSTP. You can use CHAP or pass your credentials in cleartext, but that defeats the purpose of encrypted tunnels.
By that rationale, your statement insinuates that they have access to any encryption modality, which has been proven to be false or at least difficult to prove.
I am. The government does not believe you have any right to privacy whatsoever. On the other hand, they can make anything they want "classified" and we have no recourse.
>The days of true gumshoe detective work are gone. Law enforcement now relies on the criminals to create all the evidence they need in the form of data crumbs left across cyber space.
The stark difference between a Free nation, and People, and a Socialist/police-State
Considering we are *ALL* criminals, multiple times per day, per the plethora of ‘laws’ on the books (and ignorant, mostly, of said breaks), I fail to see how you are shocked, I say SHOCKED, at your conclusion. /I wish
No-knock raids, rubber-stamped warrants, NSA and the like...all they need is to round up each/every electronic device and throw you in the slammer for many, many years on any number of trumped up charges.
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