Chronno S. Trigger 's Techdirt Comments

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

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 22 Feb, 2016 @ 11:08am

    Re: Re: Re:

    They're not trying to get a backdoor into the phone, they're trying to get a backdoor into the law. The phone is only valuable because it was owned by bad people and is encrypted. They can hold the phone up and threaten people with it: "What if this phone has more bad people's information?"

    It's a great way to get people to accept a tiny change in what we accept as reality. It's not breaking the encryption, it's not directly affecting your phone, so it shouldn't be a problem.

    But what about the next phone? This security flaw might be fixed, but that's not going to stop the court from ordering Apple to find another security flaw, and another, and another. Each one pushing just a little harder, stretching what we'll accept just a little more until there are no more security flaws.

    When that happens it's not a large step at all to order Apple to start including these flaws. It's still not breaking encryption, still not directly affecting your phone. The software must be signed using Apple's secure key, so your phone's still safe.

    And thus what we're willing to accept is stretched even further.

    What about the next step after that. All these security flaws still don't address the primary issue, the encryption. Keep a good password on your encryption and you won't ever have a problem with these minor changes. So how long until the FBI or whomever come across a phone that is properly encrypted but could have been used to prevent another 9/11?

    Our acceptance has already been stretched to accept security flaws in our phones, why not weaken encryption so the government can brute force the phone in a few days instead of centuries? Still not directly affecting your phone. Any normal person won't have access to the information required to use the weakness. Even if they did, they don't have access to the hardware the government has and wouldn't be able to crack the encryption in any reasonable amount of time.

    But days delay can kill.

    I could keep hammering this home, but to make a long story short: while the boiling frog story might be inaccurate, the meaning behind it is vary real.

    And it doesn't take an intentional plan to kill of privacy. If what we're willing to accept can change, so can what the government is willing to accept.

  • On the post: No, A Judge Did Not Just Order Apple To Break Encryption On San Bernardino Shooter's iPhone, But To Create A New Backdoor

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 16 Feb, 2016 @ 08:08pm

    Re:

    I don't know how iPhones work, but if they're anything like my Android phone, no, it's not possible to do that. The USB port is cut off from storage until the phone is unlocked. The host OS in memory might be accessible through the port, but the internal storage itself isn't.

  • On the post: Sony Music Issues Takedown On Copyright Lecture About Music Copyrights By Harvard Law Professor

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 16 Feb, 2016 @ 12:49pm

    Re:

    "copyright law clearly indicates that websites may preview less than 30 seconds of any song without needing a copyright license"

    I'll bite. Where exactly in copyright law does it say that? You say that the law clearly indicates, so where does it clearly indicate?

  • On the post: Our Further Response To Australian Lawyer Stuart Gibson, Who Continues To Threaten Us

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 16 Feb, 2016 @ 04:54pm

    "I had always assumed that this was the kind of thing that you need for bar brawls, rather than legal fights."

    If Crocodile Dundee is anything to be believed, a legal fight is a bar brawl.

  • On the post: California Legislator Says Encryption 'Threatens Our Freedoms' Calls For Ban On Encrypted Cell Phones

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2016 @ 09:59am

    "If smartphones are beyond the reach of law enforcement, crimes will go unsolved, criminals will not be held accountable, victims will not receive justice and our ability to protect our children and community will be significantly compromised,"

    There's your problem. Victims don't receive justice, the accused receives justice. To insist otherwise is not justice, it's vengeance. Once we get into vengeance territory, protecting the innocent goes out the window. It becomes about punishing the guilty no matter who else gets hurt along the way. "Casualties of war" as they will call it.

  • On the post: What's The Difference Between 'Mass Surveillance' And 'Bulk Collection'? Does It Matter?

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 20 Jan, 2016 @ 10:57am

    Re:

    As Whatever so vary unintentionally points out, those who are in favor of mass violations of human rights are using words and definitions to distract everyone from the actions that are taking place.

