beltorak 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (378) comment rss

  • On the post: After Only Nine Months On The Job, Administration's New FOIA Boss Calls It Quits

    beltorak ( profile ), 11 May, 2016 @ 03:42pm

    Re: Poor guy...

    So he goes back to the DHS??

  • On the post: DOJ Tells Ron Wyden, ACLU, Court That It's Under No Legal Obligation To Reveal Contents Of Secret Legal Memo

    beltorak ( profile ), 11 May, 2016 @ 03:22pm

    At this point even if it does get revealed, the DOJ can just claim that it has been retired and thereby prevent anyone from having grounds to sue. "No harm no foul" right? Wasn't one of the EFF suits dissmissed under this argument after the relevent portion of the PATRIOT act was "retired"? "Good job, you finally proved standing. But that section is going to sunset in a few months, so it's all good."

    LOL or I weep for our future, hard to know which reaction is appropriate.

  • On the post: Burr And Feinstein Plan One Sided Briefing For Law Enforcement To Bitch About 'Going Dark'

    beltorak ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2016 @ 03:04pm

    > exonerate the innocent

    That's some next level Orwelian Newspeak there. "If you've done nothing wrong, dear Patriot, just let us peek at your files, and we get right to exonerating you".

  • On the post: Reddit's Warrant Canary On National Security Letters… Disappears

    beltorak ( profile ), 01 Apr, 2016 @ 06:44pm

    Re: The reasons these canaries are pointless

    You make a good point at #2, which is why a lot of canaries require action to stay valid; either (as in the case of Reddit) by not existing prior to the annual filing (which gives it a lifetime of about a year), or a digitally signed message that clearly states it expires in (for example) 90 days.

    This puts it on slightly more firm footing with regards to the theory that the government cannot compel false speech, it can only compel inaction (e.g.: silence). Although there is plenty of room to test the theory on how well a digital signature can be equated to attestation.

  • On the post: Reddit's Warrant Canary On National Security Letters… Disappears

    beltorak ( profile ), 01 Apr, 2016 @ 06:28pm

    Re: Who needs rights when you've got 'National Security: Because terrorists!'

    That's exactly why Australia outlawed warrant canaries. It might be argued that the US already has; since you can only report in bands of 1000, and the lowest band is 0-999, you can't just say "I have never...". That was also one of the theories on why Apple pulled theirs (it might still hold water, I can't find any updated references on the matter).

    But the fact that the Reddit CEO gave the answer "I was counseled that I should not comment on that", means they were probably served. If they hadn't been served, they could just point to this argument in support of "canaries are not legally certain enough to risk in court".

  • On the post: France Still Thinks It Regulates Entire Internet, Fines Google For Not Making Right To Be Forgotten Global

    beltorak ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2016 @ 05:54pm

    Re:

    That's a bit like fighting a forest fire with napalm; best not. Sure, it might work, but the collateral damage (legitimizing corporate sovereignty) isn't worth it.

  • On the post: France Still Thinks It Regulates Entire Internet, Fines Google For Not Making Right To Be Forgotten Global

    beltorak ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2016 @ 05:49pm

    Re: Re: GAAAAH!

    you know, this sounds almost like geo-restricting media, with the same predictable futility.

  • On the post: Once Again, The Brussels Attacks Were An Intelligence Community Failure, Not An 'Encryption' Problem

    beltorak ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2016 @ 05:42pm

    Re:

    Given that some 3/4 of the population cannot perform a percentage without assistance...

    I heard it's even worse than that, like 3/5's of the population can't percentage properly.

  • On the post: Once Again, The Brussels Attacks Were An Intelligence Community Failure, Not An 'Encryption' Problem

    beltorak ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2016 @ 05:37pm

    Re: Failure?

    You are implying that the two are somehow exclusive, as if setting an impossible goal somehow means that not achieving it is not a failure.

    It's both. The reason it's a failure is because it's impossible. Unfortunately, other than simple statistics, this is not a mathematical conundrum; the only way we know it's impossible is by looking at all the results of trying to achieve it. Eventually, we can hope, everyone will conclude that it is indeed impossible; until then all we can do is point out the failures and make reasoned arguments that the only outcome of the current course of actions is failure.

  • On the post: Despite Massive Streaming Revenue Gains, RIAA Still Lying & Crying

    beltorak ( profile ), 24 Mar, 2016 @ 09:28am

    straight from the horse's mouth

    > > While today’s data is encouraging, the challenges facing us are significant. The consumption of music is skyrocketing, but revenues for creators have not kept pace.

    There you have it. They want you to pay every time you hear a piece of music. If the technology existed that would let them constantly monitor your brain and extract a fee from your account every time your auditory cortex registered a covered work, they would fight tirelessly to subject every person to it.

  • On the post: Apple Engineers Contemplate Refusing To Write Code Demanded By Justice Department

    beltorak ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2016 @ 11:51am

    Re: Re: Playing the odds

    Being forced to hand over the keys so FBI-OS can sign it's code with them is equivalent to being forced to endorse FBI-OS. That would be compelled speech....

    That's arguable. It remains to be seen if a court would see it that way. Remember Ladar Levison. The fact that HTTPS connections are designed to guarantee authenticity and require digital signatures to attest to the fact might be enough to equate a digital signature with consent or endorsement. If the court buys that equivalency, and accepts the precedent as valid, then compelled speech is a done deal.

