Apple's on-device scanning experiment failed miserably. It was (at least, co-opted as) a litmus test for working around the post-Snowden E2EE-at-scale status quo in which we find ourselves.
I don't have enough background to understand the implications of EARN IT for the LGBT community. What is occuring, though, is a lack of common ground between libertarians and law enforcement:
If the tech idealists and law enforcement types fail to find common ground to develop robust compromises, EARN IT, which will be implemented sub-optimally out of convenience, will have the negative consequences noted by the techno-libertarian crowd.
However, a sound compromise does exist. It's just that nobody is talking about it, because most folks have strong opinions at one end or the other. The "edge", as it may be, is slated to introduce tens of trillions in new tech value in the coming decades -- all in support of hyperscale networking. It's a chance to find robust solutions that satisfy most parties, but not if the libertarians maintain the hard-line. It's up to the tech community to develop responsible encryption recovery techniques, because clearly law enforcement and congress are too provincial to understand what's at stake. Yet, by maintaining the hard line, congress will get their way, and we'll be less safe as a result.
Responsible encryption recovery is possible if you throw out the existing mechanisms of centralization along with "trust us, we're the NSA" mentality. Build your techniques around ideas that reject centralization, and reject mathematically unauditable recovery schemes. Reject techniques that exclude civil libertarians from the systems of checks and balances needed.
I say this with urgency because finding common ground is the only way we'll achieve a more responsible system of oversight for policing our private comms.
This is was the special secret FISA court was supposed to be - a check and balance for the people vs the overlords given unconstitutional search and seizure capabilities.
Unfortunately you will never be able to argue again for the whole 'it just for [insert horrible thing here] - we can trust the overlords, and there is even a 'verify oversight board for the people'
why? because we've already seen it used not for foreign terror, but also drugs and sex and speech. It's been abused and used as an excuse by yahoo, microsoft and all the others.
Even when dreamhost fought back for a bit, there is no way to fight it truthfully (they have all the data recorded already, just easier and faster to get it with a digitally delivered request.
Obama's peeps used it for lesser things, trumps people used it for lesser things, the anti-trump people used it for lesser things. It's been used and abused against the people and the politicians.
Even when several resigned from the citizen oversight positions - a sign that shit is totally wrong - nothing changed.
The whole thing reeks so bad it's made the effbeeeye stink from the top to their lawyers even. Some of the saddest things in our history imho.
Now they want more data. It's like a group of babysitters that have already killed several wanting more access to more babies.
You'll claw my privacy from my cold dead hands. Tech will tend to centralize over time and be incredibly attractive to those with an authoritarian bent. The world must respect that no, not even the entirety of the rest of the world wanting to be privy to the content of a communique is an acceptable reason to crack open a pair of people's shared comm over a technological link.
The price of Liberty is vigilance eternal; and home of the brave means nothing if we're too cowardly to allow others tge right to organize and think without forcing an in for the authorities in every technological medium.
There are lines, and I, for one, will not budge on this one. No matter the price.
Except that govt will ingratiate itself not by force, but by the stroke of a pen. This may not affect you if you have means to deploy your own E2EE in a lawful or covert manner, but it will affect the masses.
Comments about consequence for adhering to such a hard line still applicable.
The language in this comment may be hyperbolic but the sentiment is on point. Phrases like “responsible encryption recovery” are Orwellian indeed, since it can only be code for “government mandated backdoor”. This is not a paranoid hypothetical; such mandates already exist in our world. Visit any dictatorship to discover the consequences. So the fascist epithet sticks as well. Mealy-mouthed calls for “compromise” in this regard deserve a robust reply.
I don't have enough background to understand the implications of EARN IT for the LGBT community. What is occuring, though, is a lack of common ground between libertarians and law enforcement:
If the tech idealists and law enforcement types fail to find common ground to develop robust compromises, EARN IT, which will be implemented sub-optimally out of convenience, will have the negative consequences noted by the techno-libertarian crowd.
However, a sound compromise does exist. It's just that nobody is talking about it, because most folks have strong opinions at one end or the other. The "edge", as it may be, is slated to introduce tens of trillions in new tech value in the coming decades -- all in support of hyperscale networking. It's a chance to find robust solutions that satisfy most parties, but not if the libertarians maintain the hard-line. It's up to the tech community to develop responsible encryption recovery techniques, because clearly law enforcement and congress are too provincial to understand what's at stake. Yet, by maintaining the hard line, congress will get their way, and we'll be less safe as a result.
Responsible encryption recovery is possible if you throw out the existing mechanisms of centralization along with "trust us, we're the NSA" mentality. Build your techniques around ideas that reject centralization, and reject mathematically unauditable recovery schemes. Reject techniques that exclude civil libertarians from the systems of checks and balances needed.
I say this with urgency because finding common ground is the only way we'll achieve a more responsible system of oversight for policing our private comms.