    The question should not be "Is what we're doing best described as mass surveillance or bulk collection?" The real question is "Should the mass collection of everyone's data be legal?" And the answer to that is quite clearly "Oh fuck no."

  • On the post: Clarifying The Bullshit From John Legere: What T-Mobile Is Really Doing And Why It Violates Net Neutrality

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 12 Jan, 2016 @ 03:41pm

    Re: Some things I noticed

    If your button was on the home page, then it is a convoluted process as it changes from user to user. I followed the instructions on the T-Mobile help site and still had to go digging to find the setting as the instructions were wrong.

  • On the post: House Rushes To Gut FCC Authority To Prevent Inquiry Into Comcast Broadband Caps

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 12 Jan, 2016 @ 04:06pm

    So this is why the FCC hasn't already jumped down T-Mobile's throat. They're treading a fine line. Push a little too hard in favor of the citizens and the House will come down on them like a ton of bricks.

  • On the post: TVs Now 'Smart' Enough To Get Hijacked, Pick Up Malware

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 11 Jan, 2016 @ 05:25pm

    Re: what means "disappeared"?

    In this case, the virus went offline and cannot be contracted from the original source. It has also not been found again in the wild (not saying it's gone, just saying it's not around right now). The Reddit post in question was from a while ago (if it was real in the first place), and the other examples are simple JavaScript fake outs.

  • On the post: As Its CEO Continues To Claim It Doesn't Throttle, T-Mobile Spokesperson Confirms Company Throttles

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 08 Jan, 2016 @ 10:29am

    Re: Sad thing is, what T-Mobile is doing may be useful

    The Youtube mobile app, the big one in question, does have a setting to automatically limit mobile data usage. It's right there under General in the settings.

    Any good app has these settings built in. The ones that don't tend to not use large amounts of data.

    This choice should never have been chosen for us.

  • On the post: T-Mobile's John Legere Goes Off The Deep End: 'Who The Fuck Are You, EFF?'

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 08 Jan, 2016 @ 10:18am

    Not all that long ago my mom offered to get me a cell phone on her family plan. She would pay, I'd never have to worry about it. I said I'd rather stick with T-Mobile than go to Verizon. Think about that, I currently pay $80 a month and chose to keep that rather than getting a free Verizon phone.

    Now I'm rethinking the offer.

    But my big question is this. If I'm paying $80 a month just so I don't have to worry about the data caps (I spent half an hour on the phone with them making damn sure of that), why the hell did I just have to turn off Binge On? I refused their $35 "unlimited" plan specifically so I don't have to worry about "network optimization."

  • On the post: Pioneer In Internet Anonymity Hands FBI A Huge Gift In Building Dangerous Backdoored Encryption System

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2016 @ 01:47pm

    I don't give a fuck how many bits you split the key into, it's still one key hole.

  • On the post: UK Home Secretary Wants Everyone's Metadata; But If You Ask For Hers, Gov't Says You're Being Vexatious

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 29 Dec, 2015 @ 11:24am

    Re: Technical Observation

    It wasn't refused on technical reasons, they didn't even get to the technical side of things. It was refused outright.

    Narrowing the scope defeats the reason for the filing. They want everything, why shouldn't we ask for the same?

  • On the post: French Consumer Group Tries To Win Back Resale Rights For Digitally Distributed Games

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 29 Dec, 2015 @ 08:49am

    Re: Curious how that would work

    You're not crazy, but a lot of your points have already been dealt with in the physical market.

    No, you wouldn't be able to sell outside of your chosen walled garden. It's a game on the Steam platform, why would you expect to sell it to a different platform? Same as selling a used Xbox One game. Why would you expect to sell it to a PS4 user? Different companies will setup their own markets (just like how there are plenty of other markets to sell Steam games), but it'll still be just Steam keys.

    The price is, yes, going to be linked to the price of the full game. Just like the current used market. Ain't no one going to buy a used game that cost more than a new one and the seller is always going to want as much money as possible.

    Steam credit is possible as a payment method. Game Stop only pays in store credit. But having a system for Pay Pal could easily be set up.