    If we transfer from cyberspace to meatspace, the government can compel you to sign a false confession. Hell they may as well be allowed to compel you to endorse or vote for someone of their choosing. Truly terrifying.

    On the other hand, if the courts block this type of compelled speech, I can see the FBI demanding that all future systems that accept software updates must not refuse an unsigned software update, or that they accept one signed by a different key. Imagine all future TPM chips must have a government key baked in.

    Backdoors indeed.

    On a third hand, the court may not make that leap to equivalency. In which case we (the People) could lose this battle. To combat that legal attack in the future, the tech community could add a cert flag that makes the endorsement explicit. Kinda like how the linux kernel code authors signal their intent as to which license a symbol is usable under (SYMBOL_EXPORT vs SYMBOL_EXPORT_GPL or something like that). These methods have not been tested in court however, and they may be shot down.

  • On the post: How Apple Could Lose By Winning: The DOJ's Next Move Could Be Worse

    beltorak ( profile ), 17 Mar, 2016 @ 03:59pm

    Re: Silly question

    That is widely believed to be Apple's next iteration, as it would handily close this particular back door for future phones.

    One of the problems is that if Apple is forced to write software to the government specifications, the government might be able to mandate backdoors in all future products.

  • On the post: DEA's Definition Of Evidence Control Apparently Doesn't Include Recording Gross Weight Of Seized Substances

    beltorak ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2016 @ 11:03pm

    Slightly off topic

    I, for one, would like to nominate Tim (or whoever wrote the tagline of this article) for funniest comment(?) of the week.

    Thanks, that really helped me laugh at this farce.

  • On the post: Publicity Seeking Florida Sheriff Promises To Put Tim Cook In Jail For Refusing To Decrypt iPhones

    beltorak ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2016 @ 03:18pm

    Re:

    Although it's extremely unlikely, they could do a public Lavabit; post the source code repository and signing key online then liquidate. The ultimate scortched earth.

    If yer going to get disappeared anyway, may as well go out with a bang.

  • On the post: We Read The DOJ's Latest Apple Filing To Highlight All Of Its Misleading Claims

    beltorak ( profile ), 11 Mar, 2016 @ 07:25am

    > This argument is particularly maddening: basically continuing the ridiculous line of thinking that protecting user privacy is some sort of deliberate marketing strategy against the government

    At this point, the two are kinda synonymous; protecting my privacy necessarily pits all involved against the government, and it's entirely due to tactics like this.

    > But again, Apple has always been willing to respond to legitimate government requests for information that it has access to. That's why that same chart shows that it complied with 81% of US requests as well. But that says absolutely nothing about the requirement to build a special system to hack in and access data that it does not currently have access to.

    The tech companies are getting raped here, and the perpetrator is claiming to the judge that it's not rape 'cause "they gave me a handjob before; consent was already given!".

    I hesitate a bit to draw a comparison to rape here. But seriously. We, The People, are getting fucked.

  • On the post: John Yoo's Legal Rationale: Warrantless Surveillance Is Basically A DUI Checkpoint, But For Terrorism

    beltorak ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2016 @ 02:44pm

    You know what, he's got a point. Think about that next time the words "slippery slope fallacy" spring to mind when you see an argument about government overreach. Slippery slope? Yeah. Fallacy? Not when the government greases the skids and hops behind the wheel....

    /color-me-cynical

  • On the post: 2002 Legal Rationale For Warrantless Surveillance: Because The President Can Do It, Shut Up

    beltorak ( profile ), 01 Mar, 2016 @ 06:11pm

    Re: Re: surveillance is a "military action"?

    Oooohhhhh, that makes it real easy then. Just EO-up a new branch of the military and presto! No need to worry about those pesky laws and acts that were only created to protect terrorists anyway. Why didn't I think of that?

  • On the post: Child-Monitoring Company Responds To Notification Of Security Breach By Publicly Disparaging Researcher Who Reported It

    beltorak ( profile ), 25 Feb, 2016 @ 03:18pm

    Re: #4 trade it to the hacker sites.

    #5 Call a lawyer.

    Let them be the intermediary between you and an the unknown vulnerable provider.

  • On the post: FBI Director: We're Only Forcing Apple To Undermine Security Because We Chase Down Every Lead

    beltorak ( profile ), 22 Feb, 2016 @ 09:19am

    Re: The FBI isn't forcing anyone, it's the court.

    So far they haven't been ordered; the court has given Apple 5 days to make a response as to why it would be "too burdensome". I will wait till I hear the court's reasoning on the eventual order (or lack of it) before I start blaming the court system in this case.

  • On the post: Basically Every Single Presidential Candidate Is Totally Clueless As To What's At Stake In The Apple / FBI Fight

    beltorak ( profile ), 20 Feb, 2016 @ 09:16am

    Re: Re: Re:

    This site has had Rick Falkvinge, who started the original Pirate Party, write: Why Do Copyright Industry Profits Get To Be The Yardstick For Civil Liberties?.

    To say or imply that they are just copyright infringers does a bit of a disservice. They have a fairly significant following in Iceland for example.

    But my post was kinda off the cuff; I didn't do a deep comparison on their respective philosophies. But they do align in more than your post seems to acknowledge.

Next >>