    CDs, DVDs, Blue-Rays (while all have DRM) are easy to copy. What's to prevent someone from buying a CD, copying it, and selling it? In all practical sense, nothing but the law. The same would apply with digital goods.

    You do make one vary good point, why would anyone buy a new copy if a "used" copy is available? The used copy is identical since the source files are the same. This is something we're going to have to figure out sooner or latter as more and more of the world becomes digital.

  • On the post: After A Decade Of Waiting For Verizon, Town Builds Itself Gigabit Fiber For $75 Per Month

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 29 Dec, 2015 @ 08:25am

    Re: The Power of Taxes

    People tend not to take into account property tax increases since just about anything can affect them. Build a park down the road, property tax goes up. Put in a back deck, property tax goes up.

    We had to fight that not all that long ago here. Nothing changed and our property tax went up.

    Still, I'd pay $94/m for gigabit connectivity. I'm paying almost that now for 50Mbps.

  • On the post: Self-Driving Cars Have Twice The Accidents, But Only Because Humans Aren't Used To Vehicles Following The Rules

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 23 Dec, 2015 @ 10:09am

    Re: Re: Re: Question

    Self driving cars are not going to be out there without a licensed driver until it can be proven that they will be able to handle themselves in all situations that are likely to happen on the road. And when the unlikely happens, the fallback will be exactly the same as it is for humans, pull off to the right (or left) side of the road, stop, and call for help.

    Figuring out what the likely situations are and accounting for them is exactly what Google and others have been doing for the past several million miles.

  • On the post: Self-Driving Cars Have Twice The Accidents, But Only Because Humans Aren't Used To Vehicles Following The Rules

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 23 Dec, 2015 @ 09:59am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Then the erratic humans will not be driving with the flow of traffic, now will they?

    If people are driving 10mph above the posted speed limit because it's the flow of traffic then when the flow of traffic drops to the speed limit, then those same people will be driving the speed limit.

  • On the post: Hillary Clinton Wants A 'Manhattan Project' For Encryption… But Not A Back Door. That Makes No Sense

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 21 Dec, 2015 @ 01:47pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    That's what it comes down to isn't it. Person A is right and set a line in the sand. Person B is vary wrong and set their line in the sand. If person A steps over their line, they step into the wrong. But person B wants to compromise. Just step a little into the wrong, just a toe, I promise I won't pull you further in.

    One would think we would have learned better by now.

  • On the post: Hillary Clinton Wants A 'Manhattan Project' For Encryption… But Not A Back Door. That Makes No Sense

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 21 Dec, 2015 @ 01:15pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Didn't know that, but it helps my point, not yours.

    Why does Apple have end to end encryption for their chat service? Think about that for a second, why would they spend that much effort into creating that? Is it to help the criminals stay under the radar? Or maybe because Apple knows that keeping everything in a central repository is a stupid idea.

    Your compromise will end up like the 6 strike compromise the ISPs put in place. Utterly worthless yet still being ratcheted up. ISPs should have stood their ground and Google and Apple should as well.

  • On the post: Hillary Clinton Wants A 'Manhattan Project' For Encryption… But Not A Back Door. That Makes No Sense

    Chronno S. Trigger ( profile ), 21 Dec, 2015 @ 12:14pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    You're confusing two different things. You're talking about local encryption and communication encryption at the same time and getting confused.

    Google's chat encryption is not end to end, it's from your PC to the central server and from the other PC to the central server. The government doesn't need to crack encryption to get that information.

    Google chat and Apple chat are not secure systems, we all know this.

    Local encryption is something else entirely. If I encrypt a file on my phone, say a password list, there is no central server between me and the file. I expect that file to be secure. At least as secure as the software used to encrypt it, not some unrelated, uninterested third party. I expect my communication with my bank to be as secure as the bank, not some unrelated, uninterested third party. Google should not have access to this information.

    The government doesn't want access to Google chat, they want access to everything encrypted. Your compromise will never be enough for them because they already have it.

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